*Darlene*: I'll be off until the new year, so I wish every one of you amazingly wonderful people a very Merry Christmas and a warm and happy holiday season! See you again when the numbers flip over to 2025!! My love to you all! ❤️
*Darlene*: Cotton ball snow and sapphire skies do nothing for keeping him warm, but his inner self remains cozy with the wintery sunshine so he can still appreciate and fully take in the brilliantly lustrous tapestry that's been set before him.
*Darlene*: If you wander the backroads with an idealistic persuasion and allow your imagination to run just a little wild, it's entirely possible to find magestic mountain ranges even amidst the sprawling Alberta prairies. (EXPLORE)
*Darlene*: With work days filled with shading and housing a myriad of tenants, they never had time to socialize. No longer considered adequate or fruitful except to the occasional passing admirer, it seems to me that they'd now be quite lost without each other.
*Darlene*: The virgin snowfall rolled in, as always, to blanket the fading colors of the September equinox, but brought with it all its differing shades of ivory tones, so I'll succumb to it and ambivalently embrace the bitter chills of winter for yet another year.
*Darlene*: The elusive, 'Alberta Triangle,' can't mysteriously transport you to an alternate dimension, but it can make you delay and contemplate life for a fleeting moment in time. (EXPLORE)
*Darlene*: On any given farmyard, there can be a dozen individual gates, each one serving its individual purpose, but the one that without exception, inevitably gets used the most, is always the one that leads to the barn.
*Darlene*: It verges on unbearable to come across retired remnants of a homestead that you yearn to saunter through and savor, but are relegated to no closer than the roadside, aware the farmer that tends the fields that surround it has won the authorized privilege.
*Darlene*: To discover those threadbare boots so meticulously placed in the rubble to protect what was left of them, it boggles the imagination as to why, and all kinds of fascinating scenarios came to mind. Some I could mention, and some I shouldn't.
*Darlene*: I was told that most weekends, her opulantly adorned interiors were filled with the upper crust of party goers enjoying the scrupulously laid out feasts set out on freshly pressed white linen tablecloths, and she ponders over why they all left her behind.
*Darlene*: Our daystar has a distinct agenda that we should all be compelled to emulate as it incessantly contrives a way to continue to shine its irrepressable beam through whatever impediments are in its way.
*Darlene*: Just a bunch of fence wannabes. (EXPLORE)
*Darlene*: Whether you deem to scrutinize the view through any individual window from the inside looking out or from the outside looking in, either way will leave you with a revealing perspective, each as compelling as the other.
*Darlene*: They found keeping the barrier fence in presentable condition was pointless as there was no one left inside to call on and no precious earthly possessions left to unburden, so we continue to step through and mindfully envision the essense that once was.
*Darlene*: Jack and Jill tumbled down that dubious hill once too often and made the smart and conclusive decision to build their retirement home where they no longer had reason to climb and fetch that problematic pail of water.
*Darlene*: He was so enraptured by her beauty and striking cupolas that he insisted on taking the most direct route to tell her how she had awakened his eyes, and she felt herself begin to glow warm with his uninhibited approach. (EXPLORE)
*Darlene*: I got to this one first, but after I'm done with it, you must read the one about the pig with the wooden leg in 'Laughter, the Best Medicine' on page 11 and the story about 'Life among the Beatniks' on page 64.
*Darlene*: Even when snagging a fish isn't in the cards, or the building winds are beginning to ripple the water's surface, and the random clouds are fortelling the dimming of the warming sun, there's still no better place to spend a measure of time than right here.
*Darlene*: There's no one left to warm her chilled walls or to keep his tarnished wheels rolling, so they stay perched where they stand and soberly whisper long ago lullabies to one another as they steadily fuse with the earth they were left on.
*Darlene*: Silent reflection is both essential and pivotal, whether it be emotionally within the heart and mind, amidst the still waters and clouded skies, or inwardly between the deepest bounds of the body and soul.
*Darlene*: I'm rarely graced with callers nowadays, but I'm reminded of the pleasant time we shared when you last stopped by. It's no longer feasible to drive to my door, but the walk is short, and I'd embrace keeping company with you again if you fancy it.
*Darlene*: I can't utter even one single word to build upon the enchantment of a vision such as this, as the sights, sounds and scents of it already fill the framework entirely, so I'll just leave that up to all of your refined flights of imagination. (EXPLORE)
*Darlene*: Untold years of children, laundry on the line, dinner bells, and all the clamor that a busy farmstead yields, yet now being encircled by only the sounds of breezes sailing through fields of grain brings her a placid stillness that suits her just as well.
*Darlene*: Certain muddy backroads are utterly uncompromising, and I know the swampy trail swallowed you to your fenders, and you nearly didn't make it back out of here, but hopefully I was still worth the $20. car wash it took to clean off your time with me.
*Darlene*: They were mere sprouts when they parked him there, but with the arrival of every spring, the modest saplings crept up into the imposing evergreens they are today, and he became conveniently concealed, just as the farmer had wanted.
*Darlene*: Bow down as near to me as your boughs are able to bend, my steadfast onlooker, as no one else must become privy to the shrouded secret I'm about to breathe to you.
*Darlene*: Build me in a place of tranquil beauty and sculpt me of stone, so I will stand the test of eternal time. Fill me with the sounds of spirited children, and allow the flowers to blossom across my landscape, and I will gift you with joy for all time.
*Darlene*: The appearance of a stoic facade doesn't always accurately mimic the pandemonium happening from within, so we ought to always remind ourselves to remain gracious. (EXPLORE)
*Darlene*: The mystical charm of a double fence never loses its intrique, and the quest to find one is always prevalent on my mind, and when one comes along, I can't be held responsible for the sometimes unidentifiable sounds that eminate from my excited inner self.
*Darlene*: I came to them bereft and broken and they kindly took me in, thinking they could solve all of my problems, but my tormenting and perplexing labyrinth of personal issues was too taxing for them to resolve, so I sit here still, the same way as when I came.