Mid-week.

  I have laundry going, a turkey breast in the roaster and have been making and fielding phone calls. Haven't showered or dressed yet, and just got word that the PT job I was hoping for fell through. Okay...I don't know what God has in store for me, but it apparently wasn't that one...shoot. I was hoping for a break, lol.

  I have my yard sale stuff ready to go I think and will start tomorrow. My plan originally was for Monday, but it has done nothing but rain and storm this week, so I took my time putting it together.  The garden, on the other hand, has loved this weather...

 It's been a curious week so far...I just feel off center and weird. Oh well..this too shall pass, I guess.  I posted a long whiney post  a few days ago...full of fear and self pity and philosphy (lol)  and the computer ate the whole thing and I couldn't recover it, even using Lazarus. I got the hint.  So I just stayed away for a couple of days until now. Never let it be said that I am THICK.

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  I have a very sick little kitten...born with intestinal problems of some sort, I think.  I am trying to decide what else to do..It's the runt of the litter and I have mixed up a magic formula that I am syringe feeding it every few hours. If nothing else maybe it will keep her from being dehydrated...she's very thin and cannot seem to nurse well. The mother isn't cooperating much either, and maybe she knows best. It wouldn't take much to put her out of her misery....but I shall attempt a few things first and see what happens. It's a sweet little thing...

 Read of the apparent suicide of novelist David Foster Wallace with  great sadness. He was one of our [relatively] local boys, growing up about a hundred miles from here. I am always met with a mixed bag of emotions at the word of suicide...a feeling of grief that someone felt that was their only option  and relief that their struggle is finally over. It is what it is...and the world has lost a wonderful writer.

Off to the recovery center today, even though I really cannot afford the gas to make the trip. I didn't go last week and maybe this is what I need to get my brains sorted out.

  Sounds like the dryer has stopped, so I will fold clothes and dry more and make like a good little hausfrau...Just For Today (*Mary)... Then I'll walk out to the garden....

Namaste.

Thriving on a Thursday

  It's a beautiful morning after a late afternoon and  night of outrageous lightning and thunderstorms.  The lightning was big and close and it was so incredible...the critters were a little scared, but nobody freaked out too much...

  Here's a kitty picture I just took this morning. It was after they'd chowed down on their buffet of kit kibble mixed with a little warm water and half a can of turkey and giblets canned food. The rest of the day they get dry kibble and they're still nursing now and then, but this is the best time to get pictures of them, as the rest of the day they'll be careening around corners, running and jumping and going a hundred miles an hour.  lol

  Here we have: My Sweet Baboo,  Macduff,  Skooter, and little Grey-Grey.

The other kitten, who's the smallest one, is off by himself. here he is:

We call this one Little Bit...and he's as full of piss and vinegar as any of them! lol

  It's humid today and more storms are forecast for the afternoon. I'm teetering between going back up to the plant sale and just  hanging out at home all day. I could do some basic housecleaning...my carpets need shampooing, but it would be pointless until the rain lets up. A couple of my slipcovers need washing, but same deal. I've taken my showers apart and washed all the curtains and scrubbed those bad boys up, and washed all the bathroom rugs as well.  I could start gathering some things up for the big community yard sales that are going on this weekend and ride their coattails, as I didn't plan to do it, so no advertising or anything. That sounds like a lot of work, and it starts tomorrow. 

  OR....I could just take it easy today and enjoy the quiet and listen to the birds sing.

Hmmmmmm...not much of a contest, is it ?

Namaste.

A Saturday of dubious leisure...

 And here it is...nearly 11 pm.  I honestly thought I would get here early and catch up..oh well.  It was a great day and the weather even cleared up and turned beautiful.  I got going early enough this morning, but time seemed to slip between my fingers and before I knew it, it was time for supper.

  I started the day with breakfast with the Irishman, and then moved onto the fun stuff after he left. lol  I finished up some laundry, that was in the dryer and the washer...the slipcovers and couch blankets that my dogs sleep on.  The covers needed doing, because the male cat that started spraying had left his mark. Arrgghh...he has since gone to live on a farm where he and his brother will have full run of 2 barns and several hundred acres.  There are way too many cats in this house. They are all goofy and displaced, and at least 9 more of them are being given new homes. My brother and his daughter are taking 3 kittens next week.  Another kitten is getting her new mama around the same time. Another farm family is taking more kitties, they have 3 children and are very excited. It is sure a big relief and a load of my mind.  Anyway, I was cleaning up the laundry and did a load of his filthy work clothes too. Then I dyed a set of heavy cotton napkins and a couple of old dish towels...they were all dingy and spotty, but the dye job made them look almost new again. The color is wine (go figure, lol) and the result was grand.

