night lights

“Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.”  ~Walt Whitman

Jupiter and Venus from my front yard

Yeah ... landscaping light

and I saw my first lightning bug of the season and ... I think I saw a shooting star ... also the first

71 through 77/1000 thankfuls

71 Sweet note from H after a bit of a rough start morning ... instant reset!

72 Box of 50 big black bags almost empty ... 'cause they are full of white oak leaves

73 Local farmer stopped and asked if he could have some of those full bags ... I said "You betcha, but ... the leaves still on the lawn are fresher... ." ... so friendly strangers to laugh with. and

74 He told me that stickery stuff that appeared last year ... I was 'fraid it might be some kinda poisonous vine ... he is certain that it's blackberry ... and birds love 'em (um... not in my flowerbeds though).

75 Son still hanging with to provide much appreciated help.

76 Insanely delicious Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad from SAM'S ... thankful that it rocks and thankful that someone else prepared it ... may God bless those hands ...

77 A music play list added to this blog today ... takes awhile to add the tunes, but I will enjoy working on it

.........................................

oh...Farmer suggested the book Mirrors of Heaven, hmmmm, Heaven's Mirrors something like that.  I'll look for it.

Dogwood, Azaleas, Pine ... blooming everywhere we looked on this foggy morning walk ... pretty.

Chaotic construction so different from that golden garden spider's web

These little spider webs are e v e r y w h e r e this morning
I've never noticed them suddenly blanketing the area as they have today
a little creepy in the fog!

Wisteria
beautiful, fragrant blooms
grows on a vine that chokes everything it tendrils around
kind of a love/hate plant here in the South

thistle in the bed between the driveways
aka "today's chore"

I was listening to Pandora while I weeded the front bed and when I sat down to take a break the birds kept on flying in ... right over where I was sitting.  Snapped this photo with the iPad ... pretty true to the color of the sky today.  The birds love this weather.

Turns

Turns out I did enjoy lunch date on Friday.
Turns out she knew about a pottery class which is being offered right here in my town one evening a week ... I have wanted to take a pottery class since high school days.  I'm going to sign up for it today. It begins next month. She has already signed up. It'll be fun to learn pottery and to have a hangout with buddy-girl is a bonus for sure.
Husband, in an effort to make good on his "I will do ballroom dancing classes with you" pre-marriage promise, has given me the University's outreach brochure for the Summer offerings ... Hmmmm ... no dance classes, but I would like to let him off this hook ... hmmmm. My first choice would definitely be YOGA (more then downward dog: yoga for the rest of us) ... That could be interpreted as spiteful ... Oh, here's one ...SOS: emergency preparedness ...what to do when encountering an active "shooter" on campus ... Ummmm duck and shield stuff probably ... What else we got? TAI CHI! THE BLACK HOLE! AFTERNOON AT THE MET (I think I'll do that one alone) ... Here's one on the German cypher machine ... Retirement ... Ah, Square Dancing! Hahaha ... Not so much for me though I did love it in fifth grade. GORILLA IN THE ROOM ( denial - the dismissal or refusal to grant the truth or validity blahblahblah ... So and so was attacked after his findings were published in a respected scientific journal ... Case in depth ... Evidence of no local consciousness ...) . That one should come with complimentary cocktails! ... ECOLOGY OF A CHANGING PLANET ... Probably meets in the University's tree house ... . WWII pillaging ... Oh, here we go ... THE 30 GREATEST ORCHESTRAL WORKS (he's probably teaching during that time slot) THERAPY LITE - HUMOR ... WISDOM OF HISTORY, PART III that does actually sound interesting ... Part III might be a little late on this one. GARDEN OF EDEN: EDIBLE AND MEDICINAL PLANTS (I may be starting to be interested in that) HMMMM .... YOUR BODY: AN OWNER'S GUIDE ... (Monday 8:30 - 10:00 he'll be on the sixth hole by then ...). I think I will invite him to choose, it is the thought that counts.

I've been thinking about some of the info in my notes from the Happiness Hypothesis  book.  He wrote something about one of the things we like is to have our short term goals match well with our long term goals.  That does seem to be my experience.  I thought that idea may have been derived from the avarice of the seventies and eighties ... and now I've been watching long enough to see that being king of your own little hill doesn't really make anyone happy ... I am not a fan of empire building.  But ... goals aren't always formed or realized around one's "job"... right?  Maybe it's easy to confuse your "job" with your "purpose" ... and maybe it is tricky to wrap goals, or benchmarks around one's purpose ... purpose, true purpose is hard enough to find as it is.  I have been spending some time chafing at my "purpose" being chief toilet scubber ... not 'cause I mind cleaning the toilets, but because that doesn't seem to be enough.

