30 Days of Gratitude - Day 30

This post wraps up my 30 Days of Gratitude postings. I have been changed this month. I have been more content, peaceful, and joyful as I've contemplated the beauty of nature. As the quote says

"It is not joy that makes us grateful, it's gratitude that makes us joyful."  ~ David Steindle-Rast

I am grateful as I wander this earth for the many beauties I see in nature and I am grateful that when I share them here, you visit. I am grateful for each one of you. Words can never express how you have touched my life in so many ways!  Thank you for sticking with my posting every day this month! Thank you for your comments that always make me smile! Thank you for being in my circle of friends!

"New beauty meets us at every step in all our wanderings."

~ John Muir

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 29

I am grateful for rain that refreshes the earth.

"Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head

With silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sin you a lullaby."

~ Langston Hughes

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 28

I am grateful for the land we have; our little piece of earth
 which I can walk across over and over again
and find something of nature that is amazing. 

"I spent the summer traveling;

I got halfway across my backyard."

~ Louis Agassiz

Give Thanks! 30 Days of Gratitude - Day 27

I am grateful for this special day set aside to give thanks for God's abundance.

"For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord;
I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
How great are your works, Lord,
How profound your thoughts!"
Psalm 92:4-5

Wishing you a very special Thanksgiving.

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 26

I am grateful to have eyes that see the beauty of the world.

"The eye encompasses the beauty of the whole world."

~Leonardo a Vinci

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 25

I am grateful for summer days.
It's a little harder for me to be grateful for summer,
but I try really hard.
I do love summer roses!

"It was June, and the world smelled of roses.

The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside."

~ Maud Hart Lovelace

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 24

I am grateful of the softness of spring.

"And Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 23

I am grateful for winter, very grateful!

"How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose,

if there were not winter in your year!"

~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1861)

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 22

I am grateful for autumn.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it...and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
~ George Elliott

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 21

I am grateful for early morning walks that lead to beautiful surprises.

"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."

~ Henry David Thoreau

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 20

I am grateful for the things I see as I look down.

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."

~ Henry David thoreau

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 19

I am grateful for much light.

"There is a strong shadow where there is much light."

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 18

I am grateful for the incredible beauty of the ordinary.

"Looking at everything as if for the first time

reveals the commonplace to be utterly incredible,

if only we can be alive to the newness of it."

~ Ruth Bernhard

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 17

I am grateful for colors and shapes.

"I found I could say things with color and shapes

that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for."

~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Sunday Sundries and 30 Days of Gratitude - Day 16

I am grateful for the great lights.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of gods.

His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords:

His love endures forever.

To him who alone does great wonders,

His love endures forever.

Who by his understanding made the heavens,

His love endures forever.

Who spread out the earth upon the waters,

His love endures forever.

Who made the great lights -

His love endures forever.

The sun to govern the day,

His love endures forever.

The moon and stars to govern the night;

His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of heaven.

His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1-9, 26

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 15

I am grateful for the amazing ocean where my family vacationed this summer.

"Our memories of the ocean will linger on,

long after our footprints in the sand are gone.

~ Author Unknown

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 14, Friday Finds, and Be Still 52

I am grateful for gorgeous sunsets that end beautiful days!

"Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky.

~ Rabindranath Tagore (Stray Birds)

Today is also Friday which means Friday Finds hosted by Kim Klassen. This week as I was cleaning out that every growing folder of clipped recipes, I came across this little baking leaflet, New Fashioned Old-Fashioned Recipes sponsored by Arm & Hammer Baking Soda and published in 1953. Reading the forward in the leaflet gives the reason for the "new fashioned" recipes.

"To get extra light and tender, moist and delicious baked goods every time took real skill, grandmother's leavening was provided by Baking Soda and sour milk, with it's variable acidity. This new way calls for Baking Soda and vinegar. The use of this new method is dependable."

Since the Be Still 52 (also hosted by Kim) exercise this week used eggs and butter, I decided this leaflet would be my focus with eggs and butter are in the background. Since the leaflet was published the year I was born, I added my little tin cake pan that was part of a baking set I played with as a child.

Have a lovely weekend!

                                                      

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 13

I am grateful for nature's peace.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop like Autumn leaves."

~ John Muir  (The Mountains of California)

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 12

I am grateful for all creatures great and small.

