A Perfectly Lovely Morning

I rose early. Just couldn't sleep. Then I remembered the balloon festival. En route, I picked up a steaming hot latte, a freshly baked croissant, a just picked, juicy, ripe peach and a hunk of cheese. Perfect. Wish you had been there.

I'm not up to much . . .

Dear Friends,

How are you? What have you been up to? I haven't been doing much. That's what people keep telling me. . . . Rather, I haven't been doing anything.

An acquaintance, over the years has reiterated her idea, a few times, that I do nothing. No nuance here, she comes right out and says it. Once she actually said to me, "You don't DO anything." Recently, she noticed that my husband had been gone for some time {He was away at a forest fire. My Hero.}, she asked me, "What have you been doing? Your husband's gone." I wish I could get the tone of voice in here, it implied that the obvious answer was, "Why, I've been eating bon bons beside the pool."

As I think of it, I suppose that would have been possible if I had popped them in my mouth while I swept the pool. . . Or while I watered around it, or . . . maybe while I was on my hands and knees cleaning the pool sweep!

Perhaps she had noticed my long relaxing strolls. . . . In fact I did take some! I donned my walking shoes and pushed the lawnmower across our yard, and our neighbor's.

There were also the days that I spent visiting my Mother. We had such a lovely time. . . while we unloaded boxes and furniture into her new home. It's going to be positively wonderful!

I'm certain to an observer it appeared that I was hanging out in the bars, tossing back margaritas. {If I had been, it definitely would have been margaritas.}

Maybe she was thinking of all of the fun and playful days with my son, daughter-in-law, and their wonderful little boys. We played until all hours of the night at the house they've just moved out of. {There's a whole lotta movin' going' on!} I can't tell you how much fun it is to scrub bathtubs and tote boxes somewhere near midnight! Giggle City!

There, too, was that lovely day with my Grandma, lolling around the beauty parlor. A new haircut and perm can make a woman feel like a new person! Even give her a new lease on life. That's what 99 year old Grandma tells me.

Yes, I see it. Now that I take a look back at the way I spent my time relaxing while my husband toiled in the fire mountains of Yosemite, I see what she saw. Now though, I am resting in the knowledge that apparently, I make it all look effortless. {grin}

~ Much Love!

Graphic ~ courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

Seeking calm

So much! So much going on! Every minute is filled. And it's all good. Wonderful, even! It's just busy! So busy. And I miss my computer! I miss blogging! I miss my river walks. I miss doing my projects. I miss having a clean house. Wait. Can you actually miss something you never had? Ah well.

Soon. Soon. There will be a break in this madly swirling whirlwind of activity that has swept the entire family off their footings. {literally}

When the stillness finds a way in, I am going to, in no particular order; clean my house, post tons of pictures, make art, take Autumn walks along the river (I miss that), cook wonderful meals, go to bed late and sleep in, as late as I want!

In the meantime, want to see something kind of sad? While my husband was away at a forest fire a week or two ago, I took a picture with my cell phone and sent it to him. That evening he called and with that, "Hey, Baby" tone of voice, he said, "I really like the picture you sent." {grin}

Now, to prove to you just how exciting a woman I am, I'm going to share it with you. See what you think of it.

Are you ready? Are you ready?

Wait for it . . . . .

I cleared it! {Being married to me has just been one wild adventure after another. }

It's been covered with art supplies for weeks! I forgot it was tile under there. Shoot! I was hoping to uncover some really gorgeous granite. Ah well. Ah well.

I really do hope to see more of you, soon!

~Much love!

Chicken Pox Fort

Look, a little on the right . . .see the fishing pole? See the poor little patient peeking out of his Chicken Pox Fort?

As tempting as it was to romanticize the photo in the editing process, I decided to show you warts and all. After all, this is the way my house has looked for . . . weeks. . . sigh . . . Poor little Christian. He had the chicken pox immunization . . . I don't know, maybe a year ago, but a recent visit to the Children's Museum gave him more than an education, he got to take the Chicken Pox home, too! He has a brand new baby sister, and the Doctor, naturally, was concerned about minimizing her exposure, which allowed Christian {who really didn't feel too bad} to come camp out at Grammy's for a couple of days! We had two really, quite nice days of picnics, forts, and McDonald's ice cream cones.

We picked grapes and tomatoes from the garden, and proudly delivered them to all of the neighbors, who were all extra specially sweet and doting to the poor, sick little boy who had to come stay with Grammy. I think that might have been his favorite part!

