F IS FOR FINALITY; A to Z Blogging Challenge

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F IS FOR FINALITY

Originally, I had planned on a different subject to write about today.  I heard some very sad local news that touched my heart, and I was moved to write this instead.  

Today's post is inspired by the tragic death of a local man, Carroll Herring.  Mr. Herring was simply walking across the road to put the flag up on his mailbox when he was struck not once, but twice, by two different vehicles.  Both vehicles left the scene of the crime.  

According to a local man, Mr. Herring was hit at a high rate of speed and thrown into the air.  He landed in the highway where he was struck again by a different vehicle.  Both vehicles left the scene but Albemarle County police were able to track down and return one of the drivers. The other driver still remains at large. 

From local news sites:

"Police are actively looking for a second car involved in the crash that apparently also left the scene. The county's Crash Reconstruction Team describes it as a white Saab with moderate front-end damage." 

"Anyone with information that can help police is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 434-977-4000."

Carroll Herring was a 71 year old farmer and lifetime resident of the small rural town of Crozet, Virginia, which is where I reside. He loved growing an extra large garden and sharing his produce with the less fortunate.   I didn't know him personally but I do feel the tragedy of his senseless death.

My purpose today is just to remind you that nothing is promised or guaranteed in this life.  You should always be mindful of your own mortality.  Not obsessively of course, but everyone should really LIVE in the moment more frequently.

Too often we get caught up in plans for "tomorrow" and "next week" and "in five years".  Let me tell you something:  You might not be around for that.  I'm not trying to be a pessimist   Not at all.  I just think we should all seize each moment, NOW, and milk out all the happiness we can in the present.  Future plans are okay, but don't put off something you enjoy or love. 

Here are some of my other thoughts on Finality: 

Make each day count.

Jack Dawson, from the movie "Titanic", used that as a toast when he dined with Rose in the  First Class dining room.  I am a firm believer in that mantra.  

Do something you love, every single day.

Tell the people you care about that you love them.  Now.

Don't go to bed angry.

Smile. Often.

Help a stranger, no matter how big or small.  I'm a huge supporter of Pay It Forward.  Whether  it's a cup of coffee or a tank of gas. 

Perform random acts of kindness whenever you can.

I dedicate this blog post to the memory of Mr. Herring.  May his family find justice and peace in this tragedy.

Blessed Be to you all and thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  Comments are always welcome and I enjoy responding to all of you.

Photo from accidentin.com and CBS19 websites.  No copyright infringement intended.  Used for illustrative and artistic purposes only.  I honor his memory with this post.

B is for Back Roads; Blogging A to Z Challenge

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B IS FOR BACK ROADS


I love Virginia.  Virginia is home.  I've lived many places in my life but none quite so lovely, so peaceful, so downright BREATHTAKING as "my" Virginia.  I live in a magical, rural area between the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains. Here, there are thousands of back roads.  We don't have freeways, expressways, turnpikes or toll roads.  We have "the Interstate" and "all the other roads".  Don't get me wrong, we do have pavement, but life here is slower, friendlier, and gentler.  Reminiscent of days gone by.

(I've included a lot of links in this blog.  Please feel free to click on them if something interests you.  Each link opens in a separate page so you won't lose your place here. If a link is broken or malfunctions, please let me know! I've done my best to test them all out. They aren't wiki pages either, I've tried to find things of real interest to link to.)

Back roads have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  There is something magical about cresting a hill, winding around a turn, and seeing things like this: 

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Rolling Hills of Albemarle County, Virginia

March 2013

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Farmland and Hay, Albemarle County, Virginia

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Farmland and Mountains, Albemarle County, Virginia

Albemarle County is the setting for the old TV show, "The Waltons".  Earl Hamner, Jr. wrote the book that was eventually turned into the series.  Earl would have been John-Boy in the show, the one to whom everyone said, "Goodnight".  He is the child that grew up on the show and became the famous author, writing about life on Walton's Mountain (published in real life as "Spencer's Mountain").  If you come here to visit, you can go to the original Walton's Mountain and walk through the Hamner's home.  It's so nice to watch that show and hear them talking about "going down into Charlottesville" and so forth.  Most of the series, sadly, was NOT filmed here on location.  Hollywood may try to copy Virginia, but us locals know our mountains!  Still a wonderful show.

