Laura Benedict's Blog, page 23
March 30, 2017
The Ants Are Coming!
(My favorite flowers. I love to see their lush, decadent blooms come full spring.)
Do you know what these are? They are peonies. (This pic is from a year or two ago–this year’s batch hasn’t even leafed out yet.) Do you know what loves peonies? Ants. Ants adore peonies. If you look closely at peony buds, you’ll notice ants crawling over them like travelers over little white globes. Aren’t they busy, busy little things. Folk wisdom says that peonies need to be worked by ants so they can bloom...
The Ants Are Coming!
(My favorite flowers. I love to see their lush, decadent blooms come full spring.)
Do you know what these are? They are peonies. (This pic is from a year or two ago–this year’s batch hasn’t even leafed out yet.) Do you know what loves peonies? Ants. Ants adore peonies. If you look closely at peony buds, you’ll notice ants crawling over them like travelers over little white globes. Aren’t they busy, busy little things. Folk wisdom says that peonies need to be worked by ants so they can bloom...
March 29, 2017
Interview: Amanda Stevens, Queen of Things Southern and Spooky
Amanda Stevens is a terrific writer, and an all-around sweetheart. Those are two great reasons to like her, but a close third is her subject matter: she knows how to thrill with her spooky, suspenseful tales. The Awakening, is her just-out new novel, the latest installment in her Graveyard Queen saga. She tells me it may be the last we’ll see of the Graveyard Queen series, at least for a while. I love this series, and you will, too. But I also can’t wait to learn about the next project ...
More Things On Heaven and Earth: Mysterious Radio
(Surreal sky)
Sometimes I think that without my husband and kids, my non-literary entertainment would probably be limited to book research, playing the piano, watching endless reruns of Poirot, Midsomer Murders, and listening to whatever non-comedic random radio show is playing on Sirius XM’s Radio Classics (and I only have Sirius because it came with my car, and who knows how to discontinue it…). Husband has a voracious mind. He’s an early adopter of every kind of technology, and has an...
March 27, 2017
Sudden Extravagance
Today, I looked up from my desk (which I hadn’t left all day) at 6:45 pm, and saw extreme magic outside my window. What does one do when one sees extreme magic? Why you must grab the fancy camera and shoot it.
(Delicious colors)
(Trees and clouds reaching into the water)
(Bold color. I could eat it up.)
(Deer!)
(Hillside leading up to meadow)
(Spring is really here!)
March 27th Words
Journal: 0 words
Long fiction: (edited 90 pages)
Short fiction: 0
Non-fiction: 0...
March 26, 2017
Permission Granted: You Don’t Have to Finish That Terrible Book You’re Reading
Do you feel compelled to finish a book, even if you’re not enjoying it? I used to, but no longer. I got angry with books I didn’t like because I felt that once I started reading, I was committed to reading until the bitter end. Talk about pressure–pressure on myself, and pressure on the poor book. Maybe it’s because I was born into one of the last generations in which we were required/shamed into finishing all the food on our plates. Finishing was a big deal so there wasn’t any waste, and the...
March 25, 2017
Sunday, 26 March 2017
(Human Beings, by Yamaguchi Gen, 1953, Japan)
There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.
–Helen Frankenthaler
In describing this piece, Gen said that the figures are a man and a woman, but do not represent any particular country or race. Our creativity has no sex or gender or politics. Creativity doesn’t have any fears. It’s the expression of our souls, and it can be anything. You can be c...
March 24, 2017
Saturday Serendipity, 25 March 2017
Lots of critter stories this week, and the dress search continues…
Cancer-sniffing dogs are so amazing: a study with a 100% accuracy rate.
Literature by the Numbers: No surprise that James Patterson is an overachiever when it comes to clichés, and James Joyce loved exclamation points. Fun with lit statistics.
If you attach your happiness to future outcomes, you’ll live in disappointment for your entire life. Wisdom at tinybuddha.com this week.
March 23, 2017
An Almost Lost Work Day
(My Paris mug is perfect for the French press, yes?)
Time for a bit of a ramble:
Sometimes I think I got a double dose of the Mom Gene. Or maybe it’s that touch of co-dependency that I’ve been working so hard to divest–but I feel compelled to get up and see my 17 year-old off to school each morning. As an ADHD mom with an ADHD child, I have a ton of empathy, so I find myself querying him on whether he has his license, cash for lunch, homework, etc before he walks out the door. And today he wa...
March 22, 2017
Random Deliciousness: White Bean Chicken Chili
Around here, we had winter back in November, spring last week, a brief reappearance of winter over the weekend, and summer on Monday. I’m not sure where that leaves us here at the end of March. But I do know that chili season is quickly slipping away. At least until next November, anyway. It’s not that I don’t make chili all year ’round. It’s just that I don’t make it as frequently in the warmer months. We are generally a Cincinnati Chili family, as I’m from Cincinnati. My son has come up wit...
