HI readers:
This morning, I woke up 13 minuts before the start of the writers acountability group meeting on zoom. Yikes!
Usually I set an alarm for an hour earlier. This gives me time to get up, wake up properly, have my quiet time with the Lord, make a cup of tea and be ready for the meeting. Today, however, it was a scramble. I had time only to turn on the heater, take care of urgent business and then dash into the meeting.
Something in me wasn’t right. I felt anxious, I still do. I felt the wrongness of not starting my day with my prayer and Bible study time, which I do every day. It’s not just a routine, it’s a meeting, the most important time of the day, an appointment with the god of the universe and my Heavenly Father.
The writing group meeting is over now. I have read a devotional and had a prayer time and I feel better, though that feeling of anxiety is still hanging around. I’ve been doing breath prayer and it is helping a lot.
All this is a reminder to me, that I need to start my day right. I need time with God in the morning, before I do anything else. If that means I have to get up earlier than I would want to … well it just has to be that way.
I wrote a poem about this when we were having our writing session in the group. Here’s the poem, it’s a Kyrielle.
Start My Day:
When I don’t start my day with you
My day just doesn’t work out right,
I can’t decide what I should do
And there is no peace in my mind.
When I don’t start my day with you,
I feel completely unprepared
The ups and downs that I go through
Make sense when, with you, they are shared.
When I don’t start my day with you
I find it easier to fall
And I know that, it’s very true
Alone, I can’t make it at all.
When I don’t start my day with you,
And I don’t make the time to pray
I realise, Lord, that it’s true,
You are the light that guides my way.
song of the day:
On my knees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caAb-rMTiRI
Love from
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
HI readers:
Thursday morning:
So I haven’t done an update post for a while, It’s 1:30 in the morning and now seems as good a time as any.
not a lot has been going on here, but quiet is good. I’m doing a whole lot better than I was last week. It was the deepest depression I’ve had for a long time. it all started on the Saturday before last.
I was waiting for a phone call. A few of us get together on Messenger and chat every Saturday. While I was waiting I checked my voice messages and found one from Jim, a friend of mine, who told me that another friend had passed away earlier in the year. The one who passed away, Reeva, had been a friend for more than 23 years. She lived right across the hallway from Ima, who died in 2021. Maria and I met both those ladies on an email list and we became firm friends. We use to have long phone conversations. Those three, along with Maria’s husband Joe, have been the best friends I have ever had. I haven’t been as in touch with Reeva as I should have been lately, and it hit me hard to learn that she had passed away. I know she’s happy where she is, and she isn’t hurting anymore, she had a chronic illness and she was in a lot of pain.
This whole thing has been a reminder to me, that life is short and friends are precious and we should never take them for granted. It’s so easy to drift apart from the people we love. We don’t intend to do it, but we do.
I haven’t done much writing, since the A to Z Challenge finished. That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed writing, and I enjoyed reading other people’s work. There are so many interesting blogs out there.
The writing group I’m in has been a real blessing. We are only a small group, but we are getting to know each other and it has become a sort of support group, as well as a writing group. I’m really glad to be part of something like this, even if I have to get up before 1 AM twice a week, to take part in it.
Church has been going well. Last Sunday our organist was running late, and I was just about to climb onto the organ bench when someone saw her coming through the door. The service was interesting, and the singing went well, except we have a new choir member who can’t sing in tune. She does her best, and she means well.
We had a visitor at church … a pigeon. he somehow got into the building and didn’t want to leave. We were singing our final hymn on Sunday and Miriam had to move me out of the way in a hurry because the bird was right over my head and I didn’t want to get dropped on. Yikes! People wer trying to get him to leave, but they didn’t have much luck.
We had Bible study on Sunday night. It was rather cold, so I wore my big fleecy jacket. It was warm in the Church hall, though. We are doing a series on the book of 1 peter, and we finished the first chapter last week. I’m really enjoying this study, we have had some good conversations and I feel like I’m getting more out of this one.
We had choir practise last Thursday, and it was great to see Miriam again. She and her husband David had been away for 3 weeks. She said it rained the whole time they were away. They went to the beach but she wasn’t able to get into the water, she said it wasn’t safe.
Last week I went shopping with Lindy. She’s one of my favourite people who works at the "life choices" agency. They are all nice, but I’ve known Lindy for years, and she’s lovely. We had a good catch-up.
Yesterday I had a man come to do my cleaning. It’s the second time he has come and the first time was a surprise for me, he’s the first man who has ever come to do my cleaning. He does a good job, though. He fixed a problem I was having with the power in this part of the house, it was nice to get it back on. Sometimes, if there are too many things going at once, the switch will turn off. I’m careful about not having too many things plugged in at once, and I don’t know what caused the power to go off yesterday, but it was nice to have it back on again. That’s something I need sighted help for.