 On one recent drive, I was able to snap a picture of this very cool art studio/gallery by the side of the road. 

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Unique Art Studio, Albemarle County

 I had to pull off the road to grab this amazing twilight photo showing the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains near my home.

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Twilight in Crozet Virginia

 Coming down my long and winding gravel driveway, I caught a breathtaking sight of evening fog rolling into the nearby woods.  I snapped this pic and just put a sepia filter on it for added effect.  This is one of my all time favorite photos.

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Evening Fog, Crozet Virginia

This gorgeous lake is not far from my house either.  My friend and I take her dogs out to run and play a lot in the evenings, so I am lucky to capture sunsets and twilight shots like this one, another on my personal favorites:

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Twilight by the Lake, Albemarle County Virginia

Sometimes, you see things that make you get out of the car and walk down the road just to grab a photo, like this historic home that was on the market for sale.  I've forgotten the name of it but it dates back to the 1700s.  I love the stone wall!

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Historic Home for Sale, Crozet Virginia

If you can't tell already, I'm a huge history buff!  (Nerd Girl Alert!)  Living here in Virginia, I am blessed to be surrounded, literally, by history.  This marker honors the birthplace of Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, who was a personal friend of President Thomas Jefferson.  (Jefferson is a native Virginian and his home of Monticello is a MUST SEE when you come to the area.)

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Birthplace of Meriwether Lewis, Explorer of the West

 Art abounds in Albemarle County and you'll see plenty of unique pieces if you take the back roads.  Things like this:

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Folk Art outside of Artist Cottage, near Crozet Virginia

That piece of folk art was in the yard of this very interesting home near Crozet:

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  Unique Artist Cottage, near Crozet Virginia

More Civil War history here in the mountains of Virginia.  Commemorative sign regarding Stonewall Jackson's war campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.  

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Stonewall Jackson Memorial, Civil War Battlefield Site, Albemarle County Virginia

Returning home on a snowy day in March, this is the beauty to which I am greeted:

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My Snowy Road, March 2013

I never get tired of these views...and I hope I never will.

So there you have it...the beauty of taking a back road.  Go out and find your own back roads.  Don't forget to take your camera.  You'll be glad you did!

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All photos taken by Tammy Petry.

Dog photographed by permission of owner.

A is for Abundance; Blogging A to Z Challenge

A IS FOR ABUNDANCE 

Sometimes, you just know when you've got it good. Sometimes things just align and fall into place so perfectly, all you can do is sit back and count your blessings with tears of gratitude in your eyes. I've had one of those days today. I am thankful for so many things...

Such as:

A dear friend and I reconnected today.
My cat, who had been feeling bad, finally ate and drank without throwing up.
My kids texted me.
I had a few dollars extra in my bank account.
The dogs I dog-sit for were well-behaved today.
The weather was beautiful.

As I sit outside, writing this blog post, I can hear the melodious song of peep frogs, a sure indicator that Spring is here in Appalachia.

I am blessed to have a great home, a fabulous housemate, and the freedom to pursue my passions of art and writing.  I may not be rich in dollars, but I am *rich* indeed.

Abundance is not always material.  Abundance is having a lot of what *YOU* place value on.  I love my work, my freedom, my kitteh, my home life, my friends, my time, my family, and Nature.  Money, sadly, seems like it will always be necessary in our modern society.  It doesn't have to define it or the way you live your life.  I am and will always be a Minimalist.  I have a few items I treasure but I don't attach a dollar value to my possessions. I don't seek to have the *next great thing*.  I don't follow fashion. I'm me and I'm happy to be of an age where I can say, "Take it or leave it!"

Yes, A is for Abundance and I am Abundantly blessed.

For that, I am *Abundantly* Grateful.

Thank you for reading.

Namaste.

Back Roads and Life Lessons

Photo courtesy of "Traveler On the Backroads" 

http://www.facebook.com/TravelerOntheBackroads

I wrote a brilliant post last night which was inspired by this photograph. Somehow, between "Publishing" and "Posting" it got lost in the ether.  So, now it is morning, I have fresh, hot coffee, and I'm attempting to resurrect a bit of last night's wit and genius.  I may not recapture the exact phrasing, but I think I've been able to express my overall train of thought. 

Life lessons and back roads.

