Great Smoky Mountain Journeys
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
While growing up in the western half of the United States, I had no idea what I was missing a couple thousand miles away. Oh, that first time you see the mist begin to settle over the layers of the Appalachian mountains—it’s a view to remember.
This particular view was during the trip when I got to meet my brother Shayne and sister-in-law Heather for the first time. Sharing the beauty of Great Smoky Mountains National Park seemed the perfect location for our introductions after months of phone and digital communications. It was May of 2019, and this scenic overlook presented itself with perfect springtime majesty.
On June 15th, 2026, the park celebrates its 92nd birthday. Some highlights from the website state that it’s the most visited national park in the United States, it’s loaded with wildlife and places to explore. And it’s also free because of an agreement made when “Newfound Gap Road” was built. (While daily parking passes are now required to stop, enjoying the scenery out the car window does not require an entrance fee or toll.)
One of the best destinations you can drive to on your visit is Cades Cove Loop. There’s an excellent chance of seeing wildlife, so be sure to bring your zoom lens so you can keep your distance while you get the shot (and keep your health). And remember that no matter how cute they seem, they are wild—so no feeding them, no matter what Yogi or Ben may have said on TV! 😁🐻 Any effort to interact with them can result in enough domestication that the animal no longer fears humans and could need to be put down. In the case of the image you see below, I was a long way off and could see the mama bear in the field across the road. All the cars were stopped and many people were taking pictures while the babies made their way across.
Some of the prettiest scenery within the towns of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville is that along the Little Pigeon River. That’s where most of the lodging and restaurants are built, meaning you have great views even when you stop for a rest or a meal. Here’s a collage of images from around the area. It includes an image of The Old Mill Restaurant, where you’ll usually wait at least an hour to get in for some of the best food in the area (or anywhere else, for that matter). And can you believe the color in that November sunset?
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
I’ll close with a slightly manipulated image from late spring of 2020 when the flowers were in full bloom. On the bridge near The Old Mill, they used to have openings filled with flowers, but that has changed now for some reason. It makes me even more glad I got this image way back when trying to be creative and look through the flowers to see the waterfall. And I hope you’ve enjoyed this little visit to The Smokies.
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Shabbat Shalom & Weekend Blessings
Real life means that even with the joyful activity of lighting Shabbat (Sabbath) candles on Friday evenings, the image you took to remember it may not be the best for sharing. A little camera shake, too much wax on the candlesticks, or a bit of clutter captured in the image, and you’re looking for some creative editing tricks to make your image look prettier. So I took my candle picture to Wombo Dream and described the table and background I wanted, and then I let it work its magic. After a number of creations, I couldn’t decide between the one from the botanical filter and the filter they call abyssal void for my favorite. So, I made a collage in the Photo Studio Pro app and framed the two together. Here are a few more from the same two filters plus a couple more filters…
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
So we’ve been lighting candles together on Friday nights for over 25 years now. I say the prayer as I first learned it in a brief Hebrew class I took with the sweet friend who opened up this world to me. Understanding some aspects of original Judaism has helped me to better understand both the Old Testament and my Jewish Messiah. When I first started to learn these things (1999), I wrote a poem called YahShua The Jew, and blogged it here in 2016 in a post also called “YahShua The Jew.”
The Hebrew prayer says …
Hebrew:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה הָ׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל שַׁבָּת.Transliteration:
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.
English Translation:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the light of the Sabbath.
And right after we light the candles, we sing two songs together. The first is “Shabbat Shalom” and the second is from Isaiah 28:16…
Isaiah 28:16 BSB
[16] So this is what the Lord GOD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/isa.28.16.BSB
And here are the videos of those songs…
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World Parrot Day
International/World Parrot Day falls on May 31st each year. You can read about the history, events, and suggestions for participating in the day at the National Day Today site. (The link goes right to the Parrot Day page.)
I’m sure you can tell by the above collage that I really like parrots. All of these images were taken in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, at a wonderful place called “Parrot Mountain and Gardens” near Dollywood. Well, I take that back. The colorful one with the blue head (that kinda looks like an angry bird to me) was taken at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. It’s really a Lorikeet and not a parrot, but I didn’t realize that until I went looking for the link for Busch Gardens and saw that it’s on their aviary page. Oh well. I’m pretty sure all the others are parrots, my favorite one being the little gold one named Goldie, who I think is a “sun conure,” but I’m not 100% certain.
