Finished reading Possession by A.S. Byatt

So good! It took me about a month, even with the help of audio playing in my car to and from work, but it was so worth it and a great reminder to me how important and necessary reading is for my mental health. For one thing, I keep learning new words for my ABC lists - even when I don't complete them and decide to move on, like I will today, because another one has begun forming in my brain and in my journal early this morning. So, without further adieu, here is today's - technically yesterday's - ABCs. Many are words from Possession - there were so many luscious ones, I've actually been spreading them out throughout posts for weeks now.... Others are things I did, or saw, or learned about on Friday, August 10th. Hope you enjoy :)

Abeyance : a lapse in succession during which there is no person in whom a title is vested
Books and Baking
Coppiced : to cut back so as to regrow in the form of a coppice
Doing what needs to be done
Eidolon : an unsubstantial image : phantom
Felicitous : very well suited or expressed  : pleasant, delightful
Good dinner
Hummock : a rounded knoll or hillock
I am...
Just chillin'
Ken heading back to Northwest
Love in the Time of Cholera was my Friday night movie - thank you PRAXIS bunny :)
Multifarious : having or occurring in great variety : diverse
New students arriving at Meredith...
  Obedient Plant


Proserpine
Quiet inside
Rain
Sluicing
Tumescence
Understanding
Versifying
Whilst
X Y Z

Hope2012: A Blog Relay

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul.

And sings the tune

Without the words,

and never stops at all."

Emily Dickinson

(1830 - 1886)

This quote has always reminded me of my sister Susan, because it was the one she used next to her Senior picture in our high school yearbook. 1977. The year her oldest daughter was born. Susan was a cheerleader, dating the captain of the football team and Kristen was born January 10, 1977. I am sure Susan knew she was pregnant when she chose the quote. In fact, I've always know and remembered more about her during that time than she would ever suspect. It had to have been one of the most trying times of her life, and I know all to well how much she needed and felt she did not get the support of her parents during that most difficult time. Except... she did. Tough love. Our parents were of course frustrated, at a loss, disappointed even. Everyone held great HOPE for Susan to go to college, perhaps major in Art. she had fantastic grades and could have done anything. She did. She chose to HOPE for the best in a life with Anthony. She chose love. She chose life. She chose Kristen Marie Lidestri who is now 35 and has a lovely daughter of her own.

When people ask what I write, I do not say I am writing my memoir because if truth be told, I'd much rather write the stories of my siblings as seen through my eyes because I'm pretty sure it is the only way for them to know how much I have loved and respected their choices through the years. I am the 4th of 6, and have found hope and inspiration in everyone of them. Yes, I've told them, and shown them, but I am probably the "fluffiest" of us, so I don't know for certain if they know the depth of my admiration.
In short, my sibling have always given me HOPE.

The ABCs that follow comprise SOME of the things that have giving me hope, or tried to dash it....

Antoinette's Art

Beware

Carefully Consider....

Danger....

Expectation is pretty much the opposite of hope. Think about it.

Feathers

Galvanic Gratitude

Handwriting

Ironic Inspiration

Just keep swimming
Kenya Johnson's Challenge

Law family's Lessons

Many

Nieces and Nephews

One of 6 children

Penmanship

Quotes

Requirements

Spite

Team sports

Unrelenting Urges

Various Vagaries

Wishes & Waves

Xeric garden

You CAN do it!!!

Zest and Zeal

Additional quote August 18th from The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
"Hope, how she'd grown to hate the word. It was an insidious seed planted inside a person's soul, surviving covertly on little tending, then flowering so spectacularly that none could help but cherish it. It was hope, too, that prevented a person taking counsel from experience" (398).

Back to Basics - I mean ABCs of course!

An austere style of writing

Biophilial

Cuppa: as in a cup of tea. A real word, esp. in the book I am reading
Dint, as in "When a fruiting happens in our lives there is a temptation to think that we, and we alone, by dint of hard, concentrated work have made it happen. But is that true? Weren’t we given the inspiration for our idea in the first place, and then given the energy to act on it? Weren’t we given the people that helped us as well as the beneficial circumstances to bring about a fruition? Wasn't an invisible goodness and joy in creation with us all the way? ~ Gunilla Norris
Exquisite Forgotten Garden

Glimpsing
Honor
Intuition
Jennifer: Thank you for...
Kiddnapping me for...
Lunch!
Much appreciated

Nature

Oasis

Plouts - plum-apricot hybrid

Quiet
R
Stalwart
Taut