Caleigh O'Shea's Blog, page 42

Sunday’s Gem — Clear Quartz

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

Composed of one part silicon and two parts oxygen (silicon dioxide), Clear Quartz (from the Greek “krystallos,” or “ice”) was once thought to be made from water frozen too hard to ever melt.

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Quartz cluster, thanks to http://www.soulfulcrystals.co.uk

The most abundant mineral on Earth’s surface, Quartz is found in all varieties of rock and at all temperatures. A 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness (1-10), Quartz is used in the making of glass, as an abrasive, as foundry sand, and in hydraulic fracturing. Quartz crystals make oscillators for watches, TVs, electronic games, computers, cell phones, and GPS equipment.

Nearly every civilization, from Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Aztecs, and Scots, to African tribes and Native American Indians, has revered Quartz, using it for everything from healing and meditation to religious objects and magical enchantments.

There are many colors of Quartz — rose, smoky, blue, green, yellow, and so forth — but for our purposes here, we’ll be talking about the clear, or white, version often referred to as Rock Crystal.

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Tumbled Quartz crystals, thanks to http://www.healingcrystals.com

Just as white contains all the other colors, Quartz is called the “master healing crystal” and is used to treat nearly any condition, be it emotional or physical. From easing headaches and improving energy to speeding healing of wounds and stimulating the immune system, Quartz offers versatile help.

Take advantage of the power of Quartz by wearing jewelry made from Quartz gemstones, carrying a tumbled Quartz stone in your pocket, soaking in a bathtub with clear Quartz elixir added, or meditating while holding some Quartz.

Feng Shui practitioners believe that clear Quartz crystals should be placed in a window to disperse the sun’s energy throughout a room.

Clean your Quartz by soaking it in warm, soapy water; “program” it by leaving it awhile in natural sunlight or meditating with it.

Note: The claims here aren’t meant to take the place of medical advice. They’re based on folklore and other sources, and likely “work” best if one’s belief is strong enough!

Farewell to Fall

Autumn is the season of change. ~Taoist proverb

Anticipating a wicked storm followed by a cold front on Sunday evening, I decided to get in a walk so you all could enjoy what might be our last taste of Autumn this year.

Temps were in the low 70s (!) on Sunday, but fell to the 40s overnight. And while this hasn’t been the prettiest Fall we’ve had, it’s had its beauty. Take a look and see if you agree:

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Maple turning shades of yellow

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Becoming red and orange

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Somebody’s got some raking to do!

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Pretty in red

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Golden splendor

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This one had better hurry up!

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The Midas touch

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Another maple wearing a golden frock

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Spectacular Bradford pear

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Leafy lawn; leafy sidewalk

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Contrasting gold and crimson

Happy Halloween 2017

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. ~Samuel Butler, English author

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Seriously, Mama? Domer’s Karate Kid outfit?

This is the best you can come up with for my Trick or Treating costume?

Okay, fine. Now bring on the cookies!

Pretty Posies

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter

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I think Monet was onto something.

Perhaps all creative types thrive when surrounded by Nature’s beauty, whether it’s trees and flowers or seas and mountains.

For Central Illinois this year, Fall has been a bust. Precious little in the way of color and a sudden cold snap that promises to slap frost on the pumpkin before it’s time.

Usually our Falls are delightful: pleasant temperatures in the 60s by day, sunny cloudless skies, and low humidity.

Must be global warming.

Anyway, since winter’s chill is right around the corner, and I haven’t tired of watching these two geraniums bloom, I’ve decided to bring them indoors and keep them around longer.

Don’t laugh.

We tend to think of geraniums as annuals, but master gardeners call them tender perennials and say they can be overwintered inside with the proper light, water, and feeding.

See the fuchsia plant on the left above? Mostly through beginner’s luck, I managed to keep it alive last winter. When Spring arrived, I repotted it and hung it outside, right next to its new pink cousin.

‘Pink’ has offered a profusion of blooms, and I’d like to overwinter it, too.

To be successful, experts advise:

Starting with healthy plants. (Check)
Caring for them as houseplants — bright southern exposure, moderate 60- to 70-degree temperature. (Check)
Watering and fertiliing as needed. (Check)

Seems like all I need to do now is baby them a bit!

Of course there are other methods pf overwintering — rooting a cutting or letting the plant go dormant in a cool, dark place and drying up.

But if I can keep these beauties thriving in the dark dreary days of winter, they’ll brighten my living space immensely. Don’t you agree?

Haiku Times Two

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. ~Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher and writer

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Mr. Grasshopper,

What do you think you’re doing

Clinging to that wall?

Madam, I’m merely

Trying to see if this brick

Makes a sturdy house.

Walktober

Take nothing but your memories; leave nothing but your footprints.  — Native American Chief Seattle

I traveled to Douglas-Hart Nature Center in central Illinois for my Walktober, a group walk organized by Robin over at Breezes at Dawn. If you’d like to join in the fun, do so and link here so she can include you.

Comprising 65 acres of native Illinois prairie, woodland, and wetland, Douglas-Hart nature preserve is the brainchild of a Mattoon woman who envisioned turning farmland into a natural setting before the arrival of humans.

Through Helen Douglas-Hart’s foundation, people across the region can learn about nature, participate in hands-on educational programs, hike approximately two miles of groomed nature trails, explore a visitor’s center and library, and more.

Let’s get started on our hike!

First, look way up at these immense trees:

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Then glance down at this purple-colored undergrowth:

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Next is something they call a Bog Garden:

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The native grasses, sadly, are turning dormant at this time of year. They must have been splendid in the Spring and Summer, though:

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And see, volunteers have been busy making sure new grasses will soon proliferate:

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This is the Dragonfly Pond. I didn’t see any of them!

