Positively Frigid

 by Mauverneen

I'm not a skier, I'm not a skater                                                                                                                      My favorite cold is in the refrigerator!

Yes - it's cold! Yes, it's winter. Yes, I should be used to it. No, I don't have to like it. I don't have to go out in it either. I can get all my shopping delivered right to my front door. Even toilet paper. I can order my groceries delivered, I can order food delivered from a multitude of nearby restaurants. You can even do virtual doctor visits in a lot of cases. Open wide, get your own flashlight and hold that phone as close as you can. Just like a selfie.

The cold is probably why doctors stopped making house calls in the first place. They unionized and put it in their contract. Nobody wanted cold fingers touching and prodding anyway. Of course there's no online fix for a toothache. I don't think anyone would want a dentist walking you through an extraction, or a doctor walking you through setting the bone on your broken leg because you were stupid enough to go out in the cold in the first place and ended up taking a fall on the ice. But hey, if you've got enough whiskey... 

Besides, you can always get it delivered.

As always, words and photos are my own, and require permission to reprint.

However, feel free to share the blog in it's entirety. In fact, I encourage it!

Interested in photo prints? Contact me! maureenblevins@yahoo.com

See more photos at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-mauverneen-blevins.html

Positively Hopeful

 by Mauverneen

“Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent."- Mignon McLaughlin

I came across this quote just this morning. How apropos! We've been shut down and locked in going on our third year with Covid and it's variants and we all wonder "Will it ever end?" We know it will, we hope it will, but - will it? I like the quote because it describes hope perfectly. Especially these days. I mean, who wants to feel like this another week, let alone permanently?

Hope is what always gets us through our darkest times. You may say prayer, but isn't that what prayer is? Hope? Hope that a prayer will be answered. Hope that whatever God you pray to will hear you.

I did not know who Mignon McLaughlin was, so I looked her up. She had quite the career. She grew up to become an author, journalist, and a writer of short stories, writing for Redbook, Cosmopolitan and other women's magazines. She also co-wrote a play with her husband, an editor at Time magazine, that had a short run on Broadway. She also worked at Vogue and Glamour magazines during her career. She was fond of aphorisms, such as the above quote, and published three separate books of them. 

She must have been a great believer in hope. How else could she have accomplished so much? I know it takes hard work and determination, but through it all, no matter how determined one is or how hard one works, without hope, you just give up. 

I also like this quote of hers: "Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we're going to show". It kind of goes hand in hand with hope. 

As always, words and photos are my own, and require permission to reprint.

However, feel free to share the blog in it's entirety. In fact, I encourage it!

Interested in photo prints? Contact me! maureenblevins@yahoo.com

See more photos at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-mauverneen-blevins.html

                           

.

  

Positively 'Hunkering'

 by Maureen Blevins

It's January. Time to hunker!

hunker * squat or crouch down low (verb)                                                                                                                                        * take shelter in a defensive position

He's hunkering

I wondered about that word - hunker. We get told to 'hunker down' during storms and bad weather. Or a long siege. Seems to me we've all done a lot of  'hunkering down' these past couple of years. The first use of this word was in 1720 in Scotland. According to the dictionary, it probably came from the Dutch or the German. And if you hunkered down with success, everything became 'hunky-dory'. 

Note: It does not mean to search for a good-looking man (as in a 'hunk'). To Hunker - go in search of a hunk? eg: Ladies, let's go hunker at the hardware store. But I digress.

 It seems that lately hunker has become somewhat of an old fashioned term. One that has been replaced by 'shelter in place'. I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather hunker. It sounds tough. Cowboys hunkered - and they were our heroes. They were tough. They could 'hunker' and make it through whatever disaster befell them. This new version - shelter in place - sounds, I don't know, so millennial, so yuppee, so - soft (although I'm not sure the term yuppee is used much either these days). And is there a word for the after effects of sheltering in place? When all is right again? It's hunky-dory.

If cowboys and our grandparents could hunker, it's good enough for me.

With (ohmygodisitevergoingtogoaway) covid still rampant and temperatures in the very low teens or less, it's time to hunker. Although I may venture out to the hardware store - for supplies. 

                These birds are definitely hunkering...

Deer hunker...

Make sure you're well stocked when hunkering

Preferred hunkering activity

Happy 'hunkering'.

As always, words and photos are my own, and require permission to reprint.

However, feel free to share the blog in it's entirety. In fact, I encourage it!

Interested in photo prints? Contact me! maureenblevins@yahoo.com

See more photos at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-mauverneen-blevins.html

It's a Positively New Year

 January 2022

     It's a Positively New Year. 2022 - sounds so sci-fi. 

     The Christmas Holidays are over. Eat, Indulge. Repeat. What we need is a national day of purging, and one of fasting. Of course, for some who may have overindulged on the last day of the year, that day may have already come and gone. Next up - Mardi Gras! Oooh boy, more indulging. Lent should begin the day after New Years Day. But, there are those leftovers to get rid of. 

     Mardi Gras season begins on "Twelfth Night". The day the Christmas tree comes down, the purple, gold and green go up! I have my wreath ready to hang on my front door. Maybe I should keep the tree up and just redecorate it in the proper colors. Hmmm....

Here's a commentary explaining Twelfth Night    

https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/history/errol-laborde-s-commentary-twelfth-night

      I have been remiss in my postings the past couple of years - Covid and all that. We all needed a little more positivity then, but like everyone else, I wasn't feeling very positive. Looking forward to things, going places, seeing people, and having it all taken away - what can I say? We've all been through it. And add to that any personal issues anyone had... Suffice it to say, It's been a rough couple of years. 

     Here we are at the dawn of a new year, hoping for better, hoping for a return to our old 'normal'. Don't count on it. But that doesn't mean it can't be good - maybe even better. It will just be different. We'll cope, we'll change, we'll adjust and adapt to whatever it takes. Positively!

Resolutions? Let's just try to make this coming year the best we can!