I really like all birds, which is odd for a cat person, but I used to know a lady who trained assistant dogs, and because of her way with animals, she actually taught a bird to call her cat, and then the cat would give the bird a ride on its head. So, it is okay to like both birds and cats. 🐦🐈 As far as parrots go, I’ve only owned one. It was a very old, maybe sickly, African Gray, and I had to give him away shortly after getting him. But I’ve also owned parakeets, budgies, and cockatiels. Now, though I just go visit them because they have such a long life span, especially the double yellow-headed Amazon I used to dream of owning, and I wouldn’t want to stress about who would take over if it outlived me. And when I can’t visit in person, I have a few favorite birds I like to visit on YouTube. Here is a sampling of them:
Beaker Beak has an adorable voice and some really cute poses…
And then there’s Apollo who is highly intelligent and strongly trained…
Another favorite of mine is Tico who sings a variety of styles with his guitarist known as The Man (Tico and The Man) and sometimes guest musicians…
And finally Chloe Alexander with her bird (Gallagher, I think), who I heard long before she auditioned on AGT, and I felt so bad for her when the bird refused to sing. This is, I think, before she realized he would just keep singing with her. I had never even heard the song before watching this video, but I love her voice and the bird…
And I’ll close with a few Bible verses about birds (even if they’re not parrots)…
Genesis 1:20 BSB
[20] And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”
https://bible.com/bible/3034/gen.1.20.BSB
Genesis 2:19 BSB
[19] And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/gen.2.19.BSB
Isaiah 31:5 BSB
[5] Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of Hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will shield it and deliver it; He will pass over it and preserve it.”
https://bible.com/bible/3034/isa.31.5.BSB
Matthew 6:26 BSB
[26] Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
https://bible.com/bible/3034/mat.6.26.BSB
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Prompt Response; Peppermint
What’s the first book you ever finished and still remember to this day?
This prompt got me thinking about all the books I’d started but never did finish, like Watership Down, The Martian Chronicles, and A Wrinkle in Time. Well, I did finish the last one as an adult, but I never could get most books finished before time to return them to the library.
Of course, I had all my little books for small hands, and then the books with matching records that played a little sound when it was time to turn the page. I’m sure some were by Disney, and some were probably by Dr. Seuss. I’m certain I had “Put Me in the Zoo” because I remember how the main character could put his colored spots on other things, but it doesn’t have a stickiness in my brain like the one that goes with the picture above.
The first small book I finished that stuck with me, and is still with me to this day, is probably Peppermint by Dorothy Grider. My mind captured the images so well that, when I needed Gemini to find the book for me, it got it right on the first try. Though there are none available at the sale page on Thriftbooks, there are 45 people signed up to be notified if it ever shows up there, so apparently, I’m not the only one who remembers it as a wonderful story.
See, there was a candy store, and the owner had a cat named “Candy” who stayed at the store with him. Candy had 4 kittens, so the owner gave them sweet candy names like Lollipop and posted them for sale. But the runt of the litter, a tiny white kitten he called Peppermint, was too shy and too small, so she stayed at Mr. Dobby’s candy store. Until one day, a little girl named Barbara was upset and crying because she didn’t have a kitten for the upcoming cat show at school.
When Mr. Dobby said Barbara could take Peppermint home, she didn’t care how dirty she was from all the dust in the storeroom. But Barbara’s mom cared and insisted the kitten must have a bath. Peppermint didn’t like it and jumped out of the soapy water and right into a bucket of water filled with bluing. (In case you’ve never heard of bluing, it’s a laundry additive that removes yellow discolorations to make whites brighter. You can read about it on Amazon at https://amzn.to/4eegCjR {my affiliate link for tracking} if you want to know more.) The clean little kitten was now a beautiful blue, and when Barbara took it to school with the pink ribbon her mother tied around it, the other kids decided that Peppermint was a prize-worthy kitty.
I think I remember it because of my own dreams of being—or sharing— something that could win a prize. I could identify with both Peppermint and Barbara on the rejection front, and I always hoped to have a special moment like she did when she pulled the kitten out of the basket. (Part of me still hopes for something like that when I finally release one of my songs. 😁) It’s just such a happy ending for everyone in this book.
And, guess what? I even found a few places on YouTube where people read the book aloud and show the pictures on the pages. Some were a little long, so I’m embedding the shortest one that is also easy to hear and understand. It’s only 5 minutes and 37 seconds to find out the names of the other kittens and see the artist’s drawings of the little blue kitten.
Deuteronomy 4:9 BSB
[9] Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/deu.4.9.BSB
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🎵Girl’s Day Memories
First, I really like this knitted filter. 😁 And I’ve also found that it will often create more pictures for me while the other filters keep giving me “restricted content” warnings because my prompt has words like child or daughter or kid in it. It’s sad that people in our world use those words to create content that wouldn’t be deemed as “safe for work” so it causes a warning if anything gets even close to that.
