Tuesday Trifles...

 An interesting few days of weather around here. Sunday turned into a storming flood...we barely got back form the little Founders Day celebration we attended. The winds were hellacious and the rain was so thick and hard you could not see the end of the car hood. The roads were flooded and the creeks swollen...but we made it back, even though the 23 mile trip took us about 45 minutes.   It stormed for about 3 hours and watered everything nicely, but I was almost afraid to go out and check on my garden, worried that the tomatoes had taken a beating. They were fine. I think because I planted so many of them so close together they protected one another a bit.

  I love summer...

       I am taking a home day today. I had intentions of doing the same yesterday, but life reared up and it didn't happen. lol  The weather has done a 180...from broiling hot to beautifully pleasant... temps in the mid 80's and almost no humidity. I have turned off the A/C and flung open all the windows. I'm going to vacuum and straighten up a little, and cook a marvelous supper of grilled teriyaki chicken and roasted vegetables. I have some leftover jasmine rice that I'll gussy up a little with some fresh herbs from the garden and a little red and green peppers and we'll eat outside on the deck tonight, I think.  Although I just remembered that someone loaned us a copy of Avatar...maybe we'll eat in after all....time constraints being what they are. The Irishman doesn't get home until about 6:15 and tries to be in bed by 9:30...we'll see....high class problems I've got, as my old pal Art used to say.

I have a new best friend, the sole surviving kitten of the litter that I am bottle feeding and loving into his life, lol. He is with me all the time he's not asleep and climbs up to sit on the couch beside me every time I sit down. He curls up on my chest and plays with my chin with his tiny paws. 

  Okay--my son just pulled in the driveway...here to fish a bit I suspect. I'll go hug him and chat him up a bit before he heads down to the pond. Friday is his 39th birthday....yikes. Gonna try to talk them into coming for supper and birthday cake...we'll see....

  Have a blooming week!!

Namaste.

Saturday song

Blazing hot here today. I've been outside off and on...sweeping decks and burning papers and feeding chickens. But mostly I am inside. The heat index is horrific, like 105. I have done some housecleaning and pulled the stove out and cleaned it and behind and under it..one of those ugly jobs, since I rarely do it more than once a year. I am taking a break and cooling down after sweeping the front porch, and when I am done, I will take a shower.

  Did I say a COLD shower? Well, I meant to. The Irishman took the hot water plumbing apart yesterday to run hot water to the sink in the apartment and still has not finished it. Ran into problems (don't you always?) and had to leave it to go to my birthday celebration last night. This morning he was up and off to his usual Saturday regime and here we sit with still no hot water. At least there is running cold water....sigh....it will not get fixed tonight. We have to be somewhere at 5:30 and it's half an hour or more away. so by the time he gets back here and showers (in COLD water, complaining the whole time) it will be time to leave.

  I took some more garden pictures, just to compare. (lol)  I know you're all dying to see more (snicker) so here we go.  And (((Mary)))  I would love to exchange seeds with you. What do you have in mind???

  Cabbages mid May.

Cabbages late June

Peppers, mid May

Peppers, late June

Butternut Squash, mid May

Butternut squash, late June

  Okay, enough. You get the picture.   I'm off to the shower...brrrrr......lol

Namaste.

Hump Day

   

Ain't she a beaut ?  And now, there are light lavender colored bee balm flowers coming up in the midst of this red one too. It's stunning. Tomorrow I will try to remember to get out there and take some more pictures.

 The garden has exploded. The past week has been outrageously high temperatures and humidity...it's like a rainforest out there. Today the heat index hit 105.  2 days ago I was out weeding in the late afternoon and clearing things out a little, and there was still a semblance of rows between the green beans. Now it's a complete ocean of bushes, with no spaces in between. Same with the butternut squash.  Yowsa!  Tonight I went out at almost dark and weeded some flower beds.  I have some Siberian Irises to plant and also some bright yellow daylilies.  But it's been so dang hot I can't do it...15 minutes out there and I'm wringing wet and hot as a firecracker. Sweat running down my face and into my eyes. It's even been already thick at 7 Am...but, I will persevere and try to do a little at a time. Every day. Being especially conscious of how easy it is to get heat stroke in weather like this.

  Tonight I took my pump sprayer out there loaded with white vinegar and sprayed some spots to try to kill the weeds. Hopefully it'll knock some of it down.

  The tomatoes are loaded  and it looks to be a really good crop this year. I planted several Romas  for saucing and dicing, as well as all the regular big tomatoes. Skipped the yellow Brandywines this year...wasn't all that impressed with their performance last year. The edamame are growing great guns. Beautiful healthy big plants.  And the peppers...well, let's just say that I am in awe at the beautiful healthy plants this year. I should have more than enough to get through the winter and eat all summer as well. My mouth is watering at the thought of big red and yellow peppers stuffed with quinoa and chanterelles and garlic chives and chopped fresh parsley, Mmmmmm...