Let's see ... a list of what I consciously think my goals have been ...

to be a good wife (and I thought that meant life partner ... still do)
to be a good mother (on going ... maybe I should start looking forward to the upgrade)
to be ... hmmmm, it gets harder here ...
to take good care of the people and things that come my way

to excel at flying stuff
to help other  people move towards excellence there

to finish my time here and move back home ... and home to me is Texas, but probably more specifically where I can see the Gulf ... .
its
The flying stuff was easiest to grapple with, because there are standards. +/- so many feet or KTS or degrees ... I like it.

 My window is open right now and I can hear the birds chirping and also a jet departing the area ... the guy in that seat can glance down and see how close he is to exactly where he knows he should be.  I like that.  I like the whole deal.

I'm going to think about that for a minute ... if I where that person I would have been looking at the weather ... I woulda been looking at some of what I might expect to be dealing with ... environment wise ... I would want to have as much picture as possible so I didn't havetah figure everything out as I went along ... I'd want to have the opportunity to plan what appeared to be the best route through and I would use that as a foundation to adapt from as better info came on board.  I'd know the destination layout for sure.  I would expect and enjoy the little tweaks.
I'd sure be listening to my plane ... he was still climbing when he passed over my house ... still making sure everything is as it should be ... he can't pick up ATC on the ground here but can when he's barely off ... hope he knows there could be several handfuls of student pilots around ... cause they are mostly oblivious to him ... yeah he's busy right now, a few thousand feet before he can reach for another sip of coffee.
Cruise will be fun.  Once he gets everything settled he can kick back a bit.  I'd be wondering if my kids remembered their lunches ... did they turn the flat iron off ... was the door pulled shut, or is ole Sammy wallowing on the couch in the den about now ... and what's going to be on for dinner ... I think I set some chicken out to thaw ... hmmm ... my flying buddy might be warming up to fuss about something ... most every pilot I've flown with likes to air their pet peeves once there's plenty of blue around.  I always wonder if they're clear of the PTT ... .  Oh, I do love landings.  Landing may be my very most favorite part of flying.  You know when you've made a good landing.  Yes, I do love landings.  Landings start way before you can even see the airport ... in a little plane you gotta keep a landing in your back pocket at all times, but I am talking about landings at the airport.  Hmmm ... yes I guess I missed that little detail in the life analogy ... I think I'm going to land over there, but sometimes crap happens suddenly and you gotta land nowish.  I do like that sub-routine in the airplane ... even in a twin I'm keeping an eye on where for the what-ifs ... hmmm.  The NTSB reports are full of too busy thinking about this to realize that kind of accidents.

Well ... I'm glad I thought about that.  I thought I was flying my life towards a landing at the beach.  This is simply a divert.  And I know I can do that.  And ... there's stuff to do to make that lovely.  I was getting stuck for a minute there (maybe a month).  If I were flying I'd be addressing the issue that changed the plan ... if it was some unpleasant turn of events I'd be fixing that as best I could.  But a change of plans isn't always a result of some problem ... .  If I was unexpectedly heading to somewhere else I would be adapting for what to expect there.  I'd be checking on what to expect between here and there ... and I'd be looking at plates probably ... punching in proper frequencies ... I definitely wouldn't be looking at the stuff about where I thought I was going ... hahaha it's funny to think about it that way! "Hey ... leave that alone ... that's the tower I had in mind this morning when we left,  dammit, they are who I want to talk to ...!  Yes,  those are the correct frequencies for the approach I intended to use ... the needles will start coming alive any second now!"

Gosh, this rainy weather totally bites.  It's been wet around here for so many days that it actually feels humid inside the house.  I need to find an inside project.  Maybe I should spend some time thinking about some new goals ... those top two are on going, but the next two seem to be heading somewhere else.  I'm pretty well okay with the flying stuff.  I can pretty well see that that is on hold and maybe even indefinitely so ... can't see around the corners, but I am addressing what I think is the best way to handle that ... I'm looking up.  On the beach thing ... yeah, pretty big deal to be counting down the days, packing,  and have a sudden change of plans ... but, nobody is hurt on that (as we say in baseball).  I can handle this.  I just need to get on board with the change of plans.

