Saturday, October 8, 2011

Autumnal Joy


"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." ~ Albert Camus


"Bittersweet October.  The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter." ~ Carol Bishop Hipps


"The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes


"October's the month
When the smallest breeze
Gives us a shower
Of autumn leaves.
Bonfires and pumpkins,
Leaves sailing down -
October is red
And golden and brown"


"October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band."
~ George Cooper
  

"The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge


"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows." ~ Doug Larson


"Colors are the smiles of nature." ~ Leigh Hunt
  

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne


"The milkweed pods are breaking,
And bits of silken down
Float off upon the Autumn breeze
Across the meadows brown."
Cecil Cavendish, "The Milkweed"


"Come said the wind to
the leaves one day,
Come o'er the meadows
and we will play.
Put on your dresses
scarlet and gold,
For summer is gone
and the days grow cold."
~ A Children's Song of the 1880's

Friday, October 7, 2011

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary



It's a Five Minute Friday, the part of the week where I link up with The Gypsy Mama.  Each Friday we're given a topic and challenged to write for 5 minutes flat!  No correcting, no incessant re-writing, just type from your heart and hit Publish Post.  Ba da bing, ba da boom.  That's all there is too it.

I've not participated in 5-Minute Fridays in forever and it feels pretty good to be back.

So here goes nothing . . .

Today's topic is:  ORDINARY . . .


GO:

When I think of the ordinary, I also think of the extraordinary.  Every ordinary moment has the opportunity to be extraordinary.  Sometimes I think the extraordinary is in fact the ordinary.  I believe we're all extraordinary, in our own ordinary way.

I try to go through life, each ordinary day after the next, making my way toward the extraordinary which hides within my ordinary day to day events.  I just have to tap into it.  If only I'd look for it and I'd see that it was there all the time.

I hold the extraordinary inside of me and sometimes I let it hide, out of fear of rejection.  But if I give my ordinary self a chance, I know I can shine in my own ordianry way; and MY ordinary, just might be someone elses idea of extraordinary.

Yes, I'm quite content to know that ordinary doesn't just mean so, so.  I can make any ordinary path and extraordinary journey.  I just have to believe in myself and where I'm going.  Ordinary is not a bad thing, it's good.  It's a path to everything extraordinary.

STOP.