The Irishman went to Wisconsin to visit his family and got back Monday evening. He had a great time and said the weather was wonderful, and never got above 80 the whole time.  WHAT !?!?!?!?!  LOL     I had a pleasant 4 days home alone and spent a lot of it in deep thought.  *snork

  The remaining kitten is doing fine, only 1 out of 4 survived. Not sure what the problem was, but this one I have been feeding kitten replacement milk and the mother is starting to nurse him more. I've named him Jinga.  The Irishman wanted to name him Ralph. I win.  I said that if I am the one feeding him every 3 hours, I get to decide what his name is. (It's the law) The other 3 died abruptly...it was awful. They got listless, lost body heat and were gone within hours of one another. I'm baffled and bereft.

  Been a long day and I'm hoping to hit the hay early tonight.  I baked bread, did laundry, and worked in the yard some. Baked brownies as I was supposed to meet a girl for lunch wand then hit a meeting...Monday was her 5th anniversary and nobody got her a cake, so I thought
I'd surprise her at the mtg w/ a little treat.   She called about 10 and had to cancel.  We had brownies for dessert, after a lovely supper of chicken and black bean burritos with skillet roasted red and green peppers and onion. Coupled with a nice tossed salad. Yum.

  Kinda quiet on the blogging front this week.  Summer???

  Namaste.
 
 

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.

.

  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.

A beautiful Saturday...

  Today I woke up to a brilliantly sunny day, a husband kissing me and saying Happy Anniversary, sweetheart, and kittens yowling and howling and wanting their breakfast. Spoiled little buggers...

 On June 10, 1990 I had the last drink of my career. There's always a question of how us crazy alcoholics count these birthdays, but where I got sober, the emphasis was on celebrating the last drink you will ever have to take. And that's the way I do it.  I am grateful to know that I have a life that is possible only because I got willing to go to any lengths to stay sober.  And I continue to live that way and to always remember.  If they had told me to stand on my head on a streetcorner and spit nickels, I would have figured out a way, lol.

  So, today I celebrate 20 years of continuous sobriety.  20 years of doing a few simple things, one day at a time. 20 years of trusting that God has a plan for my life, whether I can see it or not.  20 years of learning to do everything a different way,  from cooking a turkey on Thanksgiving to calling a total stranger and talking about my fears.  From learning how to be honest with myself, to learning how to be honest with you.  From learning how to trust to learning how to be trusted.

  It's been a miraculous journey, for a woman who could not quit drinking on her own. I am grateful and humbled by the whole thing...the people in my family usually just drink until they die. I am the first to break the chain, and find a new way to live.  As a result of that, I have a son with 10 years of sobriety, because he watched his hopeless drunk of a mom find this new life in Alcoholics Anonymous.  And the miracle continues...

  Today we had a small celebration bbq at the home of a friend. Then we watched as friends renewed their wedding vows. Now we are home and settled in for the evening. Tomorrow is another birthday to celebrate, a very kind and wonderful man celebrating 36 years of recovery. Then another bbq at a friends house.  A full weekend here on the Prairie.

  Feeling really blessed tonight...

Namaste.

Mystical Magical World

Tuesday Schmoozeday...

My favorite coffee cup...holds over a quart of coffee....lol


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 A productive Tuesday.  However I am realizing the mistake I've made giving away all the kittens but 2.  Now I am the only toy they have. These two, Scooter and Baboo, follow me around like puppies and climb the backs of my legs and bite at my skirts and chase and chew me all day long. They have the energy of 10 cats, all rolled up into two.

  I shampooed carpets today, in spite of the storms and high humidity. The temps were not too high, and the windows are all open and fans are going. The carpets look great and are actually dry. I moved a little of the furniture around too. Not a lot of possibilities, things being as they are, but I moved out one etagere and shifted a couple of things.  Then I made a nice dinner of sauerktaut and pork ribs with mashed potatoes and peas. 

  Watched a great movie tonight called Feast of Love, starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear.  Had a wonderful cast, including two of my favorite obscure actors, Fred Ward and Billy Burke. 

  I am also reading Marianne Williamson's Everyday Grace.  It is a magnificent book and is touching me in all the right places.   Sometimes I feel so inept, so helpless against the things going on in the world. Only because I forget some of the truths that I know...about love and about grace.  And mostly about living in the present moment, where the things that are real surround me and are right at my fingertips.

  I have a little swarm of these mini-gnats in here for some reason...driving me nutz.  That'll teach me to throw open the house....lol

  I ate a cup of wild black raspberries with cream this morning...oh my goodness....what a treat!  They are so sweet this year,  I picked cherries last night too and will be filling the dehydrator with cherries and bananas tomorrow morning.  Aldi's had bananas for a mere 39 cents a pound, so I bought a couple of packages. Lovin' me some dried bananas....

  Okay---I'm off to bed....tomorrow is Wednesday and I am off to the recovery house to have a meeting and work with a couple of my girls....Have a dream filled night....

Namaste.