... Ummm and maybe develop a plan so I have something interesting to do.  I need a long term goal or two.  That is how I organize myself ... that is how I find my happy.  That ... and my delicious morning coffee ... and the new bottle of my favorite shampoo that's waiting ... no walks today, but I can have fabulous hair!  I wonder if it would be too irreverent to be thankful for great shampoo ... .

Monday ... overcast, but clearing

This is what I am happy about.  Finally the weather was fair enough for a bit of uninterrupted yard clean up.  Our front yard is about .25 acre of lawn and landscaping.  I try to keep it very lovely ... well maintained, manicured, but with a subtle easy going vibe.  The back yard has an area of lawn with landscaped borders, but it quickly tumbles back in to the forest where the first Americans hunted ... a child perched in our wonderful tree house could maybe listen carefully enough to hear the Indians packing up to leave when white settlers claimed this very  fertile soil for a village surrounded by plantations ... very few of which remained after Sherman's march through here.  There is a tree in my yard whose many rings witnessed those events.  I think I'll go get a picture of it right now.  I couldn't believe how big that tree was when we bought this home twenty years ago ... now I just find it hard to believe that one single tree can drop so many leaves!

From the center of the trunk I estimate the branches to extend out 40' easy ... the tree is epic.  In the branches mid way down is a section of the tree which was struck by lightning last Spring.  It zapped the bark off all the way down to the ground, like a zipper undone.  A ribbon of bark was found in the yard ... probably fifty feet away, and it took a while for me to figure out where it came from.  The broken branch was hidden in the green leaves. but became apparent as winter bared the branches.  The leaves didn't fall from that section, I guess they were welded in place.  That section is probably a little better then fifteen foot long.  When it falls ... and it will ... it'll do some damage.  I'd like to ask someone to wrangle it safely down, but I don't know who or how.  Maybe I will do it myself.

dormant gardenia in foreground
red azalea with blooming daffodils at it's feet
vegetable boxes (not shown) with blueberry trees along the fence line nearby
White Dogwood
Purple Redbud barely seen
Oak
Tree house slide
Magnolia and pine providing the green background

Here is a shot over the vegetable planting boxes towards the tree house.  It is three stories tall with the yellow slide down from the first floor.  Initially I had a zipline planned from the top, but I couldn't bare the thought of a child getting hurt between here and there. It's a fairly steep descent down to a back porch terminus ...  Mom isn't much fun!

On Saturday I had help bagging the leaves that had settled in outlining the driveway.  Ummm ... about 25 big black bags full!  I was so glad for the help cause it's been driving me crazy!  This has been a wet weather winter here in the South.  Today, when it warms up a bit, I am going to rake leaves out of my front beds and pull any little stray weeds ... time to lay down the fresh mulch.  Already bulbs are popping through ... and the azaleas are blooming.

Well, writing this morning has cajoled me into a better frame of mind.  I was just pissed.  This is Spring Break week ... supposed to be a bit of a vacation week, but the city schools and the University are out of calendar sync.  L and I had planned to make a trip to Texas this week ... which was cancelled because we don't need to look for a home over that way.  Next week, when he's back at the office, our school age kids will be out. ... I'm planning consolation trips for them ... day trips.  Four is interested in the longest zipline in the world, but Five shutters to imagine.  Five would like to see the aquarium again and shop ... mostly shop ... my little shopper (I know the aquarium is thrown in as an incentive for me to drive to Atlanta!).  Four doesn't want to waste a day shopping.  Ugh!  At 17,  Four can easily find a zillion fun ways to while away a day, or a week ... I feel fortunate for a spot on her dance card!  My son says he is available to help me this week ... he stayed home for his Spring Break.  He's still asleep (but I know he is serious about the offer).

L got out very early to golf ... and mentioned in passing that he intends to spend the next few days out on a field trip.  Yeah ... that's the pisser.  I would have liked a heads up.  Would I have made plans for a few days away myself ... most probably not.  I really should though.  I really should, but, I won't leave the two youngest here alone, even with their big brother to look out for them.  What I'm going to do is find something to do that I can look back at on Friday ... maybe just cleaning out the front flower beds and laying in the mulch.  And I'm going to try not to think about all the leaves that fall, and all the years that they have fallen and been picked up and bagged ... .  While Three was working with me on Saturday I said, "There must be a better way to keep up with these leaves ... " and he asked "How could you?  There are so many of them."  I answered that I just didn't know ... I had wasted my thinking time for that daydreaming about the lack of fallen leaves at the beach.  

