Plaasabilities

When I was a kid I had a favorite poem, The Swing, by Robert Louis Stevenson. How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside-- Till I look down on the garden green, Down on the roof so brown-- Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down ! Back then I could often be found in the backyard giving the swingset a workout, usually while singing my favorite church songs at the top of my lungs. Childhood joys are so simple, aren't they? Now, decades later, some things haven't changed. I still love to go up in the air so blue, but now I drive a car to the top of the Smokies where I can see over the rock walls to the streams and green valleys below. My feet may be firmly planted on the mountaintop, but my spirit is flying -- up in the air and down! And yes, I...

Rosebay Rhododendron (R. maximus) at The Sinks. Little River Road, Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2014 Kristina Plaas, All Rights Reserved Some days it's all I can do simply to hope that tomorrow won't be a repeat of today. Of course that doesn't always happen, some things by their very nature are repetitive. We never mind when nice things repeat themselves, but it's those not-so-nice things that we'd rather not experience over and over again. Today was about staying home and doing those repetitive chores that I dislike -- laundry, dishes, mopping floors, more laundry, sorting through piles of stuff and tossing out what is unnecessary, hauling trash out to the dumpster, more laundry. Just when I thought I had a task completed something would happen and I'd end up redoing part of what I had just completed. Grumble, grumble, sigh. It can't be helped, I know, but I still sigh. In my weariness and frustration I was trying to decide what I should e...