I want to grow like a tree-stretch my branches to reach higher, and my roots probing deeper with understanding.
Growth Rings
Author: Debra Palmquist
Writer, blogger, matriarch
I’ll Take Grace Too
You can have the other words - chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace, I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it." -Mary Oliver
Calendar/Diary/Journal?
January. The month for getting organized, eating right, hitting the gym and starting something new. I thought I was ready to skip the paper and rely on my iphone to keep my important dates, even send little reminders and be in electronic sync with others. I also read about "bullet journals" a hybrid between a [...]
What to Wear?
"The Woman who is chic is always a little different. Not different in being behind fashion, but always slightly apart from it." Emily Post
Why Travel?
"The life you have led doesn't need to be the only one you have." Anna Quindlen The world clock on my phone has more time zones than one family should have. In the last month I have added Chang Mai, Lisbon, Geneva, Shanghai, Minneapolis and Osaka. Phil and I in Portugal, our youngest daughter connecting [...]
Always There
Labor Day weekend is always a time of goodbyes--to beach swimming, enthusiasm for tending the garden, and white pants. I said goodbye to my son last Saturday as he set off on a four month trip to Asia. My husband's dear Uncle Roy went off to heaven at age 96. And our grandson said [...]
The Reluctant “Day Waster”
Patricia Hampl in The Art of the Wasted Day invites us to consider leisure, as a way of being. Turn away from the "to do" list, electronic gadgets and simply daydream, think, provide space for not accomplishing anything. The chuta life is what she calls it (the cottage life) of weekends tending a garden, lying low, [...]
Tending a Garden
Gardening has its rewards, keeps us connected to something bigger.
Revisiting Mother’s Day
Seeds are my Mother's Day gift. My first without my Mother. Tall bellfower, leadplant, old field goldenrod, spotted Joe Pye weed, copper shouldered oval sedge, milkweed, all in clear plastic bags labeled with growing instructions. Sun exposure, soil type, moisture ideal for them. The seeds range in appearance from cottony wisps, to the smallest [...]
Dog Years
HRH Elizabeth lost her last corgi. The palace reports the Queen is gutted by the loss of Willow, last in the royal line. Corgis are fresh in my mind after seeing one beg at the table of Winston Churchill and King George II in Darkest Hour. And of course if you watch The Crown, corgis [...]
Matriarchy 