Do you love his fort? That's the beautiful Pennywinkle quilt that my Grandma made for the newlyweds. The blue and yellow quilt was a wedding gift from Sam's paternal Grandmother. The quilts had been in a pile, waiting to be packed. You won't tell Sam and Amy that we used one, will you? I like to build forts with patchwork quilts, because when you lie on your back and look up through them, it looks like a stained glass ceiling. Try it! You'll see what I mean, and you'll never go back to plain ol' blanket forts, again.

The walls are completely invader proof, extremely heavy boxes filled with all of the books a Seminarian could want. It made the piles of boxes useful, since they were stacked all over the living room anyway.

And hopefully, it made one sick little boy feel a little better for a while.



footnote: I should point out that his Daddy came over after work ~ both days and spent the night with him, and that this arrangement nearly killed his Mommy.

Moving Day

Do you believe the size of that van? 80 feet long. It went from Garry's driveway, to Bob's driveway, with our lot in the middle. It took up the entire cul de sac. I don't know about you . . . but I'm impressed. And you should have seen those guys load it. Like one of them said, "It's like playing Tetris". It was.

Sam and Amy, your stuff is on the way! See the short part over the wheels? That's where your things are!

. . .and you wouldn't believe how much room there is in our house! You could dance in there!

Why I Am So Slow Lately . . .

A while back, I read a statistic about blog posts. It was an incredibly high percentage of posts . . . something waaay over 50%, I think . . . {I have dismissed the actual number from memory, as is my irritating habit} are written to explain why the blogger hasn't written in a while. I determined right then and there, that I was not going to do that. . . so, here I am, doing exactly what I'm not gonna do! . . . and, I have to be quick about it, I'm really using time that I don't have!

Here's the deal . . . I calculate that I have been sick, in bed kind of sick . . . almost a third of this year! I'm not dying or anything has been a terrible year for respiratory things, and I've caught every one. Then it irritates the asthma, so if it lasts four days in regular folks, figure three, maybe four weeks in me. Half of that time without enough oxygen to march my muscles up the stairs. Well, that's inaccurate . . . it's that I am aware of it . . . in my legs when I climb the stairs. . .kind of achy and weak. That's one thing, to be certain, that has gobbled up my time this year.

When I'm well the other two thirds of the time, I feel great! Wonderful! Energetic! That's super, because I have to work at double speed to try to catch up. I figure, right now, if I'm going to finish everything that I need to finish, in my lifetime, I'm going to live to be . . .ummm . . . hmmm. . . just about 123.

Then there is the computer problem. I'm not certain if I lost my computer in April or May. Mark says it'll be January before we can swing another one, maybe, unless the overtime picks up. The country's economic woes have hit the fire department, too. . . .another subject. The thing is, I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER! I am depending on borrowing my nephew's right now, for which I feel increasingly guilty every day, and using my kids', my Mother's, my brother's. I don't want to load pictures onto their computers. That's why there haven't been any of those lately. And interestingly, that shows in my statistics. Well, that, and the not~posting~thing. {grin}

I've given a kind of breakdown of our Summer's activities in previous posts, already, so you know what I have done, now for my/our schedule for the next few weeks . . . right away, we need to:

• Ship all of Sam and Amy's stuff to them sometime this week,
• Do our niece's wedding next week {remember, I'm the florist},
• Help First Son, Bebe and the boys move,
• Help Somebody Else move.

. . . Then, all I need to do is get a computer, and I will be able to rejoin the blogging world in earnest. . . pictures and all . . . sigh . . .

See you soon! I'll write when I can! I miss you! Much love!

What just happened?

Do you know what just happened here? I am boggled and confused, and I don't think I know what to do! Our baby just flew the nest! We are empty nesters.
I suppose, you will say that technically, we're not new at this, but this time it's for real! Certainly, Sam has been away at college for four years, but during that time, he still, technically, lived here. Even after the graduation, and then the wedding six weeks ago, technically, he lived here. They can't have campus housing at Princeton for even a few days yet, but today they left. They have begun their cross country odyssey, and wow! Am I ever jealous!? In a few days, we'll send their furniture and household goods after them. How exciting! How wonderful! What a grand adventure! But, they don't live here anymore, and we are, really truly empty nesters. We're all embarking on untested waters. Wish us luck!