Magnolia Blossom

Hey Y'all,

What a nice way to spend Mother's Day not only with people I love but also in a little piece of paradise. Many thanks to Stuart and Paige for inviting us for a true vacation. We all got to Santa Rosa Beach - the Blue Mountain part as I understand it - yesterday afternoon before the storms that raged during the night and on into morning began. But now the skies are clear and blue, the sun is brightening everything, and I can see the emerald and turquoise sea from the deck. I love the picture-book, three story yellow house with pretty gardens that will be home for the week. The inside is both comfortable and pretty, mostly blue and sunny yellows with beautiful beachy motif and art. Here's a pic from the morning.

My Day

This afternoon I paid to spend some time with one of my favorite people, my massage therapist. As he pulls and presses on my trouble spots, we talk and philosophize. We are in agreement about most things, therefore I find him remarkably wise! Earlier today I painted my way through my last watercolor class for now. It has been so much fun to have had three hours set aside once a week to play with paper, pencils, and paints. Lately I have even felt that I am getting the hang of it. I will be taking some art supplies with me when we go to the Gulf Coast next week.

Hoverflies

Hoverflies are cute little insects. In the bottom pic, it is stretching it legs and using its arms to gather pollen.

In Remembrance

Sometimes it seems that most of the  topics I think of blogging about are all comparisons with the way things are now to the way things used to be. American society has changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime. The years afford me - and others who have lived to this ripe age - the ability to look back and pinpoint when, I believe, certain things started to change, things such as our values and the way we live our lives, things I could not have envisioned would have had such a profound impact on future generations. I cannot say that it is all to the better. As a child of the happy Fifties, I find the deterioration sad. People who were born a generation or more after me do not know what has been lost. They blithely accept the expectations that come with their generation, not knowing there have been better ways The list of societal changes is long and invades all aspects of our culture, and change is inevitable, but we have lost a lot of what worked well.