But I’m not writing about sad stuff except maybe the bittersweetness of memories because they cannot be had anymore. So on to the content I planned for today.
My day’s plans were put on hold due to a sciatic flair, so I spent the day on a phone visit with a friend. (The amazing friend who’s been helping me with Operation Cleanout and getting organized.) She understood my lack of ability to move, lift, and twist today, so we enjoyed a time of visiting via voice instead of in person. During that visit, a thing I shared with her hit me as a good topic for my blog readers.
Growing up for a time in government housing meant things like looking for inexpensive ways to find meaning in a day and finding out how to do that at home because we didn’t have a car. Eventually, we established a pattern. When the monthly check would arrive, my mother would treat me and my sister to a girl’s day. Our first stop was usually to take the bus to the nearest “Licorice Pizza” record store and buy ourselves at least one new record to listen to. I can still see the blue label on the Wildfire 45 rpm we loved to sing with. “She ran calling ‘Wildfire,’ she ran calling…” And once in a while, we got a whole new album, like a greatest hits collection by Anne Murray because we all sang with that one.
I don’t recall which stores we shopped at for nail polish, but we always got at least one new color to try, usually one with sparkles in it. We’d get out all the old ones from previous months, and sometimes we painted a different color on each nail just for fun. I think they actually do that in professional manicures now, but we just loved to experiment back then.
On the way home, we got off the bus a couple blocks past our apartment complex, so we could get our favorite dinner treat: Chinese food to go. In those days, the more people you ordered for, the more extra food types you could add to your order. It’s why that one old Doris Day/Brian Keith movie is called “With Six You Get Eggroll.” Of course, we had to have an egg roll and fried rice with every order. 😋 And they always added these paper sleeves with wooden chopsticks, so we always tried to figure out how to use them—at least for the first few bites. 🤣
As a side note, as an adult, I always wondered why fried rice just didn’t taste the same as I’d remembered from my youth. One day, just for my own curiosity, I added a little bit of the oil that floats on top of my natural peanut butter, and there it was….that unmistakable flavor that made me always want more Chinese food. I guess most Chinese restaurants used woks and peanut oil back then, and the taste was totally different. And, I think, so much better!
Anyway, with our bags full of little white boxes covered in red designs and symbols, we headed home for a few hours of unstressed mom and daughters fun. We’d sit on the living room floor and try the foods while the record player dropped a stack of 45s, including the latest purchases. We would sometimes play the music through headphones to more fully hear the nuances of left and right sounds. And then we’d make the house smell like a salon while we played with color.
I wish every day had those good memories, and I wish they were never undone by Mom going on a late night drinking binge, but even with the myriad of imperfect and stressful days, I’m so thankful for those times, those pleasant moments, that brought balance to my life. Now, they bring balance to my memories as well.
Philippians 4:8 BSB
[8] Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think on these things.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/php.4.8.BSB
I know the words are a bit sad, but here’s a video of Wildfire by Michael Martin Murphey with a slideshow of beautiful horses…
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Today’s Photo Memories: Pink Peonies
A few of my photo storage apps like to show me an “On This Day” section with photos from the same date in different years. When I saw all my pink peonies from 2021, I knew I had to share them. Within the same few days, I captured a yard full of flower variety from my cellphone camera.
Before I moved to Kentuckiana, I do not think I’d ever even heard of a peony flower, let alone seen one. Maybe I did and don’t recall it, but the here and now brings these giant beauties every year courtesy of my friends (Mark and Debbie) who planted them before they sold us our Indiana house. Having never been a gardening kinda gal, the colorful blooms that grace my yard every year are truly gifts that keep on giving. What a blessing they are to see.
I was so happy with this capture that I put it through a program to add a matching frame, and then I started playing with effects. I think the one above was in Mirror Lab, and I think the repeating design is really pretty on the single framed flower. I used the same flower to make a simple pink on tan fractal…
And I’ll close with one more manipulation where you can clearly see the peony flowers but yet get lost in the array of twists and turns.
And though they are not lilies, I think the Scripture about the beauty of lilies being even more grand than King Solomon’s royal attire.
Luke 12:27 BSB
[27] Consider how the lilies grow: They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/luk.12.27.BSB
Simple Peony Haiku...
Peony flowers:
Pink, full, and blooming heavy.
Though their time is short.
A picture captures,
Their lives for us to savor.
Worth a thousand words.
