How often in your life have you judged someone, perhaps not even realizing what you were doing? I think we all may be guilty of judging others without full information or even the right to do so. Judging is only part of what is tearing our country apart in the U.S. There are many other factors but judging our friends and neighbors for their political and personal beliefs ranks right up there at the top.
In the last eight years, U.S. society has become more polarized than at any time since the civil war from a political perspective. It’s very much an atmosphere of us versus them. During this time, many of us have lost friends and even family because one or the other of us were judged harshly for their political beliefs. The political beliefs that each side holds couldn’t be more different. One side wants to maintain the progress of the U.S. and try to improve it. The other side wants to take us back to the past and even worse, establish a fascist regime. We all have friends on both sides of this argument.
What do you do if you are on one side and a friend is on the other? Do you judge that friend for their political beliefs and in the process, you realize you may lose that friend? The number of people in the U.S. over the past eight years that have lost friends and family because of our political divisions has become innumerable.
What is the solution? Can you maintain a friendship with someone on the other side of an issue or many issues? Can you just not bring that into your conversations? Can you refrain from judging your friend even though you don’t agree with them? Believe me, it’s difficult since almost all the conversation currently is about the politics of the U.S.
I don’t have a solution, but what works for me is just talking to my friends as always but avoid the politics discussion if possible. I realize that will never solve anything, but I’m starting to wonder if judging people based on their political beliefs is becoming entrenched in our culture. There may be no turning back.
Quilting is an old Appalachian tradition that arose in the Appalachian Mountains out of necessity. The region was, and still is, quite geographically isolated. When there is little business in an area, the people have to become more self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is one of the characteristics that define the Appalachian region and people.
Quilting has a rich cultural heritage in many countries and among varied ethnicities.
Since the maternal side of my own family came from Appalachia, I’m part of that quilting culture although I don’t quilt myself. The women of that region quilted in order to have warm bed clothing for their families. Since families tended to be large, most required a lot of quilts. There weren’t many “store-bought” bed clothes to be found.
My maternal grandmother, and the women who came before her, all quilted. She had six girl children, all of whom were educated and most worked outside the home teaching school. My oldest aunt is the only one of the children who quilted.
Each quilt is as unique as the quilter who made it. The quilting traditions came from the Scots, Irish and German immigrants, but it also had touches of the influence of the Amish, the Quakers, and the Native Americans.
Some of the early quilts, in particular, were made from old feed sacks. Other materials used were pieces cut from old clothing. I have a plethora of handmade quilts I inherited from my grandmother and aunts. The oldest one has a top layer made of pieces of colorful feed sacks and the stuffing is just cotton batting, which bunches up terribly. That quilt was just as warm as any other and I still use it in my bedrooms.
The tops of quilts sometimes told a story, often of family history. There were also popular patterns that were used along with variations on those popular patterns. Many, perhaps most, of the American quilts have geometric designs which came from the Native American culture. African quilts are different and each tells a story, often of a tribe’s heritage. Many European quilts are patchwork quilts. All are usually colorful. All you have to do is an internet search and you will happen upon endless quilting patterns.
Quilting is also a communal activity with quilting bees and quilting circles held in communities. Not only did the quilts tell a story, but it was an opportunity for the women in the community to get together and chat. That is still true in many areas of Appalachia.
In the modern day, quilting has become very popular. There are quilting classes and quilting shows available if you are interested in learning the art of quilting. It is an artistic endeavor, along with practicality, just as much as painting a picture if you had a canvas and a paintbrush. Quilting can also, now, be done on a machine, but somehow the tradition is lost if you machine quilt. Hand stitching is the old, and valued, way.
Hello everyone! So nice to see you. Please join me for my #weekendcoffeeshare 162. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and let’s sit down and visit.
