Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Home and hearth, In the Southland, perspective, responsible adult
Gearing up for Summer is occurring. #2 is out of school for the semester (straight B’s across the board, y’all! SO proud!) and will soon be put to work de-landscaping the yard. The current tree-and-shrub situation is a solid 45 years old and just needs to be gone. As soon as the 54 pine trees (on 1/3 acre…no idea how that was managed) are gone, he’ll get cracking on the overgrown holly and yaupon, the ugly and weedy looking azaleas, and all those redtips along the back. When everything is gone, new shrubs, blooming things like camellias and sasanquas and hydrangeas and little blooming trees like dogwoods, redbuds, and Japanese magnolias will go in. And maybe fruit trees in the back. And the vegetable garden will be expanded and maybe even the back yard landscaped as well! That will happen in the Fall.
Not my elegant toes and I don’t drink red wine, but this kinda sums up the feeling.
I am ready for Summer. I am ready for the relaxed pace and the not having to get dressed by 7am and hot days with iced tea and ceiling fans on high, the evenings of peepers and frogs on the window screens and salads for supper. Come August, I’ll be ready for cooler temperatures and chili and blankets, but those will still be 2-3 months away. Come August, I’ll be complaining but for now, I am ready for the heat.
Things don’t hurt when it’s hot. Arthritis takes a vacation. I can sit in the hot sun and soak it up and aching hands and feet…just don’t ache. Headaches don’t happen as much, and sleep is easier.
I remember as a kid, sleeping with the windows open and the attic fan thrumming, sucking air through the house and making it positively windy. I remember a box fan in the window, blowing directly across the bed, and needing a light blanket. My favorite one was a flannel sheet Mom had bound in satin blanket binding. It was white with purple pansies on it, and exactly the right weight for the almost-but-not-quite cool North Georgia Summer nights.
We don’t have lightning bugs here. It’s too warm or the soil is too salty or something. I remember millions of them when I was little and lived in Illinois. There were some in North Georgia later on, but here in Deepest South Georgia, you only see one rarely. Green frogs on the window screen are more common. And blue tailed skinks. Anywhere that’s close to fresh water (which is basically everywhere, due to the abundance of creeks, ponds, and swamps here) loud peepers start screaming as soon as the sun starts to go down and the air cools (a little). Whippoorwills and Chuck-Will’s-Widows are soothing night noises, or maybe the hooHOO of a barn owl.
#4 goes off to grandparents’ for the Summer. He’ll stay with one set much of June, then go to Boy Scout Camp the last week of June, then to the other set much of July, and be back home around the first of August, then the whole school year thing starts all over. I intend to spend as much time as I can doing as little as possible. Maybe pick a tomato, or pull a weed.
I remember the first Summer after graduating high school and I was working. The sudden and appalling realization that Summer Vacation no longer existed was…appalling. Horrifying, even. No more late night kickball or spotlight tag. No more long days spent poolside or mornings that started at the crack of 10 (or even noon). Oh sure, work meant things like having a car and being able to buy clothes or even a quarter or two of college, but the Summers, those long, lazy, bone-idle Summers just weren’t happening anymore. Now that they kind of are, I want to be in bed as early as possible so I can get up as early as possible and take advantage of the cool of the morning for the outside stuff and somehow, even at 48, that seems wrong. Maybe I’ll try to recapture a bit of that this Summer, but probably not. It always seems to work better if someone else is doing the laundry and cooking, and there really isn’t anyone else to do that around here. I guess I’ve turned into my mother.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Christian Values, Coping mechanisms, Kids, Oversharing, perspective, responsible adult, solving personal problems
I’ve probably written about this before, but it’s on my mind so here it goes again.
Mother’s Day…I like it. However, it brings up so many mixed feelings. You know how parenting magazines are all about taking care of little ones and keeping them safe? I want one that talks about taking care of teenagers and young adults, and what you’re supposed to do when a situation comes up. When they get that age, emotion has to be set aside and logic used. What you emotionally want to do sometimes is directly opposite of the logic. What you did for them as little kids, the protection, the coddling and organic foods and careful tending…that doesn’t work when they’re teens and young adults, and you never hear that. You never…well I never did, anyway…see a Parents of People With Minds Of Their Own magazine.