LIFE LESSONS

I've lived in many different places over the years.  Some were good, some were great, and some were downright atrocious (Arkansas comes to mind immediately!).  Through it all, I've always retained my love for rural Virginia.  I'm originally from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and if I were a Theist I'd call it "God's Country".   For various reasons, I've moved away and come back home several times in my adult life.  I've never really been happy living anywhere else but here (Boston was a close second.).  Each time I moved somewhere outside of Virginia, I felt extreme homesickness.  At first I thought it was just an adjustment period.  When it didn't pass, I knew deep in my heart that I was longing to be home again.  I'd move home and be oh so happy, then fall into complacency and begin to take everything for granted.  Life would happen and I'd find a new adventure to carry me away again.  The last time I went on a "Grand Life Adventure" was 2009.  I won't get into the details here and now (maybe another day) but I will say that I moved from a rural area of the Shenandoah Valley to the suburbs of Little Rock, Arkansas.  Ugh.  I had lived in the mid-west back in the late 80s up in Kansas City and HATED IT.  Perhaps time erases some of those memories or perhaps I was just blinded by love.  Whatever the case, I KNEW BETTER and did it anyway.  I had multiple alarm bells going off in my head but I pushed them aside, buried them, and continued on in my blind pursuits. While I was in Arkansas, I was happy for the first three months and miserable for the last 14 months.  When the relationship tanked, I became insanely homesick.  I cried buckets of tears of Virginia.  It was so bad that when I watched Virginia Tech college football, I'd gaze at the screen hoping and waiting for the camera to pan up for a shot of the mountains.  I'd watch YouTube videos see video here of the Valley and break down sobbing.  I knew then that it was time to go home.  I'd taken for granted all the wonderful beautiful things I had grown to love about my home.  The changing of the seasons, the friendliness of the people, the local markets and shops, the smell of the earth after it rained, snow, winter, see video here wood stoves, history, the mountains.  All these things made me immensely happy and I didn't realize how much they truly meant to me.  

While I was in Arkansas, one of my hobbies was doing my family genealogy.  I got very involved in it and enjoyed looking up my heritage. I learned a lot about both sides of my family.  I was sad because I wanted to go to all the places where my family had lived, loved, and died.  I found out we even have our own mountain and cemetery in West Virginia.  (Scott Mountain if ya must know.)  

So now that I'm home, I've vowed to appreciate everything around me and to NEVER take anything about Virginia, or my life, for granted ever again.  Also, I've promised to always be true to myself.  I will never compromise who I am, what I believe, how I feel, or the way I dress, talk, worship, or vote.

I try to view everything in life as a learning experience and to take life lessons from each event.  The lessons I learned while living in Arkansas were as follows:

1.  Never EVER ignore your intuition.  If you hear warning bells, STOP.  Think. Re-evaluate.

2.  Never compromise who you are for ANYONE.  It's akin to selling your soul.  Actually, that's just what it is.

3.  Treasure your home, your ancestry, your customs, your traditions.  Be proud of who you are and where you come from.  (I fought this for many years but I am now proud to say I am a Daughter of Appalachia!  More on that later, perhaps its own blog post?)

4.  Speak your mind.  You don't have to be hateful or rude, but always be honest.  Don't suppress things that hurt you or bother you.  If you're unhappy, say so.  I wasted too much time trying to pretend I was happy when I knew I wasn't.

5.  Family is everything.  Love them and cherish them while they are here.

6.  Take NOTHING  for granted.  Ever.  I mean NEVER.  

BACK ROADS

Back roads are like the veins that carry my life blood.  Back roads represent everything that is pure and good and honest.  Back roads are my Broadway, my Beale Street, my Ventura Boulevard.  There is kindness to be found on a back road.  There's a spiritual connection with Nature to be found on a back road. 

Imagine you're walking down a country lane.  It has recently rained and there's a nice breeze blowing. The wildflowers on the sides of the road sway in the wind.  The flowers are an explosion of yellow, purple, blue, and fuchsia. You can smell the rich aroma of dark damp earth.  A butterfly flutters in front of you.  Birds sing in nearby trees.  The sun comes out and caresses your face.  The gravels crunch with each step you take.  Are you there?  Can you feel it?  These are things that move my soul.

Whenever I'm faced with a choice of taking the Interstate or taking a back road, I will choose the back road every time.

So today, I challenge you:  Take a detour.  Go smell the flowers, literally.  Find your own back road and savor it.  

Blessed Be to all.

Namaste.