Windy Wednesdays

 Miss Sophie, at the marina at Pere Marquette Park, Grafton,IL  We were having a small picnic...

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     As payment for a gorgeous sunny 75 degree day in the first half of March, we are now under a tornado watch.  I can never remember the fine nuances of distinguishing between a warning and a watch, and frankly I don't care. I have a really bad attitude about natural disasters and stuff...when it comes to me, anyway. I have a lot of empathy for people in 3rd world countries reeling from 'quakes and hurricanes and shit...but in my own life it's pretty much let the chips fall where they will.  I am nor afraid of storms. I am not afraid of any of that stuff. If it is my day to die, it will happen...regardless.  If it isn't, then there's no need to sit around worrying. I just try to keep it simple and live every moment like it may be my last. Natives have a saying about it being a good day to die. If I live right, love right and trust in the Great Spirit ...I have nothing to fear.   

  And so it is.

  The parental units took to the road about 6 AM and I barely heard them leave. The Irishman was feeling much better with the antibiotics, and he was off to work as well.  I lay in bed, savoring the silence and the knowledge that I wasn't going to do a damn thing today.  LOL  So I went back to sleep and didn't get up until about 9.

  Yikes...it's midnight and the temps are still over 60 degrees!!  

   Went north about an hour today to visit a halfway house kind of a place. I have gone there off and on since I moved here. Lately off, because there were no women there. Today was a good day...it feels good to be able to share experience, strength and hope with women who are down on their luck and struggling. To be able to lend a hand, a shoulder, an ear...good stuff.

  I should be getting to bed. Thinking maybe I'll start writing in the mornings instead of at night...I seem to be tiring out and talking a lot of gibberish in the wee hours.  Maybe I'll make more sense...or not.

   Tomorrow I'll get back on this painting and get this room finished.  I really like the yellow...bright and cheery.  The back wall is going to be white, as I'm running out of yellow. There isn't a lot of wall back there anyway, as it holds 2 big windows. I can't wait to have this all done and get this room straightened around again.  The chaos is killing me.  I don't do well in this kind of stuff.  Even when I move, I unpack and set up my house in the very first day or two usually.   The Irishman says I'm a nester. The truth is a little less cute than that.  I don't do well in clutter and disorganization. The inside of my head is crazy enough...I need structure and order around me.  And THEN, I can be okay....lol

  I am just LOVING this new monitor, by the way.  (It's not new, new.  Just a different one that happened to be laying around)... It's bigger and it's got really good color and definition. Plus, when I was in the control panel, dicking around,. I changed some color scheme from blue to silver...and I love the look. Clean and defined.  WooHoo!

  We had big salads for supper in honor of the summer weather. lol  Lots of veggies and chunks of ham and grated cheese...and shrimp cocktail too. ' Twas yummy!!

   In the morning I am getting the dehydrator going with apples and pineapples. I'll let you know how that goes...I'm excited about getting some drying going on. This will give me a chance as well to figure it all out before garden harvest time.  I'm not real sure about what to prep the fruit with to keep it from turning brown, but am thinking I'll just use the Fruit Fresh that I use when freezing/canning.  It's just ascorbic acid...I'm also going to leave the peels on most of the apples and peel just a few and try them and see which one I like best. The peels may get tough...

  Let the games begin  !!!!!!!!!

  Okay--turning in now, and wishing you all the best dreams available.

Namaste.

Fruitful Friday

[Junko Taibei in one of her favorite baskets]

This is the youngest of the cats. She's the puppy's best friend. She sleeps quite often on top of the cockatiel's cage, which blows everyone away. She washed up in a terrible rainstorm one night, about 8 weeks old. I thought I heard a crying outside, and the dogs ran to the door. When I opened it, there was this little tiny drowned rat looking baby huddled up against the storm door. Of course, I brought her in. The man of the house got THAT look on his face, and I said"Well, I can't leave her out there! She's wet and cold and hungry." He rolled his eyes, I fed her, and she's been firmly entrenched in the family ever since.

When I count my blessings, I always count my pets. (and that takes a while, lol). I used to have a little cocker spaniel named Sophie, she was all black and had cataracts as a result of birth defects from the mother being overbred. She was a beautiful little black dog, with the biggest heart in the world. I made the mistake of working for a veterinary office for one year...she was brought in by a rescue organization because nobody wanted her because she was about 75% blind. We never gave her that prissy cocker cut...she was always a little wooly bear, except for twice in the summer we'd shave her down short so the sticks and twigs wouldn't get all tangled up in her hair on our walks, and also because she got hot easy. She was the best dog I have ever had. She was with us for about 10 years, when she contracted a liver tumor and I had to take her in finally and have her put to sleep. I cried for days. The vet tried to talk me into letting them take her in the back, but I couldn't. The least I could do for my sick little dog was to stay with her til it was done. When I got hurt and was hospitalized for a couple of weeks, P said she wandered the hgouse every night looking for me. When I finally came home, hospital bed and all, she never left my side. All those months when I couldn't walk, she never abandoned me, and I wasn't about to abandon her now. When her little valiant spirit left her body, she was as light as a feather and felt like a ragdoll in my arms. I will never forget her, or that day, or any of it. I was a better person for having her in my life. I will always be grateful to the people who threw her away, and to the rescue folks who knew me from the office, and to God, for sending that little angel to me. Even now, 2 years later, I'm sitting here crying like a baby telling this. Sheesh...

Anyway, I am grateful to be an animal caretaker. I am grateful to have these guys teach me about unconditional love. (The dogs are all here, licking and nuzzling me when they heard me crying...the cats are looking in too , just to make sure everything's okay). I am grateful to be, as the little thing on my fridge says: "Caring for pets, and feeding wild birds in winter, makes us partners with God."

Enough for tonight.... Bless you all....