They get to this point where…you have to let go. you don’t want to. You want to keep them safe and fed and content,but doing that does not help them. It stifles them. Even when they don’t see it that way. You don’t want them to hate you so you do whatever you can so they won’t hate you but that isn’t what they NEED. I hate that. It hurts. I don’t like hurting. It’s also not easy. I hate that too. I like easy. But easy isn’t best, or good for you or them.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my older sons. I don’t like calling them children or kids, because they aren’t. They are young men. Letting go is tough.
And where’s the rulebook? Where’s the guide that says “if this, then that?” How do you let your adult children be adults?
I think you just…let them be adults. Even when they don’t really want to. Give them the space to make decisions, good or bad. Put them out there,shove them out of the nest like a bird, and hope they fly? Boy that’s a tough one, but how would they ever figure out how to fly if you don’t?
Anyway…I am both amused and resentful that there’s no parenting support out there (that I can find…do you know of one) beyond the organic juice boxes and Dr. Seuss. It’s kind of like society says if you can keep them alive until they’re 10, you’re on your own. And frankly, I think parents of teens and young adults need MORE help than the ones of little kids. God know I did, and I didn’t have it beyond “Oh…you have teens? Make them memorize scripture and rebuke them when they’re bad.” Say what?
The best I can do is the best I have done, even though it hasn’t been that great. I love them,I feed them, and each morning is a new day where grudges and resentment are forgotten…sort of. There’s stress…oh my word there’s stress. I haven’t seen a magazine that tells you how to deal with that sort of stress that comes from your kid acting like he hates you one minute then needing you the next and you’re wondering when he’s going to hate you again. I have my own coping mechanisms that come in a big bottle of chilled white wine, a bit of talk therapy, and occasionally pharmaceuticals. Probably not the best way, but it’s how I roll. Do you know how hard it is to pray for someone when you’re so tense your ears are ringing? The only coherent prayer I can form is “God help me…”
I need a group. I need a group of women who’s children have broken their hearts and scared them and made them wonder what they did when the child was 4 that resulted in this. I want them to still be there, still wondering. And I want a couple or three women who’ve been there and survived,who can say it may or may not be ok, but it is possible to survive and not feel this tension and fear, to simply love them, those sons and daughters who have taken a path that I don’t understand.
I googled it, to see what’s said out there about mothers of adult children, and what I got was stuff about adults abusing their mothers, and about how to deal with a terrible mother when you’re an adult. Nothing about how to love your adult children, how to guide them when they don’t want your guidance, or how to show them you love them when they think you don’t.
I will always love them. Always. But I don’t always understand.
Lord,give me the wisdom to love my children the way You want me to, and the courage to do it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Being Southern, cats, Coping mechanisms, Home and hearth, In the Southland, NASCAR, perspective, responsible adult
The past few days have been those incredible Southern Spring days that us folks in the Wiregrass Region like to fall back on during the scorching, gnat infested Summer months. It’s what we get smug about to our friends in Northern climes like North Dakota, because they’re in Mud Season and we don’t really have a Mud Season. They, however, don’t have 115 degrees with 80% humidity and tiny demons from hell gnats and no-see-ums. It’s a trade-off, I reckon.
This past week has been…idyllic. Scary so, in fact. The boys are all behaving. I’ve made no calls to a bail bondsperson nor had any calls or visits from a Sheriff’s deputy. #4 is passing all his classes and is, in fact, doing VERY well in a couple of them. AND is actually working on 2 projects due May 17, ACTUALLY WORKING ON THEM…instead of waiting until May 16 to remember he has them and bashing out something in a panic at 9 pm. I love the kid, but 13 yr old boys…well, my experience with the 4 of them is that forethought isn’t a characteristic that I’d credit them with having.
This idyllic Southern Spring, tho…it’s spilling over into everything and that has me worried. Because, according to the preacher’s wife, I have a disconcerting lack of faith when it comes to accepting the good as well as the bad. The bad, I can take it on the chin every time. I can handle calls from Sheriffs and trips to emergency rooms and dead cats in the road and midlife crises. I expect them, and am generally prepared for most anything.