The highlight of the week for me was the Kentucky Derby. For those of you unfamiliar with the Kentucky Derby, it is known as the most exciting two minutes in sports. The Derby is a race for 3 year old colts held at Churchill Downs race track in Louisville, Kentucky. It draws not only Kentuckians but people from around the world. This year, horses were entered not just from Kentucky and the United States, but Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
Many of my friends, family and I, and all Kentuckians, are into horse racing. I didn’t go to the Derby, but I studied it in advance, and its horses, and thought I had a pretty good idea who would win. WRONG! Mystick Dan, a 18-1 long shot won the race, which is the first leg of the Triple Crown. He is a bay three-year old colt with a fine pedigree. Derby winners and other great horses are in his ancestry including Affirmed, Northern Dancer, Seattle Slew, and Mr. Prospector. It was an exciting three-horse photo finish.
Mystick Dan is the horse nearest to the rail in the above photo.
See this house? It was unexpected that I had the occasion to think about it today. This house was built in 1901, remodeled of course since then. It was built by my grandfather for my grandmother and what he hoped would be a growing family. HIs family did indeed grow.
The daughter of the oldest child is my first cousin. Even after my grandparents passed away and my cousin moved into our family’s home place, it was the place we always gathered. I almost cry when I say those days are over now.
The cousin who lived here was placed in hospice care today. She was elderly, but her illness came on quickly only a few days ago. She isn’t expected to live very long at all. Her life can probably be measured in days. Her husband can’t live here in his home alone since he has dementia.
My cousin and I were very different but quite close in our own way. I will miss her, just knowing she’s there along with the family gatherings in that old house.
The old home place will be sold after they are gone and the last of my grandfather’s beautiful farm will just be a memory. It was a very emotional day for me today, which is why I’m writing instead of sleeping in the middle of the night. First, I have to deal with my cousin’s demise and, at the same time, the fact that our family home will soon be forever gone. A double whammy of grief.
For people my age, these years are called the Golden Years. Tonight, in the throes of my grief-induced insomnia, I say not so much to that.
If there is one thing I’m good at, it is examining my own feelings. I usually do that when I spend time daydreaming. I’m pretty busy with practical stuff most of the time, but I do give myself time to sit and think – and, I guess, feel.
When I was a young girl and even into mid-life, I was good at sharing my feelings with my girlfriends and partner. As I have passed mid-life and am into my last quarter, I have become quieter about my own feelings and I listen more to others. You can learn a lot by listening. I don’t share a lot with anyone now except my partner. There are a couple of very long-term friends and we share our lives with each other, but not always our feelings.
My feelings about many subjects are complex and multilayered perhaps because as you age, you also gain wisdom. I’m surely not making myself an example of a wise sage or something similar, but I am more able to see different viewpoints and the complexities of situations more easily now than in the past. However, these days, I’m more likely to withdraw than discuss feelings, particularly my own.
My feelings about almost everything feel more private to me than ever before. I don’t know why that happens as you age, but it has to me. Maybe it’s because I know that everyone has their own set of problems and mine are no more or no less important than theirs. Maybe it’s because I realize that most people are just not that interested in knowing me, or any other person, that well. Maybe it’s a trust issue because by the time you approach older adulthood, you know who you can trust and who you can’t. Quite possibly, it’s all of the above.
The people who see me a lot know that I’m different now. I’m not as forthcoming or as open. I hope they realize that it is not due to a problem with them. Instead, it’s how to I seem to be approaching this last quarter of my life.
I talked with one of my best girlfriends this morning. She and her husband are planning a short vacation to America’s Gulf of Mexico coast. The picture above is of the Gulf at sunset, looking west from the western coast of Florida. Hearing her excitement and then looking at my ocean pictures have caused me to long for the sea today.
I’ve never lived by the sea unless you count the year I spent teaching at the University of Porto in Porto, Portugal. During that year, I lived several miles from the coastline of Portugal, but I went to the sea often. A little later in my life, my husband and I spent the winters in Florida in the U.S. We had a small place just a mile from the Gulf and I went there daily just to sit by the sea.
I’ve always said that spending time by the sea heals my soul. I think I need some of that now! It turns out that there is scientific evidence that supports my theory. The sound and motion of the waves lapping against the shore can improve your circadian rhythm and allow you to sleep better. Spending time in salt water can moderate your blood sugar and improve your muscle and nerve performance.
