Happy Birthday to me.

Believe it or not, I love a rainy November day - and that's just what I have for my birthday today! I was poking around for fun on the web, and dropped by a biorhythm/fortunetelling site that I visit once every couple of years or so. There was a phrase describing a tarot card (the sun, reversed) that really describes my kind of day/time/feeling: "Poignance of dusk. Twilight shadows. Nostalgia. Haunting memories." Surprised?

That seems to be when & where I feel most at home. Poignance of dusk - the time when we're coming home, when the house is warm and glowing with the "twilight shadows" gathering outside. Supper on the stove. A time of comfort, winding down, preparing to just be home.

I'll probably add more to this post later, since my sweet sister is picking me up for lunch. But it remains a cool, cloudy day and I remain quietly smiling. It's a good day to be snug, a good day to celebrate, and a good day for a birthday. Even when the birthday has a "zero".

Autumn on the Way

...and here it is! The first Sweatshirt Morning of the season! I was puttering around in the kitchen, making fresh hummingbird nectar and a crockpot of bean soup, and the breeze through the open back door raised a few goosebumps on my arms. Sixty-seven degrees, with last night's downpour picking back up again.

I love cool, rainy mornings. Somehow it's a relief to have the sun covered up for a little bit, and to be just a little more grateful for that hot cup of tea. Bonus - I don't have to go anywhere today. I can just be home home home. Snug. Kettle on the stove. Fresh box of Earl Grey tea and some of Mr. Harry the Bee-Man's honey from the greenhouses, Woody crunching through her breakfast and giving me an occasional "weep!". Home.

There's a book with an idea that I just love - The Deliberate Home by Susan Miller Cavitch. The introduction starts out, "The purpose of this book is to remind people that we have enormous freedom to creatively design our lives at home...Home is a haven, a private world where we have infinite possibilities - choices we can make about how we want to live." It then goes through different things that make up Home - from "clearing the land" (metaphorically speaking) to gardening to crafting to feeding the family, promoting emotional health, raising children, welcoming others, and keeping the Sabbath. I have read chunks of the book, but not all the way through yet - I just love the idea of it. And mornings like this make me want to dive back into it, grab all the ideas, and make my own home a snug, candle-light-glowing, dust-and-clutter-free refuge filled with the sound of Celtic music and the smell of freshly baked bread. (And a totally weeded garden, going to sleep for the winter.)(And a hand-knitted afghan or two.)

Whoops. Reality Check Time!

I get this way every Fall, just when Sweatshirt Days start happening. This year, I'm finally consciously realizing a few things: firstly, all this does not happen at once! It happens fifteen minutes at a time, in between real life stuff. Secondly, it especially does not happen with me seated in front of the computer. Thirdly, having part of it happen is better than going into Fully Frozen Procrastination Mode and winding up with none of it.

So, I've got a crock of bean soup going, and will be making cornbread to go with it (that counts as freshly baked bread, I guess). I can put the Celtic music on any time I'd like - scuse me, be right back... Okay. Music is a "go". We can eat with candles on the table tonight. And the garden, while far from perfect, is better than it's been in years. Cool, so far.

The rest of it? Well, ask me six months from now.

...the afghan, however, might take a bit longer. I really ought to finish the one I'm on first - and I started it somewhere in the early 1980's, for two friends' wedding.

(Yes, Nancy and Dale, I still have "that dog I'm knitting for you". Somewhere.)
(Um, does your living room still have rust and cream colors in it anywhere?)

Not the usual 9 to 5.

Ah. Labor Day Weekend, and I'm officially off "work" until next Thursday. I'm still working, mind, just not at the greenhouses! I did do the busman's holiday thing today - I was supposed to be off, but we started a huge sale this morning, and no one had made signs with the prices. "If it's to be, it's up to me". So, I got out all my lovely rainbow of Sharpie markers and stayed up till about 1am last night, making the signs. Went in today to drop them off, and wound up helping customers and watering a greenhouse. Off the clock. Am I nuts? You tell me!

But it was a lovely morning. I like talking to people about plants. I like watering the herb greenhouse. I even like playing with markers after midnight. It wasn't too hot (yet), and I felt needed. When I was heading out the driveway for home, though, I got stuck in a reeaallly slow-moving traffic jam. HONK HONK HONK - Canada geese. Walking. Slowly. Single file. I counted twenty-two of them. And then, in one slow, gradual, graceful wave, they just lifted up over the front field and over Mrs. Margaret's house - back toward the lake, more than likely.

It's been ten years at the greenhouses, but I still see a little happening like that as a gift for the day. Wild geese. Hawks. Herons. Deer and skunks and coyote and a little groundhog now and then. Big orb weaver spiders in unexpected places, barn swallows in the rafters overhead, and the mockingbird that sings himself silly from the highest points he can find. The flock of goldfinches on the echinacea in the herb garden. Praying mantis everywhere right now. All of these creatures make the day for me, and I hope I never lose my wonder at encountering (and sometimes working right alongside) them.

Nine to five, indeed. Do I really want to be off till next Thursday?

You want some WHINE to go with that?

