Toon Infringement Doodle Saturday

What a week! Two weeks have gone by and I have begun to make some changes. I have done a lot of writing, published more food and wine articles, classes, training, running around for this and that, WAMPP, and some serious rethinking. I feel good though, a good kind of body soreness.

Change is like diving into shallow water, or in this case a Martini- you just do not know if you will land the way you want. I might bounce off the lower olive, land it its open crevasse, or make it to the perfect area where I have room to sink and come back up.

I will float around on my back and do some thinking... Nothing serious, just how life has its own plan, and we are just the bartenders who mix it up the way we see fit...

PS- I had the photo, it was not good enough to use for my 'Partners In Wine Club Press', so I followed in Toon's footsteps and did a doodle- Sorry Toon, your job is harder than it looks!

Allergies- Ahhh Natures Beauty

I love this time of the year when wildflowers in Texas begin to bloom all along the side of south east highways and medians, and all across my 'New' Jersey roads...buuuuuuut this is the worst allergy season for me ever! How about you?

Special Delivery

Nature loves us
with springs fresh air
mower blades
spreads the love
winds help
but dormant under ground
already many lay
rains begin
sprouting up to the sun
hands and body
the show begins
yawning yawning
faceing up
flowers are ready to play
pick a few
some white, yellow
maybe purple
soil had a role
window sill jars
a cup or a bowl
beauty comes at a price
special delivery
my hay fever is out of control!

Tattood

I have written about this before, proudly baring my own expression of rebellion stemming from a strict upbringing in the south, and a father who was in the navy, and proudly bore no tattoo. Why? because he said it was crap, a waste of time to mark your body like that, when really he was a cheap skate who felt beer was the inner tattoo of his life, on his liver- he was who he was.

Oh you know we all do not agree with our parents, but my own son bares a few tattoos that I approve of. I am an artist; it is art. Expression in a bodily form. Sure we do not visualize our selves as our grandparents, sagging skin ink marks that fad like our looks with time. Beauty is on the inner soul. Outter Beauty is in the mind. So is the thought that every time I heard "Oh you look just like mammaw Akin when she was your age", and I saw her sparkly eyes and love for me, so I grew up believing we are tattooed by kindness and love.

Sure some of you may think I live  in a dream world, but darn it I got a tattoo, and I loved every painful drag of that mechanical ink pen, as I bled, and my feelings for my partner manifested into a work of Kama Sutra- The Embrace. Enough said.

I found it amusing to read a blog I follow as she wrote a piece filled with her own feelings of being 'Marked' for life. ~ Always Curtsy When You Sneeze

I read this poem at open mic and it always get requested from time to time...

TATTOO

Ink running lines
Symbols and rhymes
Dance upon the flesh

Pain and blood
Double shots- double dares
Turning color- directing shape
Our own peace and love

Rites once reserved
Fathers, sons
Becoming, following
Captains across oceans
Sailors lost at sea

Their doctorates- universities
Cryptic- ancient trinities
Stopping short of infinity

Harmony- enemy
Flowers-  sun-  moon and stars
Seem to shine
Calendars for birth, deaths of all kinds

Movements that deceive- believe- could be
Ragged or smooth- satisfies a need
ALL in what you want to read

Inner arms
Barbwire biceps
Shoulders to the ankles
Cute little toe rings

Purple, pink, green, blue, yellow, red or just plain black
Once it’s done you can’t take it back!

© E. Stelling, 9/29/08

Just this kind of feeling

Just sharing a little feelings...

Not to be directed at anyone in the blog sphere...

I just saw this and said I am stealing it! from Kate @ Growth Spurt

Texas Skies

Tiny white clouds dot big blue Texas skies like mesquite and tumbleweeds
blowing along old highways- taking shape like a woman

catching a glance from a tall and lanky cowboy
who smiles and tips his hat leading to conversation

laced with flirtation and a nudge become an encounter and
a beer down at the local bar; maybe a scoot

across the saw dust dance floor, where he pulls her in close
giving off a hint he wants more, as his face leans into hers

loneliness, maybe love brings on a lingering kiss, something
either may or may not were looking for at the night’s end

morning light exposes a scene of rustled blankets, musty
bed sheets, an empty room over time filled with vast memories

like life under big blue Texas skies dotted with pretty
white clouds taking on shapes, reminding us of so many things.

© E. Stelling

FSO- The Dark Side & Something Touched

New Moon- When I came up with this theme I was having one of my moods. There's so much sweetness and light in the blogosphere that sometimes I just have enough and want to shout - come on people! NanU example Where's the other side? So tell me: where's the dark side of your town? What would you change about it if you could? Alternatively, what things in your town are simply dark? A shadowed walk under thick trees, a building made of basalt, a black cat... Show us in black & white if you like. For me, any photograph any time can be b&w, but it's not often that it occurs to me to go that route! ~NanU

I am late, but last week was things I like to touch, well I rather think of it as 'Things that touch me', like you guys. All of you are my friends once you touch me with your kind words and wonderful post! Here are three people who have touched me in many ways out on Gordon's lake house dock- Hubby (right), Adrienne (middle), and her husband on the left, Bob. We have so much fun together! They like to fish too, and 'wine' with us...

Okay now when I saw the title I felt like I was auditioning for another Star Wars Trilogy, so lets see if I cannot use some of my Georgia Okefenoke Swamp/Bog and a Florida photo to build my trailer...*evil laugh* ohhhhh ahhhhhhh haaaaaa! ~E (Gordon was not harmed in the making of this post, he still resides happily with his wife in St Augustine!)

Above in the early morning...do spirits linger around the campfire, or do they drift out, beyond the lake?

