Jennifer Michie

Month: June 2017 (page 1 of 1)

June 30, 2017 / 2 Comments

Quiet

I’m longing for quiet lately. I was shopping for a birthday card for a friend last week and found the perfect card for my Nana. It was dirty, which she would have loved. She had a wicked sense of humour. I wandered around the store and was about to purchase my items when I realised, I can’t send her a card. I just stood there like an idiot for a moment before going to put the card back. I still can’t believe that she no longer exists within my world. We shared a lot with each other, but I still had so much more to learn and to experience through her eyes.

On my daily run, I always make a beeline for the woodland paths. I slow down to a walk there and watch the muntjacs (if I’m lucky to see them), or check on the baby coots and ducklings in the pond. One little muntjac in particular and I are slowly becoming friends. He occasionally watches me do yoga or peers out from the trees across the path, when I’m doing push-ups using the back of a park bench. He seems to seek me out. I find peace in watching him. I find peace in listening to the birds and watching the sun shine through the fern leaves. One of the many side paths has ferns that are taller than me. When the sun shines through them it is like being in a chapel made entirely of emerald green stained glass.

The moment I leave the woods the traffic rushes by, people push past you and there is just so much noise coming from every direction. I don’t want noise for a little while. I want to sit in a chair with my toes in the sand. I want to do my morning run along the beach, barefoot as the sun rises. I want to collect seashells, rinsing them off in the ocean before leaving them to dry on the porch railing. I want to make s’mores over a fire and slowly lick off the marshmallow goo from my lips.

I want to eat when I feel like eating, only see people if I want to, only talk to people if I want to. I want to take naps on a screened-in porch listening to the waves as I drift off. I don’t want to answer questions, or do laundry, or clean a house. I don’t want to hear noise other than the ocean beating against the shore one rolling wave at a time. Just for a little while, I just crave the delicious sound of silence.

{Image found HERE // Pinned HERE}

June 23, 2017 / 0 Comments

Leapin’ Lizards!

I’ve lived in England for a long time now and there is one thing that you very rarely, if ever see. In fact, I’ve never seen one here outside of a zoo. I’m talking about SNAKES! I can’t stand snakes. I grew up in an area of the States where you needed to be watchful for venomous snakes and spiders and where cockroaches, or as we call them “Palmetto Bugs”, do in fact fly. So I always pay attention.

Last year, while walking home along the footpath, I heard a noise that you only hear in horror films. The noise where something big is being dragged. I don’t know how I missed this thing, usually I’m constantly looking up and down as I walk the footpaths as there are always little mice who I don’t want to squash and normally dog poop.

But somehow I was looking up and stepped straight over something and it was only when I heard the noise of something huge being dragged through leaves did I turn around and witness the last two feet of a snake disappear down the hill to the train tracks. I kid you not when I say this, but it’s girth was the size of an Amazonian python that had just eaten a village cow.

There was a horrible smell in the air and after a mini panic attack where I didn’t think I could walk, I all but ran home and after a long internet search came across a site that informed me that that horrible almost rancid garlic odour I smelled was from a grass snake. It’s their defensive move. That snake and I crossed paths many times last summer, even when I avoided the footpath. The first time was enough for me, I didn’t need to see it ever again.

So, last night as I walked home, I stopped short as something almost golden in appearance caught my eye. I looked at it and it looked at me and I thought to myself, Mr. Michie is never going to believe me so I better snap a picture and before I could get a good one it took off.

After a few deep breaths, all but running home and lots of research, we came to the conclusion that it was in fact not a snake, but a legless lizard. As their skin is smooth and very shiny. Still, it’s enough for me to warily stare down that footpath.

Here’s to the weekend, I hope yours is legless lizard free! In fact, I hope mine is too, because they look way too much like a snake to me.

{Quote found HERE}

June 16, 2017 / 0 Comments

Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays!

“Listen girls, if the cake-to-frosting ratio isn’t perfect here, Inez will never let me hear the end if it.”

