Category: Uncategorized
The Quicker, Thicker Picker-Upper: Bounty (or The Bounty at Our Feet)
by Kayla Shown-Dean
When I heard this month’s theme was bounty, I immediately thought of the quicker, thicker picker-upper: Bounty.
I find myself at YouTube, watching a few of the old 1992 and 1993 commercials of little ninjas and cowboys knocking over juice. It makes me think of my own little ninja turtle who is at his Mimi’s tonight. Then, I start counting my blessings.
I have a mother who lives near by and who is good enough health to care for my child. My son goes to a great daycare. He has access to a good doctor, healthy food, and clean water, which is so much more than many have. We live in a nice enough home. I mean, sure it’s an older home with older home problems. The bathrooms are outdated, and the washer overflows onto the patio after every rinse cycle. But it serves its purpose; it keeps us safe, warm (or cool, in this Arkansas summer heat), and dry.
My mind continued to wander as it’s prone to do.
I remember Christmastime, the loads of presents that my mother insists on filling our vehicle with. A lot of her gifts are used, things she picked up at yard sales or Goodwill, but it’s new to us, and we are happy to receive it.
I think of a specific memory: a night during Christmas week 2015.
I had just got off work. My plan was to take my family out for dinner at Waffle House, and then go home and make Christmas cookies for Santa. But as soon as I made it to my car, I got a phone call. A friend needed me. I postponed my dinner plans, of course, and went to help her. But I wasn’t happy about it. I was tired, hungry, and had a long evening of baking to look forward to, when all I wanted to do was sleep. I made it to the restaurant. We ate. The waitress chatted with us. She asked us if we were enjoying our holiday. “It’ll be better when tonight’s over,” I said under my breath. Since we are regulars, she asked what was wrong. I told her about my stress and how much I dreaded the process of making Christmas cookies that evening. All the while my little boy bounced in the seat across from me, excited to be eating at his favorite restaurant and celebrating Christmas.
The waitress brought our food, and we ate. But my husband just shook his head. “I don’t believe you,” he said, “Here you sit complaining about making Christmas cookies with your son, who is excited to help you by the way, to a woman who would probably love to be baking cookies with her kids tonight, but she can’t. She’s working, serving you.”
His words were harsh, but he was right.
Too often we focus on what we don’t have. We complain we don’t have enough time to ourselves, to do housework, to write, to rest, whatever. We stress and worry and complain over such petty things that we don’t see the bounty before us. We don’t see how much we truly have. And if we would take the time, just for a minute, to take a look at our bounty we would discover that the commercials were right: it is the quicker, thicker picker-upper. By taking note of the bounty at our feet (and sharing it with others), we can pick ourselves right up out of our negativity and see how blessed we truly are.
Sunday Link-up {June 5, 2016}
My Hometown – Blogger of the Month
by Carmella Fryer, Miss May 2016
I have a hard time when people ask me about my hometown. Is my hometown where I grew up or where I currently reside? I looked it up and as it turns out both are correct. My most natural response when asked about my hometown is Alma, Arkansas, the town in which I grew up.
For all y’all foreigners (i.e., not from Alma) it’s pronounced AL-muh. A woman recently argued with my mother and me on this matter. She told us her friends make fun of her for saying it this way. They told her it is pronounced ALL-muh. We told her the friends were wrong. She looked at us as if we were poor, uneducated souls. Mom and I both grew up here. Mom still lives here. I’m pretty sure we are authorities on the pronunciation. I don’t think we ever convinced her of the correct pronunciation. I share this now as a public service announcement.
You may have stopped in Alma many times and not realized it. For years it has served as a pit stop on the way to Northwest Arkansas. Interstate 40 intersects with Scenic Highway 71 and Interstate 49. Because of this you will find quite a few fast food restaurants, stores, gas stations and motels along the Highway 71 strip, most of which have everyday names recognized in most places. There are a couple local food establishments worth noting. Up at the top of the hill on 71 is the Pizza Parlour. My brother and I were partially raised on the pizza in this hole-in-the-wall. The décor will take you straight back to nineteen-seventy-something. The pies are good and easy on the pocket book. The supreme and taco pizza with salsa are our family favorites.
Just south and across the road from Pizza Parlour is The Catfish Hole. This is the new fancy location. The original was a few miles north in a small, shabby house near my childhood home. I’m a traditionalist and stick with the fried catfish. I have no doubt that everything else on the menu is good, too. Be sure to get the fixin’s which include hushpuppies, coleslaw, pickles, onions, and green tomato relish.
If you enjoy shopping for antiques and good deals then visiting Alma is a must. There are several antique/flea market shops stretching along Highway 71. Three miles north of Alma on 71 you’ll find A to Z which has a little bit of everything, from crafty supplies to groceries and sporting goods. There’s even an antique/flea market shop on site. If you are looking for high-end furniture at a bargain price, head another mile or two north on 71 to Dean’s Furniture.
