C-O-D-E-R-E-D

What stories will your landscape tell? They are not all sweet or pretty, roses and lavender. I planted a hawthorn tree in front of my house to celebrate my new life as a single woman. Not long afterward it died. The Chinese plum tree planted by my ex thrived, of course, even though it was never watered. I like this story that until now only my landscape knew. The landscapes of our lives are full of mysterious paradox, perplexing puzzles, and peculiar people. They remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. They teach us to pause just to wonder. The landscape is what it is. Our story evolves from moving through it.
“Gardens slow things down,” writes Dominique Browning. She knows they help us tell our stories. “I want simply to teach my children to see the roses,” she adds. “One day they will know enough to stop and smell them, too.”

Our friend Richard built an alpine creek bed through and around a mound of soil planted with young aspens, then sent water tumbling down the river rocks with an underground pump. The scenic area,
a mosaic of sun-dappled foliage, attracts birds and, unfortunately, also many flower-hungry deer.

The summer I had a large strawberry patch was one of the happiest times of my life. My toddler “worked” beside me, both of us on hands and knees. I was glad when one-year-old Terza learned that those red squishy shapes tasted good. She quit picking the plants by their roots and plucking off the green fruit. I let her eat her fill until she fell asleep in the grass. Her exhausted sleeping form—back lit by the sun, which shone through a mop of curls—was an icon of that holy place and time. Within a twinkling, it seemed, she was eight and had been joined by two sisters. Still, Terza led the entrepreneurial effort to pick lemons and limes from our backyard trees and sell them on the street (“Five cents, please”), and a pitcher of homemade lemon-limeade was her idea. Little did it matter to me that the sugar and the paper cups cost far more than would be earned. The pleasure on three cherub faces was my contribution to the world that day. This was the true landscape of my life, sweeter than the scent of the roses along the neighbor’s front porch.
Some things we do not produce by conscious effort or design. We simply take our chances, and in brief moments of time, they become the most beautiful art of our lives. It is the human touch, the green thumb, the weathered prayers that fertilize seed.
These gardens start with the landscape you have been given and by letting the story tell itself.

Some things we do not produce by conscious effort or design. We simply take our chances, and in brief moments of time, they become the most beautiful art of our lives. It is the human touch, the green thumb, the weathered prayers that fertilize seed.
These gardens start with the landscape you have been given and by letting the story tell itself.
the munching invaders from his landscape becomes simply another part of participating in the landscape of life.
“We are never nowhere,” explains Kevin Sharpe, a professor at Union Institute. “From our first environment in our mother’s wombs to the last breath we take, we continually interact with the world around us.”

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. My first grade friend Mattie Mae was a happy kid who wore her hair in short braids all over her head, fastened with colorful plastic barrettes. She lived on the other side of the tracks in my small hometown. I discovered this the day I went to her house to play after school. Mattie Mae’s prairie- type sod house was buried in the ground like a hobbit’s habitat, all covered with grass. Its threshold, however, stood upright in a mound of rounded earth, looking nonsensical and inventive. The door opened to a stairway leading down into a dark room with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Apart from this, the brightest thing in the underground room was the smile on the face of Mattie Mae’s mother, waiting with cookies and milk.
Before visiting Mattie Mae, I’d seen underground storm shelters on my cousins’ farms. These were primitive dugouts covered with a wooden door that lay flush with the ground. In the earlier part of the last century, you had to lift the heavy door of a shelter straight up to slip in under it, and you had to be careful not to squish your fingers when it soundly slammed down. I ventured into a shelter in a game of hide-and-seek. Peeking out through cracks in the wooden door, I shivered from the damp chill of the cave below and the excitement of concealment.