Saturday morning:
I was going to post this on Thursday but didn’t get to it.
Thursday was a good day for me. Lindy took me shopping again, yay!We went a little bit later and so I was only home for about half an hour when it was time to go for afternoon tea and choir practise. This week I had chocolate cake for afternoon tea. It was nice, but the carrot cake I had last week was better. The chocolate cake was really, really crumbly, I made quite a mess.
We were the only ones at the cafe, and that was nice. We picked the songs for Sunday and Miriam said she wanted to sing the Lord’s prayer, the version by Sister Janet Mead that came out in the 1970’s. I had heard it on the radio but had never tried to learn it. I found it on youtube and played it, and we were sitting there in the cafe, singing along to "our father, who art in heaven …".
We went to the Church and ran through the songs for Sunday. Then we tried to do the Lord’s Prayer again. They want me to lead it on Sunday but I told them I don’t really know it. It’s not hard, I’ve worked it out since then and I think I can play it on the organ, which would be better than trying to sing along to someone’s phone playing it on youtube.
The pigeon wasn’t there when we got to church, I don’t know who managed to get him out of there. I hope it found somewhere safe to stay, like in the park or something.
We stopped on the way home and I got some fish and chips for dinner. The place was quite crowded. I have a poem on the back burner of my mind, about conversations in a takeaway shop.
Yesterday was a quiet day, I didn’t really do much. today should be quiet too. I had a bit of trouble getting up and organised today, I actually got up and then went back to sleep for another hour. I had a prayer time, but my computer wasn’t cooperating, so I couldn’t start the bible study I’m planning to work on. I’ll get that sorted later. The computer seems to be ok now. I really do need to get it fixed sooner or later. It’s not making weird noises at me anymore, but it gets very slow sometimes and there are times that, when I restart it, it goes for a little while and then cuts out.
There will probably be another group call on messenger later this morning. we do those every week. I’m looking forward to that. Most of the people in the group are blind and some of them I’ve known for quite a while.
Writing group is happening right now. We’ve had a bit of chat, and now we are each working on our own projects. I’ve been finishing this update post, and I am going to run it through a spell checker then put it on my blog.
Thank you for reading my ramblings.
song of the day:
Our Father:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUg8B1VA0Bs
Love from,
rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 26 of my April A to Z writing challenge posts. I realised that I hadn’t posted this last one yet, and we are now into may. Oops!
I just want to say a great big "thank you" to those who have read my posts, and especially for those who commented. I really appreciate you.
Breaking bad habits and developing new ones is a slow, painful process. Sometimes it’s like taking one step forward and a dozen steps backward. The thing is to keep going, even when we feel like we are making no progress at all.
Here is today’s poem.
Zero Again:
The progress I thought I was making,
The steps forward I thought I was taking,
Seem to have come to an end …
I’m back down to zero again.
I told myself "I can do it,"
"This struggle, I know I’ll get through it",
Though progress was made, in the end
I’m back down to zero again.
Despair has filled my heart,,
Though I tried, I feared from the start
That it would all fall apart, and then
I’d be back down to zero again.
But I know that I can rise above;
Trusting in God, whom I love,
And not leaning on my own strength …
I’m moving up from zero again.
Song of the day:
Lift it up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQhUKQmIyg
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 25 of my April a to Z writing challenge posts.
I’m sad today. I found out that a friend of mine died earlier in the year. I thought something must have happened to her when her phone was disconnected. I tried to call a mutual friend of ours but I couldn’t get hold of him either, because he had been unwell. Then I got a voicemail this morning, telling the news. When someone is gone, it’s too late to wish I had kept in better touch lately. It is another reminder of just how fleeting life can be.
Here is today’s poem :
You Were A Friend to Me:
you were a friend to me
Over a lot of years,
I have so very many
Sweet memories of you.
The times when the four of us would talk,
Long phone conversations,
Laughing over silly things,
We had such fun together.
We were there for each other
In our difficult times,
Together we cried and prayed
And shared what was on our hearts.
We grieved together when we lost
A friend who was dear to us both,
You felt the absence deeply,
your life was empty without her.
Now, you are in heaven,
In that land of no more parting,
You have seen the saviour face to face
And all your pain is gone.
But I hope that you know
How dear you were to me,
And how much your friendship has been
A blessing in my life.
Song of the day:
Friends
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdPE0vqh9RQ
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 24 of my April a to Z writing challenge posts.