Photo @ R.M. Carlson
The above photo is of the beautiful Mediterranean Sea in 2019. This shot is off the southern coast of Italy.
Salt water even rejuvenates your skin. It can heal minor cuts and scrapes. It is full of the mineral magnesium which is essential for so many body functions. Magnesium can cure migraine headaches and is beneficial in so many ways. It is almost impossible to get enough magnesium in a western diet unless you live by the sea and consume a lot of fish and seafood. Magnesium helps the heart function properly. It, however, is not plentiful in food and we often should supplement the right type of magnesium.
Salt water is also full of other minerals and trace minerals that are essential for good health. Minerals such as zinc, iron, and potassium along with a whole host of trace minerals are bio-available in sea water. No, you don’t have to drink it. If you spend time in the sea, your body absorbs the minerals.
I’ll talk about the many other benefits of the sea in other posts. Right now, I think I’m going to get better about taking my magnesium supplement and hope that a trip to the sea is in my near future! Does the sea make you feel better? What are the benefits of spending time at the sea for you personally? I’d love to hear your comments!
If you get to know me through my writing and these musings, there is one overriding thing you will discover about me. I’m always thinking and thinking deeply. I think they call it busy brain. It used to be that my brain was so busy I couldn’t sleep at night. But, I’ve learned to put myself in a state of Zen at bedtime and block out the roaring river of thoughts in my head.
What do I think about? I think about the minutiae of daily life and things going on around me in which I’m interested. I’m also a big picture kind of girl. I can see the big picture best when I think about global issues like world peace, poverty, homelessness, democracy, and the like. I’m not as good at seeing the big picture when it comes to my own life. We are not as objective about our own lives.
One thing I’ve discovered is that my generation (baby boomers) and younger generations (millennials, Gen X, etc.) have quite a different outlook on life. You would think I would have discovered this during the almost 30 years I spent as a college professor. But not so much. The generation immediately behind me was not so different from my own. Now, when I can look back more than one generation, I clearly see the differences and I think they are rooted in how our parents raised us. A second cause is probably technology.
Little puppy dog, loking at the camera behing the wire fence, in a shelter adoption.
We named him Freddy. We didn’t know his name. I opened my back door on the morning of the fifth of July about seven years ago and he was humped up on the porch, as close to the door as he could get. We’d never seen him before. We had no idea where he came from. My husband and I went outside to check him out. He just looked at us and when he discovered we were kind, he stayed as close to us as he could.
We did everything we were supposed to do. We called the local animal shelter and reported him. We put up signs around the neighborhood. We called neighbors. All this time, Freddy wouldn’t leave our property. He laid in the garage on an old rug and wagged his tail every time he saw one of us.
A few years later, we were standing in our garage and the door was open. We saw what resembled a furry bullet running as fast as she could down our long driveway toward our garage. She ran inside and hid in a corner. We had never seen her before. A beautiful German Shepherd dog. It was storming outside and we assumed she got frightened and ran away from home. She made up with us easily. Just like with Freddy, we did everything we knew to do to find her owners. No luck.
About three days later, in the case of both dogs, the owners found us. Instead of thanking us for caring for their dogs while they were lost, they were angry. Angry because we didn’t magically know where the dogs belonged.
In the case of Freddy, he was a neighbor’s dog from about a mile away. The neighbor took him home and he came back. He kept coming back repeatedly. Finally, his owners chained him to a dog house in the summer heat and he couldn’t come back again. Six years later, Freddy appeared in our driveway again. He was old now and he wasn’t well. Again, he was taken away to his home.
The German Shepherd is an interesting story. Finally, through social media, we found her owners. Her owner came after her and we thought something was strange from the first. He wouldn’t park in our driveway. We walked out to his truck. The dog didn’t follow us. He started accusing us of stealing his dog. He was abusive and was obviously capable of violence. He called for the dog and she wouldn’t come to him. He kept calling and that beautiful dog crawled a few inches at a time on her belly. She crawled around him, around his truck, under his truck, always keeping a distance from him. Finally, he caught her, picked her up by her back legs, and threw her through the open door of his pickup truck. She crashed inside to the floorboard. I don’t know what happened to her, but we’ve heard she is locked in a storage shed most of the time.