~ found image (idk)

Gone From My Sight  ~ Henry Van Dyke

 I am standing upon the seashore. 

A ship, at my side, spreads her white 

sails to the moving breeze and starts 

for the blue ocean. 

She is an object of beauty and strength. 

I stand and watch her until, at length, 

she hangs like a speck of white cloud 

just where the sea and sky come 

to mingle with each other. 

Then, someone at my side says, 

"There, she is gone" 

Gone where? 

Gone from my sight. That is all. 

She is just as large in mast and hull

 and spar as she was when she left my side 

and she is just as able to bear her 

load of living freight to her destined port. 

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her. 

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says, "There, she is gone," 

there are other eyes watching her coming,

 and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 

"Here she comes!" 

And that is dying.

11 March 2012

A handful of Tolstoy

~ found image (idk)

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.



All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.


Boredom: the desire for desires. 

If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Music is the shorthand of emotion. 


One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.


True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style.


Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

Tolstoy notes

the following text was copied entirely from Tolstoy CONFESSION 

I am interested in Tolstoy right now.  Read some of his work years ago, but now I like to know as much as I can about the person who conceived the work ... along with the work.  I think I am on a track to re-read some of Tolstoy, but after I learn more about his path.

The foregoing was written by me some three years ago, and will be printed.

Now a few days ago, when revising it and returning to the line of thought and to the feelings I had when I was living through it all, I had a dream. This dream expressed in condensed form all that I had experienced and described, and I think therefore that, for those who have understood me, a description of this dream will refresh and elucidate and unify what has been set forth at such length in the foregoing pages. The dream was this:

I saw that I was lying on a bed. I was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable: I was lying on my back. But I began to consider how, and on what, I was lying — a question which had not till then occurred to me. And observing my bed, I saw I was lying on plaited string supports attached to its sides: my feet were resting on one such support, my calves on another, and my legs felt uncomfortable. I seemed to know that those supports were moveable, and with a movement of my foot I pushed away the furthest of them at my feet - - it seemed to me that it would be more comfortable so. But I pushed it away too far and wished to reach it again with my foot, and that movement caused the next support under my calves to slip away also, so that my legs hung in the air. I made a movement with my whole body to adjust myself, fully convinced that I could do so at once; but the movement caused the other supports under me to slip and to become entangled, and I saw that matters were going quite wrong: the whole of the lower part of my body slipped and hung down, though my feet did not reach the ground. I was holding on only by the upper part of my back, and not only did it become uncomfortable but I was even frightened. And then only did I ask myself about something that had not before occurred to me. I asked myself: Where am I and what am I lying on? And I began to look around and first of all to look down in the direction which my body was hanging and whither I felt I must soon fall. I looked down and did not believe my eyes. I was not only at a height comparable to the height of the highest towers or mountains, but at a height such as I could never have imagined.

I could not even make out whether I saw anything there below, in that bottomless abyss over which I was hanging and whiter I was being drawn. My heart contracted, and I experienced horror. To look thither was terrible. If I looked thither I felt that I should at once slip from the last support and perish. And I did not look. But not to look was still worse, for I thought of what would happen to me directly I fell from the last support. And I felt that from fear I was losing my last supports, and that my back was slowly slipping lower and lower. Another moment and I should drop off. And then it occurred to me that this cannot be real. It is a dream. Wake up! I try to arouse myself but cannot do so. What am I to do? What am I to do? I ask myself, and look upwards. Above, there is also an infinite space. I look into the immensity of sky and try to forget about the immensity below, and I really do forget it. The immensity below repels and frightens me; the immensity above attracts and strengthens me. I am still supported above the abyss by the last supports that have not yet slipped from under me; I know that I am hanging, but I look only upwards and my fear passes. As happens in dreams, a voice says: "Notice this, this is it!" And I look more and more into the infinite above me and feel that I am becoming calm. I remember all that has happened, and remember how it all happened; how I moved my legs, how I hung down, how frightened I was, and how I was saved from fear by looking upwards. And I ask myself: Well, and now am I not hanging just the same? And I do not so much look round as experience with my whole body the point of support on which I am held. I see that I no longer hang as if about to fall, but am firmly held. I ask myself how I am held: I feel about, look round, and see that under me, under the middle of my body, there is one support, and that when I look upwards I lie on it in the position of securest balance, and that it alone gave me support before. And then, as happens in dreams, I imagined the mechanism by means of which I was held; a very natural intelligible, and sure means, though to one awake that mechanism has no sense. I was even surprised in my dream that I had not understood it sooner. It appeared that at my head there was a pillar, and the security of that slender pillar was undoubted though there was nothing to support it. From the pillar a loop hung very ingeniously and yet simply, and if one lay with the middle of one's body in that loop and looked up, there could be no question of falling. This was all clear to me, and I was glad and tranquil. And it seemed as if someone said to me: "See that you remember."

