Mainely Write

It is the first day of the AtoZ Challenge!  Welcome.  This year I am continuing to write a poem a day (except for Sundays - but I may have one non-A to Z poem) using the vanity plates I spied since last year.

Today is the letter A, and here are the plates I found:



AUTMJOY
I chose AM I L8T...
AM I L8T?
How can it be? Really, AGAIN? I set my clock For half past ten. So much time before my date But suddenly I'm running late. The cat needs food, the dog does, too. Now where'd it go? I need my shoe Oh, real cute dog, thanks a bunch! You had to eat my shoe for lunch? Different shoes, Pick a dress. Comb my hair - I look a mess! Now I'm really in a rush Where's my toothpaste? Where's my brush? Coat and purse. Find the door. Pick my keys up Off the floor! Wait... I think there's one more thing - The alarm was set - it didn't ring! The sky is dark? Well this is great - I have 12 hours before I'm late.
by Donna JT Smith
Have a calm, running on-time day!  See…

I am gearing up for April's AtoZ challenge (my 8th year participating), attempting vanity license plates in Maine again.  We haven't been there for a few months, and everything has been up in the air, so I don't have every letter I need.  Vanity plates are rare in PA, so there will be no filling in with those!  I did however find a great site to generate a plate...Acme License Plate Maker.  It's fun; you should try it!
Here's the link to the AtoZ Challenge if you think you might want to try or at least read some alphabetical posts!

I am filling in with the 7 I am missing this year, with generated plates or plates from a previous year for which I didn't write a poem previously.  I'm all set to write.  Wrote my first - A is for... - and set it to automatic, so I don't have to worry about starting!  Usually by now I have most all of them done and set to publish without me giving it another thought.  Too many thoughts lately, to get to autopilot yet.

I am …

So busy yesterday.  Wishing I had my motorcycle here!  It was SO warm the past two days.  The torrential thunderstorm last night erased all traces of icy snow that was remaining in tucked away spaces.  The snow doesn't get as dirty here as in Maine.   And by dirty, I mean "dirt".  Because of plowing much dirt is taken up in the snow and as the piles melt, the dirt begins to be exposed until the former snowbanks become dirt banks.  Here no one really plows or shovels anything.  They leave it because it isn't that deep, but it really is enough to make driving hazardous.  Hence the snow days for kids when we would have gone easily.  Maine owns snowplows and front end loaders.  Pennsylvania does not, or at least where we are doesn't.

Here's a picture I took yesterday.  It is springing here. Snowdrops in my garden...

Snowdrops
We came this way the first of fall survived here  through the snow We had not glimpsed a spring as yet nor still the summer's glow.   B…

It's Friday.  Poetry Friday.  A day of poem fun.
Join the fun at Reading to the Core
where Catherine Flynn hosts with links galore!
It's International Women's Day, so expect some poems to highlight women and their achievements today.

I didn't win my Madness! Poetry 2019 bout with Anna Best, so I guess you could say I've been Bested!  Congratulations, Anna!  Oh, well, I'll apply again next year.  I like getting a word to work with, and like the fun of writing on a deadline.

I wrote two poems for this prompt.  Our word was "lax".  The first poem is the one I submitted for the competition.  The second one I set aside - seemed too "safe", and went with the first, which was a faster pace (though it had some words that I tried to explain in the comments in case people weren't familiar with them).

"Maine Grandma" is my tribute to some strong women out there!

Maine Grandma

Wha’choo sayin’
grandma’s lackin’?
Careful ‘bout
unjust attac…

Balance

I don’t know why this is a hard one for me to write about.  But just as soon as that sentence hit the page, I realized why - because in so many ways my life feels like it is no longer in balance, or feels like it is struggling to warp or trying to wrangle a rein out of my hand. I have been struck with a dizziness one might have walking on a tightrope, or standing on a ledge.  It's a new feeling because I have felt quite "balanced" for most of my life.


Aside from all the greater issues threatening to upset the balance, the smaller decisions even seem looming - things like having to weigh the necessity of each item in our lives (and then try to remember what our decision was!): move it to PA, pack it for the someday of “back to Maine” (and where to put it since the house isn't finished), sell it, toss it, or give it away?  Rent Georgetown home/sell it?

Balance has been an issue in our church life.  Recently we became members and started attending our new church…

Laura Shovan has the 2019 February Challenge this year in March...
All group members are contributing food topics and then writing to them each day this month.  Here's today's image supplied by Ruth Lehrer, a bowl of fresh peaches; and my poem:


Maine Peach Trees

We had a peach
Tree we could reach
The branches easily.
The peaches never ripened
Though they fell repeatedly
Upon the ground
Where rabbits found
They tasted like tart rocks
They were not much to look at  But they left nice rounded pocks.

Donna JT Smith, ©3/3/2019

Have a peachy-keen day!
I get my Madness! Poetry 2019 challenge word at 5 pm.  Hope it's not as hard as a Maine Peach.

Life has been hectic.  I have just deleted a bunch of "hectic" and "weights"... they are unimportant in the grand scheme.  It was just venting, but could feel the waves overtaking, so, no.  Sometimes you don't need a public "venting"!!  It was good to write it down and then delete it.  Have you ever done that?  It is good to do, I think.  Just to say it aloud to yourself and then move on (or write it down and erase it).

I have not written terribly much.  But the times I have, it has been weighing on me to write, so much so that I find myself scrambling suddenly for paper and pen or computer so that the words can tumble out of the confines of my brain and into freedom on the page.

Today I am in the back and forth of life, packing up more things to take to Pennsylvania tomorrow, while also packing up stuff to take to our someday home in Friendship, Maine - perhaps.  Every item I pick up or see has a question/poem attached.  "Will you go here, or t…