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What might look like a mess to us is Home Sweet Home to little critters:

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The gazebo offers a nice resting place, and you can see the wetlands behind it:

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Oh, look — these trees are showing some fall color:

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And so are these Oaks:

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The outdoor stage, I believe, is used for educational programs. School kids often travel to the center on field trips:

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I might be partial to this pond, which also features a floating dock that I was standing on:

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Did you enjoy our walk? I’d done 30 minutes on the treadmill beforehand, but there’s nothing quite like being outdoors to make you feel healthy and peaceful. I hope you agree!

 

Wednesday Limerick

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. ~Irish Proverb

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There once was a Sheltie named Dallas

Who thought he lived in a palace.

He ate and he slept,

And became most adept

At banishing signs of malice.

Counting Down

A writer only begins a book, it is the reader who completes it; for the reader takes up where the writer left off as new thoughts stir within him. ~David Harris Russell

That’s a writer’s hope anyway.

To inspire, entertain, encourage, motivate, and so on.

It doesn’t always happen. Writers and publishers know how illusory magic is, but books by the thousands still hit the shelves every year.

As a reader, I’m thrilled by that. As a writer — with a book debuting in less than two weeks — I’m overwhelmed.

And nervous.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my book. I wouldn’t have written it if I hadn’t.

It’s taken years to get it just the way I want. I’m proud of the effort, satisfied at completing the journey.

But what if others don’t like it?

At one time I thought I wouldn’t care. Realistically, you can’t please all the people all the time, and as a journalist, I often wrote things others disagreed with.

But this book is my baby, and the mom in me wants to wrap it in a protective blankie and shelter it from harm.

What if it gets scathing reviews? Or worse, NO reviews?

What if nobody buys it? Not that I’m expecting to get rich off it, but my publisher would like it to sell.

I have a few advance copies, one of which I shared with a friend of mine.

She loved it and shared it with a friend of hers, who wasn’t as enthusiastic.

Her comments stung for a bit, but she’s entitled to her opinion.

Maybe the kind of book I wrote really isn’t her cup of tea, and she was just reading it because our mutual friend encouraged her.

That happens. We all do more word-of-mouth buying than we think.

And, while part of me wonders how much promoting I should be doing, the other part is burying her head in the sand, writing the second book of the series.

Because, you know, that’s what writers do. We write.

Right Tool for the Job

No man is a failure who is enjoying life. ~William Feather, American publisher and author

When my sis and I were little, we got together with two kids next door and decided to dig to China.

We’d never been to China. We didn’t know anyone over there.

But it seemed like a worthwhile endeavor. Something we all could do without bothering our folks.

Armed with a small shovel, we commenced to turn over the earth in a spot somewhere along our adjoining property line.

When one got tired, another would take over.

Now it seems a shame to dig up perfectly good Kentucky Bluegrass on a whim, but back then, we had a goal.

Finding China.

What we were going to do when we found it was never considered.

So we pressed on.

The deeper we dug, the blacker the soil and the more interesting the creatures we found.

Lots of earthworms, probably wondering why four kids were interfering with their aereating.

As summer turned into fall and we all headed back to school, we abandoned the dig. It wouldn’t be long before we had to focus on homework and eventually, winter snow would make the soil too hard to remove with a mere shovel.

As I recall, the hole remained, testament to four kids’ ambitious hopes. It was perhaps a foot deep and no wider at its surface than another foot.

But we’d had fun, and none of our parents dared fill the hole.

Fast forward to today.

I looked outside and was surprised to find this parked at my curb:

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The city’s street department has been doing some work in our neighborhood.

Digging up huge slabs of street, repairing what’s beneath, pouring concrete, resurfacing with fresh oil and rock chips, and replacing some worn sidewalks along the way.

It’s an interesting process, but even more interesting was the sudden realization that we kids were doomed to fail at digging to China. We just didn’t have the right equipment.

We needed one of these thingamajigs instead!

That Golden Rule

Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. — Dale Carnegie, American writer

Dear Stranger:

Where do you get off criticizing me without having walked a few miles in my moccasins?

Before I started caregiving for my mom, I’d never given care to anybody.

Oh, sure, I tended plants, pets, and my son, but that’s different. Eventually, the plants died, the pets and son became self-sufficient, and my tasks ceased.

Caring for an aging parent is a full-time gig. Driving them to doctor’s appointments, the beauty shop, the bank. Picking up groceries or prescriptions. Escorting them to church or the accountant. Helping them with meal preparation. Tending the flowers they enjoy looking at.

You get the idea.

It also means full-time worries over them falling, making sure they take the right medicine at the right time, listening to a (yet another) recitation of their ailments, and getting them to the ER when they panic.

What it doesn’t come with is an instruction manual. Every case is different. The cared-for person expects a certain amount of help, and the caregiver seeks to please … within reason.

So why do perfect strangers feel compelled to sit in judgment over how I’m doing these tasks? Can’t they see this is the best I can do right now?

One evening, when I was helping Mom down the stairs after Mass, a woman criticized me for “going too fast.” Gee, I thought I was protecting Mom from being knocked over by the able-bodied parishioners racing to the parking lot.

And the other day when I was headed out of town, the woman who’d agreed to drive Mom to an appointment (and was getting paid to do so) demanded, “Where’s Debbie?”

Like I’m expected to be around 24/7 and not take a day off now and then.

My point is, instead of finding fault, why don’t you offer to lend a hand? Smile. Sympathize. Understand.

Even a compassionate “I admire you for trying” would be welcome.

Remember, one day you, too, might be the caregiver … or need someone to care for you.

Sincerely,

Debbie