Dogs are and can be neglected and abused in a variety of ways for many reasons. Hunting dogs, for example, are often hunted until they drop and a terrible problem exists with regard to their treatment and care. In the U.S., as our politics of hatred have ramped up, so has violence and abuse. Haters take their rage out on their children and defenseless animals. I find the situation in the U.S. to be almost intolerable.
Maybe you’re asking yourself by now where the animal cruelty authorities were in the case of Freddy and the German Shepherd. In our state in the U.S., we have almost no effective laws to protect defenseless animals. The animal control officer said he would check on them. We even talked to the Sheriff in the case of the German Shepherd. We never heard anything back from either party.
According to a 2024 study conducted by Forbes Magazine, over six million dogs are surrendered to animal shelters each year. About two-thirds of that number are adopted. The rest are euthanized. How many dogs need to be rescued who reside in abusive or neglectful homes? No one knows.
The pandemic didn’t help. People were isolated and lonely. They thought the solution was to adopt a pet. Dogs, in the U.S. are more popular than cats. Unfortunately, many of the people who adopted dogs during the pandemic didn’t consider what their situation would be after the pandemic. Would their remote jobs become onsite jobs again? Would they even have jobs? No one knew, for sure, that the economy would take a downturn and inflation would soar. The cost of caring for a pet skyrocketed and so did the number of people who surrendered their dogs to an animal shelter or just left them to fend for themselves.
After the dog we had for many passed away in September, 2023, we decided to rescue a dog. We ended up rescuing two dogs, both from horrible situations. Meet Sophie. A purebred German Shepherd who was found by a rescue group in a wire crate and tied to a fence post outside a festival site in the hot sun.
Sophie is somewhere between two and three years old. We only know part of her story. She was purchased by a couple, as a puppy, who it seems loved her. They divorced and she was passed from person to person for almost two years. It could have been a nightmare, rescuing a German Shepherd dog, but Sophie has a wonderful temperament. She came to us obedience trained and guard trained. She’s the perfect dog.
In the past, we have had Pembroke Welsh Corgis and we heard of one that needed rescue. Enter Hazel. She is a female and is now about 20 months old. Hazel was really neglected and has major health issues, but we will love her and take care of her. So many rescue dogs do have health issues. They also have mental and emotional issues and Hazel is a poster dog for all of these concerns.
Rescue dogs come with baggage. Once they trust you, which can take some time, they are truly your best friends. Instead of buying expensive purebred dogs from breeders, consider rescuing a dog who will become your best friend. There is so much need for good homes and compassionate, loving dog owners. Rescuing a dog is very gratifying even though it may require a little more work than buying an eight-week old puppy for thousands of dollars.
You don’t have to go to just the local animal shelters. Call breeders of whatever breed you are interested in. You can find a list on the American Kennel Club website. You might be able to find a breeder ready to retire a show or breeding dog that would fit your needs perfectly. Some of the dogs who are retired are sent straight to rescue after being used for years for show or breeding. They need all of us.
Today we took a short trip, really just an afternoon trip, primarily to spend some time outdoors with Sophie, my German Shepherd dog. Sophie is the most wonderful companion. Smart, well-behaved, curious. Everything you want a dog to be. She was, unbelievably, a rescue. She’s around two years old, perhaps two and a half and we really don’t know her story. But, when she came to us, she was perfectly trained although she had been passed from person to person all of her young life due to a divorce in her initial family.
We try to get Sophie out in the world fairly often. She has a lot of space at my house, but German Shepherds are smart, curious and easily bored. Kentucky has a wonderful system of state parks and we spend time at various parks to give Sophie some richness of experience. She also gets a hamburger and some ice cream!
