grace grits and gardening - ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Ladybug

January 1, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

for Andie…

Maybe she was simply needed
In another place, too perfect for this one. The
Raw reality of her
Absence still fresh years later. Taken just after
Christmas—the sheer timing cruel. A
Loss so incomprehensible
Especially in
One so young. Life unrolls in delicate,
Fragile waves, ridden but not understood. We
Trust
He has a plan
Even while we
Languish, gasping for air. And then
A reminder. Hope, love, beauty touches the
Depths of a mother’s heart.
Yellow, raw pain soothed as hundreds of ladybugs—
Brilliant red dots of joy—
Uproot
Grief. If only for a moment.

morgueFile

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

2013: Top Ten Blog Posts

December 31, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

We’ve reached the end of another year…

Do you remember New Year’s Eve 1999?

Remember when we thought all the world’s computers, and thus the entire planet, would crash and burn at the stroke of 2000? At State Bank and Trust (where I worked), we spent months preparing for Y2K only to watch the new year arrive without incident. That was a good thing but honestly a bit anti-climatic.

Year 2000 doesn’t seem that long ago to me. And yes, I’m showing my age.

One of the things I do at year end is look back. 2013 raced by so quickly I can barely remember it, but luckily much of my year is recorded in blog posts. Today I’m looking back at my most popular blog posts (via page views).

In case you missed a few and/or would like to re-read/share/etc, here they are listed in David Letterman’s preferred reverse order. (Click on the number and blog title to be redirected to that post.)

10.

Dallas County Jury Duty Part One

“half the people argued they didn’t possess their own televisions…”

Chocolate Covered Cherry Christmas Mice
“you can trim the tails or not…”

Seven Signs You Might Be From Arkansas
“you sort laundry into three piles—whites, darks and razorback red…”

Homemade Lavender Peppermint Body Scrub
“made with ingredients from my kitchen and garden…”

How to make Lavender Peppermint Body Scrub

Realistically Creepy Halloween Decor
“old is naturally creepy…”

How to decorate for Halloween - realistically creepy decor

Flying Bat Project
“duct tape…”

Flying Bat project - great Halloween craft!

How to Propagate Rosemary
“make angled cuts to allow more surface area for rooting…”

Mussels in White Wine Sauce
“Serve with bread to sop up the sauce…”

easy appetizer! mussels in white wine sauce

How to Make Pumpkins from Recycled Books
“the hardest part of the project was selecting which book to use…”

how to make a recycled book pumpkin - so cute!

and here we go-
THE most viewed post in 2013…

1.

Not Your Momma’s Cranberry Sauce
“momma loves cranberry sauce that slithers out of the can with a vile sucking sound…”

The moral of this top ten list…Pinterest drives page views and my Pinterest followers love food, crafting and Halloween:)Seriously, Yay for Pinterest!In 2013 I wrote 328 blog posts (not counting this one).

Three Hundred and Twenty-Eight…Although the ten above were fun projects and delicious recipes, my favorites are those about childhood memories or posts written from creative writing prompts (i.e. not that pin-able.)

Here are a few of my favorites from 2013 (in no particular order).

Cottonwood Corner
“once upon a time there was a race track…”

Another Halloween

“even scarecrows need Pinot…”

The Kitchen Table

“each day began fresh at the kitchen table…”

Joy!

“wheat harvest, smell of cotton…”

The Smallest Things

“he was happy…”

The Enchanted Forest

“magic I tell you…”

R is for Reading

“where have you been lately?…”

Living Outside Herself

“she dared to imagine a different life…”

Do you have a favorite Grace Grits post from 2013?

And now a VERY BIG THANK YOU to everyone who reads, comments, shares and tells others about Grace Grits and Gardening. I hope you’ll keep it up!

Here’s to a fantastic 2014.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordan Levitt

Yellow Brick Road New Year

December 30, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

New Year’s Eve was always a bit depressing to me—what a let down after the end of a magical Christmastime. Plus, the return to school loomed over the frozen cotton fields.

My sister and I spent the so-called most exciting night of the year watching television. We tried to stay up long enough to see the Times Square ball drop.

And what kind of fun was that?

Watching a disco ball drop from a place I’d never been and certainly couldn’t relate to was borrrr-ing. Times Square may as well have been the moon, although even the moon seemed closer to Mississippi County than New York City.

I could see the moon from my bedroom window. I watched it set and rise behind the pump house in our back yard. I studied the moon phases noting when it grew bright and full before shrinking back to a white sliver.

In 1974 I skipped the whole ball dropping thing to lie on the couch in Daddy’s office and listen to the entire Billboard Top 100 Hit countdown on the radio. I knew almost every single song by heart and loved them all. I was twelve years old and had only recently discovered music. Each month I devoured Tiger Beat Magazine and imagined all the amazing lucky entertainers were at glamorous parties dancing the night away (probably in Times Square) while I stared at the ceiling singing along to their songs and eating Jiffy Pop.

Elton John had THREE hits on the charts. That was beyond cool.

I couldn’t wait to be cool.

I couldn’t wait to grow up and be someone else. Someone different.

Turns out, I’m still the same person.

And I’m cool with that.