I surround myself with people who complement me, not those who simply compliment me!

Yesterday, I went to a dulcimer workshop in a little town, near Jackson, Mississippi, nearly a hundred miles from my home. Now, talk about things that MAKE ME HAPPY!!! Playing the dulcimer and hanging out with other musicians who love music and play for the simple joy of sharing that love absolutely fills me with joy! (Dulcimers and musicians will have to be saved for blogs some other day, though. I don't have the time to go into all those wonderful moments.)

These are called
Mountain Dulcimers or Lap Dulcimers. They are
lovely, handcrafted instruments with a beautifully haunting sound.

Since we had to drive nearly half-way across our state, two of our neighboring Dulcimer Groups chose to car pool and "convoy" up there. We had so much fun during the drive up there and back that my ribs are still aching from laughing so much and so hard! (On the way home, we all agreed that we need to do road trips much more often!)

Even normal gas stations can be Beautiful!
If you notice, most businesses have beautiful landscaping and lovely flowers.
You just have to SEE the beauty surrounding you every moment in every day!

 Anyway, yesterday morning, during the ride to the Workshop, I noticed how much one of our married couples complement one another. (***Note - Compl-E-ment, not compl-I-ment.... Although they do compliment each other at times, they complement each other all the time!).

Definition of Compliment and Complement:

• Compliment - with an I -an expression of esteem, respect, affection or admiration 

                      (Words)

• Complement - with an E - something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect

                   (Actions)
                   (Completes or Makes Perfect! WOW!)
                  
This particular couple truly works together as a team; they COMPLETE one another! If one has a weakness in some area, the other fills in. For example, when HE began to have severe neck pain, SHE began turning HER head to inform him what was going on behind him! When SHE decided to play the Hammered Dulcimer, which is very heavy, HE began carrying it for her. When HE offers to teach a certain technique on the dulcimer, SHE copies the music and charts, brings them to the meeting, and hands them out at the right time. When SHE runs out of iced tea, HE refills her glass. When HE is called away to work during dulcimer class time, SHE takes over the teaching for that day. The most important part of this teamwork is that they don't have to ask for help. They watch each other and give help freely, without a grudge and without being asked! This complementing isn't limited to weaknesses. It also includes supporting each other's strengths and interests. When playing songs on the mountain dulcimer, HE loves doing extra riffs and runs, so SHE provides the solid, basic song, keeping the beat and allowing him the freedom to creatively express himself. I could list hundreds of examples, but I'm sure you get the idea. They work so well together that their names almost always come out as one word. It's hard to even think of one without the other, sort of like Bonnie and Clyde!

 

 

Since I had complementing on my mind, I started thinking about other friends and their spouses and how they interact. I quickly realized that my  high school friends who married someone who complements them are still together, even 30 years later! Those supportive actions seem to have allowed them to grow closer together over the years. However, those who fell for someone who simply complimented them (flattering words without supporting actions) didn't stay married for long. Actions definitely speak louder than words!!!

 

I looked around at my friends in the van, and I realized that the positive effects of people who complement each other aren't limited to married couples. Most of the people that I choose to spend time with complement me in some way. I feel better when I'm around these supportive people. I enjoy spending time with them and after I've spent time around them, I leave feeling better about myself than I did before I saw them. Complementary friendships definitely make me "happy."

Thunderstorms, Wind, Rain and Negative Ions

Wow! We're in the middle of another awe-inspiring display of Mother Nature's Power... a thunderstorm! I simply LOVE thunderstorms! That's probably a good thing, since we have them nearly daily during the Dog Days of Summer here in South Mississippi.

I usually sit on our porch and enjoy the cool wind, watching the rain drumming down. I stay relatively protected under our big, southern style porch, until the lightening gets too close (like now) or until the wind blows too much of the side-ways rain under the porch and I get a chill and have to come inside to dry off and warm up. During and after a thunderstorm, everything seems so much brighter and clearer and I seem to wake up and really feel alive!

During the past 30 years, I have tried to re-create that wonderful feeling by videoing the thunderstorms, but watching them later just isn't the same. Several years ago, I Googled "thunderstorm "and "feeling good" and found so many articles connecting thunderstorms and elevated mood.... and the little secret connection was negative ions, however, I really didn't think about these negative ions much.