I didn’t think I was going to be able to post this today, my computer didn’t want to start up. It kept starting and then turning itself off. I really need to get it looked at. I was totally relieved when it finally decided to work. Whew!
So what I did for this poem is make 4 standzas, each having 24 syllables, 3 lines of 8. 3 8s are 24, and X is the 24th letter of the alphabet. Each stanza has the word "expectations" in it, the theme of the poem, and each line has a word in it that begins with "EX". [that’s about as close as I can get to finding words that begin with the letter x itself]. I spell the word like this, “x-pectations”, because putting the dash in it makes my screenreader say the word more clearly. That may be a silly reason, but hey, it works.
I’ve heard it said that expectations can kill relationships. It makes sense, because each person expects things to go a certain way, expects the other person to react in certain ways or do certain things, and when our expectations aren’t fulfilled, we get angry and sometimes blame the other person, who doesn’t understand what the problem is.
Life never goes as we planned it. it takes twists and turns, and we find ourselves in places we never expected to be. When things don’t go the way I wanted them to go, I remind myself that God is in control, and his plans are better than mine, because he knows the end from the beginning. He sees the bigger picture, and he knows all things. I can trust him.
Here is today’s poem.
x-pectations:
It has been my experience
That when we have x-pectations
Life should be exactly as planned;
We cannot explain how it is
Our x-pectations let us down
When we exclude life’s randomness.
It is an excellent idea
To examine our hopes and dreams,
And think through our x-pectations;
There exists a God in heaven
Who knows exactly what life holds,
Trust in God, not x-pectations.
Song of the day:
one day at a time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELZ4QouVNFc
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 23 of my April A to Z writing challenge posts.
So I was sitting here in my usual spot at 3 o’clock one morning, looking for inspiration and hearing cars whizzing by outside my window. I guess inspiration can be found in all kinds of places.
Here is today’s poem.
whizzing by outside my window:
I hear the sound of them,
Whizzing by outside my window,
Cars and trucks on the highway,
At all hours of the day and night.
when we first moved into this house
The noise used to drive me crazy,
but now it’s in the background, I don’t
Always pay attention to it.
But it’s the middle of the night
And I’m sitting here, wide awake,
Looking for some inspiration
For the poems I want to write.
So I listen to the quiet night
Enjoying the peace and solitude,
Sometimes broken by the sounds, as vehicles
go whizzing by outside my window.
I wonder where they are going to,
In this sleepy country town;
And who are the people out and about ,
At this time of the night?
Perhaps they are on a journey
Or driving to or from work,
Or visiting a loved one who may
Be in need of some kind of help.
Perhaps there is a policeman
Driving around the town,
Alert for any drunk drivers,
Speeders or other trouble makers.
Or it might be a doctor, rushing
To the hospital for an emergency,
Perhaps feeling grumpy because they
didn’t get a lot of sleep tonight.
And the trucks, I hear them speeding by,
Sometimes they make the window rattle,
And I imagine the driver, tired
From endless hours on the road.
There’s another car I hear,
whizzing by outside my window
In the late hours of the night,
While I’m sitting here writing this.
And I whisper a little prayer
for those whizzing by outside my window,
That God would bless them with safe travels
Until they reach their destination.
Song of the day:
Lights on the hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg-eBs5enD4
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 22 of my April A to Z writing challenge posts.
I can’t say much about this poem in advance, it would spoil it. I’m sure you clever folks will be able to work out where I’m going with this before I get there. Those who have had an experience like this will know how disorientating it can be.
Here is today’s poem.
Very Unfamiliar Surroundings:
I wondered where on earth I was,
I couldn’t remember arriving here,
I just knew that I was somehow in
Very unfamiliar surroundings.
For a blind person, not to know
Exactly where they are
Can be disorientating
And more than a little frightening.
we can’t look around and see
Where we actually are,
And we don’t know the way to get
To where we need to be.
So here I was standing
In very unfamiliar surroundings,
My heart began to race, and I
Wondered what I was going to do.
I began to walk, carefully,
My hands stretched out before me,
Feeling the ground with my feet, in case
I came to a step on the way.
Feeling for anything on the floor,
Realising that I was on carpet,
I found a door and moved through it,
And found myself in a hallway.
I wandered around for a while,
In very unfamiliar surroundings,
Sure that I had taken the same
Turn, more than once before.
And the fog that covered my mind
Made it hard for me to think clearly,
Or form some logical plan,
So I kept on plodding along.
I stepped onto some cold tiles
And the knowledge came to me
That this bathroom was familiar ground
And I needn’t worry anymore.
