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Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Miriam Hurdle 79 comments

This post is in response to Terri Webster Schrandt’s Sunday Still Challenge, an annual Year-in-Review: Memorable Moments 2024, part 1.

New Year Resolutions

According to Columbia University, nearly half of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, but only 25% of people stay committed to their resolutions after just 30 days. And less than 10% accomplish their goals. Why is that? For me, I know by now what works and what doesn’t work for me. I follow my routine and do what has been working for me? How about you? Do you make new resolutions?

January

We started 2024 with a winter storm from January 13 – 16. This storm, nicknamed Winter Storm Heather, brought freezing rain and damaging ice to the Pacific Northwest. In Portland, Oregon, the coldest temperatures were 15 and 17 degrees, recorded on January 13 and 14. Snow came on Saturday, the 13th. Portland General Electric alone reported nearly 3,200 outages affecting over 127,000 customers. My daughter’s house was one of them. They bundled up to sleep in front of the fireplace. It was a rough night. We invited them to our house on Sunday as our power lines are underground. While at our house, the girls had fun going down the hill on the sled. Fortunately, the power resumed in their area by the afternoon, so they returned home.

February

We attended two wonderful musical and theatrical performances in February. My daughter and I enjoyed a mother-daughter night out at the Oregon Symphony’s Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland on the 12th.

My daughter and her friend subscribed to Oregon Ballet season tickets. They took their girls to Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan at the Keller Auditorium in Portland. I was delighted to join them.

March

Our backyard renovation started in December 2023 and was finally completed in February 2024. These are my first daffodils. As I walked around the neighborhood, the cherry blossom was in full bloom.

My younger granddaughter, Nora, turned four in March. We had an indoor birthday party for her. Easter came early in 2024. The girls had an Easter egg hunt at church and had another one at our house in the afternoon.

April

My older granddaughter’s school had an art show. Every student chose four pieces of artwork they did during the year to display at the show. One piece of Autumn’s work was a painting of Van Gogh’s Sunflower.

I’ve been actively blogging since 2016, have made many online friends, and met a few in person. I met Terri Webster Schrandt in 2021. She and her husband visited their relatives in Portland in April this year. While in town, they came to see me. We had lunch together and went for a walk in my neighborhood.

Hubby’s sister also visited us this month. We had fun taking her to Multnomah Falls and Cannon Beach.

May

My garden was gradually in good shape with my favorite flowers.

I coached my grandkids to create gifts for their parents on special occasions. After the Mother’s Day brunch, the girls eagerly watched my daughter open her mother’s gift.

Nora was in a dance class at Moonstar Dance Studio, which conducts an annual student performance. Nora’s class was the youngest, but they did a marvelous job making the teachers and parents proud.

June

Portland Public School’s last day was June 14. Even though my daughter signed up for summer camps for Autumn, we helped care for her when she was not at camps. Local parks, school playgrounds, and OMSI were our frequently visited places. Autumn did some acrylic paintings this summer.

More flowers in June. Jay!

Wishing you a

Prosperous and Successful New Year!

Tanka Tuesday – Great Snowstorms

Posted on January 25, 2024 by Miriam Hurdle 112 comments

24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry Challenge, No. 18, 1/23/24, Part I, Deep Cold (January 20 – February 2) Diakan 大寒. This week, Colleen invites us to select kigo words to inspire our poetry. Explore new forms and express creativity.

It has been a challenging time for the cities, businesses, and people because of snow and freezing rain. Portland schools were closed one day at a time and eventually closed for the entire week last week. Parents either took time off from work or made alternative arrangements for their children. We had some appointments but were canceled. When the snow started to melt, people tried to go in and out doing business, but many fell on the slippery ice and got injured. The weather will warm up slightly. We hope life will be back to normal soon.

The poem form I used this week is Imayo –

The form can be 4 lines (8 lines permissible); 12 syllables per line divided as 7-5, make a pause between the 7 and 5 syllables using coma caesura or kireji (cutting word) as the pause. No rhymes, no meter, no end-of-line pauses. The whole should flow together as though in one long sentence. My kigo words are great snowstorms and bundling up.

In the middle of winter, great snowstorms threaten

when white walls pile up feet high, enchanting islands

cause iced roads to paralyze, dead silence around

urge to better bundling up, sit by a warm fire

Tanka Tuesday – Great Snowstorms

What did you do during the great snowstorms and freezing rain?