  I went into town looking for some yellow bell pepper plants for the garden, but for some reason, no one seems to have any this year. I have planted about 18 bell pepper plants so far, and it will be plenty. Reds and greens it is.  Even though I found no bells, I did buy some flowers...allysum and nicotania to plant in the 5 planters that grace my sidewalk. Later in the day I went to another plant sale and bought chives, garlic chives and parsley. I also got some sweet potatoes.

  The garden is coming along, slowly, but I'm doing the best I can. So far, I have about 16 tomatoes, and peas, and basil, and peppers, and potatoes and cabbages and cukes in the ground. I have 2 dozen butternut squash seedlings (just breaking ground) and have seeds for okra, carrots,beets and radishes.  I have onion sets that should get in soon. I have a few other things too.  As you can see, I have been busy.

  I am getting up in the morning and going to a Unity church over in St Louis. We have been visiting some churches around and about...from time to time.  It's about the same distance to go across the river to St Louis as it is to travel down to Belleville...

  There's never a dull moment here at the Kelley hacienda. I've been cooking away , as usual, and staying busy enough. I am so glad the weather has warmed up!  The kittens are running around getting into everything one minute, and then all crashed out asleep the next.  They are so adorable...the dogs have spring fever too, and the last 3 nights in a row, they have cornered some wild animal or another out back.  maybe they are keeping something out of my garden??

  The knee is slowly getting better. I am taking a prescription anti-inflammatory and it is helping alot. Somedays I can walk around a lot without ever limping.  I found out that the doctor took out 40% of the quadrant that was torn...no wonder it's taking time to heal!

  Time to go see if the doggies are ready to come in and get myself to bed.

  Sweet dreams, all y'all....

Namaste.


 

There...and back again....

 This is one of the cutest kittens I have seen...going to live with my niece. They are all adorable and all over the place and into everything. Earlier tonight I found one of the smaller ones asleep in the dog food bowl...

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  I have been offline for almost 2 weeks.  Today the technician finally came and fixed things. Apparently the eye of the dish was bad. He tried lots of other things first, before climbing up in the roof....but all told, he was here a little over an hour.  I was so excited to be back online...and then it started storming really bad and we have had tornado warnings all over the place all evening.  The rain and lightning seem to have stopped...the doggies are outside getting nasty (I'm sure),  and I felt safe enough to turn the computer back on.  Trouble is, I've been up since 5:30 AM and I'm about to keel over now.  lol

  Tonight I went to a meeting and gave an 8 year coin to a woman, saw my sponsor, and generally had a good time.  My pal Mary is coming home sometime tonight (probably here by now) , and I cannot wait to see her. I colored my hair yesterday, and she knows I have been playing with the idea of doing it.  The jury is still out on whether I like it or not, lol.  I was just tired of all the patchy grey and feeling like an old woman. I was just nervous about it coming out some goofy blackish color. Instead, I got a reddish almost, because of the grey, I guess. I think next time I will go one shade darker though...this is a medium brown, and I should have gone with a dark I think.

  I have been reading like a fiend (no internet will do that, lol),  working in the yard, getting the garden in and generally enjoying life.  I have been asleep every night by 11 or 11:30 and up again at the butt crack of dawn.  Sounds like a healthy lifestyle, doesn't it??  lol

  I will be back tomorrow full force (I hope) and mostly just wanted to stop in and say that I'm back in the cyberworld again.

  I really missed you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Namaste.

These are a few of my favorite things....

These are the giant hostas in front of the back deck.    They are coming up now, with unfurled leaves of green and white and the fat purple nubs  that show first.  I always love these bad boys...they are gorgeous.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

   Been a busy couple of days, with beautiful temps, sunny and mid 80's. Someone said that it is supposed to cool down again,. and get back to normal April temperatures later this week. Oops. I guess that's tomorrow.   My sister-in-law who lives in Minnesota told me it was raining there this morning. We could use some rain here too, and today got a little overcast from time to time, but no water fell from the sky.

  I got the rest of the leaf compost distributed around, and also planted the butternut squash seeds in the peat pots to get them started.  Tomorrow I may start some tomatoes. But first I have a doctors appointment with the Orthopedic guy, at 9 AM, and so I'm trying to wind it up and get to bed.  The Irishman was supposed to bring home some bags of composted manure, but he forgot. I'm hoping he'll get it first thing tomorrow and get it on the garden so we can work it in before the rains come.

  Took about a one hour nap today, fell asleep on the couch. I think I was out in that hot humidity and sun a little too long this afternoon...felt a little goo-ish. Came in and sat on the couch and before I knew it, I was asleep. Woke up with G-Rod the big orange cat on my chest, staring at my face. That's always a shock...lol...he weighs about 13 pounds.