And I awoke.

1882.

found at  The Classical Library

The Classical Library is devoted to presenting new HTML versions of classical literature based on electronic texts from sources such as Project Gutenberg and other works in the public domain that are newly scanned and converted.

another possible resource here  Under the Sun.

pretty intense ...

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
~Tolstoy

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. ~ I Corinthians 13:13

I wound up running out of time on Monday and didn't get my new light fixture installed 'till first thing on Tuesday.  These pendant lights really brighten up the space.  Last week I installed one in our walk in closet and ... voilà ... L said it practically attained dressing room status.  He's not normally enthusiastic like that, may be teasing with me, but ... the light rocks in there and also in the laundry closet (pantry up next). I turned on the dryer so that I could hear which circuit I turned off ... then I realized that my adjacent overhead lighting was still "up".  I was a bit concerned that I might get blown off my perch atop the washing machine ... so decided to just flip the master breaker for that entire portion of the house.  Uh ... turned out to not be a great plan!  Turned out to discombobulate the WiFi connection in the house ... which turned in to one of those extended conversations with a trouble shooting machine before a consult with a very smart kid in Kentucky who was having major sinus problems.  He discovered that  have a 15mg modem on   a 30 mg server.  No wonder stuff loads slow!  He also helped me get rid of the desktop computer that no one uses ... I thought the router had to be connected to it, but turns out all I need there is a modem ... and the box store had them combined in one device which was news to me as well.  We replaced only the modem ... totally worth the hassle and expense.  We also saw some gizmo that will provide central storage for all the stuff on every one's devices and we'll be able to share our libraries a lot more readily ... all the phones, all the laptops, all the iPads ... we're dotting all the "i's".  I'm not a fan of storing in the iCloud.

The funny thing about that new fixture ... there is not a switch to that outlet!  It was actuated with one of those pull chains!  I don't know how to link an outlet to a wall switch ... for now I am unscrewing the bulb.  I thought to use a cord with a switch on it, but there's no way to thread it though the actual fixture.  Ummm ... thinking about this, and it looks like a job for a real electrician! Fortunately the closets and the pantry have switch plates that actuate with the opening of a door, so all other possible lighting  upgrades are good to go.
From right here in the dining room I can see the birds have found the feeder.  Pretty sweet. It's far enough from those nests, but still where I can see it.  I like.



Sammy and I walked five miles yesterday.  He didn't bark a bit last night.  Maybe he has been missing our walks as much as I have.

