I learned a little horticultural information today. In Lillian’s yard, she has a Sasanqua bush - which is a type of camellia, I believe. It is also a plant I’ve never heard of before. I don’t recall even seeing the word “sasanqua” before. Here is a photo of the sasanqua blooming in her yard now.
And here are some more pansy photos to enjoy.
I’ve enjoyed taking some photographs the past couple days while I’ve been in Georgia. I plan to take many more the next two days as well.
RT’s mother, Lillian, has a green thumb. Tomorrow I’m going to take a walk all around her yard and take pictures of all the gorgeous plants she has. In the meantime, though, look at these two photos from her yard:
Here are more pictures from RT’s and my walks:
This next photo is my favorite. RT and I were driving down the dirt road next to his property when I saw this tree. The branches were covered with moss and it looked like octopus arms sticking out from the trunk. Of course I decided to call it the octopus tree.
RT and I are visiting in mother in a small town in middle Georgia. RT owns some land here, and each day we’ve gone out in the woods and done some hiking. It has been a lot of fun. I have to say, though, that it has been so nice having his mother cook for us. Last night she made country fried steak with mashed potatoes, cornbread, cooked cabbage and rutabagas. The rutabagas didn’t tempt me at all. Ron loves them, and I let him have all he wanted. However, the rest of it was wonderful.
Today I helped Lillian get ready for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal. I learned one of her secrets. She asked me to make the layers for her coconut cake. I LOVE her coconut cake, and so you can imagine my surprise when she indicated a box of cake mix. Duncan Hines butter recipe golden cake mix. Yes, she used a cake mix. However, when I had followed the directions on the box, she added a quarter cup of sour cream - her secret ingredient to make a cake mix taste homemade.
The sour cream made it light - and the mix made three layers for her coconut cake. The frosting is thin - just sour cream, whipped cream, sugar and coconut. Here’s Lillian frosting the cake:
There was so much frosting left over, Lillian said, “Let’s make another cake!” So we did. For the second one, she switched it around a little bit and made a lemon cheese filling for the cake. Here is the final product for that endeavor:
I have to admit that I’m a sucker for my mother-in-law’s sweet potato souffle’. I’ve written about that souffle’ before - twice, as a matter of fact. So I asked Lillian if she planned on making sweet potato souffle’ for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner. She said that my niece’s aunt was going to make it. After I waxed eloquently for awhile about how it was my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal, she said that she might just make one herself, too.
She did. Fortunately for us but unfortunately for the Thanksgiving meal, the sweet potato souffle’ she made didn’t last the night. When she took it out of the oven, I asked her if I could go ahead and spoon out a little bit so it would look better for the photograph I wanted to take for this blog. And once that spoonful was taken out and put on a plate, we ended up adding it to tonight’s menu. It was right there, after all, and it looked so good, and there would be another one at Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow anyway.
My son and his wife arrived this evening to visit for a couple days, and he immediately had a couple of helpings with his dinner, and then took all that was left over with him to the barn apartment where they’re staying to eat for his breakfast tomorrow morning.
As I sit here writing this post, the turkey is in the oven, and there is that wonderful aroma permeating the house. Outside in an electric smoker, my brother-in-law Larry is smoking a couple of hams for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal. Earlier in the day - when I took the photograph below - there was also a small turkey breast in the smoker. The turkey breast was small enough to come out and go in the refrigerator until tomorrow. The hams are still smoking.
Here’s to Thanksgiving and all the delicious food!
Sphere: Related ContentAnother poem by RT - about me. I think it’s pretty cool to be almost 60 years old and still having my man writing poems about me. 
There may be snow on the roof (figuratively speaking) but there’s still fire in the furnace.
Today You Appeared
Today I waited
Today I longed for you.
Built a fire
Thought of my desire.
Then you finally appeared,
My quest and heart at peace
With you by my side.
My wait now over
As you rounded the curve.
And walked with me back
Up the hill.
11/22/08, RTJ
Now for the background - which might take away a little of the poem’s romantic feel. I left the house earlier this morning to get a manicure and pedicure, then by RT’s office to pick up a print I had bought and left there for my daughter to look at. I took the print to Michael’s and picked out the matting and the frame and left it to be framed. Then I was off to Pier 1 to see if I saw anything that appealed to me for the house - I didn’t. I walked out empty-handed. Then I was off to Sam’s to get some paper towels, toilet paper, a few things for the next time our church packs boxes to send to soldiers, and a ham to cook for tomorrow’s church potluck dinner. Then I headed by Publix to pick up a few groceries. By the time I got home, it was approximately 5 hours after I had left.
In the meantime, RT had been at home all day. He had decided to burn a HUGE (no exaggeration) pile of brush that we’d been accumulating for a year and a half. When I say huge pile of brush - I mean a pile probably about the size of the barn. In addition to dead trees that we’d pushed together while building our house last year, our son’s landscaping company had been adding clippings and other brush to it for the past year, too.
Once RT started the fire, he couldn’t leave it unattended. So he was stuck at the bottom of the hill watching the fire all morning and into the afternoon. Lunchtime came and went. He was hungry. Now realistically, he could have walked up to the house and made a sandwich while watching the fire out the window. However, he preferred to wait for me.
Meanwhile, I was blissfully unaware of his “need.” I stopped mid-errands and got myself some lunch and enjoyed it at my leisure.