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🎵 What to Do in the Rain
What do you do when it rains? Do you hide inside to stay dry, darting quickly between house and car if you need to run out and remember the umbrella is still in the car? I think most of us prefer to stay dry as we get older, but the deluge in the past week has gotten me to think about rainy days in my childhood.
Oh summer rain! Years and years ago in Southern California, it was just a simple pleasure like running through the sprinklers. Neighborhood kids would put on their swimsuits and dance around in the warm rain or slide on the wet grass. Sometimes, we’d get a little mud or grass stuck to us, but the rain would wash it right back off. We never worried about what could be in the rain, like toxins or acid, back then. We didn’t think about getting struck by lightning even when there was thunder and lightning going on. It was all just simple fun. And yes, we did drag out a kiddie pool to let it fill up naturally a few times. 🤩
So, has rain changed? Or is it just the abundance of cautions & warnings out there these days that make it seem so much more dangerous? Maybe it’s just a bit different in the Midwest where I live now. But I still have such pleasant memories of rain—and puddles. (Not in our nice shoes, though. Lol 😂)
I remember one time, while I was working at the answering service, I had to relay an emergency call to one of our customers. It took me a while to reach him, and when he finally called back, he apologized for the delay because he was… “in my front yard in a garbage bag.” I’m sure he could hear the confusion in my voice, so he went on to explain a little ritual he always did when it rained. He covered himself with a large, heavy plastic bag and just sat in his yard enjoying the sound that reminded him of rain on a tent. He said it relieved stress and brought him peace. It makes sense to me, but I’ve never actually tried it myself. Maybe I’ll put it on my to-do list since I’ve got a few of those industrial bags that should cover me well enough. Anyone else want to try it?
The rain in my area brings a bit of humidity, but I like how the clouds also cool off the house by not allowing the afternoon sunshine to pour through the living room window. And when it’s coming down hard enough, and it’s quiet all around, hubby and I will just listen and enjoy the rhythmic taps and clicks of the downpour.
Some Bible verses about rain…
Deuteronomy 32:2 BSB
[2] Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/deu.32.2.BSB
Psalm 72:6 BSB
[6] May he be like rain that falls on freshly cut grass, like spring showers that water the earth.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.72.6.BSB
Job 5:10 BSB
[10] He gives rain to the earth and sends water upon the fields.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/job.5.10.BSB
Isaiah 45:8 BSB
[8] Drip down, O heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open up that salvation may sprout and righteousness spring up with it; I, the Lord, have created it.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/isa.45.8.BSB
And a nice hymn about rain showers…
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A Non-Traditional Mom
Most people have an idea in their minds about what it means to be a mom or a mother (or a mum in much of the world). And those ideas are mostly based on our personal experiences either having a mom or being a mom. Some, though, are like me; not having or being a traditional mom. And in those cases, the ideas might be a little skewed. Or so I thought.
While searching for a poem from my teen years, written to the child I knew I’d never give birth to, I found a different poem I had written to a friend for the day she became the mother of a bride. It may be from TV and books and time with friends, or maybe my short time getting to raise 4 of my nephews for awhile, but it seems I have a fair understanding of at least some parts of motherhood. In this poem, despite not having my own children, I think I captured their mother/daughter moments pretty well. So, I’ve decided to share that with you all for this Mother’s Day post. Feel free to download it or tweak it for someone you know if it has a sentiment worth sharing.
HER NEW WORLD
Her first steps you remember walking toward you,
And you were just so proud.
Then she began to grow, suddenly yet slow,
Toward life's ever-changing crowd.
First, it was just a game she would play,
"Catch me if you can."
She'd giggle and squeal, looking back to see you,
While away from you she ran.
Next were the neighbors' and friends' yards and homes,
"Momma, can I go play?"
Though a little bit worried, you smiled with delight
Watching her and her friends skip away.
Then hot chocolate, pj's, and sleepover parties,
To the movies and malls with friends...
As you watched the apron strings pull ever tighter,
Getting stretched oh-so-dangerously thin.
Finally, one bright day, she noticed this boy,
To her, he's the world trimmed in gold.
And though you're happy for her, a teardrop falls,
As the apron strings now lose their hold.
Now she walks toward you in her bridal dress,
On this bitter-sweet wedding day,
Soon you'll watch her run, hand-in-hand and in love,
And you'll weep as they drive away.
And you know if you could, you'd have it both ways...
Her a woman, and yet your little girl.
But you can't, so you pray, "God, take care of my child,
As she walks into this, her new world."
By Crystal A. Murray (2002)
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