Tanka Tuesday – First Snow

Posted on January 10, 2024 by Miriam Hurdle 88 comments

Welcome to the 24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry challenge for Colleen’s TankaTuesday! We are in the season of Early Cold (January 5 – 20) Shokan 小寒.

The writing invitation from Colleen is to compose a haibun using the kigo words and phrases from the Early Cold challenge. A haibun is a paragraph of prose including a haiku. The haiku portion is a form with 3 or more lines following the short-long-short, 3-5-3, 2-3-2, (5-7-5 traditional).

First Snow

Snow came last night and steadily drifted. The reflecting glitters revealed beneath the streetlights, like an endless downward shining scroll. The thin layer was not enough to cover the ground for too long. Warmth came before dawn and the snow melted away. Don’t worry, it is not going away entirely. The new snow promises to be on its way. Children will have their boots, gloves, sleds, and snowboard ready. They’ll forget their breakfast, rush to the hilltop, and go down the white blanket with glee.

First snowflakes

Mystical whiteness

Pure wonder

Tanka Tuesday – First Snow

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #136: Subjects Starting with the Letter–S

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Miriam Hurdle 91 comments

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #136, we’re circling back to the alphabet. This time, Patti invited us to focus on the letter S. She quoted Mike Wilks who strung a sentence with all the words begin with the letter S and indicated on the shelves in his store stacked with stock of 1,234 Ss to see.

I don’t want to list some seventy-seven S-things. I only chose several to be included in this post. I simply tried to have samples.

“May you see sunshine where others see shadows and opportunities where others see obstacles.” – Anonymous

“Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine.” – Mario Fernandez

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It’s what sunflowers do.” Helen Keller

“If roses tried to be sunflowers, they would lose their beauty; and if sunflowers tried to be roses, they would lose their strength.” Matshona Dhliwayo

“Millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury nuts, then forget where they hid them. Do good and forget. It’ll grow someday.” – Anonymous

“Little squirrel opens human heart because they have lots of practice with the nuts.” – Swapna Ch

“A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.” -Tom Wilson

“Life is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you.” – Peace Pilgrim

“Having a sister is like having a best friend you can’t get rid of. You know whatever you do, they’ll still be there.” – Amy Li

“Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.” – Margaret Mead

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #136: Subjects Starting with the Letter–S

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #107 – Winter

Posted on July 25, 2020 by Miriam Hurdle 104 comments

This week for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #107, Ann-Christine invited us to look at the difference in the winter when we compare the Northern Hemisphere with the Southern Hemisphere.

The first time I saw snow was my first year in Portland, Oregon. It was in November. I walked along the hallway from one classroom to the next. My eyes glanced through the floor to ceiling window. A thin layer of white stuff drifting down in the air. I stopped and observed. Each layer above seemed to get thicker and whiter. I realized what happened and called out while jumping up and down, “It’s snowing. It’s snowing!” Some male students walked by and looked at me. Probably the last time they saw and heard of it was from their little kids.

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When I finished school in Portland, I went on to Seattle Pacific University for my second graduate study. The city welcomed me with seven inches of snow. When the snow came to a pause, I put on my knee high, custom made leather boots and my leather gloves to make the first snowman. The leather gloves got hard and stiff after they were dry. My boots were fine, probably they were made differently.

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Is winter warm or cold? I think winter is warm because it’s the time for events such as Christmas concert, Christmas light cruise, Christmas parties with family and friends, and my daughter’s birthday the day after Christmas.

One New Year, we visited my sister’s family in Vancouver B.C. We couldn’t go skiing in Whistler B.C. because the heavy fog came in. We managed going to a nearby mountain for my husband, niece, and nephew to do snowboarding.

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Back home in southern California, our chorale started rehearsing for the Messiah concert first week of November, leading to the two performances before Christmas. This is the highlight of the year for me.

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The adult fellowship group at church has many Christmas parties. One year we had a catering dinner at a deluxe retirement home. The chef built a gingerbread village every year. He made one gingerbread house at a time throughout the year and froze them. By early December, he assembled the village with a train track and an electrical train going around it.

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The last two years, we went on the Christmas Light Cruise and watched the Christmas Boat Parade.

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Two years ago was the first-time snow and Christmas met. My husband and I went to Portland, Oregon to spend the holiday with my daughter’s family. I saw snow before the plane landed and was so excited to have a white Christmas.

Most exciting of all during Christmas time is my daughter’s birthday on the day after Christmas. Here, Mercy opened the birthday card from her daughter Autumn.

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