Posts by Pat:
a family story plus!
The holiday season often brings family back together…and here’s a familiar story about family, told in a way that only an ex-English teacher would tell it!
Can you wrap your head/tongue around this tongue twister version? See if you can read/say it without stumbling!
Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow forced his fond father to fork over his farthings. He flew far to foreign fields and frittered his fortune, feasting fabulously with faithless friends.
Finally facing famine and fleeced by his fellows-in-folly, he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farmyard. Fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame with foraged food from the fodder fragments.
“Fooey, my father’s flunkies fare far fancier,” the frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, frankly facing facts.
Frustrated by failure and filled with foreboding, he fled forthwith to his family. Falling at his father’s feet, he floundered forlornly, “Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited family favor.”
But the faithful father, forestalling further flinching, frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch forth the finest fatling and fix a feast.
The fugitive’s fraternal faultfinder frowned on the fickle forgiveness of former folderol. His fury flashed, but fussing was futitle.
The farsighted father figured, “Such filial fidelity is fine, but what forbids fervent festivity for the fugitive is not found. Unfurl the flags with flaring, let fun and frolic freely flow. Former failure is forgotten, folly forsaken. Forgiveness forms the foundation for future fortune.”
(found in a 1999 newsletter!)
P.S. Maybe you could come up with one…”the hoppity hare and the tired tortoise”? (Now aren’t you glad you didn’t have me for your English teacher?!)
P.P.S. Last week I committed to a tiny, tiny step each week in December towards my goal of decluttering. I just removed 2 unread books from my bookshelf (each over 430 pages) that will now go the AAUW book sale box! Yes!
A head start on 2024?
December is a somewhat crazy month…a month of highs and lows, stress and relaxation, endings and beginnings. But…we could also use it to get a headstart on 2024! Here’s an idea that we can wrap up as a gift certificate to give ourselves as an early Christmas present… “You have hereby received from yourself, the […]
Skewed Gratitude again..!
(I am revisiting this topic from a 2019 post ’cause it just makes sense to me!) I’m feeling grateful for stuff that never happened! I spilled the hot chocolate all over the counter. At least it didn’t go into the silverware drawer. And there was the leaking roof in that August. At least it was […]
That half glass…
Remember that “half full, half empty glass” question? And did you ever realize how many different perspectives you could have on it? I guess it all depends on which half we are focused on, which half we are giving our attention to, which half we have chosen to measure! I really like this idea about […]
Change the clocks…again?
Well, did you “fall back” today? After all, it’s the end of Daylight Savings Time for this year. I love this image as it questions our “logical” minds! (How long is your blanket?) Did we really gain an hour of daylight this year? Is it just a metal illusion, a trick we play on ourselves? […]
Thermometer or thermostat?
Given our ever-changing weather, have you been messing around with your house thermostat? When it gets too warm, do you have the air conditioner on? Too cold and have the heater kick on? In biology “comfort zone” means the range between 28 and 30 degrees Centigrade at which the naked body is able to maintain […]
feeling creative?
There is fascinating research saying that 98% of us test as highly creative at the age of five, and by age twenty-five, only 2% of us test that way. (Guess what that means for us seniors!) Since this is the month of Halloween, I looked for some creative jack-o-lanterns online. Eight years ago, I did […]
Squirrels as role models!?
Squirrels are just lowly rodents to some folks, but to admirers they are high flying acrobats, fuzzy tailed philosophers, scampering tree huggers, and resourceful survivors. (They are also awfully cute!) There are some life lessons we can learn from them! Consider these: First, we all know this easy one…to save for the future! The smart […]
Potholes in life!
I’ve discovered potholes can be of use. And that’s a good thing, because there seem to be so many of them! We often slow down, become more alert, and drive around them carefully. As a metaphor, they can make us aware of the places in our lives where we need to exercise care and caution. […]
Fall as a new beginning?
Summer is over. Fall is here! School is underway. Halloween decorations are everywhere. Fall is a fun, new beginning for me. I love it’s fresh energy, the “clean slate” feeling. And I love checking things off my “to do” lists. I hate having tired goals, unfinished goals; so I redo them to make me feel […]