Then, a couple of years ago, I returned to Niagara Falls. I suddenly remembered that I always feel so GOOD while at Niagara! I could breathe better and walk farther with less pain. The colors of the fall foliage seemed brighter and the water looked prettier than it had looked in all the other equally beautiful states that we had visited! It was like I was taking some sort of "happy" drug!

 

I stored these memories of near euphoria, and decided to investigate more after our vacation. After we came home, I Googled "Niagara Falls" and "feeling really good" and once again, I came across hundreds of articles about negative ions. So I decided I really needed to learn about these magical atoms and molecules!

Now, I've always thought of positive things as increasing moods, but evidently NEGATIVE ions are the mood boosters in nature. Basically, certain environments in nature create loads of negative ions; mountains, waterfalls, beaches, and, in South Mississippi, ... thunderstorms! These ions are tiny. They can not be smelled or tasted, but we breathe them in and they get into our bloodstream, just like oxygen. Once these negative ions are in our system, they are believed to bind with other chemicals in our bodies to create serotonin, our very own, natural chemical mood booster! An increase in serotonin can help us feel better, diminish depression, lower our stress levels and even gives us more energy!


Click here for a link for an article on WebMD concerning negative ions and positive moods: http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/negative-ions-create-positive-vibes?page=2


This makes sense to me. I was raised right on a rolling river. I've always preferred being near moving water. It is possible that my body is used to being exposed to these elevated levels of negative ions and maybe my body needs them to function correctly. I have always preferred being outdoors, even when it's hot and humid... and especially during and after a thunderstorm! Sitting at a computer makes me feel bad, so I distance myself from electronics. I even use blue-tooth enabled keyboard and mouse so I can stay far away from my computer!!!!

I read that most cities have very low negative ions, and I really, really dislike being in large cities. That also makes sense. After reading more about these negative ions, I've realized that many of my routines and habits fit right in with what the articles say about negative ions, which really helps me believe what many of these studies show.

Since I currently live several miles from any normal, natural negative ion generator, such as a river or waterfall, the thunderstorms seem to be my biggest mood boosters! So for now, I'll keep enjoying the storms every evening, while sitting on my front porch, soaking up all those mood-boosting, negative ions!

 

Breathing - Actually ... Breathing PROPERLY

I have lived on this wonderful planet for nearly half a century without knowing how to breathe!

How can that be possible???
I thought I knew how to breathe, I really did. I thought breathing was easy... air in, air out. But, noooooooo! It's so much more complicated than that!

Belly Breathing instructions from WebMD

Now that I'm learning the basics of proper breathing, I've realized that I probably did know how to breathe, when I was a new-born baby. I probably even breathed correctly as a 2 - 3 year old toddler, but as I aged, I fought the natural rhythms of breathing and my body began to move air in a manner that delivers less air and creates more stress on my body. As a teen, I wanted to be thin, with a tiny waist, so I would NEVER allow my belly to poke out while breathing! I trained myself to breathe even more shallowly, in my upper chest only, not realizing that it would become such an issue as I aged!!!


For the past year, I've been trying to break those 45 year old bad habits and retrain my body to breathe properly. This is much harder than I ever imagined! I can breathe correctly when I concentrate, but I go right back to shallow, chest breathing as soon as I think about something else. I have always been able to slow my heart rate and de-stress through meditation. I mistakenly believed that I could simply learn to stretch that meditation type breathing throughout the day. But it's not quite so easy!
 

 

When I meditate, it's always been "all or nothing." I have to stop whatever I'm doing, find some place that is quiet and peaceful and then I can meditate. 



I can breath wonderfully when I'm meditating. I visualize beautiful, soothing, peaceful, surroundings and my body relaxes. The air moves deep into my lungs, just like it should.

However, when I finish meditating and I leave my quiet zone, life starts happening again. 

 

 

 My breathing becomes shallower and shallower.

 

My shoulders lift higher and higher.

 I start clenching my teeth.

The old habits are back so quickly... 

STRESSED AGAIN!



          >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..............................................<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

So, I take another deep breath and start again!

