Elfchen . 11 little words

What is an “Elfchen”?

“Elfchen” is German and literally means “wee eleven”. “Elf” means eleven and the ending “-chen” behind a name or noun gives it a sense of being wee and endearing. An “Elfchen” is basically a short poem consisting of exactly 11 words in a specific format of words per line.  

My friend Sonja from Berlin taught me Elfchen by example.  Today I thought I would sit and write one too.  I began by writing out the instructions.    Row 1:  one word Row 2: two words Row3: three words Row 4: four words and Row 5: one word.  Then I took some gifted peacock feathers and began to write. It’s maybe not the best but it’s what came to mind.  Most of all it was relaxing 

To sit.  

To be still.  

To think. 

To write. 

Peacock

Vibrant Billowing

Heart on Sleeve

So much like Me

Unique

I have been invited by basildonkitchens aka Connie my cosmic twin  to the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge: “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge”.  I discovered Connie’s beautiful blog when I was on wordpress and noticed right off the bat we had some things in common.  I admire her talent for making gorgeous quilts, her love of the sea and of course Mr. Sock Monkey, he gets me every time.  When I want to get away and look at beautiful things, I come visit Connie.  She keeps herself busy with a photo a day challenge she faithfully participates in with fat mum slim.  

Today I challenge my friend Vanessa who lives in Vermont with her darling children and husband and she teaches me so much by just sharing with me how she lives, what her heart she loves big.  She too has proven to be a really great writer who has not written much lately on her beautiful blog. 

5 days

hello little tomatoes so sweet

thank you for finding your way into this dry, hard soil

thank you for being brave, strong,  bursting through this earth

lifting your limbs towards the light of our sun

growing, growing, growing

strong

vibrant

completely aware of your purpose

I can’t help but to pluck your sweet fruit

I can’t help but admire your beauty and grace

through the golden sunlight

each tiny hair

yellow flowers destined to become fruit

the scalloped hat you wear

your change in color

from green to red

I’m happy you chose my garden to thrive

to grow

to give

thank you

I have been invited by basildonkitchens aka Connie my cosmic twin  to the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge: “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge”.  I discovered Connie’s beautiful blog when I was on wordpress and noticed right off the bat we had some things in common.  I admire her talent for making gorgeous quilts, her love of the sea and of course Mr. Sock Monkey, he gets me every time.  When I want to get away and look at beautiful things, I come visit Connie.  She keeps herself busy with a photo a day challenge she faithfully participates in with fat mum slim.  

Now I would like to invite relax and float downstream, one of my longest readers/followers who happens to be a really great writer.  Often when I read her blog posts, I nod my head in agreement.  She has not written in a while, maybe this might be the spark to get her going.

Happiness and Positive Words

“when I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life”

— John Lennon

I was on Facebook recently and I saw a little blog post shared by  Danielle Leporte She isn't the first to try this experiment it seems.  I found lots of people giving this a try.  I'm beginning quite negative because it's hard for me to believe this will work.  I believe it with all my heart when it comes to humans but apples?  I suppose I may be a skeptic.  So I'm going to do this experiment with littlest and only girl and we will see what the results will be.  Of course I will come back to this space and share our findings.  I'm kind of excited to see how this will all pan out.  

And before you go thinking this is just silly talk.  It's not.  I believe that scripture also backs the power of positive thoughts.  This is just one example I find, there are many more.  Proverbs 16:24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

And lastly, my last post I said I would talk about our carrot and beet juice.  It was oh so yummy and mostly we make the green juice but every so often we toss in a nice sweet treat like this one. Do you see the little happy face on the dirty little counter?  Making juice is a dirty job;)

2 beets

2 gala apples

6 carrots

a knob of ginger

4 pineapple strips

The juice of one orange

spoonful of chia seeds

xo

Have a beautiful day!!

best ding dong on the planet

You can find the best ding dong on the planet at a nice little local spot in my home town called  the night owl and yesterday I ate one of those locally famous ding dongs.  I met my cousin for lunch and a visit and I was talking up this ding dong something good and so she decided to walk over there with me and get one to go herself.  However when we arrived there was only one ding dong left.  She said I could have it since she had never tasted one she wouldn't know what she was missing and had she known she may have had us flip for it.  Now that's a good friend to let me have the last ding dong.  I really appreciated it...every single last bite of it.  That's all I can talk about this morning cause I'm in a real big hurry to get out of here and get to work.  I want to share later about the carrot/beet juice I made for me and Austin but that's later.  

xo

Have a wonderful day

learning new things is hard

I have decided to not re-new my account on wordpress.  This means I get to learn a new way of blogging.  So far it's like learning a new language.  Some people have mentioned that wordpress is hard.  I didn't seem to think so. but this.  This seems hard, either that or it really is so easy I'm just not getting it.  All frustration aside let me post about something that really made my day.  Below is yesterdays breakfast.  A day old vegan donut, dirty grout and coffee of course.  I found beauty in this.  That's why I took a picture of it.  It's real life. 

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Then today our cousin up north.  Yes.  I claim her.  I claim all Rich's family as my own.  That's what happens when you get married right?  I claim them because they are really, really GOOD people and as you see below.  Very talented too. Carie drew my breakfast.  She didn't just draw it.  She made it look way better.  I would hang this in my coffee shop if I had one. 

Seriously.  New language.  Chinese.  And where it the spell check?  I'm the worst speller in the entire universe.  

time for change

In 2015 I made a few personal goals.  One of which was to develop my blog into something more, have more creative freedom.  Although I have not figured all that out just yet.  I did decide to move my blog from Wordpress to SquareSpace.   I spent hours navigating around this new space.  Still.  So much to learn but so far I really love it.  It's laid out nicely and their customer service responds quick.  So I think I will stay.  I hope you will follow me here because basically I'm starting over.  A fresh start.  Now I just wonder how you do that?  I should figure that out.