Here’s what I’m Thankfully Happy about this Friday.
1. Tree limbs in historic district Savannah.
2. Buying a new gate for Grandtwins Matthew and Madison, not realizing it’s also a teether.
3. Spring Onions.
4. Cinco de Mayo Sombreros.
5. The color yellow.
Have a glorious Mother’s Day Weekend!
It’s Cinco de Mayo weekend, so let’s be happy! Here are five more reasons I’m smiling.
1. Ships
2. Getting good deals at the Dollar Tree.
(And being patriotic at the same time.)
3. Grandson Daniel trying to get Grandtwin Matthew to patty cake. (Wait a sec, is it pat-a-cake?)
4. Learning (great emphasis on “learning”) to go with the flow, instead of fighting against it.
5. Grilling pork chops the other night and creating a NealEnJoy Marinade with apple butter and Dale’s Seasoning. Yum, yum, yum! But I ate them before I thought to take a picture to show you. I considered snapping a quick photo of my belly, but I couldn’t stretch my iPhone out far enough for the reverse camera thingy to get my midsection so bloated. So I thought to myself, “You know, you could probably ‘Google image’ (I just created a new verb!) a pic that would pass as your NealEnJoy marinated pork chops, and, really, who would know?” But after the Googling, I was bamboozled by all the pork chop pictures that came up.
This could be a picture, for example, of my chops …
… except they are in a frying pan. But that frying pan does look like one of mine.
And don’t these look good?
And thick:
And these remind me SO MUCH of how my mama used to fry pork chops for supper.
Then the Internet surfing got weird. Here’s a man grilling pork chops with his standing dog watching.
And I discovered that Republican politicians absolutely LOVE pork chops. Here’s Mitt Romney eating one.
And Texas Governor Rick Perry.
And would you believe it? Here’s John McCain eating a pork chop too.
Not to mention Rudy Giuliani.
I started to call somebody to report my findings about partisan pork, but I didn’t know who. Then, lo and behold, guess who popped up chowing down on a chop?!
And a pork sandwich.
Fifteen minutes and gobs of chop pics later, I started to smell more pork. Then out jumped an advertisement of Miss Piggy hawking her line of perfume called … yep, Pork Chops.
Enough of this foolishness. May we all flow into a beautiful weekend ahead.
Friday, Friday, Friday. Do you connect it with happiness? Here are five reasons I do.
1. Aspiring to being an optimist (even though I was SO SO ready to start a Depression Blog the other day when I tore a fingernail. Sad but true. I’m fine with optimism and happiness and contentment as long as I don’t feel any actual pain. But let me hurt, and for some immature, sick reason, I spiral down. TMI?)
2. Faith.
3. Oatmeal with real butter.
4. Susan Boyle singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
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Yes, I’m a Boyle fan.
5. Playing ball with Gabriel:
And you have a ball this weekend!
Friday, Friday, thank you for heralding happiness this week.
1. Driving back up on Wednesday to Statesboro and Georgia Southern University for the annual Retirees Recognition Ceremony. Retirees who have given ten years or more service to GSU have their names on plaques that are put on the wall at the Builders of the University Terrace.
And here I am with fellow retirees and good buddies Linda Arthur and Phyllis Dallas:
And who said there’s no such thing as a free lunch?
(Okay, maybe I put in a few years for that lunch. But the ham was good.) What a beautiful day!
2. Aspiring (great emphasis on “aspiring”) to live the rest of my life by this quote from the novel I’m currently ready–The Light Between Oceans: “It isn’t safe to put off what matters.”
3. Walking down stairs …
… without falling.
4. The incomparable aroma of onions sauteing in olive oil.
5. Attending SCAD’s 15th annual International Festival in Savannah’s beautiful Forsyth Park.
With a couple of former students, Alejandro …
… and Cash
Have a world of fun this weekend!
Happy. Five reasons why.
1. Being able to feel all my emotions, even when they don’t feel so good.
2. This drawing of me hanging in a New York museum. Okay maybe it’s not me, but grandson Daniel said it looked like me.
3. Plantains
4. Seeing both a perfect sunrise and a perfect sunset this week.
5. The Promise of Easter
It’s Friday again, and I’m in New York City with daughter Amy, son-in-law Orte, and grandsons Daniel and Gabriel. That in itself is reason enough to be HAPPY. But here are FIVE more reasons:
1.. Still filled with memories of last weekend’s beautifully fun St. Patrick’s Day.