Spring, tho, is so hopeful. It’s walking out on the patio and seeing a rose bush covered in buds, or having the 13 yr old greet me at school with a huge bag full of Spring onions he grew in the school garden, or seeing an older son make plans for the future- real plans.
It’s also taking a Friday,with the windows open and a movie from Netflix, and eating almost an entire bag of Doritoes and drinking fresh iced tea and doing absolutely nothing productive, because I do productive things all week long, but something about the breeze through the window and that weird noise the cat makes when the mockingbird is…you know….MOCKING her through the window. I honestly think that bird stuck it’s tongue out at the cat.
However tonight, because it’s Friday and we can, will involve adult beverages and a tasty sandwich that simply looks too good to pass up. because I am going to soak up this good feeling like a dog in a sunbeam, and take it as it comes, and not worry about what might happen in the future. Or try not to anyway.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: a weekend away, Being Southern, Coping mechanisms, In the Southland, Oh for pete's sake, perspective, Talladega, Who does that
I will admit it. Living in a small town in South Georgia isn’t the most stimulating thing in the world. But that’s ok. It’s enough for me. Reading the headlines about bombs in Boston and limbs flying around and how hard it is to treat the types of wounds caused by that, it makes me thankful that the most exciting thing to happen here in YEARS was a while back,when someone strapped some bottle rockets to his chest and yelled from the verandah of the local courthouse. Then there was the time when George W. Bush drove through, we don’t know which vehicle he was in, but it was one of several big black Suburbans. I remember that because Will tells of sitting on his second-story front porch and making socialist comments as the motorcade went by. He got a dirty look from the Secret Service, and that made his week extra special.
My form of excitement involves things like pine limbs falling on a neighbor’s roof, and the fervent hope that no one in the house was harmed. Once I find out that everyone’s ok and the only casualty is a 35 year old La-Z-Boy that she was wanting to replace anyway, I can cluck like a hen about how pinetrees are the cockroaches of the plant world and should be limited to non-residential areas.
Now that my children (with the exception of one) are grown and have developed some sense of self-preservation, what little excitement I had in the past has calmed down to the point where finding out about “Spanish pesto” makes me giddy, and I can see things like Boston bombings from a distance. My reaction is more in the form of clucks and mutterings about how sometimes, humanity sucks.
It doesn’t take much to get excited around here. I don’t know if it’s the deficit of exciting things, or that, as a person who doesn’t respond well to sudden change, I have put myself in a living situation that could be considered incredibly dull. I like dull. I like predictability. I like getting worked up over 20 rows of ruffles and have absolutely no desire to hurl myself out of airplanes or surf in Maui or drive Formula 1 racecars.
NASCAR…that is another matter. That is rapidly becoming a once-a-year dose of adrenalin, shared with the family that might just lead to a 50th birthday personal gift of a driving lesson, Stock car style. I know. I am more the Library Book Club W/ Cookies type of person, than the Race W/ Beer And Tank Top type, but one needs excitement in a relatively safe environment where someone else is in control of most of it and there’s a sweet fellow with few teeth who will hand a beer over your shoulder when he sees your cooler is empty. True story. Where did this come from? Our tickets came yesterday. Talladega Aarons 499 both Saturday (Nationwide series) and Sunday (Sprint Cup) AND (drum roll please…) PIT PASSES! That’s Right. Ms Calvinist Librarian w/Thick Glasses And Family (well, 3 of them, anyway) are going to be in Talladega for a weekend and even get to be up close and personal with some race cars!
And that will be enough excitement to last us well into 2014.
We’re back. 23 hours of driving (with a hotel stay in the middle of it). Thank goodness for Terry’s Bonus Things with Holiday Inn, from business trips. They put lots of pillows on the beds. Lots of them. 4 big ones, on each bed. State Welcome Center coffee has to be the worst ever. It may be free, but it’s better to stop at a Waffle House and pay for it.
I am missing my grandmother. It was hard to go to Texas and not work on a puzzle with her, or trade Jello salad recipes, or wander around the ranch looking for a barrel cactus just the right size to go in a pot. I think I will go to Lowe’s and buy one.
