If you’ve read my blog for long, you know I collect things. My daughter calls it hoarding, but she can’t be too harsh with me because all I have to do is mention the word “Pyrex” and she shuts right up. (She is obsessed! She even bought an entire display cabinet to hold her overflowing collection of vintage bowls!)
Anyways, I have a collection of tarot/divination/meditation cards, plus bags of Norse rune stones, etc. Sometimes, at night, when I’m winding down and need to get my mind to quiet, I pull out a deck and read my cards.
Well, I have this very pretty, modern box of “Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards.” Each goddess has a sentiment written on it. This morning when I looked at the long To Do list I wrote for myself last night, I thought, I need “goddess” help, so I pulled a random card…
Nice! Sekmet is very cool! She was a lion-headed goddess, daughter of Ra, and she was the goddess Pharoah wanted with him when he went to war. She breathed fire, and the hot desert winds were her breath… I could use some of Sekmet’s fire and lion’s strength today. I’ll be ferocious like her! My To Do list doesn’t stand a chance against my fiery purpose!!!
Okay. So, anyway…
Lots to do. I’m behind on so many things, and June snuck up on me! May was COVID month, but June will be DIG MYSELF OUT OF THE CRATER month!
So, a question! Answer for a chance to win a download of your choice of a book from my vast backlist. Do you own any tarot or meditation cards? Does some other object serve the same purpose for you (Bible, bones, rosary beads, etc.)?
It’s Saturday! Everyone in the house is feeling so much better that they’re getting cranky about having to stay cooped up. I can escape the drama by being right here, sitting at my desk. Or watching a movie. Lord, I’ve watched so many the past few days. And I’ve puttered around, organizing things—not that my method of organization looks “organized.” 🙂
Puzzle-Contest
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me a story about the person in the puzzle. Have fun with the challenge! Your story doesn’t have to be long or even good!
This month on May 26th, my mother turned 92. As I thought about an African-American woman I wanted to honor in my post this month, Catherine Louise Williams Taylor Phillips came to my mind.
Lately, I’ve been asking her questions from a book/journal called My Mother’s Life: Mom I Want To Know Everything About You. I speak to her every morning and after our check-in ritual, I ask her if she’s ready for the question of the day. She says yes, answers what she can recall then shares anecdotes that have nothing to do with the question. That’s my momma.
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the turn of the 20th-centuryth century song “M-O-T-H- E- R (M Is For The Million Things She Gave Me).” Here’s a vintage recording if you want to give a listen. It’s a schmaltzy ditty that touches my heart because of the mother I was fortunate to have. So today, I want to celebrate a few of the million things my mother gave me.
My mom was born on May 26, 1930 and was sent to live down South with her grandmother when she was a few months old. She shared with me that she didn’t even know there was a depression and regales me with stories of being the spoiled red-haired fox her uncles chided and chastised.
When Alex Haley’s Roots was televised, she wondered what the big deal was then proceeded to tell me about the Pitt family that owned her grandparents. When I let her know I’d decided to pursue a Masters degree two years after graduating from college and having worked in the big bad world of advertising, it was only then she shared that she had been hoping I would go back to school. She even declared, “Why who knows? You may want to go on and get a PhD.” That was the first time I realized my mother wished things for me, but by her restraint showed she respected that what I wanted when and if I wanted it was what was important.
In things small and large, she made it plain—not only to me but to my sister as well—that we were to be who we wanted to be. We weren’t put on this earth to live up to anyone’s expectations. She recalled a time my sister came to her with a picture she had drawn and said, “I couldn’t do it as good as Anna.” To which my mother assured her she wasn’t supposed to do it as good as Anna. She was supposed to do it as good as Muriel. When I felt unconfident or about to settle for less than what I was worth, I recalled her telling me with great vehemence, “You can scrub toilets before you kiss anybody’s ass.” She doesn’t remember saying this but I do, and I will always be grateful for the confidence those words instilled.
As a minister, I’ve helped families in which the relationship between mothers, daughters and sons was strained and far from loving. They can’t sing without reservation as I can the last line of the song I shared above but thanks to the love I have from my mom, I’ve found ways to help honor their struggles and woes.
The last line of M-O-T-H-E-R goes, “Put them all together they spell MOTHER. A word that means the world to me.” I will forever be grateful to my mother who means the world to me. For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share in the comments about someone who was a mother to you or perhaps you have mothered.
Haunted Serenade – by Anna M. Taylor
All the women in Anora Madison’s family have lived haunted by the curse of Poor Butterfly: women still longing for but deserted by the men they loved. Determined to be the first to escape a life of abandonment, Anora fled Harlem for Brooklyn, not only severing her ties with her mother Angela, but also ending her relationship with Winston Emerson, her lover and the father of her child.
Six years later, Anora comes home to make peace, but an unseen evil manifests itself during the homecoming and targets not only Anora, but her little girl Cammie.
With nowhere to run, Anora must confront the evil now trying to destroy her life. She vows to protect her daughter at all costs, but if that protection can only be found with Winston back in her life, how will Anora protect her heart?
Excerpt from Haunted Serenade…
In September 15, 1963, the one year anniversary of my aunt Diana’s death, four young girls in Birmingham, Alabama died when their church was bombed for its involvement in the Civil Rights movement.
My mother called that evening and inquired after my health and the health of my daughter Cammie – the granddaughter she vowed never to acknowledge.
Fear, anger and sorrow sounded in her voice. Mine too. We mourned those girls, their families and the sister/aunt we both loved. In that spoken grief, I silently mourned what had died between my mother and me.