One of the things I love most about Alma is its juxtaposition of small town, country living with elements you might expect to find in a bigger city. In other words, Alma has always been just a little too big for its britches and I’m proud of that. Alma is host to Eagle Crest golf course which is on the Natural State Golf Tour. It is home to one of the largest Aquatic Parks in the area. Possibly the biggest juxtaposition of all is the Alma Performing Arts Center which serves to bring the arts alive in the River Valley area.
As you can tell, I’m quite proud of my hometown. I could go on and on for days talking about this little pit stop. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll stop by for a visit.
Blogger Home Tour – Carmella
I signed up at the first of the year to host a home tour in April. My brother had just accepted a new job in central Arkansas. He, his lovely wife, their four children and 100 pound golden had just moved in with my son, two 12 pound pups and me. I thought signing up to host a home tour would give us good motivation to get settled in. While it did provide good motivation, what it did not do is give us more hours in the day or remove the challenges that life decided to throw our way.
Since that moving van left Oklahoma and headed this way in late December, we have had four emergency room visits by individuals in this house (seven if you include visits by our mom and step-dad). We’ve celebrated seven or so holidays, two birthdays and one anniversary. My brother started his new job. The kids started new schools.
We have been busy.
This is not exactly the home tour I imagined sharing when I signed up. I had grandiose ideas of picture-perfect décor. That’s not our reality. Ours is an organized chaos filled with grace. I like this post much better. It was more fun and much less stressful to pull together than what I originally envisioned. So without further ado, here’s a little peek into the place we call home.
Welcome to our home. Be careful coming up the steps. You might want to take an allergy pill, too. Those pollen worms from the oak trees are everywhere this time of year. Oh and watch out for the birds that are nesting in the right corner of the grapevine garland. They swoop a little low when leaving the nest.
We still have boxes piled up in some rooms and too much furniture in others. But you know what? That doesn’t keep us from having a home filled with love and laughter. We are making memories that will be forever cherished. Isn’t that what matters most?
Just like most homes, the kitchen is the heartbeat of the house. It’s where we gather to grab breakfast on our way out the door to school and work. It’s where our dogs hang out while we are away. It’s where my sister-in-love whips up amazing dishes for our party of eight. It’s where we make tasty and fun treats with the kiddos.
The second busiest room in our home is the family room. I try to keep the mantel changed up with festive decorations (for the kids, right?). Having a chalkboard that takes up most of the space makes it easy and fun to change out. Cheap banners from Target, Walgreens, and Party City make for a quick and cute statement. I enjoy shopping our home to add a few final touches. Sometimes I’ll grab a discounted bouquet of fresh flowers to add an extra touch of happy. The reactions from the kids as I change it out make it more than worth the effort. I highly recommend having one place in your home that you change out a few times a year. As you can see, it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.
In the family room we have a ginormous sectional, a requirement for a family of eight. This is where we celebrate, watch TV, chat, chill and wield lightsabers.
It’s where we have dance parties, balloon fights and family game nights. It’s where we host family meetings and get to the bottom of mysteries. It’s where we connect and encourage one another.
The third most used room in our home is the backyard. Lately, we have been admiring the new blooms and nesting birds. We have a lot of fun with our four-legged family here, too. Soon we will be creating new memories poolside.
And with that, I’ll conclude our tour. Thank you again, Arkansas Women Bloggers, for allowing me the opportunity to share our home. I hope sharing our reality encourages others and drives home the point that it’s not the picture-perfect décor that will be remembered, it’s the memories.
Sunday Link-Up {May 1, 2016}
Creativity
Imagine, for just a moment, a world without imagination. What would it look like? We would have no space shuttles, no sky scrapers, no X-ray machines. No planes, trains and automobiles. We would have no music, no movies, few, if any, books. Most forms of art would be non-existent. We might not have houses or running water, and we might even still be eating our meat raw.
It took someone with the creativity and imagination to think of all of those things – and then to figure out how to make the impossible come true. Imagination and creativity are the first requirements for any invention or discovery. Yet we seem to value those things less and less.
A recent study showed that America’s creativity quotient has steadily dropped since the 90s. The main speculation on why this is occurring is the “No Child Left Behind” program. Because school test performance was so closely tied to funding, for the last couple of generations teachers have been teaching “to the tests.” American students have only been taught how to memorize facts and take standardized tests. They have not been taught how to think or problem solve.
I read an article in the newspaper a few years back about a school in California. This school decided that any child who did not make a satisfactory score on the benchmark tests would only be allowed to take math and English courses the following year. No art, no music, no social studies (that wasn’t tested, so it wasn’t important) no P.E. – nothing but math and English, all day long. Can you imagine what that type of schedule would do to a child’s spirit?
But what is so important about creativity, anyway? Why should we encourage it? Sir Ken Robinson, a worldwide known expert in education, says:
There are two other concepts to keep in mind: imagination and innovation. Imagination is the root of creativity. It is the ability to bring to mind things that aren’t present to our senses. Creativity is putting your imagination to work. It is applied imagination. Innovation is putting new ideas into practice.