 

I'm working on consciously paying attention to my breathing, and enjoying each breath, as it happens. Every time I feel my shoulders rising up to my ears with another shallow breath, I take note and remind myself to "belly breathe" again. Instead of wondering if breathing correctly will ever be natural for me, I concentrate on simply breathing properly now.

 

This moment is what is important.

This breath is the one breath that's keeping me alive right now!

Enjoy this moment!

 

Word of the day - Ampersand

Etymology (AKA - the History of a word or statement.)

For years and years, I only rarely heard this word, but lately, I've heard ampersand at least ten times in the last week or two. After hearing it again last night, on a TV show about a spy, I thought I'd share it as my Word of the Day (WOTD).

The word ampersand is a corruption of the phrase "and (&) per se and", meaning "and (the symbol ) intrinsically (is the word) and".

In the early 1800s, school children reciting their ABCs concluded the alphabet with the 27th letter &. It would have been confusing to say “X, Y, Z, and.” Rather, the students said, “and per se and.” “Per se” means “by itself,” so the students were essentially saying, “X, Y, Z, and by itself and.” Over time, “and per se and” was slurred together into the word "ampersand." The term had entered common English usage by 1837.


By the way, when a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a mondegreen. Find out why here.
Read more at http://hotword.dictionary.com/ampersand/#Ly1uVf3u7EkRIvqD.99

Bumble Bees Make Me Happy

I find so much joy watching and interacting with all kinds of critters, and right now, I'm really enjoying our bumble bees. They are always so busy. (Duh...  "busy as a bee....") They work so well with others. And it always looks like their teeny, tiny wings shouldn't be able to support their buff, bulky and so incredibly UN-aerodynamically designed bodies!!!! Plus, they're just fun to watch!

 

This is where I've been doing the most bumble bee watching this week, my "Bedroom Garden." (I call it that, because I can see it from my bedroom window!). This flower bed is filled with many types of flowers, but the zinnias are really putting on a show right now! It's been fairly hot, which they love, and very rainy, which they tolerate since the soil drains well, and they are blooming in profusion!
 I collect the seed-heads from my flowers every fall, and plant those seeds the next year, so I never know precisely what shapes and colors I'm going to end up with. That's fine with me; I love surprises! The sizes and colors always vary quite a bit from year to year. Last year, I had mostly pink and orange colored zinnia blossoms, but this year, I have some really interesting bright red, orange-red, lemon yellow and even a few white ones. I love how nature is constantly changing and adapting and giving us such pleasant surprises along the way!

By the way....
I have the sweetest Bumble Bees in my yard...

Yea, I know... most people don't like bees, but I do. Since I was a very curious kid, and I had to touch everything, I learned at a very young age that some bees are aggressive and some aren't. Big ol' Bumbles aren't. They are actually fairly friendly and very soft, if you can get them to hold still for you.

 

 

I take lots of pictures of my bees and I prefer to photograph my bees using a super macro mode. I like the way the pictures turn out better than when I have to zoom in from a distance. They have to get used to me being very close. The camera lens is typically within 1/2" to 4" away from them... That's pretty close. Every year, I take the time to tame a new crop of Bumbles, so they'll ignore me and continue with their own busy work while I watch them and take their photos. I also love to "pet" their soft shoulders while they're distracted by all the sweet flower nectar, and I think they like it too.... after they get used to it. Once I've kind-of tamed them, they stick around for a few extra seconds, after they've finished feeding from each flower, and I'll get a chance to pet them a bit more.

 

One year, I tried to stick little "name tags" to the black dot on their backs, so I could recognize the ones I'd been working with, but I never found a natural product that would keep my little name tags stuck on them for more than a few hours. Since it wasn't really that important, I quit bothering them and just worked with them all.

 

 

Concentrating on such tiny creatures is very soothing. I do some of my best meditating while I'm sitting by my flower garden, watching those little, round bumble bees go about their business. I breathe in deeply, relaxing muscle by muscle until I feel the tension melting from my body. I blow each breath out slowly, imagining all the "bad" stuff being blown out of my body like a dark cloud with each exhale. After a few minutes of deep breathing, the exhales are only clear air; all of the negativity, stress and pain has been cleared from my body.

