Plaasabilities

In the Christmas movie classic It's a Wonderful Life, Clarence, the angel, tells George Bailey (aka Jimmy Stewart) that "no man is a failure that has friends." When life gets hard you find out who your real friends are. You know the ones -- the people who call or text you just to see how you are doing, the ones who just show up with loving words and generous hugs, the ones who are happy when you call them at 11 PM or 6 AM because you're life is falling apart and you need someone to reassure you that things will be OK, and the ones that take you away from your troubles for a morning and surround you with love and laughter. I'm very grateful to have such friends, including the lovely women who took me hiking in the Smokies today. Thank you all so much!

Middlin' Middle Prong Little River, Tremont Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost, 1923 As a nature lover and photographer I eagerly await the first hints of buds emerging from the trees in early spring. I adore the bright, cheery green trees in the Smokies in April. That green evolves to a deep, velvety hue as summer progresses then, before you know it, hints of gold show up in early September. It's just a tease, of course, as the richest red and golds won't show up until late October. It's futile to wish those rich hues would remain. Fall always has it's way as wind, rain, and snow turn the golds to brown and down, down, down they come. Gone. The gold is gone. The leaves ar...