11/11

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Karen (formerly kcinnova)

paper-thin petals
wars fought, lives fraught, HONOR
remembrance today
haiku by me

V is for…

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Karen (formerly kcinnova)

Count your blessings, name them one by one…

I’m using Thursday posts to focus on thankfulness — and instead of counting blessings, I’m challenging myself to come up with them alphabetically. (You can find the rest of the posts in this series here.)

I’m barely getting this one in “under the wire” — at the 11th hour and then some! — but here it is…

Welcome to V week!

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V is for Vacation. Oh, yes, I am thankful for vacations. Aren’t you?

Montana vacation destination

I hadn’t planned to be absent from blogging, but as cliché as it seems, I’ve been really busy. Work comes to mind as the biggest consumer of the time I formerly referred to as “free time.” I’m still wrapping my brain around the fact that I have a regular job after 22 years as a SAHM. Admittedly, some of my time has been spent doing fun things with different groups of ladies: a scrapbooking day (10 hours of nearly non-stop work on my Europe album), a beading & card-making weekend, a women’s retreat with some ladies from church at a beautifully remote and scenic spot in Montana, and a fabulous weekend of sewing and quilting. That all represents 4 out of the past 5 weekends. I know I am blessed. This is a great season in my life!

Morning in Montana
Oct. 20, 2013

Then there was the weekend of mysterious illness (possibly exhaustion) over the only two days I had nothing scheduled on the calendar. I had planned to catch up on blogging (reading & writing); instead, I napped for much of those two days and slept like a log at night. (Do logs sleep? Let’s just pretend that they do.)

This weekend I am venturing off to yet another vacation spot: visiting my dad in Arizona. It won’t be all fun-and-games — I’m going alone and he is in an assisted living facility. As I wrote in September, this trip is about seeing him again before his health declines even more. I am thankful for the addition of my small income from work that allows me to go for a visit.
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V is also for Veteran. This coming Monday is Veterans’ Day here in the United States. My younger brother is a Marine veteran of the Gulf War. He has taught his sons great respect for other veterans and I’m sure they will be doing something of service on that day. I am thankful for the many sacrifices that our veterans have made. We owe them much more than we will ever know.

What are you thankful for this week?

Veterans’ Day

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Karen (formerly kcinnova)

Veterans’ Honor rose

I don’t have a photograph of poppies to share with you today. Perhaps you could pretend that the Veterans’ Honor rose (above) was a poppy while you read the famous poem by Lt. Col. John McCrae, a Canadian physician during World War One…

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.