The following month she called again, this time inviting me to bring Cammie to dinner. Like some sulky child, I felt tempted to ask what took her so long. Instead, I swallowed my hurt and came home.
Okay, so it hasn’t been horrible. So far, anyway. We’ve had our shots, which I’m sure is why we’re doing so well.
My dd and I were feeling very superior yesterday A.M. Everyone in the house has had their symptoms to varying degrees. The 8-year-old had congestion and was tired (lazy, in my eyes—I mean, everyone else was being waited on hand and foot, so why not her?). The 13-year-old had congestion, fever, headaches, and didn’t want to get out of bed (not lazy, in my eyes—she was genuinely miserable). The 18-year-old was on the mend after extreme fatigue and a terrible cough. He actually took his yoga mat out to the driveway with some hand weights to work out yesterday afternoon. Now, he’s just staying in bed, I’m sure, because he was texting with some girl into the wee hours. His mom has a list of chores to stick him with today—it’s character-building. My SIL had a terrible cough and fatigue but is on the mend. The 17-year-old had congestion, ran a fever until yesterday, but is feeling much better today. She’s working on completing her finals online because she can’t go back to school just yet.
Today, my daughter’s not feeling so superior. She ran a fever last night and had a splitting headache until this morning. But now, she’s lost her sense of taste and smell. She says it’s weird. Coffee tasted like cardboard (how she knows what it tastes like, I don’t know!).
So, I’m the only one left feeling superior. I had a bit of a cough for a couple of days. I took naps. That was it. So, unless I get that 5-day dip where everything goes to shit, I’m doing great. I’m even puttering around doing the dishes and trading out drinks on the TV trays we have set outside everyone’s bedrooms. I’m the only one still wearing a mask because, if I’m feeling good because my viral load was tiny, then I definitely don’t want another dose!
I’m a bit bored. Too much time in front of the screen makes my eyes teary, so I do have to get up and putter. Reading a book after editing a book—not something I want to do either. I’ve re-watched old movies I love—The Proposal and This Means War. I’ve sorted and cleaned out the junk in a couple of desk drawers. I varnished all my acrylic paintings I’ve done lately. See how bored I am?
I can’t go anywhere, and everyone in the house wants to sleep.
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, come up with some creative things for me to do—that don’t require crispy-clear brain cells or much effort. You can have fun and make up silly things, too.
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Today the 18-year-old graduates from high school! I won’t be attending the ceremony—climbing bleachers is not my thing. But I will pop for a celebratory dinner for the family and a couple of his friends tonight! He enters the same university I attended many moons ago in the fall! We’re all so excited. One down! Three to go! LOL
Puzzle Contest
Solve the puzzle to check out the 2022 graduate! Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card! Let me know if you have high school graduates in your family or will soon. Also, share any words of advice I can pass along to him!
I told you I collect things. Well, one of my newest collections (meaning, I’ve only been collecting them a couple of years, not twenty) is by bee pin collection. All of these are Joan Rivers bees. I love the enameled ones in all their glorious patterns. My dd gifted me the leopard-print one at the middle bottom of the photo for Mother’s Day this year. I like pinning them to purses and jeans jackets to show my solidarity with the bees.
But, “Why bees?” you might ask.
Well, there would be no life without bees. I think I heard it said that one in three spoonfuls of food you eat every day exists because of bees. They don’t just pollinate flowers. They pollinate crops. And scientists are worried about dwindling bee populations because, again, there would be no life without bees.
I know some of you fear them. Yes, I’ve been stung, but not since I was a kid because I don’t excite them when they fly around me by getting excited! Plus, I’ve decided to figure out how I can do my little part to help the bees. For instance, what flowers do they love? I want to plant them!
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, share something about bees. Love them? Hate them? What flowers do you think I should plant?
I’m 63, almost 64, and I am obsessed with toys. It gets worse the older I get. The kids in the house know this, so when they get a kid’s meal from Micky D’s, they don’t keep it for themselves. They bring it home to me so I can find it a “forever home” like a lost pet. I’m not even kidding. The 8-year-old sometimes comes into my office to take down a toy or two to play with on the carpet. She even says it’s better than keeping it herself because she’d just lose it in her messy room.
I have certain collections—all the dragons from How to Train Your Dragon, superhero figurines (and a Funko Pop RGB—because who doesn’t?), Star Trek’s Enterprise models, a SEAL time on a boat with all the weaponry, and on and on. It’s truly ridiculous. I know it. But now that the kids are involved with finding things that make me smile, it’s endless. And the clutter will be their mom’s problem when I’m gone. 🙂
Here’s one little collection of weird things I collect. I love tin wind-up toys. They don’t have to be vintage or precious. These are cheap ones made in China. I have a couple of keys around to wind them up. It’s fun to get them all pecking, walking, and hopping at the same time.
I don’t know why I have this obsession. Maybe it’s because I was the oldest kid and my toys got passed down to be destroyed by the younger kids. I don’t know. And if joyful toy collecting is an early sign of dementia, well, I won’t know it, will I?
In the meantime, I’ll pause when I’m bored with words and play.
Contest
Do you have a toy from your childhood? Or do you collect some toys? If not, do you have a favorite memory of a certain toy? My favorite memory was of a Barbie clothes case that my mom filled with home-sewn outfits for Barbie. Answer for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
If you’ve read my blog for long, you know I collect things. My daughter calls it hoarding, but she can’t be too harsh with me because all I have to do is mention the word “Pyrex” and she shuts right up. (She is obsessed! She even bought an entire display cabinet to hold her overflowing collection of vintage bowls!)