  I cooked a couple of those extra thick pork loin chops for supper tonight...I have a recipe that we love that came form a low carb cookbook, and the ingredients include onions and apples and cidaer vinegar and soy sauce. They really are marvelous. Heated up some peas and made a box of stuffing. LAzy cook's meal.  lol

  I feel so boring these days I don't even want to write. The kittens are growing like weeds, and the first batch was 3 weeks old on Wednesday. They are out and about and scurrying around as fast and clumsily as their little feet can take them. Absolutely adorable. The second batch are 2 weeks old and still snuggling and sleeping a lot. It's truly amazing how quickly they grow and develop.

  Alright....I'm off to bed so I can get up in time to make my dr appt.  I am going to try and talk him into giving me a shot of cortisone into this knee and see if that might help speed things up some.  I'm getting tired of all this.

  Goodnight....and all your dreams be in technicolor!

Namaste.

Sunday at the races...

That's how it's felt all day.  Got up late and kinda ran the rest of the day trying to catch up.

  Here are the 5 new babies that joined our family on the avian front 

Black Australorp

Buff Orpington

Little darlins at the feeder

The Australorps will be almost solid black with a greenish iridesence  on the wings, and the orpingtons will be a gorgeous golden reddish color. Both are great egg layers and on the nearly recovered list of once endangered chicken breeds.

  One of the cats also had a litter of 5 kittens today under my desk. Sigh....

All in all...a day of miracles and love and lots of magic.  But I'm tired....

Namaste

Saturday night...

 

The crazy factor the past few days has been quite remarkable.  Suffice it to say that my world has been going 180 miles per hour  and I have somehow managed to make it through intact. For this I am incredibly grateful.

We have had a few days in a row of pretty cool temperatures again , and I wish spring would make up it's mind to just stay. We've had some rain and thunderstorms, and so the grass is greening up nicely at least.  Today's high made it to 60 degrees, but it didn't stay there long. Got chilly and overcast and is supposed to storm some more tonight.  Yuck.

Tomorrow we are going to the farm store and buy some baby chicks.  I am very excited about this endeavor and cannot wait to ave those little babies to play with.  We keep them in a cage in the guest room...the cheeping and chirping drives the cats crazy, lol.  Not sure what breed we're going to get, but we might mix 'em up. Just getting a few, for eggs, and are still talking about the possibility of raising meat birds. The jury is still out as to whether or not we could manage to do the butchering process.

  I'm very tired tonight. I got up at 6 AM so I could cook and clean and get ready for a small family gathering today My youngest brother, wife and daughter, my sister and my son and grandson. And us. We ate fried chicken and potato salad and baked beans and deviled eggs.  And we laughed and played and talked and had a ball. I had people here from 11 AM til after 6:30. I am a happy camper and a tired old woman....all rolled into one.

Earlier this week  I spent the evening with a great bunch of women and we ate and watched The Secret and had a great time. I didn't get home that night until almost midnight.  Thursday night I attended a women's meeting and we moved all our stuff out of the place and will set up shop next week at our new location. It's a really good move for us on a whole lot of levels..  Friday night I attended a meeting as well, after spending most of the day doing household chores. We are also the proud caretakers of 4 new kittens. They are gorgeous little creatures and their mama is very relieved to have birthed them. We've already found homes for them.

I didn't realize that I hadn't posted in so many days until I logged in here tonight.  Wow.  It's good to have a full and busy life today.  I am especially blessed indeed.

Alright, it's creeping up on the midnight hour and I am going to rest my weary head.  Sweet dreams.

Namaste.

Sunday... Sunday

Wow. What a Sunday it has been. Hit the 10 AM meeting and then had lunch at our favorite Mexican joint, Los Tres Amigos. Then we stopped by the park to take a little walk and kill an hour or so. Actually, hubby walked and I spent most of that time returning phone calls that came in while I was in the meeting. My knee has been killing me and it's pretty inflamed and viciously sore. I'm sure it's the meniscus again...they said it would probably be good for about 10 years last time they did the arthroscopic surgery on it, and it's about 10 years exactly. sigh...Of course, all this garden and yard work isn't helping it a bit.

We got home around 4PM and then spent the next 4 hours working outside. Well, let me rephrase tht: I spent the next 4 hours doing that, while he took another walk. He did at least get the 4- 7 foot posts in the ground, that we are going to jury rig the green bean trellis with. I need to get those beans in the ground.

This afternoon I planted nasturtiums, parsley, rosemary, sage, lemon balm, basil, and a pot with 2 spider plants in it. I put the rosemary in a pot on a stand that I can easily take in when the weather turns cold again. Rosemary does not over winter here. I love having fresh rosemary to cook with...

Today we let the kittens outside for the first time. You should have seen them...they were in absolute awe over the big world! They are over 10 weeks old now and too adorable for words.