I fill all of my senses with my immediate surroundings. I love the garden sounds. Right now, the buzzing sounds of the bees is most noticeable. I can identify different types of bees by the tone of their buzzing. (The little honey bees remind me of a sewing machine sound, the biggest bumble bees are more like deep rumble of a muscle car's engine!) The garden's fresh smells are always changing, but always the same; fresh cut grass, the perfume of the flowers and herbs, the tang of the naturally growing sage and the pine trees that are nearby.


Bees were on this planet long before I was born and (with luck) they'll be here long after I'm gone. They have no clue that they are so important to the survival of so many species of flowers, plants, and other creatures. They don't care that they're short and round or that their wings are really too tiny to hold them up. They just do what they were born to do every day, living life moment by moment.  I watch the bees and try to live like them, moment by moment.

 

 

Yum, yum, yum!

Day One - A new way to share my joy filled moments.

I've considered creating a blog for many years. Something inspired me to do it today, and I had a bit of energy and my brain seems to be working fairly well, so....
                                             ............... HERE WE GO!
 

One of the things that fill me with joy and make me smile is flowers. I love the look, feel, smell and sometimes even the taste of flowers. I love big, colorful flowers and teeny-tiny, hide-away flowers. It doesn't matter to me if it's a flower worth hundreds of dollars or a weed I happen to see on the side of the road, I love them all! I make my hubby stop on the side of the highway for me to look at interesting wildflowers and I often take my camera into stores like Lowes and Wal-Mart and photograph the flowers they have on display, so I can remember the beauty that God has freely given to me.

I am disabled, and can't travel much, so, through the years, I have created several, self-sustaining flower gardens around my home every so I can watch the plants grow and the critters visit, without having to leave my home! I have trouble walking any distance, so none of my flowers are any farther than 100 feet from my house. One is planted under a big, picture window in our "play room." I have a day bed sitting in front of that window, so I can sit or lay back, and literally reach out and touch the blossoms. I have taken the most beautiful close-ups of bees, butterflies, spiders, birds and hummingbirds from that one spot.


Recently, I've been excited about several night blooming plants that have voluntarily started growing in my zinnia and cosmos bed. After looking them up on Google (I entered the words - night blooming, fragrant, zone 8) I discovered that they are plain ole' Four O'Clocks - Mirabilis jalapa. Hmm..... Four o'clocks? I don't think so! Mine can't seem to tell time....  at all! They start opening at about eight o'clock, and finish opening between ten and midnight! Perhaps they are like good, old-fashioned, "Southern Ladies," and are simply being fashionably late!

The bright, fuschia-pink Four O'Clocks below started opening at 8:00 p.m. There are tiny rain drops on them, since it was still sprinkling a bit while I was taking their photos. It had rained off and on most of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once they start opening, they opened fairly quickly! By 10:00 p.m., the pink plant was covered with fully open trumpets. I waited quietly, hoping some moths would show up, but with all the rain we've had, I suppose they were all hanging out under some protected perch.

 

 

The Story of My Four O'Clocks

 

The first of these plants to appear in my yard, 3 - 4 years ago, was a yellow, night blooming shrub type plant. It started growing in a flower pot, and since it wasn't something I remembered planting, I thought it was probably a weed. However, since it looked interesting, not like my "normal" weeds, I chose to let it grow. (Yes, I do let quite a few unknown plants grow, and yes, quite often they are weeds. I prefer to call them native plants or Mississippi wildflowers! If they are pretty and don't try to take over my garden, I let them grow too!) This plant kept having the prettiest yellow buds, but I only saw them before they opened or after they were wilting. I couldn't seem to catch them open.

 

 

I finally figured out that they must be blooming after dark, but I never could remember to go outside with a flashlight to see them. The plant came back the next year, so I moved it to a closer flower bed, near our security light, a few steps from our back door. It kept growing and blooming, but it was in back of my zinnias, which towers over this little shrub, so I rarely even thought about it.

 This year, THREE more start growing, in that same flower bed; another yellow, one white and one bright pink!

I wondered where they came from! Hmmm.... I do get seeds from a lot of friends, so I'm fairly certain that these plants grew from seeds I planted....

