Author: Jennifred Jones

The Rock Hound

Jennifred Jones

That’s me! Always was, still is…

Ever since I was little, rocks and pebbles caught my attention. My brother and I made pottery dishes from river basin mud, and the pebbles were peas and rice for our pretend supper, I even swallowed a couple of those ‘peas’.

My favorite days were rainy days, mom let me put my boots on and take my umbrella and wander around our large gravel driveway, peering into puddles at every interesting rock color and shape (I guess I looked like the Morton salt girl), but I loved and collected those gems!

My 4-H rock collection display won a ribbon, but one rock fell off… it was too heavy. I kept that collection for years!

Grown-up me is still collecting rocks, edging every garden with them; our youngest son learned how to count in kindergarten, by helping count the rocks his two older brothers helped me gather and put in place.

Currently, rocks scallop around my sedum plants, and are randomly tossed in the garden with other fun stuff. Rocks and plants go together.

Now I’m placing them in small succulent planters for indoor use.

I love rocks!

Do you like rocks?

A Good Day!

Jennifred Jones

Every morning at work, I make the statement, “Today is going to be a good day!”

Yes, everyone at work is going through daily family trials…nursing home and aging parents dilemmas, kid’s jobs, bad weather, not to mention COVID and the election.

But the sun is still out, and this fall has been one of our most beautiful ever!!! We have family and friends who love and care for us. food to eat, a place to live, fresh air to breathe, and water to drink, clothes to wear, a bed to sleep on and covers to keep us warm. We are provided for!

We have opportunities galore to make a new and better life for ourselves and others.

In the overall scope of things, this will be a really good day. We will be just a bit smarter today than yesterday, we will have grown and made progress in at least one area more than yesterday, and we will have seen things in a new light that we didn’t notice before.

So I will make my announcement again, “Today is going to be a good day!”

Say it with me!

Doesn’t it make you feel better already?

Neighborhoods

Jennifred Jones

We all live in some sort of a neighborhood…

The street we live on is our neighborhood.

The apartment floor we live on is our neighborhood.

The county road we live on is our neighborhood.

We have people around us wherever we are, we see them, they see us.

We’re not trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, that’s a whole stress factor we don’t want to get trapped in.

We…I…desire to make my part of the neighborhood attractive and well kept for me. Everyone’s morale is lifted when they drive by and see somebody’s place well kept.

We can do a ‘shabby chic’ on our yard if need be…might be overflowing with crabgrass and peeling paint on the fence, but if we keep things trimmed up, add some flowers and keep them up, sweep and edge the walk, put a fun brightly colored table or chair on the porch, it will look happy, people will notice and smile, and it didn’t take much effort or money to do it.

Daily, it seems we have to pick up trash that somehow ‘landed in our space’, but that’s part of keeping our place up. Go ahead, take your trash bag and walk up and down your street or alley and clean it up. Next time you go out and it looks fresh and tidy, you can feel good, and rightly so, that you did it. You belong to the neighborhood improvement committee and whether anyone says anything or not….they noticed!

I think today, this Sunday, is a good day for me to see what I can do for my neighborhood.

Let’s get going!