If it is too hot for you, take a look at some cool pictures

A few months back, Dick and Sandy Mitchner of Haywood County, NC sent me some cool pictures of snow in their neighborhood and I thought with the hot weather of summer burning our necks, these

scenes might cool us off. I love the dog below who isn't sure she goes for all the cold wet stuff.The trees are glass scupltures, dainty and fragile like the tiny angels I've seen on counters of gift shops in tourist towns like Waynesville.

This pup is an adventurer, and he is barking furiously, begging his people to come on out in the snow and play with him. Who could resist this face?

In my mind, I'm going to Carolina in the winter time.

Come go with me.

Twenty Ten - planning ahead

Today I received my contract from John C. Campbell Folk School for a class I'm planning to teach in December 2010. Imagine, twenty-ten. That is next year and already I have plans for December. This class will be for folks who want to write their Christmas Stories. Don't we all have stories of Christmases past? I know I do.

The book published last year by Catawba Press, Christmas Presence, will be our text for this class. I am sure my students who often come from distant states will enjoy the Appalachian stories in this book.


The class I planned to teach in July at Tri-County College in Murphy NC had to be cancelled due to my husband's illness, but I hope we can hold that class in the fall of 2009. A number of former students had registered and I must ask their forgiveness but I know they understand.

Planning ahead is something I've always done. I keep a calendar and mark all important dates, but for over a year my life has been as uncertain as a summer thunder storm. I don't know what is coming, but I do see clouds gathering on the horizon. In the past I'd have closed all the windows, taken the clothes off the line, and called my dog inside.

Today, I look at those thunderheads forming and say to myself, they will blow over. I have no fear.

A picture is worth a thousand words, it’s true. This is me, yesterday, after spending a week sleeping in a hard chair that makes into a hard cot.

Today, after a shower, after I shampooed my hair, and changed clothes, this could be me..

Water is a healing force that washes away stress, soothes our rumpled minds and un-kinks the knots of fear that climb up our backs and clamp on to the tendons in our necks.

If I could I'd head for this pool, one of my favorite places, winter and summer. I'd slip into the warmth of this oasis in the middle of my frazzzled world and wash away worries, refresh my senses and clean my lungs of the chemicals worn by almost every person I meet.