I saw her from a distance, in her casket, the same style Granddad had- a nice oak one. I asked Dad if Granddad had purchased them ahead of time, and gotten 2 so he could get a bulk discount. It would have been like him to do that. Dad laughed loudly and probably inappropriately for the setting (the funeral home, during visitation), but I joke when I don’t know what else to do. Grandmother looked lovely, like she was asleep, except she was wearing pearls and she would never have done that in her sleep. I didn’t get up close because I didn’t want to really see her like that. I prefer to remember her with her wispy hair blown every which way by the West Texas wind, while looking for a cactus, just the right size to go in a pot. I’d rather remember her methodical way of putting together a 5000 piece puzzle of the Sistine Chapel, all like colored pieces in paper plates, with the border done first.
It comes and goes, the missing her. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my grandparents when growing up, we always lived so far away. Once I was an adult, I was able to fly out there, to the windy High Plains where everyone complains of the drought (that has always been there) and the wind (that has always been there) and the fierce heat of Summer of cold of Winter. I love it. I love the cold nights and hot days and dust storms and endless horizons and tumbleweeds like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon. But without my grandparents there, without someone to complain about the weather and soothe it all with Jello Salad and a homemade quilt, it’s not the same.
It’s all…flat, like a drawing. There’s no noise, no laughter about a failed cake or faces about a cracked plate or wrinkled nose and decisions to buy a frozen pizza instead of making a complicated meal.
We visited the canyon. The Palo Dura canyon is right there and is always, always visited when going to see the grandparents. Granddad’s ranch was right there on the rim of the canyon and the place is familiar, comfortable, and breathtakingly beautiful. This time it was also engulfed in a dust storm, like something out of a movie. Fierce winds, and a constant gritty brown cloud obscuring vision and filling your head with a fine brown dust. Pictures? of course, but they’re not where I can get to them at the moment. Tumbleweeds bounced across the road, and I saw a single horse, standing with his head down, eyes closed, and a very irritated cast to his ears, mane and tail whipping in the wind.
We visited with cousins and their spouses, met school classmates of Dad’s who’d come to pay their respects, drank coffee and admired the quilts Grandmother had made, that were all displayed in the Fellowship Hall of the church, during the reception after her funeral.
As much as I love the place, without my grandparents to see, it just isn’t the same and I don’t know if I’ll ever return. I doubt I’ll ever eat another FatBoy’s Brisket sandwich, or a piece of fried catfish at Feldman’s Fieldhouse, or count the colorful layers within the canyon walls. It’s not the same without one of my grandparents telling me how they’d cut a cedar from a side canyon for a Christmas tree, or put out corn for the ring-necked doves and prairie hens, or Grandmother concocting yet another version of jello salad. She loved that stuff, I think it was for the colors it came in, because she loved bright colors.
This morning, Terry told me to allow myself to grieve. That’s a tough one. Strong emotions are scary, and I am unaccustomed to allowing them to run rampant, even in private when there’s no one to see it. I’ll try.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Coping mechanisms, Disease and infirmity, Oh for pete's sake, Oversharing, perspective
I have a new definition of Middle Aged: Middle aged is when your doctors are younger than you are. Also, doctors become plural. Middle aged is when you have more than one specialist you see on a regular basis.
The first orthopedist I ever went to regularly was in Auburn Alabama at the Hughston Clinic. I was sitting there with back pain, and in walks this 12 year old with pink ears and messy hair. I remember thinking “Sweetheart, the bathroom is 2 doors down.” when he said “Hi, Mrs Toot, I am Dr. (whatever) what seems to be the problem today?”
Then I started seeing a nephrologist a few years ago, when the kidneys crashed. I was sitting there, worrying about the kidneys, and in walked this Nigerian version of Charlie Brown. Seriously, perfectly round head, little squiggle of hair in the front.I thought “Young man, does your mother know you’re wandering the halls” when he said “ALLOO MAM! What seems to be your problem today?” That was when I noticed the white coat with his name on the front.
Yesterday I saw a pulmonologist. I was sitting there, wondering if I’d ever breathe properly again, and in walks this 17 year old in skinny jeans and a plaid shirt. That was when the postulation about middle age and doctors formed. The good news about that is that he seemed to know what he was doing.