Spring is bursting at the seams around here.  Yesterday I worked mostly outside and there is a huge pile of shrub scrapes waiting to be picked up.  In Texas we had to take our own yard debris some where ... here they pick up trash, recyclables, and yard stuff every week. (I'm trying to think of all the things I like about "around here"!)  Here's a view down the street ... lots trees, nice sidewalk, biking path.  I had to tell my buddy girl back home that we aren't heading that way.  It's kinda funny how things go.  Husband is "tickled pink" about this opportunity.  It would be unkind, ungracious ... umm, maybe the word is bitchy, for me to rain on his parade with my disappointments.  I'm really trying to get myself re-booted with this ... it's like I'm the bummed out WiFi router that all my loves count on to sparkle their happy through ... they count on me to be "up".  I did a life strategy that I'm not liking ... I deferred something, I don't even know what to call it, for these big deal things I thought were sure things.  Sacrifice for a later payoff ... deferred gratification.  And ... I'm sure that's what we all do ... yeah, pretty sure.  But ... where I think I made a big mistake was in putting all my eggs in those baskets.  I think I see myself doing that just in general.  I go all in. Or ... not at all.  It's kinda extreme.  I'm starting to see that other approaches may be even more satisfying overall.  I tend to super focus ... with my important stuff, people and plans.  I think I would like to be more permeable ... more come and go ... .   I noticed that trait about myself this past year.  Somebody suggested a novel idea which was interesting  to me and I just couldn't really commit until it was offered as a longterm kind of thing ... I saw that I don't feel comfortable with little commitments ... like people seem to do ... like, let's get together for lunch ...  hangout ...  that sort of thing is easy to take a pass on.  Little commitments have seemed like clutter ... like they are not worth the time.  But ... I'm starting to realize how enriching those smaller tastings can be.  Smaller tastings can inform your whole palette.  All of a sudden you can discover that you really like pistachio gelato ... and maybe who knows what else, but you better get busy looking for it 'cause no one's gonna do that for you.   Hmmm ... like that trip with my daughter's class to the aquarium.  I would never just go there because I wanted to,  I would go only in support of one of the kids, or as a family outing. It's just never occurred to me that I can follow my fancy on some things.  If/when there is no penalty to what is truly important to me and ... it has the potential to make my own little life a lot more pleasant.  I can't see a way to do as much flying as I would like to do, but ... I can find other things to do that I enjoy ... I don't have to defer all pleasures for later.  It's silly to do so.
This morning I made a lunch date with a mom who has recently relocated to here.  Our daughters hang out ... I think I would maybe like her.  I know I'm having lunch at my favorite local place (and that something to look forward to may be good enough).  I'm really trying to figure this stuff out.

~ NASA 13 January 2012
I like the black and white of it
I like the empty and full of it, the something and nothing...
the something that's not much of anything and the nothing that really is something quite amazing
I like it.

     “But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant, either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man.”
 ~ Galileo Galilei



     “Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes ... We cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in the mathematical language ... without whos.”
 ~ Galileo Galilei

Mr. Golden Sun!

Sunshine was drenching the dining room this morning ... I knew it was going to be a wonderful day.  One of the girls asked if we had a time change over the weekend.  It was so nice to see the big blue sky, I think my house might have been right at the center of a big H.  I would be happy to walk pretty much all day on days like this ... still would like to walk the trail for a month at a time.  We'll see.  Sammy was ready to roll ... uh, stroll ... too.  He's due for a bath, so I let him have his way with the creek.

Pine pollen will be everywhere in the next few weeks ... 

These other things are blooming in our yard.

Don't know the name of this shrub, but it's a favorite for sure ... the foliage ranges through this Spring green through deep eggplant purples and maroons in the winter.  I planted these last spring where I pulled the stickier Holly bushes out.  Really pleased with these.

Forsythia ... out near the street.  It blooms only during the Spring.  Very cheery.

Redbud tree.  These gorgeous little blooms don't last long, but this is one of my favorite ornamentals.  Heart shaped leaves, and it grows well under the pines.

Tulip tree ... every year that we've lived here we have gotten one more hard frost right after the tulip trees bloom ... I'm holding off on planting our tomatoes and peppers just in case!

Typical Monday

8-9:30 get everyone off to their day ...
restock bird feeders
Empty dishwasher
Shirts to laundry
930- 11:00 walk dog

Lunch with L

To do today:
=>Set pedometer
Clean refrigerator and straighten pantry
Clean chalkboard wall
Mop kitchen/brkfst rms
Den and ... Laundry
Run w/d one load ... two loads ...
=>Front windows!
Front yard lights
Clean boys bathroom ... laundry curtains ... three loads
Girls bathroom.
=>Hang new laundry room fixture!
Duvet needs laundry time soak ... four loads!
 Tidy den                                                        
* Grocery list: PAM spray
Frozen biscuits (veg tarts)
Red/yellow peppersG
Grn onion
Box lime gelatin
Pineapple canned
Summer squash
Can green chili
cottage cheese (mini quiches)
Cocktail toothpicks (world market)
Bottle store

Drawer project

Dinner = chicken

Next up...
Door to linen closet
Door to boys bathroom (sand in place)

Almost every morning I make a to do list ... it helps me organize the day ... so ... today I see the house stuff, the from the car stuff, and the down time walking the dog.  The drawer is the most pressing house thing ... because I really don't want to do it.  I'll dump the contents of the "junk drawer" and my kitchen gadgets drawer out on the table ... so I know I'll have to get them put back together.  I will really like being able to find my citrus zester ... my meat thermometer  ... the olive jar tines.  I luva me some orderly!

