A Tidings of Magpies

by Joyce Sutphen It was one of those days when the sun poured gold into the air, and flecks of light floated in shafts that fell through the branches of yellow leaf and green. We’d had dinner at a place on the edge of a lake, and now we were going back to town. There was a simple way to get there, but she didn’t take it. Instead, we drove the country roads with the corn rows flicking by, each one visible for a half second, then gone. “Hello, hello, hello,” they said, then “Good-bye, bye, bye, bye.” The soybeans, we agreed, had turned burgundy overnight, but it was the cornfields we watched, as if we were waiting for the waters to open, as if we might cross over Jordan.

by Shoshauna Shy 1. check out catalytic converter 2. coil@ Home Depot 3. call re: mortgage 4. Denny about tickets 5. take care of boat hoist 6. the wife situation I'm a list person. Love to make lists, and even better I love to mark off when I've gotten each task done . Sometimes I cross through the DONE items in a different colored pen. That way I know without question those jobs are really done and shall not need to be thought of again. Until maybe next week. Same time, different paper. I think that's why writing, and especially blogging is so appealing. Writing allows me to open the windows of my right brain and see what's going on over there. I get tripped up when I start wondering what's the goal here, what's the outcome, what do I have to show for it?? Oddly, I don't feel that way about dancing. Don't know why. Luckily, Hubby is much more laid back and thinks that writing for the sake of writing is a worthy pursuit. And, as I rack up more years wo...

Sitting here and wondering--how do all of you manage your time if you do other writing?? I'm certain there's an easy answer, perhaps, "Step away from the computer. There's nothing to see here, folks." But maybe a more palatable one?? Just asking. And, while we're at it, some of us should, very slowly, step away from the Aqua Net.

"I was glued to my tv when it looked like he looked at me and said 'Best start putting first things first.' Cause when your hourglass runs out of sand You can't flip it over and start again Take every breathe God gives you for what it's worth Don't Blink Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife Don't blink You just might miss your babies growing like mine did Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your 'better half' Of fifty years is there in bed And you're praying God takes you instead Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think So don't blink" --Kenny Chesney My honey haired girl surprised me tonight at dinner when she began talking about how sad she felt about growing up and that it was all going by so fast. "Next year I'll be going into senior year, then going to college, and then I'll be...

We have two girls. Two girls who are rapidly growing into women. So the option of a vaccine that could deter cervical cancer was very welcome news to me, their mother. Now the New England Journal of Medicine is kinda shaking things up a little with their less than robust opinion of the HPV vaccine and telling us all to slow our rush to judgement and vaccinations. Slow down and wait and see?? That I can do. Keep my two girls in a bubble and keep them from growing up and out...that I cannot do. For anyone else out there who might be interested, take a look at the NEJM article and see what you think. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/8/861, in case I failed again at link=word, but I think I might have gotten it :>). If so, gonna call it a night.