Whew. Wait a minute - it was just July! Where did it go??? And August????

Seems I was schlepping along, doing all my usual stuff, and then a few things started hitting the calendar - and a few more - and all of a sudden I'm in Fully Frozen Procrastination Mode! I have so much to do that I’m overwhelmed. I don't want to work on anything, I don't want to talk to anyone, I just want to disappear and be quiet. I don’t feel like I have “permission” to work on things like housework or garden, since there’s so much else hanging fire. So, I freeze and do nothing. There's probably some sort of official Syndrome for that, but I'm just going to label it FFPM and let it go.

Since onset, I've gotten a couple of major tasks done - teaching a class at Campbell's Gourmet Cottage and updating the greenhouses' e-mail list for this week's big annual sale. These things had deadlines. That helps.

But there's a whole lot left to go. Two more Campbell's classes between here and November 1st, several working weekends at the greenhouses, the annual art show at the studio where I take lessons, and - oh, yes - craft show season. Stresstresstresstresstress. Plus, there's vacation - a long weekend in Gatlinburg, PLUS a week in October at Lake Barkley. aaaaaaaaaaaaggghhh. (I know vacations are supposed to be relaxing, but it's getting there. And it's craft show season.) Plus keeping the Finch House running. Plus the house. Plus the garden.

Hm. Now that I'm whining in print, maybe it really doesn't look that bad. IF I'll get busy. IF I get on it. And that's where FFPM comes in. I think it's related to writer's block (which I encountered in serious form in college)... the more there is to jump on, the more I want to just sit and contemplate the universe. Play solitaire. Dust under the piano. Count the pages of paper in the printer cassette. You know - really useful stuff.

Which reminds me - I'm supposed to be at the grocery right now, NOT blogging. Even if I am a month behind on it. SO, how bout we label this one a "WHINE" and leave it at that! Hopefully I'll have something a little more interesting to add later...

Renovation, Phase #394.75 - COMPLETE!

Woo hoo! In the midst of all the cockatiel-egg-laying distraction, we were (not so) quietly getting carpet!

That would be "carpet" as in: "our formerly-gutted upstairs now has walls, insulation, plumbing, electricity, hardwood flooring around the stairwell, and ditto handrails, and that all of that has been scraped, sanded, primed painted, polyurethaned, and completed to the point that carpeting is possible"! And, may I point out, a whole lot of the aforementioned stuff has been single-handedly completed by none other than Tom.

Another Woo HOO from me, for my dear spouse and his incredibly tenacious work ethic. (He hasn't had much fun for a long, long time.)

But tonight it was champagne on the second floor (honest, Mom, we really don't drink that much!), while we wiggled bare toes and watched the sun set over the back yard. From way up high. And Cousin Pat popped by to bring us a carpet-warming-gift which was (guess what?) - a couple dried arrangements of, um, eggs in nests. How appropriate is that?!? Love it LOVE it!


Okay, the pictures... (some of them not quite so good.)

Gotta love guys that work with a sense of humor.

"Hey, how do you install carpet?"

Um, the fuzzy side goes UP.

(Seriously, they were just great! Would recommend them & Sam Kinnaird's to anyone.)



Didn't take any pics in progress, because I don't like to disturb contractors while they're working. Even when they're really nice (these guys were) and can speak the same language I do (these guys did).

Here's a somewhat-dark shot of the hardwood landing at the top of the steps, with new handrail and (of course) carpet! These windows look out over the back yard, and this will be a prime sitting-TV-reading area. (The dark shapes on the floor to the left are our shoes...)




Not-so-great shot of carpet
in the bedroom.







Little bit better shot
of Tom enjoying the
carpet in the bedroom.
(Had to make him go
downstairs to get
ready for bedtime.)




And there you have it. We have had a busy, busy little day here!

Woodstock Lucille - Surprise (again)!

Well. One minute the little darling was flying around the room while I was getting ready to change her cage, landing for a snuggle and a head-scritch, and not five minutes later...

I heard little hisses like a slow air leak from somewhere - I turned around to look at the bird, and she's busy laying an EGG! And now we have a hissing, foot-shifting, tail-spreading MESS of maternal defensiveness! Psycho Mommie-Bird. To her credit, though, she only mock-bites at my hand if I put it in the cage, and she will come out and sit on my shoulder (acting like her usual self). The vet says there could be another one in 48 hours, although we'll be trying to prevent it by keeping her cage covered for all but 8 hours a day. We're to leave the egg in the cage, and call the vet Thursday to report.

Meantime, Woody has a new center to her universe. (It's no longer Yours Truly, *sigh*.)

Would you look at this Mess of Mom-ness... she's actually crouching & shifting from foot to foot, tail all spread out, wings a little open, fluffed up, top-knot slicked back, and hissing.




I'm Big, Bad, and Dangerous. Don't even THINK about messing with me. (says the Ninety-Gram Wonder...)

(This pic was taken without a flash, BTW, so as to agitate her as little as possible!)

Okra!!!!!

5:12pm


So here's one of the reasons I'm loving Okra...

(veggie soup is a close second)