More turtles eat our bait than bass, so we venture off to find some fun on other Georgia waters...

As the spring night creeps in frogs and faint sounds of creatures lurking in the water are all that exist- along the Okefenoke swamp...

Cute and innocent looking snappers pretend to be un-interested in any passerby's as they perch- other territorial predators who hunger for a nibble we unwillingly give them...

Eerie trees dot the boggy waterway creating a backdrop or this beautiful but deadly landscape...

...and they say don't put your hands outside the boat for good reason- they also make you sign in at the office...in case you never return for your deposit...

Now this takes 'I got crabs' to a whole new level...'Attack of the Giant Killer Blue Crab' coming to cinemas soon... LOL, I had fun catching them; it was a quick lesson and boom I was pulling them up. Nasty pincher's though, and you have to grab them from behind, but I swiped this one with my rod!

Gordon showed us a good time down in Georgia and Florida (hubby has the other photos of him, as my camera died this trip). My FSO friend forgot to tell me some things pulled out of the water are soooo big, like the blue crabs...I did not leave him alone on the dock for too long. He has been known to wrestle some rather big fish in his day!

I have lots more, but I will share over time. Thanks for coming over to view my interpretation of Nanu's- The Dark Side. Go see more at the My Town Blog- Friday Shoot Outs, and share some of your photo stories...

I also share another photo and a 'Swamp Beauty' story about Okefenoke...

Swamp Beauty

As a boat is guided down the swamp canal, alligators lay absolutely still in the natural sun dial shadows. No life seem to exist, not even mother earth passes her breath across foreheads, bringing relief. Spanish moss simply hang like framing tendrils around the beauty of its bald cypress southern bells. Their giant hoop skirts gaining momentum as they reached down into mirrored existence. No birds, water moccasins, yellow flies, not even a mosquito move as the canoe slowly makes its way down to an opening, were turning the corner; it seemed as if a whole other world began where the quiet afternoon in the sun ended.

A loud spring chorus began- a chirp, then a cluck, a ribbit, and all of a sudden loud awkward croaking and grunting. Small peeps and whistles chimed in; it was a monstrous love nest of frogs in the bog. Lily pads spread out like a beautiful quilt, as mounds of reeds and pitcher bulb stood out like loose threads in a greater design. Flowers opened up as if showing off for the camera lens. In the distance elegant egrets graced the backdrop of peat clusters as a great blue heron took to the sky. One might be tempted to reach down into the water and feel its coolness on this unusual hot afternoon, but beware!

The small peanut size cricket frogs may look harmless, but they have their way of luring hands into murky danger. An afternoon snack for the submerged snapping creatures of this picturesque landscape. Okefenokee Swamp, The Land of the Trembling Earth taught its first native inhabitants to leave such inviting beauty to its own. Sitting back in the boat, soaking in such intense scenery- a world that only exist in southern Georgia, where water and creatures beyond belief covered the land, and a people still live trapped in time.

© Elizabeth Akin Dillion-Stelling, 2010

Happy Birthday Pard'ner

Aaron,

You are a part of me, and I am happy to know that life is your play ground. We are glad you are still sticking with college, and learning Spanish. Since the day you were stuck in my face while I lay on the gurney in the operating room at 9:20 in the morning, I knew you came into this world big and would make a big impression.

You go after things with gusto, just like you did your western phase, and the Bono long hair. Anelisa and you were my Irish twins, and I wish you both were here right now, so that I could hold you and cover you with kisses.

Happy 23rd birthday Aaron Glen Dillion, you rock my world!

Love,

Mom

Today

I have stared at this blank screen for two days, and ghosts just fill it's space with brief moments of familiarity

My words are scattered about the pastures I keep, they cannot be wrangled no matter how I hard I try to swing the rope out in a circular movement

The faces of the innocent only comfort me for a short while, a child's life is trapped between a time continuum, but can never be contained as it seeps slowly out into blank space

Not a day goes by I do not think of my mother, my grandmothers, my daughter, my friends I have lost to some disease, or simply times final hour

Saturday morning I got some sleep in spite of our coughing from bronchitis, and felt halfway decent

Only to find out news was kept from me for obvious reason- Lisa has less than a year to live. Her pancreas is eaten up with cancer, and she is younger than me

Joe will share in this aching pain of loss that goes hand in hand with a hideous headless demon we call death

Have my words hidden in the pot holes of happiness, where the demon rears its ugly head to remind us we are merely temporary gardeners over seeing beauty bloom in the field one season at a time

White is the darkest color I have ever seen- I wonder what color will I find here tomorrow

Have you ever caught crabs?

We went to a pier off the Atlantic, and everyone was fishing. Seems like I caught bronchitis from hubby, and not feeling well, but I did not want to miss all the action yesterday. I also now know how Farmlady felt about walking out on a long long long pier three feet wide maybe...because I got vertigo and felt dizzy, so hubby had to come out and walk me the rest of the way out.

Once I sat down off the pier I was a little bored and hooked up a line with some fish and a large weight and dropped it straight down.

I began pulling in Blue Crabs. They are mean and will not hesitate to pinch you, and hold on! Here is one I had to slap it down with my rod to keep it from running off the pier, and it was a funny sight. The minute he hit the ground, as I grabbed my camera, he stuck that piece of fish in his mouth. He decided meal time was right there and then!

They are good eating...

Muse Monday 21- Old Friends

Old friends are hard to come by, but I have a feeling Gordon and I seem to be like old souls that reunite... There seem to be lots of tree frogs in this neck of the woods, and one mad friends with my hubby! The little green companion (American Green Tree Frog) let me get really close and take lots of photos!

I love this Guy Clark CD, but I could not find a site to just download the lyrics, so enjoy the video...