A turbulent week

A pink trillium, almost gone

In the middle of this picture is a pink (dying) trillium, captured last Thursday on our hike to Lookout Mountain. They are pretty and white, these three-petaled flowers, until they are on their last legs, and they turn pink, then purple, and after that drop those petals onto the ground, waiting for next year's springtime to rejuvenate the next batch of three-petaled flowers. It takes a minimum of seven years for a trillium plant to finally flower at all, once they begin their journey to reproduce themselves, and each plant has only one flower each year.

It was truly a lovely week hiking in the wilderness this past week. On Tuesday, we went on a five-ish mile hike in the Hundred Acre Woods and over to the Chuckanut Falls overlook, in mild temperatures and in great company. Then, on Thursday, I joined the Senior Trailblazers Happy Wanderers group to hike around at least eight miles on Lookout Mountain. Both hikes did two things for my health: one, some elevation and exercise, and two, wonderful companions to visit with, enjoy and (in some cases) commiserate with. Both nighttime sleeps afterwards allowed me plenty of deep sleep to repair my aging body for yet more exercise in the late springtime environs around town.

I am happy and content in my life, although the world news brings me down if I let myself get too wrapped up in it. I try to keep myself engaged in positive pursuits so I don't lose perspective of all the wonderful moments I can enjoy every day.

And you know what today is? Mother's Day! Although my mother has been gone for more than thirty years, she is still very much present in my daily life. I think of her often and sometimes feel like I can even hear her voice, her laugh. And sometimes I realize it's just me laughing in the same way she did.

I want to say a little something that's long overdue, the disrespect to women has got to be through. To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends, I wanna offer my love and respect till the end. —Adam Yauch

My mother was a force to be reckoned with. She bore seven children and took care of us all, over the years, and must have read almost every book in every library we lived near. She literally would bring boxes of books home after each visit, and she would then sit down and go through each one, sometimes reading just a little of it (if it wasn't all that interesting) and other times read every single word and absorb every picture. I learned to appreciate how important reading is to one's education.

These days, my reading is mostly on my Kindle, because as my eyes age with macular degeneration, I can only spend a short time reading before words blur and I must stop for awhile. I can read on laptop and computer screens for longer, because the bright light behind the letters seems to help. Even then, I must stop for longer and longer periods of time to let my eyes recover. This is not a complaint, just an observation. I am an octogenarian, after all. The fact that I am still very active and my brain seems to be intact are causes for celebration.

Last week, I discovered a glitch on my other blog. Apparently I have a "corrupt post" that has caused my right sidebar to navigate to the bottom of my posts. I read everything about how to fix it, but so far I am unsuccessful. If you are reading my DJan-ity blog and want to "fix" it for the moment, you can click on the blog's title and the sidebar will magically appear where it's supposed to be. I will get this fixed, but it's not high on my to-do list. If anybody has any ideas, I'm listening. In the meantime, it's just another one of those little nuisances that tend to crop up when you're least expecting it.

And then there is that magnetic storm from the Sun that has caused incredible auroras to be visible much farther south on the continent than usual. I went to my favorite Facebook page, Seeing Bellingham, and marveled over the pictures that many regular readers captured of the last two nights of magnificent auroras. I didn't even try to stay up myself, because I was busy catching up on my sleep! And I figured that others would be up snapping pictures to share; I was right.

My mama and me

And on this wonderful, sunny, beautiful Mother's Day 2024. I can say that I am so happy to be alive right now, relatively healthy and active, and know that without a doubt the world will one day settle down into peace and tranquility. Until that day comes, I will do my best to facilitate it, from my own little corner of the world. And that world radiates out to so many places through this post, into your own little corner of the world, and we can surely feel the love we share. Dear friends, I wish you every good thing and hope to "see" you here again next week. Until then, be well.