LinkUP: Alphabet Soup!

Today is a special day at The Matlock School For Syllabary Obsessed Bloggers. Mrs Matlock, our lovely, albeit somewhat strict, anytime blogger and part time schoolmarm is wrapping up yet another semester of AlphabeThursday with a big pot of AlphabetSoup! Yummm...
Dig into some of my favorite letters from this batch. Ooh, I think I gotta piece of celery in my teeth.


A is for Autumnal Ruminations: I love autumn. The air smells crispy. It is clear and cool. Just as the summer flowers lose their color, the trees begin to change and a whole new pallette is arranged. I just love the way it feels, and the sunsets are spectacular! It is time to don cardigans, scarves and cute hats to crunch the leaves on the sidewalk during my afternoon walks. I relinquish the barbecue for the big soup pot. Fall is the time to enjoy a giant batch of chili with a big, crusty loaf of sourdough...Yummm! The pumpkins in the garden are getting plump and I know that trick-or-treating is just around the corner. I DO love to dress up!


B Is for Bikes and Big Buts:  I am the queen of big buts.

You know...

I would try the ride... BUT.

I wish I could do this...BUT.

I would love to try that...BUT.

I could be all that and a bag of chips...BUT.

I dream of_______...BUT.

That is a lot of big buts. I am kinda tired of walking around dragging all those big buts behind me. Now, this is not to say that I do not love my life. I totally do. I have amazing kids and a Hunky Hubby that I cannot get enough of, and we live a great life full of love and books and movies and art and nature and fun, but I have always played it safe. I read something recently that I wrote a year or so ago. A question to myself in my journal. "Will I ever do something truly daring?" Well...will I?

D is for Decorating: I am not good at decorating. I have good taste, don't get me wrong, of course I have good taste. I just do not know how to put it all together. Also, my taste is very...um...shall we say...eclectic. It is my mom's fault. Growing up we always had a strange assemblage of furnishings and decor. A mixture of family pieces, antiques and odds and ends. A combination my mom's diverse flair for decorating and a lack of financing. Bookshelves in every nook and cranny, including the hallway! Nothing matched. P.S. I turned out just like my mom...and I love it!


E Is For Evolution: I am Leslie. Wife. Daughter. Sister. Mother. Mormon. Recycler. Writer. Friend. Woman. Gardner. Lover. I am a loudmouthed, stubborn, opinionated know-it-all, but a passionate, empathetic, friendly naturegirl. I could go on, but for everyone's sake, I will not. I am above all, a work in progress. I am evolving. I have likewise evolved. I think most importantly I am becoming more ME. Everyday more comfortable with who I am. Letting go of pretenses; both externally and internally. Allowing myself to get to know the real me. It takes time and effort to let emerge the person we are at birth before life and hurt and fear gradually sneak in and temporarily rob us of our true selves. Temporarily. We are divine. Yet mortality has a funny way of snatching that knowledge right out from under us...oh around, you know...jr high. Pick, pick, pick, little pieces of our divine nature are plucked off and we have to patch and mend and cover up our perceived inadequacies for years until we are once again able to see our real selves. Once again able to BE ourselves.

F is for Flosculation: I really like words. Seriously, I use them all the time! Reading, writing, quotidian colloquy. But I have recently heard some disturbing news. I mean, I guess deep down inside I always knew, but until my worst fears were confirmed by an outside source, I held out hope that it wasn't true. There are words on the brink of expiration. The threshold of existence. Near their demise. Falling, quickly and abruptly, into obsolescence! Words that once served a purpose and held their places proudly and alphabetically in lexicons across the world, are now being tossed aside like relics of a bygone generation. Deemed antiquated, outdated, useless and ineffective they are being removed from dictionaries to make room for new words like woot, edamame and subprime. I think there is still time to Save The Words.

Q Is for Quixotic Quotidian Quirk: I am an an addict.  At first, I only popped open a new one every couple of days, and only with friends. After a while I needed one everyday, and I started partaking even when I was alone.  They say that is one of the first signs. Now I find myself indulging two or three times a day. I cannot stop. I even found myself using in the car the other day, in the elementary school parking lot while I was waiting for kids. I know it is wrong, but it just feels so good...Even when I am not using, I find myself thinking about it. Adding the point values of the day's newspaper headline. Word scores racing through my mind like greyhounds after the proverbial RABBIT. (Or HARE, on a double word score.) Anticipating the chance to use a beauty like QUIXOTIC or JUMBLE. Yeah...I gotta go.


Quote of the Day: "I like the word "indolence." It makes my laziness seem classy.  ~Bern Williams author