2.. Finding this cool driftwood-and-found-objects ship sculpture at Habersham Antiques and Collectibles in Savannah.
3.. Realizing that so much about being joyful in life is a result of CHOICE.
4.. Flying to New York with a five- and three-year-old.
5.. It’s freezing here in Manhattan, but here I am last week down on Amelia Island
Have a great weekend and take care of business while I’m away.
Top of the Friday morning, to you. Here are Five Friday Bringers of Happiness:
1. This cool pic of blooming almond trees in California sent by my new buddy Don Simmons. Don is good friends with Rick and Linda, the couple who moved to Savannah from Wisconsin. One fabulous day they gave me the tour of the “Joy in their own back yard”. Here’s what Don said in his accompanying email: “Since you mentioned almonds in one of your post, as something that brings you joy–I wanted to send you one of the great views that I have here in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where most of the world’s almonds are grown–it’s time for our ‘blossom trail’ and the almonds are certainly giving us a beautiful show–as well as the Sierras!”
2. Finishing up a great Winter Quarter at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). My two classes:
3. Savannah azaleas (near Forsyth Park):
4. The promise of SPRINGTIME:
5. Fresh pineapple.
Have a Lucky St. Patrick’s Day Weekend!
It’s Friday All Day Long! Here’s what I am happy about:
1. My SCAD ENGL 193 (Composition for International Students) classes and I holding an informal drop-in Visual Essay Exhibition on Wednesday. A rousing success! I was/am SO proud of my students: artists showing off their work!
Here’s the blurb about the exhibition which I printed out on little programs:
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VISUAL ESSAYS:
A Classroom Exhibition Habersham Hall 3/6/13 SCAD
For this project, students in Neal Saye’s ENG 193, Composition for International Students, both think “essay” and forget “essay.” They can do that—they’re smart! How is the project like an essay? Well, they compose, they have a focus and thesis, they have structure, they have support. But it does not evolve in traditional essay format. It births as a sculpture, a collage, a scrapbook, a video, a painting, a mobile, a form, a food, fashion, theatrical presentation, etc.
In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho presents various themes about life and dream following. After reading the incredible text, students choose a theme, a symbol, a character, an idea, etc. and then create.
The visual essay project, then, is a visual representation of one topic narrowed into a clear thesis/point/perspective/idea. The students’ challenge: how to “show” their thesis.
This exhibition reveals their interpretations.
*************************************************************************************************************
And some photos from the exhibition:
And some pics of the visual essays themselves:
2. My iPhone (and sense enough to minimally operate it). Can anybody else remember when a phone was this device you used to call people … and … like, talk?
3. The expectant thought of fresh, fat, orange-red, Vine-Ripened Tomatoes this summer. I nearly cried at lunch yesterday at Panera when this pinkish thing pretending to be a tomato slice fell out of my tuna sandwich. I was so embarrassed I put a napkin over it.
4. Raw almonds
5. Our incredible sense of hearing. It’s so amazing. (Well, except when, for some reason, I came across the band Screeching Weasel’s song “Bark Like a Dog.”)
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That does it. I’m going to start a band, Neal and the Bansheeing TurtlePins. I’m working on our first really big hit, “Knead Like Julia, Martha and Paula (Before the Weight Loss).”
Have a Beautiful Weekend. You HEAR me?
It’s Friday again! Here are a few Happy Bringers.
1. Samples of some of my SCAD international students’ work turned in this week. The assignment is called the Visual Essay and is based on a book we read, Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. After reading the book, the students choose a theme, a character, a symbol, an idea, etc, and “make” their essay, using the composition concepts of thesis, structure, organization, support, and detail to get their point across. Here are some completed projects.
2. My obsession with Irish blessings, quotes, and anything Savannah-St. Patrick’s Day-ish:
“May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.”
3. My brand-spanking-new NealEnJoy blog card holder (and cards):
4. A picture that doesn’t make me look too fat:
(Can I wear skinny jeans at my age?)
5. Taking my ENG 193 (Composition for International Students) classes on a really fascinating docent-led tour of the exhibits at the SCAD Museum of Art during the recent DeFINE ART event (which was actually held at three of SCAD’s campuses in Savannah, Atlanta, and Hong Kong).
[More complete blog post on the museum tour to follow soon.]
Have an Artfully Beautiful Weekend!
NealEnJoy 