And all that has me thinking about this whole aging process. I kind of like aging. There is (or should be, in my opinion) a degree of confidence that comes with it. Not the confidence of youth that assures us we are lithe and lovely and physically desirable, but a confidence of experience that says “been there, done that, not worth the trouble.”
I like the physical changes…well, most of them…ok maybe not even most…but SOME of them. The grey in the hair is nice. I am not going grey, instead I’m going the direction of Mom, which is a white/metallic silver blend. Also the boob thing. They’re bigger. I like that. A lot. Granted, it would have been nice to have them bigger when I was younger, but I am taking them as a sort of gift, a consolation prize, if you will. Consolation for the other stuff that requires medical specialists. It’s as if God said “Ok in exchange for loss of stamina and for having to pee every 10 minutes I am going to give you those D-cups you’ve always wanted.” And I didn’t even have to buy them.
Why fight aging? It (unless you have a terrible disease) is inevitable. Sure, according to The Media and everything you see, it is Unacceptable and you should spend lots and lots on all sorts of potions and creams and surgeries in order to look as young as possible as long as you can. Think about whatsername…that comedian…Joan Rivers The Facelift Queen. She’s 70-something and looks every day of it even though she has fought it tooth, nail, and wallet with surgical procedures and injections and Lord knows what else. I don’t know how she took care of herself when she was younger….but I still worry sometimes about the messages out there about the inherent superiority of youth to aged and what that does to people who buy into it.
I was young once, and remember feeling smug about it. I remember being lithe and supple and having the stamina to be able to go for weeks on just a few hours of sleep a day. What’s to envy about that? It was fun but I’ve had my turn and it’s time to let someone else be young for a while. My responsibility now is to keep medical specialists employed, and I am doing the best I can to keep as many of them in work as possible.
Update on the breathing issue: I saw the 17 yr old pulmonologist yesterday. He said No to the pneumonia and thinks it’s more upper airway, asthma and coughing likely exacerbated by GERD (acid reflux). So now I’m on stuff for all 3 issues. The asthma stuff started working almost immediately and I actually went the entire night without coughing once! Huzzah!
Update on aging: My 100 year old grandmother passed away yesterday. I will write a post about that later, when I can think clearly about it. We are going to her funeral in Amarillo so I won’t be writing for about a week. When she was about 90, she started saying “Don’t ever get this old. This is the hardest time of my life. Everyone you love leaves you.” I am happy for her that she is no longer in the hardest time of her life. I will miss her, but I know where she is and that I will see her again. I am very happy that she is with God, and her family that she cherishes. I inherited a lot from her- a love of sewing and making beautiful things, a love of cooking, the joy of relationships with family. There are pieces of her all over our house- things she made, her cookbooks…I will miss her. Don’t say you’re sorry for me that she’s gone. She was very very unhappy in the last year of her life, very frustrated that she couldn’t see or hear well enough to do the things she enjoyed, and she was so ready to go. She lived a very long and interesting (in her own peaceful rancher’s wife sort of way) life, and saw a lot happen in her 100 years.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Coping mechanisms, Disease and infirmity, Oversharing, perspective
I know this is going to sound ungrateful, even though I am actually incredibly thankful and grateful for the help we’ve gotten recently. But…accepting help is difficult. Painful, even. Intellectually I recognize that it’s necessary. Spiritually, I know that allowing others to help blesses them as much as it does me. Emotionally…notsomuch. I resent the fragility of this body, that has endured hit after hit with the flu, that it has been reduced to a state where pneumonia is allowed to knock it flat on it’s back and render it unable to do the JOB. You know, THE JOB. That stuff I signed on for 27 years ago. The cooking and cleaning and dealing with the kids and being a wife and companion to Terry. Oh I know, “In sickness and in health” and if this were Terry who was sick I’d be right there with the food he wants and the tending to and all of that without a second thought. But it’s NOT Terry. It’s me who’s sick and while I don’t mind playing the invalid for a couple of days (long enough to get caught up on all the stuff on the DVR), this dragging out for 2 months and who knows how much longer is…Not Cool.
