Once September rolls around, I am all about decorating for Halloween. I saw a similar recycled book pumpkin project on Pinterest and couldn’t wait to try it.The hardest part of the project for me was selecting which book to use. ‘Defacing’ a book is downright sinful; however, I decided an old Fodor travel book on the Caribbean was expendable. If I return to the islands, I’ll buy a more up-to-date issue.Continue Reading
Archives for August 2013
Gosnell, Arkansas Murder: What Has Happened to Our Society?
What makes a seventeen-year-old boy strangle and shove an eleven-year-old girl off a bridge to her death?
Blytheville Courier News Jessica Williams |
(Click HERE to read the Blytheville Courier News story of this child’s death……)
There’s no sense trying to put our arms around it—we can’t, we shouldn’t. This should never, not in a million years, make sense to anyone.
But still we seek an answer, an explanation, a reason for such heinous activity. We need to understand in hopes it will never happen again.
I certainly have no answers. I’m merely an ex-banker, a would-be writer, a farmer’s daughter who grew up riding her John Deere bicycle from daybreak to well past sunset only fifteen miles from Big Lake where this incident occurred Tuesday. The underlying horror of this story is that these sickening incidents have become almost commonplace. Different atrocious details, different state, different people, similar results.
This one happens to be close to home.
Mississippi County residents are rattled to the core. I imagine the parents in Gosnell and Blytheville and Burdette and Luxora and Keiser and Osceola and Wilson are holding their babies closer, looking for answers, saying extra prayers and hoping to God this doesn’t happen to their family.
Everyone wonders why.
Why do humans no longer have moral compasses?
Does this happen over time as society becomes completely desensitized by movies and video games?
Does this happen because parents are spread thin simply trying to survive day to day, often in one parent households? Are children raised by television babysitters and schools already stretched paper thin?
Is there a complete lack of control—with parents, schools, government, food, television…everything, everywhere?
This is not a post about God or lack of God. This is about lack of common decency. No one gives a thought to consequences. Often there are none.
Miley Cyrus twerks on prime time television, and this is breaking news. People are outraged by her behavior yet spend four days and nights watching her YouTube video and googling her name rather than having a dinner conversation around the supper table with their own kids.
I don’t even know what twerking is.
I feel sick.
talya
My Normal Life.
And just like that…..vacation is over.
If only I could bottle vacation anticipation… I’d place it on my bathroom shelf, pull it out when I need new air to breathe, rub a little vacation nectar on my temples like lavender essential oil to summon peace and relaxation that only comes from change of scenery. No television. No life interruptions.
Sea gulls sail overhead.
Hypnotic ocean views hold me spellbound.
Fresh salmon with strawberry salsa for dinner…
All the planning and thinking and build-up disappears into a wave of Texas heat and a busted suitcase held together by duct tape. Yet for a few days, life felt different.
While I’m still half-snoozing on west coast time, John is up and out the door headed back to work. I’m grateful to be home with the smelly laundry. I drink coffee and drag through my first post-vacation day while the puffy circles underneath my eyes sloooowly deflate.
Maybe I’ll edit a short story. And pay a few bills. Those bills always lurk in the imposing stack of after-vacation mail.
A neighbor, out for her morning walk, waves to me.
A cardinal swoops across the pool and lands on the fencepost.
Lucy and Annabelle follow on my heels, curl at my feet…
As life quickly returns to normal, I realize my normal is damn good.
A cardinal swoops across the pool and lands on the fencepost.
Lucy and Annabelle follow on my heels, curl at my feet…
As life quickly returns to normal, I realize my normal is damn good.
talya
Musical Pairing:
Blind Melon – No Rain