We’ve been doing a lot of celebrating around these parts as it was my birthday yesterday. We’re carrying on this party train into the weekend and have a few fun things planned.

There is a very special someone celebrating their birthday today. YOU know who you ARE. Happy Birthday and I LOVE YOU! xoxox

Here’s to the weekend, long may it last.

{Image found via Flickr // Pinned HERE}

June 6, 2017 / 0 Comments

The Written Word Endures #6

“What was it like when you were growing up?”

Sookie took a sip of her tea. “Like a three-ring circus, with Lenore as ringmaster. The house was always full of people. The bridge club or garden club always had some kind of meeting at our house and Buck’s friends were running in and out. Poor Daddy, I miss him. He was the sweetest thing; he said the only reason he could live with Lenore was the fact that he was deaf in one ear. One time Buck said, ‘Daddy, why can’t you hear out of that ear?’ And Daddy said, ‘Wishful thinking, son, just wishful thinking.’ He was a scream.”

…

Believe me, Mother lives well, but since Daddy died, who knows what she’s liable to do next. She can come up with the craziest things.”

“Like what?”

“Just crazy stuff. Five years ago so many new people started moving here and she didn’t think the Welcome Wagon and the Newcomers’ Club were doing enough to suit her so she formed the Welcome to Selma Club … and I feel sorry for the poor people who move here. As soon as they hit town, Lenore’s troops make a beeline over to their house and swarm all over them like ants before anybody else can get to them. I said, Mother, it’s a wonder you don’t scare them to death. I know if I looked up and saw Lenore Krackenberry and her gang storming up my driveway with ribbons and balloons, singing at the top of their lungs, ‘Welcome to Selma,’ I’d move back where I came from.”

“Singing what?”

“Some old stupid song that one of her friends wrote. “ ‘Welcome to Selma, Selma, Selma…can we help ya, help ya, help ya.’ It’s just awful, but God knows people know they are welcomed.”

Sookie got up. “Promise me you won’t let me have more than two glasses of wine. Earle says I’m a cheap drunk and I get silly and talk too much if I have more than two glasses. I’m liable to get drunk and reveal all the family secrets.”

“Do you have any?”

Sookie sat down and threw her legs over the side of the chair. “Secrets? Are you kidding? In Selma, honey, we couldn’t have a secret if our lives depended on it. My life is an open book. Everybody in town knows that Buck is a big goofball and that Mother is a card-carrying crazy … and I’m probably not operating on a full deck myself.”

Dena was unwinding and the feeling was pleasant. “Sookie, tell me about your life down here.”

“My life? It’s just a plain old normal life. You’re the one who hobnobs with the stars. We are just plain old people, dull, dull, dull.”

-Fannie Flagg, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

* I simply adore Fannie Flagg. The closer I get to the end of her novels, the slower I read them. She weaves her worlds so well, I feel that I know these characters. I think some of us would even be dear friends. This book had so many things that just tickled my funny bone. It was hard to put it down at 2am, but I woke up Mr. Michie by bursting out laughing at a particular paragraph. So out went the lights…

June 4, 2017 / 0 Comments

Superheroes

This morning, we awoke to the news of another terrorist attack. This one was at our back door, in our beloved London.

Lately, I feel that we need superheroes more than ever. Never doubt their existence. For it was superheroes walking among us, who last night in the onslaught of the attack, ran to people’s aid.

On Friday, we had an afternoon movie date to see the new Wonder Woman film. It was WONDERful! I have long been a Diana Prince fan. I grew up watching the gorgeous Lynda Carter, spin into Wonder Woman over my morning bowl of cereal as a kid.

Personally, I feel that Wonder Woman’s message is one of extreme paramount importance. Her message is that you can be strong and powerful, but kindness and more crucially love are equally valuable qualities to possess.

Therefore, each time we wake up to another atrocity, we must continue to stand strong and walk forward with kindness and love. We will not cower. We will not back down. We will continue forward, for it is the only way to go.

{Image: Found}