Hiding from a real tornado was never fun and games; in the heartland, storm shelters are not a luxury item. Eight hundred tornadoes a year are reported in the United States, most south of Kansas in Oklahoma and Texas. Twisters cause an average of eighty deaths a year and 1,500 injuries.’ Releasing raw destructive power, the area receiving the brunt of their devastating energy is called ground zero. Here cattle and trees may be flung like matchsticks. Houses and even entire neighborhoods disappear.
When my family moved to the West Coast, another kind of shelter took the population by storm. The Cold War made Americans feel vulnerable to attack on our own soil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis fueled our national paranoia toward Communism and the threat it represented. We were told that the Soviet Union had nuclear bombs poised toward American cities. Living in a prime target city where U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were based made San Diego feel especially vulnerable. By 1961 my innocent daily walk to the elementary school became ominous. Pipes sticking out of the ground began to appear in front yards. By each a sign offered notice of a fallout shelter that would provide protection from chemicals and nuclear radiation. At school bomb drills replaced the more mundane earthquake drills. But the defense strategy was no different. We were to immediately take position under our desks—as if that would protect us from bombs or contamination. As an eleven-year-old, I discovered the world was becoming a menacing place.

Finding innovative ways to exclude the munching invaders from his landscape becomes simply another part of participating in the landscape of life.
“We are never nowhere,” explains Kevin Sharpe, a professor at Union Institute. “From our first environment in our mother’s wombs to the last breath we take, we continually interact with the world around us.” The summer I had a large strawberry patch was one of the happiest times of my life. My toddler “worked” beside me, both of us on hands and knees. I was glad when one-year-old Terza learned that those red squishy shapes tasted good. She quit picking the plants by their roots and plucking off the green fruit. I let her eat her fill until she fell asleep in the grass. Her exhausted sleeping form—back lit by the sun, which shone through a mop of curls—was an icon of that holy place and time. Within a twinkling, it seemed, she was eight and had been joined by two sisters. Still, Terza led the entrepreneurial effort to pick lemons and limes from our backyard trees and sell them on the street (“Five cents, please”), and a pitcher of homemade lemon-limeade was her idea. Little did it matter to me that the sugar and the paper cups cost far more than would be earned. The pleasure on three cherub faces was my contribution to the world that day. This was the true landscape of my life, sweeter than the scent of the roses along the neighbor’s front porch.

When you get married, you may find yourself eating what your husband wants to eat in the same quantities.
My husband is bigger so he eat more, and when I am with him, I eat more too.

One of my friends advised me to take vigilance and self-control. She told me that if we are eating out, salad
and appetizer would be enough instead of a full entree like my husband does. And when we are at home, it is better if I can serve myself less of what my husband loads onto his plate. After a couple of months, I was able to lose about two kilos despite the fact that I eat more elaborate meals than I used to simply because I limit the quantity of food that I will eat. I also drink grape fruit juice one hour before the meal to lose my appetite. Some exercises help me also to burn out some fats. I prefer to eat more on soup than solid food for easy digestion.

Now I am careful on what I eat. I make sure that it is enough to gain all the vitamins and minerals to keep
my body strong and healthy.

I came across a store where they offer a selection of kitchen and table accessories. It is refreshing, not to mention practical, to see so many beautiful objects for the home all in one place. I found some lovely things to set your breakfast table with, from salt and pepper shakers to sleek pitchers that keep both hot and cold temperatures constant. The citrus-squeezer in aluminum is both elegant and practical at the same time. Its simple design makes it easy to use and to clean afterward. The milk and sugar set are mini editions of coffee-maker and tea brewer. Nevertheless, I became interested to buy this wonderful kitchen and table accessories to set in my own table.

I am sure that ones my sister visited our house and found all of these in our dining room, she will definitely asked where she can find this stuff so that she can also have it.

My mother asked me to buy a gift for her best friend who will celebrate their silver wedding anniversary this coming month. I was also informed that it is a double celebration because their only daughter will be celebrating her birthday. I have no idea what kind of gift will I buy for them because I never met the daughter of my mom’s friend.

And If I am not too close to everyone in someone’s family,I pass on the individual gifts and give the whole family one big gift. I like to give them something they would all enjoy and, if it could something that brings together as a family. I like to give game boards or six month’s supply of movie tickets along with the list of the best general patronage movies coming out that year. I sometimes give a set of ornaments for them to add n their collection. There are many things you can possibly think of, but the trick is to make it general fun for the whole family.