Sunflowers make me smile. Some wonderful soul in our subdivision has planted sunflowers at the corner of our main road and one of the side streets. I see them daily as I drive in and out—one of those simple pleasures that add so much to life. They’re happy flowers—their bright yellows, oranges, even reds and bronzes, echoing the colors of the sun itself.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who finds sunflowers uplifting. Vincent van Gogh created a series of sunflower paintings during two different periods, the first (1887) in Paris, and the second (1888-89) in Arles, France where he hoped to create an artistic community. Several of the paintings were meant to be decoration for a room for his friend Paul Gauguin. For van Gogh, yellow symbolized happiness.

Here are a few more sunflower facts:

The sunflower is one of the few crop species that originated in North America. Native Americans domesticated and cultivated it.

Sunflower oil contains 93% of the energy of US Number 2 diesel fuel and researchers are exploring the potential of sunflower as an alternate fuel source in diesel engines.

The sunflower head is not a single flower as you would think from its name, but is made up of 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers joined at a common receptacle.

Before blooming, the sunflower is heliotropic: It follows the progress of the sun from east to west in order to receive the maximum amount of sunlight. Overnight, the sunflower will turn its face east once more to meet the sunrise. Once it blooms, the stem usually remains in the east-facing position.

It think one of my next illustrated journal projects is going to be a sunflower—what could be more appropriate?

I think about fear quite a bit, possibly because I am afraid of—or at least intimidated by—many things. You name it, I’m afraid of it: pain, death, economic collapse, failure, success, change, no more cranberry orange scones at the grocery store, etc. It wears me out, having to gear myself up to face so many things. Lately I’ve been thinking, wouldn’t it be great if I wasn’t afraid of anything? It sounds wonderful on the surface, but…

Fear can be good.

That’s right. Fear can be good. Here’s why:

Fear makes you more compassionate. If you’re never afraid, you’ll find it hard to impossible to understand and empathize with those of us who are. From lack of understanding and empathy, it’s only a step or two towards contempt or belittling others. If you’ve been afraid and conquered your fears, you can offer kindness and encouragement to others. I’m much more likely to listen to someone who’s felt the way I do and worked through it, than I am to someone who can’t understand why I’d be afraid of that.

I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t try to overcome our fears. We’d never learn or grow if we always remained safely ensconced in our comfort zones. I am saying that we shouldn’t come down too hard on ourselves or others if and when we’re afraid. Instead, offer kindness to ourselves, and gentleness and understanding to others. Then perhaps we can all walk courageously forward together.

I love to laugh. Who doesn’t? What makes me laugh might not be what makes you laugh, but that’s one of the things that keeps the world interesting. I love older authors like P.G. Wodehouse, James Thurber, and Jean Kerr as well as contemporary writers Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, Celia Rivenbark and David Sedaris to name only a few. There’s a whole world of funny bloggers out there for your quick fix of daily humor, too.

Here are a couple of the things that have made me laugh lately. Hopefully you’ll find these funny, too:

This blog post from Rocks in My Dryer.

Just about any post at all from CrazyAuntPurl.

Bill Bryson’s book I’m a Stranger Here Myself. If Mr. Bryson doesn’t make you laugh at least once, I’m afraid we can no longer be friends.

Brian Regan’s Live CD. Brian is a G-rated stand-up comedian. My family constantly quotes lines from the two CDs (Live and I Walked on the Moon) we play on every road trip. Look him up on YouTube for a taste—one of my favorite routines is “Stupid in School.”

What makes you laugh? Please share it with me—I'm always looking for some new funny.  I'd rather laugh than cry, wouldn't you?

This is what happens when 95 degrees meets inattentive gardener:

Here’s the same plant after a drink of water and a good night’s rest:


This little ornamental pepper is amazingly resilient—I’m sorry to say this is not the first time she’s wilted in the heat. Still, she survives, even after freezing temperatures in the winter and practically dying of thirst in the summer.

If you look closely, you’ll see a few peppers still a bit wizened from their lack of water. Just like the peppers, we often wear the battle scars of what we’ve been through—in our faces, in our eyes, in our hearts. Yet still we come back for more, still we reach upwards toward the light—even though sometimes that light scorches us. For us, a drink of water and a good night’s sleep may be only the beginning of what we need to recover. We may need a box of assorted chocolates, an hour of solitude, a friend’s ear, or even professional help.

If you’re struggling right now, wilting in the sun, reflect on what you really need to get through today, and the day after, and the day after that. Be an attentive gardener—don’t wait until your leaves are drooping and your peppers are shriveled before you give yourself that cool drink of water that makes all the difference. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.

This is the third year we’ve rented the house with them, and we still remain friends despite hard fought battles of dominoes, Yahtzee, rummy and other card games, and the efforts of my son, C and G the younger to drive each other insane. The wives (P and myself) spend as much time possible reading on the screened porch, and the husbands devote much of their time to keeping the boys from killing themselves and each other. (Who has the more relaxing vacation, do you think?)


We haul up inflatables and fishing gear for the kids to play with in addition to the slide on the lake house dock. I don’t know what he was thinking, but this year, my husband purchased a used jet ski for the boys’ (well-supervised) use. As is the manner of jet skis, this one promptly proved to be a lemon. Four days and $200 later, we towed it to Georgia, where it continued its stubborn habit of breaking down, until the dads rigged it for action with duct tape. It became affectionately known as the Clampett Mobile.



I hope they’ll remember the hours spent with family and friends—sharing meals, playing games, watching movies, swimming, fishing and jet skiing. I hope they remember how hard the dads worked to keep the jet ski running and filled with gas, and the round of golf the teenagers and their dads shared (my son got his first birdie!). I suspect the mishaps will be remembered as well or better than the uneventful hours spent flinging themselves off the dock into the water. For example, one night while we were playing games (adults: cards; teens: Xbox), G looked out the window and noted that the inflatable Cube was gone from the dock. My son and C took that as a combat challenge, had their bathing suits on and tore down to the water before you could say, “Hey, it’s raining,” which it was. They retrieved the errant Cube and returned wet but covered in glory.