I am especially tired tonight and will sign off for now. Tomorrow I will post new pictures....well, wait. Maybe not. I forgot I have a very tight schedule tomorrow... I am meeting a new sponsee for lunch and then after I pick himself up from work, we are going to a potluck for the last class. That means I have to whip up something wonderful to take...sheesh...not sure where I'll fit THAT in. lol It also needs to be vegetarian. Guess I'd better get looking at some recipes....


Namaste.

S-S-S-S-Saturday

Saturdays are my favorite day, depending on what I get to do. lol Today I got to do lots of stuff around my yard, and that's always good. I got to spend some time with a sponsee. That's always good. I got to eat a quickie Chinese lunch at my favorite little place and talk to the owner about how business goes. That's always good too.

Right now, I need to get sleepy, because I have to get up early and get all prettied up and let my baby boy take me out for a Mothers Day brunch. But my heads going a hundred miles an hour and I don't see sleep on my immediate horizon.

Mommie Cat (dearest) is trying to wean the kittens I think. Everytime they try to nurse, she barks at them and moves away. They are almost 9 weeks old now and are eating kitten chow nicely. I'm sure she's fed up with the little beggars hanging off her tata's all the time. She's staying outside for longer and longer times and hiding from them when she can. It's time.
I will call the vet about having her tested for feline leukemia and if she doesn't have it, we'll get her spayed immediately. If she does have it, I'm afraid we'll have her put to sleep. It's a miserable way to die, that disease, and she will die from it. Saddens me, but there's nothing else to do. I thought I was doing the humane thing once by letting a cat we adopted live out its life with that, but it was horrible and I vowed that I would never do it again. It's better just to get it over with and let her go to sleep and not wake up than to suffer the debilitating symptoms of fe-leuk.

I think of the blessings, elegant and otherwise, that permeate my life these days. Some of them are quite magnificent...others are equally mundane. Yet I treasure them all, and I know that the beauties of the lives we lead are balanced out like this. The good and the not so good, the happy and the sad, the love and the apathy, the abundance and the leaner times. And it's all good. There are no failures, only lessons...a fortune cookie told me once. I believe that too...no matter what comes down the pipe, if I can learn from it, how bad can it really be? When I look at all it took for me to wind up [finally] sober...how could I have missed any of it? When I think of the experiences that have made me the woman I am today...how could I not have wanted them to happen? People have come and gone through my life like a parade. A few have stayed in my life for a lot of years. I am grateful for all the teachers who have chosen to contribute to my life...whether they taught me how to be or how NOT to be. It's all useful information. Just like I'm grateful for every drink I took.


Today, I am a mosaic of people, places and things that have indelibly burned life into me. And I like it that way.

Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo...

Fellowship on a Friday...

It as a lovely and bittersweet meeting tonight, to memorialize the passing of our fellow and friend, Raymond W. He struggled with this stuff for a long time. He finally had a couple of years under his belt, for the first time in the 20+ years he'd been coming around AA, and then he got drunk again around Christmas time. And then he couldn't get sober and stay that way again. He passed earlier this month from a goofy accident, falling in the bathtub and breaking his neck.

Adios, Amigo....

On a lighter note, we had 4 kittens born sometime late night/early morning today. There are 4 of the tiny helpless creatures and they are little beauties. Mama is in good spirits and seems to have survived the birthing process very well with no human aide or intervention. (Imagine that...)

The meeting tonight was a nice blend of people who have been in and out, like Ray was, and strangers who knew him a little, and the regulars who had various and assorted stories to tell about him and his generous heart and loving spirit. When I heard he had died, my honest first thought was "His fight is over." I haven't cried about his loss, really, but tonight as I shared I got a little choked up and teary eyed. I'm a better person for having known this kooky guy, and he taught me more about God in the scant 5 years I've known him than I have learned in the preceedng 50.

On the way home, hubby said...I sure get tired of having to attend the funerals and memorials of people in AA....I knew just what he meant.

I am emotionally drained tonight and will be off to bed in a minute. I am so very grateful for the alcoholics, drunk and sober, who walk through my life on a daily basis. And most especially the ones who leave their footprints on my soul. I am grateful to have been Grandma Annie tonight for my little 2 year old daughter of a sponsee, whose real grandma died just after Thanksgiving. I got to hold her on my lap and play and love her all up. It was good for both of us, I'm sure. I am grateful to have been able to see someone tonight who looked at me in amazement and said LOOK--I just found this card you gave me with your phone number on it over 4 years ago ! I was going to call you tonight... I'm trying so hard to get sober again....

I'm grateful to have an unending source of love and caring in my life today. I'm grateful for music and spring and unanswered prayers.

I'm especially blessed today, to be sober. And as long as I don't forget that, I will be okay.

Night all....I am bone tired.

Namaste.