I had been sleepwalking, you see,
And the well known areas of my home
Felt like very unfamiliar surroundings
Until the cold tiles woke me up!
song of the day:
Walkin’ after midnight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsRNCvHXHHU
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
hi readers:
Welcome to day 21 of my April A to Z writing challenge posts.
this is another poem about Kitty Cat, who I wrote about on days 11 and 12. I wrote this a few weeks ago, before the cat was re-homed.
Once she began to make friends with me, she wanted to be close to me. The only problem I had with that was, that she would walk one step in front of me and sometimes she would get her foot right under mine. It was frustrating, because I was afraid I would fall. My balance isn’t the greatest. She didn’t understand that though, she just wanted to be friendly.
I think it’s really just a cat thing. My last cat used to do it too, but he was small enough that I could pick him up and carry him, if he wouldn’t get out of the way. Kitty cat was too big for that.
Here is today’s poem:
Under foot
She likes to walk close to me,
Her foot literally underneath mine,
While I try to make my way down the hall
Without stepping on or tripping over her.
She blithely ignores my calls of "move!"
"Out of the way please, kitty cat,
"She who gets under foot will be stepped on",
and "falling isn’t my idea of fun".
I am totally blind, you see,
And my balance isn’t all that great.
I don’t want to land hard on the carpet,
Or even worse, the bathroom floor.
But she is just being friendly,
Weaving around my legs in affection.
While I’m standing still, that’s fine,
But when I’m on the move, it’s perilous.
I fear falling and getting hurt,
But I can’t make her understand that,
And she doesn’t know why she can’t walk
Right in front of me, getting under foot.
Song of the day:
This one doesn’t’ fit the theme, but it popped into my head as I was editing the poem. As I couldn’t’ think of anything else, and as I like the song anyway, I decided to go with it.
Fear of falling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3RT25QsvaY
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 20 of my April A to Z writing challenge posts. We’re on the home stretch now. thanks again for all the likes and lovely comments!
Today’s poem was written in response to this prompt:
Write a poem about the following image: an elderly couple lying in lawn chairs, looking at the stars from their backyard.
Here is today’s poem:
Togetherness:
They lay back, side by side,
In the warm, soft, evening air,
She reached out to find his hand,
Needing to know he was there.
She had come home from hospital,
A long and lonely stay;
She was so glad to be with him now,
In the old familiar way.
He squeezed her hand in comfort,
He knew what she was thinking,
And in his old, quavering voice,
He began quietly speaking.
"It’s a beautiful evening, love,
The moon is full and bright."
She squeezed his hand in gratitude,
Wishing she could still see the light.
"Come and live with us, Mum and Dad,"
Their daughter, Claire, would say,
"I’ll look after you both,
And the kids would love you to stay."
"Why don’t you move to a nursing home?"
Their son would often suggest,
"You’d have other old people to talk to
And you would be able to rest."
""We’ll be ok," would come the firm reply,
We take good care of each other,
We don’t need people fussing about,
And we don’t want to be a bother."
"you’re far away," her husband said,
Are you feeling alright?"
"I’m just thinking how happy I am
to be alone with you here tonight."
"We’ll leave the future in God’s hands," he said,
"And make the most out of every day,
And be thankful that we are still able
To live here,where we want to stay."
So they lay companionably side by side,
While the moon shone brightly overhead,
Then at last, they carefully got to their feet
And made their slow way towards bed.
Song of the day:
Livin’ on love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXLmYyFu4I
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
Hi readers:
Welcome to day 19 of my April A to Z writing challenge posts. This was all ready to be posted on Saturday, but for some reason or another, it wasn’t posted. Oops!
Recently, I have gotten serious about looking for a new dog. So far, I have had no joy. Part of the trouble is that I live in a small country town, and there is no pet shop here. My friend Miriam is helping me search, she has been looking online and she contacted the local RSPCA, but so far, I am still dogless, and that makes me sad. I miss having a pup to cuddle and play with.
Here is today’s poem:
Searching for Puppy Love:
I am Searching for a dog
To call my very own,
I’m ready, willing and able
to give a puppy a home.
Miriam is helping me,
But we haven’t found one yet …
We have been asking around
And looking on the Internet.
I’m really wanting a small dog,
I love Chihuahuas, you see,
But so far, we haven’t been able to find
The one that is out there for me.
Surely there’s a doggy out there
Who is what I am looking for…?
Once I have my new furry friend,,
I’ll be truly happy once more!
Song of the day:
how much is that doggy in the window
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOCTZtGAS48
Love from,
Rishie and the Virtual Family.
A Heart Full Of Song 