April Photos - 5

Hoppoo & Looloo

 

April Photos - 4

Crimson Clover

April Photos - 3

Looloo & Turtle 

 

April Photos - 2

my carrot 

 

April Photos - 1

I've been getting daily visits from my new friend, the dog/wolf/bear, the last few months... As soon as she(?) sees or hears me working outside, she comes running through the woods and keeps me company for a while.

Alliterative Trends

We have #MondayMotivation, #ThrowbackThursday, and #FlashbackFriday...
What about the other days of the week?
Are there any other alliterative trends for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays?

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Coming Soon...

 I'm hoping to release my next book in June 2024.

A New Beginning...

It's Monday...
   a new beginning
      for those with a plan, a project, a mission
         

Doubt

When I don't know how to complete a task but try anyway, I often doubt my own ability if I fail. I rarely think my failure might be due to someone else's mistake. The same is true for my students: English learners often doubt their own knowledge when they read something online. Then I ask them to show me where they found that information, and I see the source of their confusion...

A Book Dedication

 

Dear Chris,

Thank you for dedicating The Little Book of Grief, Grace, and Gratitude to me.

Linda Weaver Clarke

“It’s important to teach our children their heritage. Who are your ancestors? What were their traditions? Each of us has a story to tell. If these stories are unwritten, then how are your children going to know of their parentage?”
Linda Weaver Clarke

Shared Etymologies

Some words that may seem completely unrelated share etymologies:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/surprising-words-with-shared-etymologies

Circumlocution

Merriam-Webster's word of the day:

circumlocution

Circumlocution means using many words in speech or writing to say something that could be said more clearly and directly with fewer words. Circumlocution can also refer to speech that is intentionally evasive.

1: the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea

2: evasion in speech

Circumlocution is made of the prefix circum-, meaning “around,” and locutio, meaning “speech.” In essence, circumlocution may be thought of as “roundabout speech.” 

For centuries, English writers have used circumlocution with disdain, as a thing to avoid altogether. Charles Dickens used the word to satirize political runarounds in the 1857 novel Little Dorrit with the creation of the fictional Circumlocution Office, a government department that delayed the dissemination of information and just about everything else.

(taken from Merriam-Webster)

To see the word in context or listen to the pronunciation, check the link: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day (April 17, 2024).

Haruki Murakami

“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
Haruki Murakami

Blue & Green

Suffixes & New Words

The word lover in me found a fun page on suffixes that have given us new words:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/13056/11-suffixes-gave-us-new-often-terrible-words

Unexpected - Part Two

That memoir about the time I spent with my paternal grandmother is now in the works. However, when I reached out to my aunts and uncles in Iran to ask them for old photos of my grandparents, they referred me to their children, specifically their younger children, because they themselves lacked the skills to scan these photos and send them to me. When I talked to my younger cousins, I realized some of them have never met our grandfather and many don't remember much of our grandmother. 

Consequently, that book idea has now become two different projects. I'm still working on my memoir in English, but I'm also putting together a kind of family album in Persian with the collaboration of almost my entire family in Iran. Some are sending memorable photos; others are sending anecdotes; and a few are sending recipes, and I'm organizing everything. I hope to live long enough and have the ability to complete this project and leave this family album for the future generations of our rather large family in Iran.

I'm doing my best and trying to move this huge project forward a little every day. Once I'm done with the English memoir, I may have to learn to type in Persian, a skill I've never taken the time to learn because I haven't had much use for it. My father did suggest that I handwrite the book because he believes my Persian handwriting is clear, but I'm not convinced and haven't made my final decision about that aspect of our family album yet. Who knows? 

All I know is that when it comes to writing, things don't always go according to plan.

Unexpected - Part One

I have learned that when I begin developing a new idea, the project may go in a direction I never expected. For example, when I started working on My Guest Book, the book had a different name, style, and content. In fact, I completed the first draft, wrote an introduction for it, finished the first round of editing, began the second round of editing, and only then did it somehow entirely change into what is now published as My Guest Book, which one of my readers called my "best work yet" — which still sounds funny to me because some call it a form of poetry and I know I'm not a poet. 

Years ago, I read an article written by a member of the writing community and wrote a blog post in response to it. That gave me the idea to write a short memoir about the time I got to spend with my grandmother, but eventually one thing led to another, and now that tiny project has turned into something completely unexpected...

Roy T. Bennett

“Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.”
Roy T. Bennett

Book Review

 

-mageddon

In a private correspondence with a friend, I came across the word honkmageddon. It made me think about the word Armageddon...

 
After my thoughts traveled from the word to the movie (1998) and Bruce Willis — and his current condition — and people's problems... and life in general, they circled back to the word, its meaning, and the suffix -mageddon.

I searched for the suffix online and found this: 
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=-mageddon

Book Review

 

Amit Ray

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.”
Amit Ray 

Coming Soon...

A collaboration is in the works... and it's a MEMOIR!!!

Book Review

 

Book Review

 

Nowruz - Part 30 (index)

Nowruz - Parts & Topics

spring cleaning

preparing the haftseen

growing the sabzeh

haftseen items

other items on the haftseen table

haftseen symbols

termeh

Chaharshanbeh Suri

Nowruz day/time

Iranian calendar

New Year's Eve in Iran

Nowruz

new clothes

visiting parents 

visiting family and friends

presents & eidi

Nowruz music - Farhad Mehrad

sabzi polo ba mahi recipe

Sizdah Bedar

time zone and weekend in Iran

end of Nowruz holiday

Nowruz - Index & Reference

spring cleaning

preparing the haftseen

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-1.html

growing the sabzeh

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-2.html

haftseen items

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-3.html

other items on the haftseen table

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-4.html

haftseen symbols

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-5.html

termeh

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-6.html

Chaharshanbeh Suri 

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-7.html

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-8.html

picture of lentils sprouts

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-9.html

Nowruz day/time

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-10.html

picture of my haftseen table in 2023

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-11.html

Iranian calendar

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-12.html

New Year's Eve in Iran

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-14.html

Nowruz 2024

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-15.html

my haftseen 2024

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-16.html

new clothes

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-17.html

visiting parents

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-18.html

presents

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-19.html

family visits

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-20.html

Nowruz music

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-21.html

sabzi polo ba mahi recipe

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-22.html

Sizdah Bedar

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-24.html

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-25.html

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-27.html

the months in the Iranian calendar

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/03/nowruz-part-26.html

Iran: time zone and weekend

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/04/nowruz-part-28.html

end of Nowruz holiday

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/04/nowruz-part-29.html

Nowruz: index & reference

https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/04/nowruz-part-30.html

Nowruz - Part 29

As of today, Tuesday, April 2, 2024, the Nowruz holidays have come to an end, and schools have reopened in Iran after a total of fourteen days, beginning on the eve of Nowruz and ending on Sizdah Bedar.

Nowruz - Part 28

Today, Monday April 1, is the "official" Sizdah Bedar in Iran... although most Iranians living outside Iran celebrate the holiday on the closest Sunday (weekend) so that families and friends can get easily get together without any work obligations.

Keep in mind that the time zone in Iran is GMT+3:30. 
https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/iran

Also, since I mentioned Sunday is the weekend in many places outside of Iran, I want to add that the weekend in Iran is Friday and some companies work only half the day on Thursdays. This makes Saturday the first day of the work week in Iran. 

I realize this may seem confusing to many non Iranians. 

This said, I believe Americans' calendar, in terms of designating Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, is far more confusing since the American official calendar begins with Sunday and yet Americans call Saturday and Sunday the weekend — the weekEND. Analyze that!