Thank you dear friends for your thoughts, concerns, and prayers.  We are definitely improving, but still are taking medicines to help us win over the bronchitis we've been fighting for the past (Mom - 3, Me-2)  weeks.  Now on to more pleasant things!      We definitely are seeing signs of spring!  Warmer weather, much more greenery - trees,  grass, shrubs ... lots more colorful flowers, and today I walked out onto my front porch and looked up to see the birds nest that had been atop of our pipe going up to the roof has a whole family of baby birds in it! (I'm sorry that I couldn't take a better picture of the family for you to see them really well.)  

During National Poetry Month  (APRIL), there were many things that happened that I wanted to blog about, but just didn't have time.  My birthday was on April 14th, & while it wasn't a "BIG" birthday, my family really went BIG with the gifts! This was the first birthday that Mom was with us, and so I'm sure that was part of her "BIG" gifts.  From Mom came two BIG gifts.  One of the gifts is a brand new refrigerator with French-doors, with a large freezer under the fridge. (This has helped since there are five adults living in our home!)  :-)  A second gift from Mom was just planted in the past two weeks (since I've been sick). Our neighbor had to wait for some decent weather to plant it, and she did a beautiful job! It is seen in the next photo. It will one day be a flaming  red bush!  The BIG gift from my husband was planned and then ordered  last month; then for the past 3 days we

 have been watching the progress of the gift being built around the front porch. So ... here is a collage with the "before" & "after" pictures. It really changes the way our home looks!  Our new friend/helper/ house cleaner hadn't been to our home since we had been sick ... and actually drove past us!  Our blue goose had to move to the other side of the porch, but she at least helps folks to find our home ... how many people have a blue goose, after all?  Hope-fully we'll have a better picture of the whole front of the house with the porch addition once we have planted flowers & set other items like chairs on the porch.

Did anyone else have some nasty thunderstorms, heavy rain, hail, and flash flooding last night? The last picture is what I viewed from inside my house. As I looked out the front door, I saw a new look ... plus hail!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In closing, I've put a quote that I put as my FB cover ... after having read that same quote as part of my devotional meditations one day.  It is a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.   

 I John 4:18-19  "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.  We love him, because he first loved us."  Blessings to you all of my friends!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been keeping busy since my last post.  I've been at meetings, written up minutes, had dental surgery, I've been to a bridal shower,  a missionary shower, 2 weddings (one was actually last month), taken Mom to Urgent Care & then to her doctor for bronchitis, & now I myself have bronchitis (yes, 2nd time in less than two months).  Here's a few pictures of the things mentioned.

Niece's wedding & time with our younger son, DIL, & 2 younger grandchildren. (Oldest on was in a karate tournament, in which she won a 1st, a 2nd, & a 3rd prize.)

Next is from the other wedding we attended, which was my former private student, Nicole.  The other couple in the professional photo are long-time friends of ours who shared a table with us.

 The last pictures I am posting are gifts from Mother's Day (& Grandma's Day, too).   Mom also received some beautiful flowers, so you can see we've been enjoying the outside brought inside our home! (The 2nd & 3rd photo collages)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you around on Xanga!

My old laptop has been giving me problems throughout April, and so we decided to replace it. We just picked it up about three hours ago, and it is so wonderful to have a good reliable computer again!!

Prompt # 28: Growth.  This is two poem styles in one. The first one is both a "picture poem" and also an "acrostic."  (Both are to be read from the bottom of the poem on up to the top.)

HEIGHTS  

TO new

WIDENING

 OUT

 REACHING

 GRADUALLY

© cjj – 2014

 

Prompt # 29: Conceit.  This is an epitaph (like what is found on a tombstone), & my own little poem here follows a rhyme pattern of - AABB, & has 6 syllables per line.

 

© cjj – 2014

 Prompt # 30: Patience. This final poem is a Kyrielle.                    

A kyrielle is written in rhyming couplets or quatrains. It has a refrain in the 2nd line of the couplet, or if written in a quatrain as mine is, the refrain is in the fourth line of each stanza. The entire line does not need to be used in the refrain.  Each line within the poem consists of only eight syllables. There is no limit to the number of stanzas a Kyrielle may have, but two or three is considered the accepted minimum.

 

Patience we're told is a virtue.

For this, Job is cited you know,

And Moses was patient, too.

First Place: GOD! He loves to bestow --

Patience, a fruit of His Spirit.

Through trials our patience will grow,

For God promises strength, so don't quit!

Patience is God's gift to bestow.

 © cjj – 2014

         Here's a resource for many of the pictures, picture lines, animations, etc. that I use which are free to use!   If you aren't familiar with it, it has a HUGE number of resources which can be used on your blog.

I have been learning patience as I have been working on my defective laptop this past month. I'm so thankful that we were able to get this new one. I have plenty of things to blog about from the month of April, but will do so gradually now. I want to have a permanent reminder with my pictures and narrative of what all happened in April, 2014.

A huge thanks to Val for her National Poetry Month prompts, and for her continual, faithful reading and encouraging of all of us who tried to use the prompts for prose, poetry, pictures, jokes, etc.