(Surely we didn't have three MORE random volunteers, within 3 feet of each other, in three different colors!!!!) (I feel I should add an important note here. due to an Autoimmune Illness that I've had for over 30 years, I have a really terrible memory! I forget so many things, really important things, so not remembering where a few seeds and plants came from really isn't a big deal to me!  I may eventually remember that somebody gave me those seeds, or I might find a note in one of my gardening journals that reminds me where the seeds came from.... Until then, I'll just enjoy the pleasant surprise!)

Last night, we had a nice,  soft, sprinkling rain, so near twilight, I went outside to look at my flowers sprinkled with raindrops, sparkling like diamonds in the night. While I was out there, I remembered my Four O'Clocks/ Eight O'Clocks, so I decided to shoot some blooms at they opened. The first shot is a little after 8:00 p.m.

 

 

The next shot is just after 9 p.m. All of the white flowers were opening so slowly. The bright pink flowers opened at least twice as fast as these white ones. They did smell so heavenly tho! I wish we had some sort of "recorder" or "camera" to capture and share smells as well as we can record sound and light particles to share with others!!!

 

(After thinking about this for a few moments, and after raising two boys, sharing smells might not be such a great thing! If we do, I guess we could focus on heavenly and sweet smells.)

Another Google search (record and share smells)

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/10/13/japan-develops-smartphone-application-that-sends-smells/

 

This shot was taken at 10:15 p.m., which is past my bedtime, but I kept hoping that the white flowers would open! The fragrance was even more lovely... mmmm.

Maybe next year, I can move these plants to a more accessible location. I really need these in a chest high planter near one of our porches. That way, I could smell them without having to try to bend over so far!

 

Raindrops and Reflections

 I finally got around to photographing the raindrops on my flowers that I had started out to capture! There were so many tiny raindrops on each surface that the flower petals were hanging down lower than I've ever seen them.

Usually, these vinca blooms are flat. And typically, the rain beads up on each petal, like there is something in the plant that is hydrophobic. It makes such pretty, round raindrops! Tonight, all my vinca flower petals are drooping and the water drops are actually flattening out and sticking to the surface. It's probably because we've had at least one rain shower every day, for over a week, and we had several rain showers today. The hydrophobic coating must have been washed off.

 

 

I love raindrops. (They make me smile)

I love reflections.

I really love reflections in raindrops.

 I actively try to get cool reflections when I take pictures of water and water droplets.

Since it was dark, really dark, and stormy, and since I was using the camera's flash for lighting, I had no idea of what reflections I might end up with. Every time I went outside, I heard something moving near me, in the darkness, but I couldn't see anything. We live in the woods, right next to a National Forest, so there are always sounds; there's always something moving in the darkness, but most critters usually move away when we go near them. Whatever this was didn't bother getting out of our yard when I went out to shoot the pictures, so I figured it was a deer, rabbit or armadillo. I did get the Heebie-Jeebies a bit, and kept looking over my shoulder, but I still took the pictures and enjoyed my flowers.

 

After I got inside, I loaded the photos onto my computer for editing. When I started looking through the raindrops for interesting reflections, I started worrying.  I knew that there was something out there with me. And, I didn't know what, or who, it was. What if I found a reflection of something weird? What if there was something from a sci-fi movie out there and it's reflection showed up in the raindrop? (O.K., so it was very late, and did I mention very dark and very stormy, and I was watching the SyFy Chanel while I was editing.... )

Then I had to laugh at myself....I mean, really laugh at myself! I had been outside, after dark, with whatever it was, more than once, and I wasn't afraid. However, after watching a few minutes of a scary movie, I had managed to scare myself while sitting safely in my brightly lit living room!

(Things that make me smile!)

I didn't find anything strange in any of the raindrops. I only saw normal reflections of leaves, flowers and of other raindrops, which, by the way, is really cool!
The photo below was probably my favorite of the raindrop pics I took last night. I was surprised at how many pastel colors I could see in different raindrops. I can understand the whites, pinks and greens, but there were lavenders and robin's egg blues and sky blues and more. Simply beautiful!
 

I hope I left you with a smile!