All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
Art, Family, Nature, Poems, Stories

Bruce and I

69 Comments

Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

I found Bruce at an auction. At first I intended to give him to a friend of mine, but after purchasing, I liked him so well I decided to keep him.

Sometimes sculptures such as this are called “Green Man”. Or maybe he’s a gargoyle. Or he could just be a door knocker.

I hadn’t heard of Greenmen so I had to look that up. There are a lot of different looking versions of green man characters and multiple descriptions of what each means:

“The Leaf Man or Green Man of ancient pagan, druidic, and neo-pagan belief is a nature spirit of woodland places, plants, trees, & foliage. He represents fertility, springtime, and renewal and roams the woodlands of Europe in legend. Also called Green Jack, Jack-in-the-Green and Green George he is depicted as a face peering through leaves, usually Oak, which was sacred to druids, and a crown of leaves as a symbol of divinity.

I choose to think Bruce really is a spirit of woodland places and that he really does represent fertility and springtime.

At first I put him on the front wall of our well house so he could look across the yard and toward our house. That was OK, but eventually I moved him onto a tree. Now he can look down toward the chickens and a field. More tree’s and yard. Even a creek (in the winter when he can see through the trees).

He honestly looks much happier.

But DANG! He’s gotta be cold with that cast iron knocker in his cheeks.

Let the benevolent Leaf Man nature spirit greet guests to your home or garden with a mystical, architectural touch, and bring you good luck and prosperity!

Got a nature spirit?

PJ’s Sprite

Family, Food, Kids, pets

Naughty Dog!

27 Comments

I have a naughty dog.

She’s 12+, moving slowly but three times this week I’ve come home to chaos. Three nights ago she had gotten into Nonny’s room and eaten the last two little bags of kitty treats that I had wrapped as gifts, as well as ripping open the wrapping on another gift.  One box with a Ukrainian egg was downstairs, but luckily not chewed or broken.

Two days ago she managed to get a hold of a bag of spiced almonds that I thought were pushed back far enough on the counter. Guess not. She ate the entire bag (about a cup of almonds).  I also found the box that had had rosettes in it on the floor, but YA says the box was empty when she left.  Tell that to the shredded tissue paper that was in the box!

Tonight Rhiannon had managed to get back into Nonny’s room… she pushed the gate down. There wasn’t anything to eat in there anymore but she did knock down the box with the remaining Ukrainian eggs.  Again no damage (luckily).  That box is now locked on the attic steps.

She can’t even blame it on YA’s dog, as Guinevere is always kenneled when we’re out of the house.   All the other dogs I’ve had over the years have become mellower over the years.  Guess Rhiannon is going against the grain!

Are you getting naughtier with age?

Baboon Achievers, Family, History, holidays, Kids, Stories

Pajama Enforcement

28 Comments

Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.

Like VS’s friend from last week, when my children were little, I’d search for matching pjs every Christmas. I wanted to photograph them together looking really cute, then use the pictures for holiday cards. Back then, matching pjs of different sizes were hard to come by because clothing sizes only came in age groupings: infants to toddler, toddler to elementary school, junior to adult.  This forced me to go to three different departments in hopes that each one just might have the same pj in the next size up. Now, whole family sets are available, from infants to grown men.

After scoring (when I could), the next challenge was to get my three kids to put them on just for a photo shoot. They wanted nothing to do with fulfilling my desire for matching children.  I cajoled them, bribed them with treats, got angry at them, and sometimes even said that I’d pay them. The age at which they became uncooperative was around six.  I’ll never know whether their obstinacy was due to not wanting to look alike, or due to them knowing how badly I wanted to show them off.

Moving this tradition up another generation, my daughter skipped matching pjs when her five kids were little and started buy them when they were teenagers. For five years running, she’s spent a fortune buying each matching pjs, including a pair for herself. Each Christmas, they not only don them, they spend the whole day in them! This year, they even wore them all day at my son’s house. We always gather there because he has the largest home of all of us.

Maybe her success is because they identify with being a big brood. The older they get, the closer they’ve become to one another and to their mom. In my child-rearing days, my kids were closer to me when they were not yet teenagers. I can no more picture my kids spending all of Christmas day in matching pjs than I can imagine walking a mile in sub-zero weather!

What tradition will you be “enforcing” in 2018?

Business, Food, holidays, Nature, News, Science, Technology, Weather

Dieter Substitution

36 Comments

I didn’t have the television switched on too much today but I think I saw Marie Osmond at least three times. It occurs to me that I haven’t seen her hawking her diet system since before Halloween. Interesting that the diet ads start up right away on January 1.

Weight loss is the number one resolution in America these days (and has been for decades). And I read something recently that says most folks have blown through all their resolutions after six weeks.  I’m guessing that means we’ll have plenty of Marie Osmond until Groundhog’s Day.

I also saw recently that PETA wants to replace Puxatawny Phil with an animatronic groundhog. This seems absurd to me; would we really be able to program it to recognize its own shadow and forecast the end of winter? Of course, we could always program it to monitor diet ads; once spring and summer arrives, the ads drop off. This made me wonder if we replaced Marie Osmond with an animatronic dieter, maybe SHE could tell us when winter is ending and save PETA the trouble of replacing Puxatawny Phil!

What robot would be useful in your life?

 

 

Family, holidays, Kids

The Pajama Proliferation

41 Comments

YA and I spent Christmas Eve at my friends’ home (Alan and Julie). They have 11 grandkids, age 8 and under.  It’s chaos.  As if having that many kids hopped up on holiday sweets and anticipating gifts together in an enclosed space isn’t enough, Alan is just a big kid himself and eggs them on.

