My Grand Backyard

" Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore."

But these photos of my latest hike will make you believe this is indeed Kansas. Instead, it is my grand backyard...a hiking trail just 2 miles from my house, the Callippe Preserve Hiking Trail.

This spring has brought rain at just the right time to create these beautiful

golden colored, head high grasses carpeting the hills around Pleasanton.

The yellow flowers are everywhere this year!

Now you can see Callippe Preserve Golf Course in the background. 

It is a tough but beautiful course far from the madding crowds and city traffic.

Running Wild

Yesterday I headed out for a hike,
camera in hand,
…look what I ran into...

From Pleasanton, I headed over to Holdener Park in Livermore…

babies seem to be in bloom.

Add caption

Baby Llama

Fun!

The Tree of Life

Happy Easter!

I'm sharing a photo of the "tree of life" I

made -- this winter I found tiger wood branches that I secured into a vintage Christmas tree stand. I started making tons of butterflies and attached them to the branches.  Later on I decided to surrounded the stand with a hat box that I covered in spring like fabric. I filled the hat box with paper flowers I have made over the past months.

The tree is "planted" in our family room and we get to see it everyday…the tree of life.

My Tree of Life

This is an echo of the butterflies on our wall.

May God bless you richly with the wonders of His Life and Love

planted deep in your heart.

"Wow &Thank You!"

It's Spring.
Maybe not on the calendar, but written on my heart and
splayed across the landscape, it reads New Life everywhere.

Now a hike in the hills draws up the delicate fragrances of
tender green grasses mingled with bay leaves.

Maidenhair ferns drip down the sides of stoney walls
and Miner's Lettuce leaves fill in all the empty spaces in between.

Perky pink and white shooting star flowers stand next to sun brightened johnny jump up blossoms, interrupting the constant green carpet that seems to go on forever. 

The call to passers by is "Stop, sit, look and wonder".
It's Spring.
New life is everywhere
Blatant,
Fresh,
Unadultered,
What else can I say, but "Wow & Thank you!"

I'm Not Participating

Sorry New World, I don't have a smart phone. I don't text. I only have a cheap flip phone. I don't know how to text on a flip phone. It doesn't work.

I am not on Facebook or Linkdin and I don't tweet. I am bored with Pintrest.

I'm not walking through the woods with my family like the guy I saw today only looking at his smart phone. Not talking to his 2 sweet kids….not observing anything of the beautiful world around him…only addicted to his smart phone. I'm not doing that. I'm not getting a tattoo. I'm not voting. I'm not getting angry at people who do get tattoos or do vote pro gay marriage or who do have smart phones or have five kids out of wedlock. I don't care if you insist on the world only eating vegan blue cheese dressing for $4.59. I'm not participating. I'm eating what I want.

I'm not eating organic anything.

I refuse to buy organic at 2x the price of ordinary plain and wonderful food.

I can't listen to the news on the radio or the TV. It's not news it's propoganda. I'm embarrassed at the poor knowledge and education and fear mongering of the tela-prompter readers.

I'm not into the "man causing global warming" mantra. I don't care if Russia and Ukraine blow each other apart. I can't stop it. I can't think about it when I go to bed at night.

I can do this: love my husband, love that God put us together. love that I have a home that keeps me warm. Appreciate the very next door neighbors that I have prayed for to move in and who in fact did to become my wonderful friends. I can make paper butterflies and walk in the hills and work on my putting and chipping and stand out in the backyard and BBQ and plan for my neighborhood parties with kids and moms and dads in our little park.

I'm picking peace of mind and spirit and soul.

I'm not participating in the way the world seems to be headed.

Sorry, I just can't do it.

Loving Life

An Editorial I submitted to Pleasanton Weekly which seems to be timely again in light of California Legislature addressing the issue of legalizing assisted suicide:

Something is wrong with this picture: When Streetwise (Pleasanton Weekly)
asked passersby near Kaiser Permanente if they thought health care companies should be “required” to provide birth control. Not only did 4/5 people want 100%
“free” coverage, but they also had no qualms in sharing their views of
unexpected pregnancies:  “Unwanted children would be a burden for
everyone. Unwanted pregnancies are a problem”. 

I want to address this
stated concern about “unwanted” human beings being a burden, and
therefore not worthy of existing. I guess you could call me a “problem
for everyone” because I was an unexpected baby. My parents never
shared their wedding date with me and never celebrated an anniversary.
Was I conceived out of wedlock? Was I unwanted? A sudden burden? A
problem? Maybe to some minds I was. (Before "the pill", most children
were unplanned and unexpected). 

In any case,  I’m here and I love my unexpected life.  

I have been blessed to be a high school teacher in Australia and Pleasanton. 

I have been inspired to start fundraisers for brain injured children and
our nations wounded warriors, to start a cooking school, become a
dietitian and diabetes educator.  I’ve been married once and for 34
years to the most wise and generous man I have ever known. I’ve been
healthy enough to run thousands of miles and explore hundreds of
backcountry miles in the Sierra. 

In short, I have loved my life, unexpected as it was to my parents. 

I have never had to enroll for
food stamps, welfare, Medical or any other public monies which could
be defined as “burdensome” to society—which is evidently the expected
journey for unwanted pregnancy candidates. 

Unplanned though I was and again counter to expectations for the unplanned human, I have never been on drugs, in debt or arrested. It seems more than foolish for
others to automatically decide that any life that comes to life
“unplanned” is destined to be a burden, a problem, and ultimately a
life that should be ended before it begins. 

The slope is getting very slippery for those “unwanted” and inevitably
“burdensome” at the end of life’s spectrum. Thank God he DOES have a
plan, a plan for every child conceived, a better plan than any one of
us could ever dream or imagine.

February 14th Flowers

Happy Valentine's Day 

...from my garden to yours!