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

~Walt Whitman  (Song Of The Open Road)

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 11

On this Veteran's Day, I am grateful for all those

who serve and have served our country.

God bless each of you!

 I am also grateful for flowers that bloom in each season.

"Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth
are never alone or weary of life."

~ Rachel Carson

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 10

I am grateful for nature's reflection that creates beautiful art.

"Change the way you look at things,

and the things you look at change."

~ Wayne W. Dyer

Sunday Sundries - Edition 34 and 30 Days of Gratitude - Day 9

I am grateful for heaven and earth.

"Yours, O Lord,

is the

greatness

an the

power

and the

glory

and the

majesty

and the

splendor,

for everything in

heaven and earth is Yours."

I Chronicles 29:11 (NIV)

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 8

I'm grateful for cool, frosty mornings.

"The moment one gives close attention to anything,

even a blade of grass, it becomes a

mysterious, awesome, indescribably, magnificent world in itself."

~ Henry Miller

Friday Finds and 30 Days of Gratitude - Day 7

I'm grateful for those individuals that have such a love for gardening and conservation that they create areas of beauty that we can enjoy.

I'm grateful for Verna Cook Garvan and her dream for a wooded peninsula on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'll try not to bore you, but I want to include a little history and then I'll let you enjoy the beauty of this garden. 

"The site for Garvan Woodland Gardens was purchased in the 1920's after a timber clear-cut in about 1915. Mrs. Garvan loved this beautiful place so much that she never allowed it to be cut again. (Her father operated Wisconsin-Arkansas Lumber Company) In 1956, as a self-taught gardener, she began to develop it as a garden and possible future residence. She was intimately familiar with the land and laid out each path, marking every tree to be removed. Verna also personally chose each new plant and selected it's location. Over the next forty years, Mrs. Garvan planted thousands of specimens which now form an impressive collection. There are hundreds of rare shrubs and trees, some more than 40 years old, including camellias, magnolias, and more than 160 different types of azaleas." (http://www.garvangardens.org)

After the death of Mrs. Garvan the garden has been operated by the University of Arkansas School of Architecture. 

Now I'll just let you walk along with me and enjoy the garden.

(Balloonplant -- Gomphocarpus physocarpus, Asclepias physocarpa -- milkweed)

It was Mrs. Garvan's wish that the gardens be used to provide education, joy, and repose for those who enter. I went to see the pumpkins and mums, but I found so much more; beauty, quietness, peace and left in awe of God's creation.

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 6

I'm grateful that my camera allows me see the tiniest details of nature.

"There is something about abstraction that is alluring.

It forces the viewer to look afresh at the textures,

colors, and patterns of our world."

~ David Ward

Be Still 52 and 30 Days of Gratitude - Day 5

Grateful for the fruits of the season.

"Live in each season as it passes;

breathe the air, drink the drink,

taste the fruit,

and resign yourself to the influence of the earth

~Henry David Thoreau."

The assignment for Be Still 52 this week was to include a pear and a bowl. Simple things, yes, but doing this is not simple for me. I bought three pears and collected a few bowls. After several attempts of composing a nice image, I frustratingly plopped the pear I was working with in the clear bowl. Voila, that was the combination for me. Simple items, simple composition.

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 4

So grateful for sunbeams that illuminate even the simplest of things.

"I see the world around me made up of splinters of light. Photography allows me to arrange these splinters in a kaleidoscope of possibilities, yet no two the same. It's this light that will always inspire me.         ~ Josie Borain

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 3

Grateful for each morning.

"The eye when it opens, is like the dawn breaking in the night.

When it opens, a new world is there."

~ John O'Donohue

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 2

Grateful for little surprises in creation like this leaf hanging by a silken spider web.

"...to stop rushing around, to sit quietly on the grass,

to switch off the world and come back to the earth,

to allow the eye to see a willow, a bush, a cloud, a leaf,

is an unforgettable experience."

~ Frederick Franck

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 1

Several blogs that I follow are posting 30 Days of Gratitude during the month of November. I've never done that before, so I thought I'd join with them. As you know by now, my muse is nature. This month I would like to express my thankfulness for the gift of God's creation through my images.

Genesis 1

1. In the beginning God Created the heaven and the earth
3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light

6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters

9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so

11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so

15. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years

20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven

24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things and the beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so

31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.