Take a walk, choose love

 

Wordsmith gives this word today…rather appropriate

auspicate

MEANING:

verb tr.: To begin an undertaking, especially with a ceremony intended to bring good luck.

The Breakfast Place in Swannanoa. My friend treated me to breakfast a few weeks ago when she needed a ride from dropping her car off to be fixed.

Good hardy breakfast, being enjoyed by a lot of single older men...and  decorated for Christmas all year long!

A recently renovated home in downtown Black Mountain. the brick driveway gives you a clue as to the luxury it will have.

While next door is a new home built on a steep slope, which isn't evident until you drive to the other side of it..t.

 Erigeron eximius, splendid daisy

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

RITA DOVE  Before and after - Habitat sent a young woman, Elizabeth, and a young man, Rick. They carted both these dressers, a bookcase and an antique oak dining room table out to their truck. They don’t take beds just the frames. So it will be sent to dump via city pick up.

 The cluttered shelf comes apart completely.

Happy Father's Day

Where would be best to post a wish to all the fathers for their special day?  Of course here, where I bring my ancestors to share in celebration of their lives.

So my wishes go to my sons, Marty,and Russ, who have fathered 6 children between them. Thanks for making me a grandmother!

Russ

Marty

And to Doug and David, for giving me my sons...good fathering in those gifts.   

Doug, thanks for all you have done for our amazing wonderful men.   

Doug

You really missed the boat, David, for not sticking around to be a father! 

Thinking of my own father, George, what a gentle person, and how his fathering must have been hard at times.  I was certainly a child to test his patience.  But I loved learning little tricks of creativity from him as he worked in his "shop" in the basement in evenings after a full day's work.

Then I must also remember his father, also George, who was a sweet, intelligent and talented person.  He supported his sons who grew into men, as well as built several houses from the ground up.   He also kept track of some genealogy in the 50s which kept it available for the next generations.

George Rogers, Sr.

How about his father too? He was W. Sam, and died before he had a chance to raise his children.  Another single mother who stepped into the role of both parents, and had her husband's sister and brother-in-law become guardians of her children.  I don't know why or how that happened, or what it meant to my grandfather.

I will stop here, before investigating my mother's father, Bud, who also died young.  Do I give credit to Frederick who only lived 3 years after he became a step-father, and never got around to adopting her? Her mother was a single-mom much of her life also.

There are so many things we have as reminders of our own choices in our lives when we look at ancestors.

There haven't been that many of my own ancestors who were warriors.  Some were in the Civil War, the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War... those who died in conflicts, or maybe lived beyond them to raise their families.  

I think there's definitely a strain of courage that shows in my family's fathers...as well as the great burden of responsibility for their families.  I hope the joys that children and mothers can share have proved worth it for them all.  

I believe they were all creative men who built with their hands as well as their hearts, structures in which to live as well as relationships which survived beyond their own lives.

Thank you, Daddy.