Today is a beautiful day with the sun leaping down through the trees, one leaf at a time until it touches the grass. The temperature is moderate, a far cry from the heat and humidity we have had recently, and the sky is a gorgeous blue with white lambs wool sporadically wiping it clean. It is a good day for reflection about the many blessings that abound through the chaos... Does your family have a period out of the year where everything happens? Ours is right now! It started the 10th with a grandchild's birthday, two anniversaries the next week and my mother's 80th birthday open house is on Sunday. My husband and I celebrate our 32nd anniversary the 29th, my mother-in-law's birthday is July 1 and our son is getting married July 2. And it continues with a several birthdays in the next couple of weeks. At the end of July, we have three more birthdays, and the Johnson family reunion (my dad's family) will be here. How is a person supposed to work full time, plan birthday parties, take care of the gardens, do the household chores and still be sane? There are so many blessings causing the events: My mother making it to 80, the children and grandchildren, and the growing … [Read more...]
Distractions
Here I sit amidst many distractions trying to wrench the right word out of air thickly laced with rock lyrics and confrontation. Images, words and music are flying around, encircling my consciousness with ridiculous rhetoric, making meaningful work nearly impossible. I thought I could get an article written while mechanics comb over Mom's van, but I guess my ignoring-with-the-best-of-them skills are defunct. My waiting-room mate is watching Judge Allred, and songs like "White Wedding" fly through the air between the rhetoric of the radio DJ and energetic advertisements. How can I ignore them when a man who has 21 children (in 14 years, mind you) is trying to recover child support paid over five years for a child the current DNA test proves is not his? Or the woman who is trying to recover the cost of new upholstery because a friend urinated in the front seat of her new car after a night at the club? I don't watch Judge Judy or Judge Allred or any of the reality judge shows, mostly because the situations are so ridiculous. But I can see how people get drawn into the stupidity of people. Can you imagine urinating in a friends new vehicle? Or suing someone because they did? I … [Read more...]
Winged blessings
Sometimes I really wish I could just stay home to work in my garden and write. Then I get a customer who really appreciates my help and my knowledge of gardening, lawns and landscaping... I really like working in the garden center at Home Depot. One of the many blessings of my job, besides the great customers and co-workers, is the creatures that visit the gorgeous plants we have. When I water early in the day, the birds greet me with their morning song, and when I water in the evening, the hummingbird moths gather around the flowers, especially the azaleas. The first time I saw a hummingbird moth was in Kentucky or Tennessee. It was early morning and I had no clue what this flying striped body was. It flies like a hummingbird in about three-quarter time, and the wings are smaller in proportion to its body. The body is shaped like a moth, but the wings flap so quickly, they streak the air with color. Last week, I was watering the perennials and petunia hanging baskets under the shade mesh and one of the moths started flitting from flower to flower, sticking its long skinny tongue into the flowers to collect nectar. I felt privileged to observe, slowed the water and … [Read more...]
Change
Moving into a new home brings with it many challenges in the yard. The previous owners did little to take care of the yard, though I could tell, the property was loved at one time. I have been gradually changing some of the landscape to meet me, instead of leaving it the way it was. Most of the time, I am content with just about everything, but having hostas in full sun doesn't work for me. My garden bed along the south side of the house needed to be redone, and I decided this was the spring to begin the process. The hostas, which burned last year when the heat finally hit, had been there so long, they were in massive clumps that it took an entire day to extract. I finally got them out of the below holes and was planning on moving them all under the tree, but there were too many. I gave away a huge clump, as well as planted them in clumps, and still had enough to plant hostas about 15 feet along the retaining wall. I didn't expect to have so many, but it turned into quite a blessing. The next project was to thin out the plants to the left and split the Chinese … [Read more...]