But so what? Isn’t it true that only certain people can be creative? Robinson says no, that is a myth. He believes that creativity can and should be encouraged, developed, and taught in our schools.
But why? Why should we bother trying to develop creativity and imagination? Sure, creativity might be good for inventors and artists, but what about the rest of us? Do we actually need it? One of type of creative fiction is science fiction. To use one author, Heinlein his stories were full of innovations that had not yet happened when he wrote about them. The cell phone, water bed, air dryers for hands and body, astrogation, auto cars (now being tested), microwavable food, waldos, artificial meat those are only a few of the innovations he put into his books that did not exist when he wrote about them, but do exist today. Creativity and imagination is necessary for innovation and invention.
That might be fine and dandy for the researchers and inventors. But what about your average person? Why would “Joe off the street” be interested in developing creativity in himself or his family? In 1958, researcher Paul Torrance gave nearly 400 Minneapolis children a series of activities designed to measure creativity quotient. For over 50 years, researchers tracked those students, their achievements and their life-time accomplishments. Those students who had showed the greatest creativity and imagination on the Torrance tests were the ones most likely to end up as business owners, doctors, authors, diplomats, etc. They were also the ones most likely to express satisfaction with their life. The data has recently been reviewed and re-analyzed. The correlation between lifetime accomplishment and satisfaction and childhood creative quotient was three times higher than it was for childhood intelligence quotient.
So, why do we need creativity? For innovation. For new discoveries. For new inventions, new ways of doing things, new art pieces, new music, new books, new science…We All of us we need creativity, imagination, innovation, to make us better people, with happier lives.
Imagine a world with no imagination. That is not a world I want to live in. I’d rather imagine a world full of creativity, wonder, and imagination. Go forth and imagine. Go forth and create!
References:
http://www.newsweek.com/creativity-crisis-74665
http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/newsletters/college-isnt-for-everyone/
http://money.cnn.com/1997/02/03/busunu/creativity/
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=2&offset=160
Melinda LaFevers is a creative, imaginative, renaissance woman with a wide variety of interests. She is a substitute teacher, an Arkansas A+ Fellow, and a writer. She is also on the Arkansas Arts in Education residency artist roster with two programs, Life in a Castle and Life in a Log Cabin that she presents in schools around the state. She has speculative fiction stories in several anthologies, writes a regular column on herbs for The Renaissance Magazine, and her first non-fiction book, Meditations of a Hoarder, was released last June. She likes to imagine the day that her house is completely organized. More of her writings may be read at https://melindalafevers.wordpress.com/ and https://hoardinglife.wordpress.com/
Sunday Link-Up {March 20, 2016)
Sarabeth Jones: Food Adventures in Argenta
Celebrate Food Adventures in Argenta
I love my hometown of North Little Rock, especially the revived historic downtown district of Argenta, where you can have a food adventure just walking down Main street!
Start with at Mugs Café. Yummy coffee concoctions and breakfast – and folks line up out the door on Saturday mornings for their all you can eat pancakes for just $5.
Work off some of that breakfast by wandering down to Argenta Bead Company, Galaxy Furniture, or the Argenta Drugstore – each with it’s own eclectic atmosphere and plenty to look at. Or, if it’s summertime, you definitely will want to spend some time at the Argenta Farmer’s Market, where the food and products are all guaranteed Arkansas-grown.
Perhaps you are thirsty by now, so walk a couple blocks over to Diamond Bear Brewery to enjoy their patio and a local craft beer. More likely than not, there will be some sort of fun event going on as well.
Or perhaps you are ready for a lovely lunch. Back over on Main, you’ll find fantastic pizza and pasta dishes at Ristorante Capeo, a beautiful spot that has long been known for excellent Italian dinner. We are all grateful that they’ve added lunch to their repertoire.
If you find yourself in the area during the evening, you’ll want to head to The Joint. This coffee shop/comedy club also serves cocktails and light meals while hosting live music and improv nights. And there is always an original theater show running performed by The Main Thing, a brilliantly funny comedy trio. Truly – something for everyone!
Or maybe you’re just looking for a quiet spot. Sit and enjoy a lovely glass of wine or beer and a charcuterie plate at Crush. The atmosphere is as much a draw as their extensive wine selection; this is the perfect quiet spot to have a date or meet friends for conversation.
There you have it: morning, noon, or night, there’s are food adventures to be had in Argenta!
[Tweet “When was the last time you took an Argenta adventure? How about now? #foodiefriday #ARWB” @sarabethjones]
Sarabeth Jones is a creative at Fellowship North who enjoys all kinds of artistic work; her latest project is bringing the national live-reading show Listen To Your Mother to Little Rock. She lives in Sherwood with her husband, Bryan, and their kids, Elizabeth, Jonathan, and Will. She loves to write about the way they make her laugh on her blog, thedramatic.com.
Twitter & IG: @sarabethjones
FB: sarabeth.jones