Here’s a picture of my grandson, the little Tex-Mex Jorge Rodriguez III (but you can call him Trey), fishing.
Are Texas boys laid back or what?
You’ll have to read the following posting (which is actually about blawgers I commend to you while I’m on hiatus from blawging during the month of Advent) for more information about Texas boys.
Meanwhile, I’m hitting the road to see Trey-Hey and rub his Mama’s belly, she who is preggers with my second grandson-to-be. (Have cream for my coffee in the morning, Amy.)
I may have one more posting here before Advent starts Sunday. Blessings on all of you of the Jitterbug cult and Happy Holidays.
Read on . . .
(In the photo: Actual poop from an actual male turkey in Michigan. Male turkey poop–I am not making this up–is shaped like a question mark. As for female turkey poop–well, you don’t wanna know. I know this fascinating fact because I subscribe to my friend Melissa’s fabulous blawg “Melissa Not Dusting.” More below.)
I mentioned here in a long and very long posting the other day that, come Sunday, your favorite blawger will be taking a holy hiatus.
That is to say that he’ll be withdrawing from the noisy and stressful world that is Christmas madness in America during the month of Advent Season. The idea is to take down my Facebook page, stop blawging here entirely, and cut way, way down on TV and controversial current events, and especially negative news and politically related stuff, in order to spend more quiet time with God and loved ones. I hope to read some actual books and spend more time learning Spanish, which I’m trying, once and for all, to become fluent in.
I have been fluent in a certain amount of Spanish for years. For example, if I’m frequenting one of the Tex Mex restaurants that I frequent and frequent a LOT, I will say this and get the desired response:
“Oh camarero! Una mas margarita, por favor! Y mas cheeps y quesa y salsa tambien.”
I’ve taken a lot of stabs at learning Spanish over the years and in recent months I’ve stuck with it enough to want to keep working on learning the beautiful language that is Espanol. And here in Texas, fluent Espanol is a very useful thing in which to be fluent, especially for un ministro.
Anyhoo, during this Advent hiatus I’ll still be looking forward to receiving the postings of a few favorite blawgers, whose blawgs lift my spirits and keep my mind and spirit nourished with the positive vibes they emit. I hope to make my Advent Season a time in which my head gets filled with a lot more of the spiritual, the positive, the uplifting–and these are blawgers whose postings I always look forward to receiving because they nourish me and enrich my life in certain ways.
And you’ll notice that all three are big on nature. Old-fashioned nature loving is always good in this noisy, high-tech, manic world.
So with no further of that old ado, check em out while I’m gone from here. . . .
One favorite blawger is my cyber friend Melissa’s “Melissa Not Dusting.” She blawgs from her natural habitat around her home in the Frozen North (Michigan). Her daily pictures and pithy comments that go with them are consistently beautiful, inspiring and often really, really witty. She’s a busy wife and mom raising young kids and maintaining a household. But she spends a lot of time out taking pictures and epxloring nature with her young ones or tramping alone with her camera, when — Lord help her — she should be dusting.
Keep em coming, Melissa–won’t be taking any hiatus from Melissa Not Dusting for sure.
(Wildlife photographer and blawger Bob Zeller, a fellow Texan, caught this Great Blue Heron doing a mating dance thing–a most difficult picture to get, and he nailed it. It’s one reason he’s one of my favorite blawgers.)
I discovered Bob Zeller’s wonderful blawg when I noticed him commenting on Melissa Not Dusting’s blawg rather frequently.
That’s one of the joys of writing and reading blawgs–in reading one whose stuff you like, you discover others you like.
And I like Mr. Bob’s photography a lot. I like photography myself and don’t get to do near as much of it as I want, except on vacations usually.
But I do hope to make it more of a serious hobby some day, and I’m going to school on what Bob Zeller shares with other photography lovers at “Texas Tweeties with Bob Zeller.” Besides, I like his casual and folksy writing style. He’s got those right amount of Texas sensibilities of the sort that enables Texans to really connect with one another. (AND NOW WE BREAK FOR THIS POLITICAL MESSAGE: Hey, as much as I despise Rick Perry’s politics and am put off by what is, in my opinion, his awful Christian theology, I once connected with him instantly and on a personal level in a very casual interview I had with him long before he was the guv and a Presidential candidate and I was a working-slug reporter and we were both a lot younger, him learning politics and me learning journalism. I never met another Texan I didn’t like at some level, Governor Perry included, even if he does make me crazy sometimes when he opens his mouth. The whole native Texan thing is a thing that non-Texans can never understand, yaw.)
(This is Dr. Emily Watson’s hay barn at her beautiful place way up in Washington state. It was built in the early 1900s from old growth timbers recycled from a nearby sawmill–drawing and watercolor by Dick Laninga.)
Dr. Emily Watson is a farmer, horsewoman, physician, writer/poet/blawger extraordinaire–a most accomplished woman who had a fascinating life before she settled down with her husband of a hunnerd years or whatever it is (they just had a big anniversary) to raise a family, and then started blawging about it all.
She and I correspond only occasionally, but I look forward always to anything she puts up at her several blawgs, including:
and Hankerings.
Dr. Emily is also a devout and quite contemplative Christian who knows and does theological interpretation better than a lot of clergy types.
Talk about a Renaissance woman . . .
Every time I read one of her blawg postings, I’m wowed all over again by her very readable but polished and refined writing, her vast knowledge in so many areas, her infinite wisdom. She’ll also give a reasoned but firmly opinionated opinion on something controversial now and again, especially in health and medical related stuff.
I’m fond of physicians and other healers, for obvious reasons, and fond of high-quality writers and thinkers and spiritual folk. And as spiritual and extremely well-written blawgs go, Dr. Em’s is simply the best.