Just before we opened gifts (one at a time starting with the youngest), the pajamas were brought out. This has been a tradition for many years, complete with paparazzi-style photo session once all the kids are jammied up.  As much fun as it is, I do think about the cost of this tradition.  Everybody gets new pajamas for the occasion.  Then the next year everybody gets a new pair.  None of these pajamas gets handed down or worn the next year.  Of course, considering how fast all these kids are growing, they probably need new pajamas every year anyway!

What’s your favorite tradition?

Family, Fifty Words, History, Technology, Travel

A Good Soak

56 Comments

I was just thinking the other day how sad it is that our ancestors went thousands and thousands of years without the joy of a long hot shower.

If you went back in time, what wouldn’t you want to do without?

Family, Food, holidays, Stories

Cookie Exchange

34 Comments

My mother wasn’t a big cook and except for the holidays, she wasn’t much of a baker either. On the holidays however she pulled out all the stops. We made many kinds of cookies and then they were used as gifts for our teachers, the minister, the postman and relatives. This is a tradition that I’ve continued in my life. I do nice trays for my milkman, my hardware store and my library in addition to having cookies all through the season.  If you invite me over during December, I show up with a plate of assorted goodies.

About 10 years ago my boss asked me if I knew anything about cookie exchanges as she thought it would be a nice “morale booster” at the office. I didn’t know a thing but thanks to the magic of the internet I because knowledgeable over night! Despite having 15 kinds of cookies on my front porch (it’s cold out there) I now organize the office cookie exchange every year.

Then this year a good friend of mine decided to do a cookie exchange and asked if I were interested. I enjoy her parties and know a lot of the same people she knows so I said “Sure.”  So now I have two cookies exchanges on the calendar despite a porchful of holiday treats.

There were quite a few of us today. We drew numbers, went around the room and told the “story” of our cookies and then split into groups and took 2 dozen cookies in each of three rounds.  A little different protocol than the classical exchange but pretty good for the big number of folks who were there.   We also had beverages and other appetizers to keep us going.  The stories were hilarious and the company fabulous.

Guess I’m taking cookies to the office tomorrow.

What holiday cookie would you take to a cookie exchange?

Family, holidays, Stories, The Baboon Congress, work

Bah…..

44 Comments

This is hard to write, but I’m thinking my troop of baboon friends can help me out.

I am not a Christian, but I love Christmas. I can massage almost every Christmas tradition into something meaningful for my Yuletide/Solstice beliefs.  I love the feeling of hope and redemption that comes with the season.  I love having a tree filled with lights and ornaments, I love making gifts for my friends and loved ones.  I love baking holiday cookies, I love cookie exchanges.  I love getting cards and reading people’s newsletters.  I love holiday movies (although I will admit I like older stuff better than current films) and I love holiday music.

For decades I have listened to my holiday CDs at the office during December. For many years I played them using my computer but these days I have a little teeny radio/CD player.  I tend to the more traditional music; Mommy Kissing Santa Clause and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer aren’t in my collection.

This past week I began to bring in my CDs and (as always) I said to all the folks who sit around me that if the music bothered them to let me know. In fact, just this morning, two of the folks who sit on either side of me chimed in on what to play next.  So it was shocking to me when my boss emailed me in the early afternoon that someone had come to her and complained about the music.

I’m broken hearted. Not because I have to use headphones or ear buds to listen to my music.  I’m broken hearted because someone who sits nears me, someone who has worked besides me for YEARS (we haven’t changed seating arrangements in about 4 years) thought it was better to complain to our boss than to stop by my cube and say “Hey, I’m having a bunch of calls today, can you turn your Christmas stuff down?” or “I’m having a really stressful day and your music is distracting – do you have ear buds?”  It’s completely disheartening to think that anybody who knows me even remotely would be able to imagine me getting pissed off about something like that.

I feel like a balloon that’s been stuck with a sharp pin – deflated and completely spiritless. I know it’s just one person, but I’m having trouble shaking my doldrums.  Nonny is coming next week and I have a serious list but right now I don’t feel like doing anything but sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I’m not even in the mood to go downstairs and make hot chocolate.

How would you cheer up an unwilling Scrooge?

Fifty Words, History, Nature, News, Science

Another One Bites the Dust

53 Comments

The news is in. DNA scientists have tested the Yeti “relics” – samples that believers have kept over the centuries.  All turned out to be some  type of bear DNA (and one dog).  So I’m thinking that Yetis are busted.

What’s your favorite mythical creature?

 

 

Business, holidays

Cyber Irony

21 Comments

I think we’ve pretty much determined that most of us aren’t big shoppers, so I’m assuming that if we didn’t give Black Friday much due then we would have the same attitude about Cyber Monday. At least there were fewer commercials.

Imagine my surprise to come home from work on Cyber Monday to find my mailbox FILLED with glossy catalogs. Every couple of years I fill out the No Junk Mail registry but clearly this is a task that needs doing a little more often.  Of all these catalogs, I have only purchased from two of them and one of those was over two years ago.  I haven’t even HEARD of a couple of these companies.  It was particularly disturbing to get TWO catalogs from one company on the same day.

The irony of getting a box full of catalogs on the day we should all be shopping online isn’t lost on me and it’s a little frightening to think of all these catalogs filling up our landfills at this time of year.

The chances that I might glance through some of these before they hit the recycling? Maybe 50%.  Chances that I will order anything because I got these catalogs?  Zero.

What irony is striking you this week?