Category: The Friday Photo

Plays with matches

The Friday Photo
March 20, 2015

FullSizeRender (2)

This pendant was made for me by Life is a Verb Camper Jen Land. I wear it everyday as a reminder to be invested and to speak up. And to choose carefully when using matches.

It finally arrived!

The Friday Photo
March 13, 2015

photo by David Cummings
photo by David Cummings

 

My husband has put thousands of miles on the bike he has owned for over 30 years. After years of looking at bikes and saving for a new one, his arrived earlier this week. I don’t know anything about bikes except to say this one is beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hands On Science

Science Night
Science Night was last night at Creekside Elementary School. Exhibits included lots of hands-on opportunities for children and their parents. The room was humming with children moving from one table to the next. All the exhibitors were so enthusiastic. As I loaded this photo I noticed the woman in the back of the picture squatting down to eye level with a child who might be about four.

My grandson Chase, in the red sweatshirt, was looking forward to touching snakes like he did last year. His sister Ella, in the dark fuchsia jacket, wasn’t as enthusiastic about them.

Only 276 pages left

only 276 pages left
only 276 pages left

One on the highlights of the year for me is joining a group of women, most of whom I see only once a year over lunch, for conversations encompassing a wide range of topics. The only time there is quiet around the room is when we share noteworthy books we’ve read in the past year.

My list is always the shortest (these women are serious about reading). Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “The Bully Pulpit” was on my list, to which my friend Sue kindly pointed out, I’ve been reading that one for years (She’s right, it was on my list last year. I’ve still got hundreds of pages to go).

Rural and Progressive came up in the discussion last Saturday, and I made a point of saying I haven’t been posting much recently as I continue to dive into a new job. That doesn’t mean I’m not following politics, so don’t count me out on posting about politics, especially while the Georgia General Assembly is in session.

GPB has added three in-house produced programs focused on state politics and issues that are worth a listen. “Political Rewind” on Friday afternoons includes a balanced group of pundits/consultants/journalists/former politicians. I’ve heard it in full more than “On Second Thought” and “Two Way Street.” All three programs cover a range of issues and topics pertinent to our state. They are worth a listen.

It is worth noting that GPB has added these programs since disgraced Georgia State Representative Chip Rogers was fired last year. Shame on the network for producing good content and failing to make it available by podcast.

I’m a stickler for fact checking and supporting data. Consequently I really like Fact-check Friday on the AJC. 

If you are curious about what I am reading that is newsworthy, from my perspective in rural Georgia, like Rural and Progressive on Facebook. I share things there almost every day. My Twitter feed includes links to news items too (events like the State of the Union address are ideal for Twitter). Those platforms, in addition to the comment section here, provide a chance to weigh in on the posted items with your thoughts.

Please join the conversation.

 

 

Enjoy your drive

The Friday Photo
January 16, 2015
photo and content by Suzanne Deal-Fitzgerald
Suzanne Deal-Fitzgerald

Maybe these prices don’t mean anything to some people. Maybe it means your Wall Street isn’t performing to your expectations. But to me, it means that right here, right now, I don’t have to struggle to find a way to get to work until payday.

Sharpen your pencils

The Friday Photo
January 9, 2015
This machine kills fascists

These pencils were created by one of my favorite illustrators, Oliver Jeffers, who quotes Woody Guthrie here. This photograph is circulating on the web after the terrorism inflicted on Charlie Hebdo.

If we want to live in a world where ideas are shared freely, all of us must sharpen our pencils.

New Year, new challenges

The Friday Photo
January 2, 2015

Mittens

My granddaughter needed some mittens yesterday before going to walk our dogs. I don’t traffic in mittens, but this was a custom order I couldn’t turn down. Her brother will probably need some now too.

A house that is just too much

The Friday Photo
November 28, 2014

Smith Street, Sandersville

Earlier today my mother-in-law said goodbye to the house she and her family restored in the late 1970s. It is a wonderful house where food has been served to appreciative guests, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have played in the huge hallway, and rosemary still spills out of huge planters in the backyard.

The house is now one obstacle after another since strokes and dementia left her fragile and frail. She is too much for my father-in-law and her bighearted caregivers to manage, so the hard words, “She can’t live at home any more” were said earlier this week.

I imagine it will begin to sink in when the dishes left by visiting sons and their families are unloaded from the dishwasher and he drives to the nursing home to sit with the woman he has known since he was 13 (or 12, he says he fibbed about his age when they met, in hopes of impressing her as an older man).

He’ll find a new routine in the coming days, but there will be fewer dishes to clean up after a meal now. Hopefully with each day it will be easier.

We need more imagination

The Friday Photo
November 21, 2014

I decided to sew last and skipped President Obama’s address about immigration. Later when I sat down in front of the TV this ad from values.com was what I saw first.

What if we imagined a world where children never sit alone at lunch, students in a library worry more about turning in a research paper than being gunned while they study, where people earn enough money to have a little left over at the end of the month, where we inspire people rather than building fences.

Home Office

The Friday Photo
November 14, 2014

Rose Hill, est.1852, Lockerly Arboretum, Milledgeville, Georgia
Rose Hill, est.1852, Lockerly Arboretum, Milledgeville, Georgia

For over four years I’ve worked from a home office. There are a lot of great things about working from home: laundry gets done, soup simmers for lunch, no one walks by and distracts you from the task at hand, and the dress code is pretty flexible. There are still deadlines, meetings, and convincing the printer to print, but working from home has been a really good situation for me.

I’m still working from a house, but not the one I live in. Just as Life Is a Verb Camp approached, the place where I hoped to figure out the questions to finding a job for life after fighting Plant Washington, I was offered a job.

Now I’m working from an above ground basement office in a fabulous Greek Revival house built in 1852, Rose Hill, surrounded by Lockerly Arboretum, a public garden in Milledgeville, Georgia, as the Executive Director.

I’m no less committed to stopping Plant Washington, but due to the determination and success of FACE and our partners, the demise of the ill-fated coal plant is now a matter of time. No one who opposes Plant Washington is letting their guard down, but the writing is on the wall and our work locally will continue as it always has.

Being an environmental activist in a small community has been one of the most difficult, and exciting, things that I have ever happened upon. I knew if we won, one outcome would be working myself out of a job that had changed my life for the better.

I didn’t make a habit of inviting people to come see me in my home office, but I’d be glad for anyone to stop by and see the house where I am working in now.

Rural and Progressive

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