Now it's time to prepare lunch ... I've gotten a lot done.   Still have bathrooms and from the car stuff to do.  I'll probably leave my drawer opened all day 'cause every time I walk by there I smile.

Door sanding for later today ... little bit now and then gets it done! 

Video: A Murmuration of Starlings - The Atlantic

screen shot ... this is very cool

Video: A Murmuration of Starlings - The Atlantic

Orchid

A few fierce cells rushed though here last night ... it's good to have a strong roof overhead.  There's something about rain ... something about stormy weather ... oh, I love the rainy nights, I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightning when it lights up the sky, you know it makes me feel good ... .  Cocooned, I love to look out at it.  I like weather ... it fascinates me to see the planet spinning her multi-layered attire.  This soft morning finds last night's red boxed convective sigmets  drip dropping steady from the eaves ... falling like fingers on an Steinway.

I have a new orchid on the table in the foyer.  It was a nice surprise from my husband.  Everything about an orchid is ... perfect.  My little girl asked me where I was going to set it,  and I wondered where she would choose.  She specified three different places in our home ... laughing I agreed ...  we will  be moving it all around  so we can enjoy it as much as possible.  I love having an orchid  in the house.  My little cyclamen didn't fare well this year ... I'm keeping the house cooler then those babies prefer.

Today ... door project on hold due to high humidity!  I'm sure I'll find something to do ... .  This pantry door was the most labor intensive so far.  I guess it swings open even more frequently then the refrigerator! I didn't paint over the "growth chart" ticking the years.  It's sweet.  If I had that to do over again, I would secure a nice wooden yardstick three feet above the floor ... we'd make our notes of initials and dates on that rather then the door frame.  My kids have loved monitoring their height ... hard to paint over that!

At the end of March I get to spend a day at the Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile.   The battleship USS Alabama is docked there and even cooler ... tons of airplanes are on static display.  I am pretty excited about the trip.  My husband will be working so I get to wander around all by myself.  Last time we were there he shepherded our two oldest children around the ship while Three and I hung out ashore ... I was huge pregnant with Four and simply couldn't chase a three year old up and down those narrow stairways for more then the first couple hours aboard!   After banging my head a couple of times he and I found other things to look at ... that child was such a fearless little thing ... and fast!   His antics have stopped my heart a few times over the years!  It will be a lot of fun for me to go back for a visit without a diaper bag.  We get to ride the ferry ... silly how much I love that, and visit a Fort down there on the coast.  It's really cool, but I can't recall the name of it right now.  Then I think we'll spend a couple days on the beach.  I can't remember being at the coast with out at least two of our children.  I'm interested to see what places that don't serve chicken tenders and fries are like!

Another thing I'm looking forward to doing is visiting the planetarium in Atlanta.  I never have thought about doing things that I like by myself, but there is absolutely no reason not to. ... C and I want to ride that "Screaming Eagle" zip line ... still haven't gotten to that, but she's definitely my go to buddy for stuff like that.

Well, I better go actually do something ... the day's getting away!

found photo (idk)

Last night Sammy barked pretty much all night.  He barked himself hoarse.  I kept on thinking surely he will go lay down any minute now, but ... I wound up parking him in his crate and putting a quilt over it around 0400ish ... still he barked.  It's the light rain ... as it falls to the ground, dripping down the leaves, plinking noises of who knows what ... putting him on active alert.   Sammy is asleep now, passed out on the back porch with his belly showing.  Finally the rain became rain.  The sky is grey-white with it.   I haven't looked at the weather yet, but I know here locally we will take a soaking today.  Being awake most of the night (my ear is soppy again too) gave me time to reflect on what I wrote about yesterday.



Maybe I am too tired to feel annoyed this morning.  This morning I just feel grateful that I can get the day started with a cup of delicious coffee.  I can count on that and I realize that most of the planet probably can't.  I could sit right here all day long if I wanted to ... reading about the wonders of our known universe, trying to work out the correct pronunciation for the names of stars, trying to sort out which constellation is where and when I might hope to see it from here.   If I do get out today I will shop for a new shower curtain for the bathroom where I removed the glass sliding doors last week.  The tile and porcelain underneath is refurbished and looking good.  Right now I don't have to worry about the same kind of stuff that a lot of people have to worry about.  Truth is ... we are very blessed.

