ordinarygoodness

Thank you!

ordinarygood — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:42:13 +0000

The tally of hits on my blog has just gone over 4000. So a big thank you to all the people who pop in to read posts, who have clicked “follow”, who link from Facebook and Linkedin or via search engines.

I’m glad you are out there and give my blog your attention. It spurs me on to keep writing and taking photos.

Flowers are often given as thank you gifts so here is a photo, taken today, of my Aladdin patio rose, flowering abundantly for the second time this season. Enjoy and thank you!

Juicy!

ordinarygood — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:04:22 +0000

I regularly use this phrase “I love to get the juice out of things.” But what do I mean by that?

For me it is about looking deeper, looking wider and looking again.

It might be “getting the juice” out of producing a good crop of garlic. It might be after I’ve seen a movie or attended a concert or meeting.

Sometimes the “juice” might be new learning; sometimes it might be new understanding: sometimes it might be more questions or puzzles to think on and other times new responses or feelings.

The endless possibilities that might arise from “getting the juice” are a really attractive part of this process for me and helps feed the naturally very curious part of me.

Head space

ordinarygood — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:10:58 +0000

I’ve had a “thank you” card to write for over a month now.

A month ago busy, distracting life events stopped me attending to the card and the special thought I wanted to put into the words I would write.

Since then I have procrastinated and allowed a holiday mind-set to stop this very small but important task to be done.

Of course all this has nudged around in my head and how much better is it to get some words written down or the thank you card finally written?

Jotting down such things on a list, drafting out the words on paper can really clear considerable space in our minds. And this happened yesterday when I drafted out my words to include in the card.

The card has now been purchased so writing and posting the card will open up even more space!

Chinese New Year and a planter bowl of red impatiens

ordinarygood — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:23:53 +0000

It is Chinese New Year today according to my calendar and red is a colour strongly associated with this event.

Red was also one of the theme colours in our recent family wedding and a colour I love and wear a lot of.

So here is a planter bowl of red impatiens that sits near my sunny doorway and cheers me on each day.

Monday quote by Robert Fulghum

ordinarygood — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:16:16 +0000

A fellow blogger reminded me recently of the writing and wisdom of Robert Fulghum. I particularly like this quote taken from his work “All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten”. I was really pleased to learn that he has written several books and I plan to track them down at my local public library.

Robert says: “Think of what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is better to hold hands and stick together.”

Brushstrokes in the sky

ordinarygood — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:32:48 +0000

On Tuesday this week my attention was captured once more by the cloud formations. There have been some really interesting and different clouds around at times in the past few weeks.

It was a hot, sunny, blue sky kind of day here on Tuesday and the clouds looked like soft brushstrokes in the sky.

Sunday quote

ordinarygood — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:32:52 +0000

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. On that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

– Teilhard de Chardin

One man’s pest is another man’s pleasure

ordinarygood — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:10:30 +0000

As summer progresses I see in my garden that there are two pest plants busy flowering.

The first is Montbretia, an escapee from over the fence and into this Choysa Ternata in my garden. Every year I pull out as many of the bulbs as I can but Montbretia is tenacious. I see on a website that comes out of Auckland that this plant is a pest plant. It certainly wants to colonise my garden and I would be happier to see it growing elsewhere despite its bright orange colour that seems to match the glaring light today.

It can be useful in some remote places for helping to hold sand dunes together.

The other plant that is marching every onward in my garden are the agapanthus. These are beyond my resources as they not only seed off these luxuriant heads but spread by suckering roots from the mat of roots they establish.

I like to see a massed display of these flowers on long farm driveways or along stretches of motorway rather than the dominating feature in parts of my backyard.

Here are two plants which are bringing me great pleasure in the garden today:-)

Feverfew or Pyrethrum daisy

The Garden of wisdom

ordinarygood — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:00:51 +0000

This piece was read out as part of a speech at our recent family wedding. There are many versions of it and different titles for it and the original source seems buried in the mists of time. But the advice is relevant and useful to all our relationships.

Plant Three Rows of peas:
Peace of mind
Peace of heart
Peace of soul

Plant Four Rows of squash:
Squash gossip
Squash indifference
Squash grumbling
Squash selfishness

Plant Four Rows of Lettuce
Lettuce be faithful
Lettuce be kind
Lettuce be patient
Lettuce really love one another

Plant Three Rows of Turnips
Turnip with a smile
Turnip for service
Turnip to help one another

We must also have Thyme
Thyme for each other
Thyme for family
Thyme for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with affection. There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow!

Global readers

ordinarygood — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:44:04 +0000

Early this year WordPress.com sent me a report on my blog for 2011. I was really interested to learn that I had had at least one person in the following countries read my blog.

New Zealand, Australia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Israel, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Italy, United States of America, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Columbia, Ecuador and Brazil.

So welcome to my blog and thank you very much for reading it. I will be very interested to see whether I have reached people in different countries at the end of 2012.