So RT was anxiously awaiting my car to round the curve in the driveway so I could come inside and fix him some lunch. I think having lunch prepared for him was the “desire” he referred to in the poem. Shortly after my arrival home he was happily munching on a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of chicken rice soup - and composing poetry.
The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach - no truer words were ever spoken. RT graduated summa cum laude from college. However, he is a smart man in other, nonacademic way, too. For one, he is always appreciative and complimentary of whatever I make. He is quick to tell any-and-everyone he meets that he loves my cooking. And then he writes me love notes and poetry. As I said, he’s a very smart man. If I had someone willing to cook for me, I’d wait, too.
This morning I mentioned to RT that he had some comments on the poems of his that I had published here a few days ago - here, here and here. After I read the comments to him, he said, “Random Cabin” might be calling soon.
“Random Cabin?” I asked - totally clueless about what he was referencing.
“Well, Random House might not be interested.”
It is obvious that I was meant to be with RT because I am still laughing. I so “get” his humor.
Sphere: Related ContentToday I went into the cafeteria at school to buy a couple of cartons of skim milk. As I passed a table of third graders, a woman reached out and stopped me.
“Are you Mrs. Johnston?” she asked. I stopped and saw that a student I know well, M, was sitting next to the woman. I knew it was M’s birthday, and obviously her mom had come to the school to celebrate by having lunch with her.
M is not in any of my reading groups and so I know her only because I have worked with her teacher the past couple months. It’s her teacher’s first year of teaching, and I go to the classroom twice a week to do reading workshop with her students. I’ve gotten to know all the kids in the class - and M has been particularly eager to participate in class discussions.
When I affirmed that I was indeed Mrs. Johnston, M’s mother went on to tell me about how M loves me so much and about how she had been wanting her mom to meet me for ages. She said that we had obviously been just barely missing each other. She’d come into her daughter’s classroom, and M would say, “Did you see her? She just left.” She would be sure that we had passed in the hallway.
Then M’s mother told me something that I will cherish my entire life. She said, “I never liked to read, and I’ve tried so hard not to pass that feeling along to M. She just loves having you come into her classroom and teach lessons. She’s excited about reading. One day I asked her why she loves you so much, and she told me, ‘Mrs. Johnston INSPIRES me.’”
I am writing this, not to brag because I’m sure that for every student I inspire, there are many more that I don’t inspire. However, someday when I’m too old and feeble to remember stories like this, I can look back and read this and know that my efforts as a teacher really did make a difference for some children. What more can a person ask for than to “inspire” children to read.
Sphere: Related ContentRT’s on a poetry kick lately. Here’s another of this morning’s poems:
Sphere: Related ContentWhat’s deep?
Deep is not defined by inches or feet.
Deep can get deeper and deepest
Without a rule to check it out.A well that is deep to the weary digger,
but has not hit water,
Is not deep at all to a thirsty traveler.A hurt that wounds another soul may be
Only a ahallow word but cuts deeper than a sword.The deepest deep is deep love.
Deep love pours out and just keeps pouring.Deep love injures not another.
A Mother’s love for her child is never measured
But runs deeper than any river ever flowed.Don’t try to measure love nor deep
Just know when deep grows it gets deeper.
When love grows, it becomes lover.Now that’s deep.
RTJ, Copyright 2008
Here’s a poem RT wrote this morning. I like it!
Sphere: Related ContentWhat’s Funny About That?
Funny is funny.
No explanation needed.When funny happens,
Laughter explodes.What’s funny is not a question to ask,
If it is, it is.Isn’t God a bit like funny?
What’s God is not a question to ask,
If God is, God is.God put a lot of funny in creation.
Look around for funny.
See it. Let it happen.Get funny.
You might just get God
With no questions asked.RJ. Copyright 2008
This evening RT wrote a poem to me. Here it is:
Sphere: Related ContentThank God I Saw You
My Beautiful OneFirst, you caught my eye,
With your long blonde hair
Emerald eyes and shapely legs.You were my first real love
And have always remained my only real love.You have made my life complete by giving me the greatest gifts that
Life and love can provide—Yourself to become with me Ourselves
Our children together to become our family
And branch into our blessed and precious Lily and Sophie.First you caught my eye
In time you captured my soul
And with the power of your love you set me free
To be all I could become.Like the deep faces of a diamond’s inner core
You reflect light and inspiration back to me that lifts and supports me
With a “go for it spirit”.With you I can fly
Reaching far up into the sky
On love’s lifting wingsThe spark that caught my eye in you
Was the love of God
Shining thru the beauty of you.RTJ, 11/14/08
I had just poured my zillioneth glass of orange juice (gotta get that vitamin C, you know) and moseyed over to the front window. Earlier this morning - just at daybreak - I had watched four does eat their way across our front yard — nosing through the pine straw and undergrowth to get at nuts. It was barely daylight and they were mostly shadowy figures moving through the yard.
A couple hours later, OJ in hand, I looked out the front window again and this is what I saw:
A 6-point buck in the front yard on November 11, 2008
Now I’m heading off to the jacuzzi - going to relax and let the steam work on my sinuses. Then I’m going to head outside for a walk - and hopefully that’ll make me feel good enoiugh to go to work tomorrow.
Sphere: Related Content
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