Our adventure today was to Carter Caves State Park which is about 20 miles from my home. It’s in one of many of the cave areas in the state of Kentucky. Most of the underlying rock in Kentucky is limestone and over eons of time, caves have been carved into the limestone. In this state park, the caves are fairly small compared to other cave areas and have, for the most part, been closed due to a disease that is plaguing the bat population in the eastern United States. Even in the summer, there is no exploration of the caves allowed. When I was growing up nearby, the caves were all open for exploration.
There is still a lot to enjoy at this Kentucky State Park for avid outdoors people. Lots of hiking and backpacking, a nice campground for RV camping, and a beautiful lake for fishermen surrounded by heavy hardwood forest. There is a nice restaurant, good southern U.S. cooking and a lodge.
Sophie didn’t go there for any of that! She needed an outing and she loves to ride in the Jeep and go to new outdoorsy places. She had a blast today. Rock climbing, smelling lots of new things, getting her feet wet in the beautiful creek, sniffing at the entrances of the caves. We walked most of the afternoon until we were all ready to head back to the Jeep. Sophie (and I) will sleep well tonight.
Good Sunday morning! If we were having coffee this beautiful late summer day, I would invite you in and offer you any of the coffees or teas you fancy. So help yourself to a cuppa, pull up a chair and let’s talk!
It’s been a beautiful weather week here in the Upper South region of the United States. Specifically, just as information for those of you who are new, the state is Kentucky, the northeastern part near the southern Ohio border. My grandfather used to call the weather we’ve been having “bright, blue days.” They usually only happen here in June and September, so the weather is early this year. Does that mean an early winter? I love the bright, blue days. The temperature is warm and the humidity has dropped. Perfect! All in all, it’s been a wet summer here. I’m aware of the drought in many areas of the U.S., but not here. The Appalachian area south and east of me, Eastern Kentucky, had a record-shattering “1000 year flood” recently. So many Kentucky residents are shoveling mud and trying rebuild. It’s very heartwrenching.
Did you meet your writing goals this past week? I’ve been taking a break from writing, but I’m about to jump back in it with both feet. I’m working on a couple of books that I’m determined to finish. I don’t really see much hope for working much in the next couple of weeks. It’s an awkward time of year with just a couple of weeks left until the unofficial start of the fall season, Labor Day weekend, arrives. It’s also pretty busy with the students going back to school. We tend to go back to work after Labor Day if we have been vacationing. Until life settles down, I will probably stick to blogging.
This is the time of year I take a close look at my flower gardens. Some of you know I live in the woods, so it’s impossible to garden for veggies. I’ve been making notes on these flower beds around the house to see what I need to replace. I want to know what did well and what did poorly. As far as veggies go, we go to a local farmer’s market and get amazing green beans, corn, cantaloupe, beets, strawberries and much more. We have had wonderful, healthy eating this summer. I love to cook if I have fresh vegetables and fresh fruit to use.
It seems my days are filled with appointments of one kind or another and small, but necessary, projects around the house. I can’t do nearly as much as I could just a couple of years ago. Time marches on and I’m surely not a spring chicken any longer. My body (and soul) tell me that every day.
Sometimes, I worry because my tolerance for other people, up close and in person, is at an all-time low. I’ve always been a loner, an introvert. Still am and on top of that, I don’t like to be around people much these days. The pandemic helped me grow accustomed to not being able to see my family and friends, which is one of the biggest effects of the pandemic on lots of people. I usually prefer more private pursuits now, either with my husband, or alone. I save my very limited energy for that.
We would have liked to have done a little traveling this summer in our RV. Who can afford that? At current gas prices, it would cost $500 to fill up the gas tank – once! Soon, we want to take a RV trip around one of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior, which hugs the U.S. – Canadian border. Everyone raves about that drive. Lake Superior is such a beautiful, wild, lake and the trip takes you to its waterfalls and pictured rocks all along both coasts. The southern coast of the lake is in Northern Michigan while the northern coast crosses into Canada.
I feel like I just gave a journalistic report on my world. I’d love to hear about your world. The differences are what makes life interesting.
The Write Scribe 