Soon we will celebrate the birthday of one of my sons ... a son who reminds me of my dad.  He favors him physically,  dark Welsh good looks and mischievous pale blue eyes,  potentially a fortunate roll of the genetic dice.  Good looks can be a curse, but I think this one wears them lightly.  There was a day in his childhood that I smile to remember ... overcast like today ... he and I  stood at the window looking out in to our back yard.  Some birds were bathing in the up turned lid of his sand box and I made a quick dash through the house for my camera.  When I got back for the shot, the birds were long gone and my toddler was sitting, naked as a jaybird, smack dab in the middle of that green saucer with a huge smile on his little baby boy face.  I love that picture.  Maybe he will too some day.  Now he is a man.  I used to scoop him up in a hug, careful not to squeeze him too tight.  Now when he hugs me I feel his strength.  I can look in to his face and see him all the way back to those first few moments.  I was afraid to be a mother.  Somehow he communicated to me that I wasn't going to have to figure it out all by myself.
That's what relationships are to me.  Some I hold close ... some I'm careful not to squeeze too tight ... some I lean into needing to feel strength ... lives overlap and are shared.
I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately ... lately being especially this last year or so.

I paused in my musings this morning to take a call from my brother.  Perfect timing, as usual with him.  He is making the arrangements to move our mom nearer to his home.  She has agreed that it's time.  So ... we discussed that.  We did the follow up talk on something important we were talking about last week ... he apologized for dumping some of his private stuff on me and I said don't worry about it.  I have come to realize this past year that I should have known I could talk to him about some of my own stuff.  Who on the planet loves me and mine more than him and yet might be able to maintain an objective view.  I've needed advice on occasion that he coulda helped me with had I asked.  I would say that he knows my character as well as anyone ... including where the flaws lurk.  Last summer we spent some time together ... out walking and talking ... he is one of my best friends.

What I  realized last night is that spending as much time alone as I  do is encouraging  me to spend too much time thinking about myself.  I think that's a huge mistake.  I've seen how that can evolve to just plain ole selfishness ... where everything revolves around that person.  It's not pretty.  I am very fortunate that I have several important others in my life ... and ... I need to find a place where I can contribute.  I should be praying about that.  I like time alone and the peace and quiet is really good, but I need to be careful not to get side tracked in to fretting about this or that ... it's foolishness really.

I'm trying to figure out how this time in my life can be best spent.  I'm trying to figure out how to be "good" at this ... I can see so much to be thankful for.  That's what I'm reading up on right now, cause I also see a lot of women in situations similar to mine that just get more and more self-centered and less and less "happy".  I see a lot of women like me wasting away, and it doesn't have to be like that I think.

penelopetrunk.com "your family would be better off with a housewife so would mine"  A little article about housewifery statistics

and this excerpt  fromThe Feminine Mystique: Chapter 1 "The Problem that Has No Name" Betty Friedan:
There was much sympathy for the educated housewife. ("Like a two-headed schizophrenic . . . once she wrote a paper on the Graveyard poets; now she writes notes to the milkman. Once she determined the boiling point of sulphuric acid; now she determine s her boiling point with the overdue repairman....The housewife often is reduced to screams and tears.... No one, it seems, is appreciative, least of all herself, of the kind of person she becomes in the process of turning from poetess into shrew.")
...
The problem was also dismissed with drastic solutions no one could take seriously,. (A woman writer proposed in Harper's that women be drafted for compulsory service as nurses' aides and baby-sitters.) And it was smoothed over with the age-old panaceas: "love is their answer," "the only answer is inner help," "the secret of completeness--children," "a private means of intellectual fulfillment," "to cure this toothache of the spirit--the simple formula of handling one's self and one's will over to God."1

Being busy flying airplanes was supposed to leap-frog me over figuring this stuff out! 

Well ... for today ... I traded in my pedicure money for 12 very attractive little clear glass "tastings"or tapas bowls. Already like that choice better. If my family loves what I'm going to serve in these I may go back later for the ceramic ones (cause they can go in the oven for hot tidbits) ... I am planning on preparing a dinner party quality meal at least once a week.  I am a good cook.  What I'm trying to do is step away from the tried and true family favorites towards a culinary adventure ... ummm, slightly less then that, but towards that.   I'm excited about what I'm going to make, and I'm excited about providing a nice surprise.