Meme -- Letter G

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Leave a comment on this post and I will assign you a letter. Write about ten things you love that begin with said letter.

Post the list on your blog. When people comment on your list, you assign a letter, and the game continues. I will only assign a letter if you request it, so don't hesitate to comment ...

Dorothy over at Counting My Blessings assigned me the letter G.

1. God. He is in my life every second of the day.
   
   
2. Goff Family. Frank's parents are my second set of parents.
   
   
3. Gadding about the countryside. It feels so relaxing to just ride and look at the fields, old farm houses and animals grazing.
   
   
4. Gardens. I like the flower garden and Frank the vegetable garden. I'm not able to garden as I use to. I now grow what perennials I can in the flower beds that don't take a lot of care and grow flowers in pots.
   
   
5. Garden Mums. After about eight years the ones in my flower pots looked scraggly and so I discarded them. I just couldn't keep the aphids out of them the last two years of their life. I like the red-orange ones and they were not available locally this year... so I missed seeing a lot of fall butterflies. You can see the mums in a couple of the butterfly pictures here.
   
   
6. Genealogy. In school I was lousy at history. Now that I've worked on our genealogy I know a lot more world and USA history events than I did in school. I love the smell of the old musky books in the court houses. I love reading the records even when they aren't to do with my family so I help others out when I can... and for free within reason.
   
   
7. Giggling. It just feels so good to get them out.
   
   
8. Grilled shrimp. Frank just cooks them to perfection.
   
   
9. Getting Frank's Goat. Some of you may not be familar with the phrase "get one's goat". Here is an explanation from World WideWords:
   

Though the phrase is recorded from near the beginning of the twentieth century, nobody seems to know where it comes from.
We do know it’s American. The earliest known reference to it is in a book, Life in Sing Sing, of 1904, in which goat is glossed as meaning anger. Examples begin to appear in the following years, with its becoming more widely known by about 1910 (an article in the Washington Post in September that year about superstitions connected with goats calls it “the modern slang expression”). Also in that year, Jack London included it in a letter: “Honestly, I believe I’ve got Samuels’ goat! He’s afraid to come back”.

The most common story to explain the phrase relates to horse racing in North America and to the common practice of putting a goat in the stall with a skittish thoroughbred racehorse to help calm it. Enterprising villains capitalised on this by gambling on the horse to lose and then stealing the goat. A substantial desire to suspend one’s disbelief is needed to accept this story at face value.

Other people have tried to identify it in some way with scapegoat, have seen it as a variant form of goad, and have linked it with an old French phrase prendre la chèvre (to take the goat). But evidence is lacking for all of them.

I like to irritate Frank just enough to get a smile out of him. He knows it is just something that I can't help. I have a bit of devil in me.

10. Georgia. I love living here. We have so much variety and beauty in Georgia... we have mountains and sea shores. ... we have pine tree forest and live oak tree groves. Most of the time our winters are mild and our summer are hot.

Please leave a comment. I will only assign a letter if you request one.

I may get behind on reading your blogs. I have a head cold. Frank has it worse. These are the first head colds we've had since January of 2004. I'm so glad they don't come often with us. When we had head colds last time we had to buy a new vaporizer and the date on the receipt is 20 Jan. 2004 and that is how we remember when :-)

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How about a poem? In honor of the letter G...

Greatness
Edgar A. Guest

We can be great by helping one another;
We can be loved for very simple deeds;
Who has the grateful mention of a brother
Has really all the honor that he needs.

We can be famous for our works of kindness --
Fame is not born alone of strength or skill;
It sometimes comes from deafness and from blindness
To petty words and faults, and loving still.

We can be rich in gentle smiles and sunny:
A jeweled soul exceeds a royal crown.
The richest men sometimes have little money,
And Croesus oft's the poorest man in town.