This morning I actually got teary about it for a while. It will probably happen again, in the privacy of home with no one around to see it. Self pity is unbecoming. I am not sure that’s what this is. It feels more like frustration, really. There’s a fine and blurry line between the two, though, and I am squishing along it. It was at about 6 weeks into recovering from the hip surgery that I started yelling and throwing things. I’m at 7 weeks here, and the only reason I’m not yelling and throwing things it that those would trigger an uncontrollable fit of coughing.
Yesterday I had a conversation with our pastor’s wife. I told her how awkward it felt to accept help from people (the church is bringing us meals) and she fussed at me for having that attitude. “Gratitude is Biblical.” she said. “Now accept the help with gratitude.” Yes ma’am. ”You’ll have your chance to reciprocate.” she said. And that’s true. So, I am trying.
There are a couple of cleaners showing up in about an hour, to do the floors and bathrooms. A couple of friends are bringing meals by for the weekend. #4 is getting a ride home from school. 4 or 5 years ago, before we were members of this small and very close knit church family (and this church is the first one I’ve ever called that), none of that would have happened. So yes, I am grateful. Still frustrated with being sick because 7 weeks of illness is RIDICULOUS, but grateful for people who care enough to help out, and that is making me all teary again. Maybe for a different reason this time.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Disease and infirmity, Home and hearth, perspective, responsible adult
Because yes. Good grief. It’s getting ridiculous bordering on amusing, since it’s not a hospital-causing thing and it’s unlikely anyone will never recover. It’s all about perspective, I reckon. But still, I’m boggled at the way this keeps going ON, then something ELSE happens and HERE it goes AGAIN. What? Maybe next year I’ll actually get the flu shot. Knowing our insurance the way I do (having become intimately acquainted with it’s persnickety and seemingly arbitrary decisions regarding coverage), I doubt the flu shot is covered, but the $10 cost of one is far, far less than the money spent so far on ineffective inhalers, doctor’s visits, and fancy pants pulmonary tests. I haven’t seen the bill yet for that, but knowing the way our policy works, it would be like them to refuse to pay it.
And now? Here it comes again. Congestion, a cough, aches, fever…and…hold on to your hat…conjunctivitis. Not me, (Thank You, Lord), but David (who’s 23). Fortunately our GP understands pinkeye, and doesn’t want it in his office, and also trusts me to know when it’s that and not allergies or perhaps an overindulgence the night before, and there’s a bottle of Tobramycin drops on hand. Also, bleach. Bleach in a spray bottle to be liberally sprayed on anything David has touched or might touch. Antibacterial hand stuff. Paper towels, and a stern admonition to go through the house and bleach spray everything he might have touched in the last 2 days. All bedding will be washed with bleach and the mattress liberally sprayed with it and allowed to air dry. This is serious business, people.
I suppose if I were a Good Mother, I would wish that I were the one with it, to spare my child the agony of pinkeye, but I am not a Good Mother. I am a Selfish Mother and he is old enough to deal with it. When he was really young, toddler age, he got sick a LOT…like every couple of months. Back then, I wished to have his sickness so he could be healthy. Now? Naw. He can have it.
The household, however, is like a…I don’t know. Biohazard zone, I guess. I need quarantine tape to put around the yard.
But who feels like bleaching the entire house when all one (or two, actually…David and me) wants to do is sit in a chair with a cup of something hot to drink and a box of Puffs Plus (best tissues EVER!) and an endless list of Netflix videos lined up? Not me. What we need is a couple of quarts of hot-and-sour soup, a bag of oranges, and some fresh air. If it warms up past 65 today the house is getting opened up because…well…you get the idea.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Home and hearth, perspective, Who does that
Ok. Ever since mid-way through last year, I have been waking up around 4:30 am. No big deal, a decent night’s sleep was had and those early morning hours are lovely and undisturbed by anything. There was also the realization that once Daylight Savings Time rolled about and 4:30 turned into 5:30, that would be fine and the morning slog of having to get used to getting up an hour early wouldn’t be a chore and I wouldn’t have to endure 2 weeks of Time-Lag. This was happy-making.
Only (tell me you didn’t see THIS coming.), of late, wakey-up time has slid more toward a reluctant 6:00 am occasionally self-indulgently pushed to 6:15, which is the absolute LATEST we can get up without having to rush and panic about getting ready for the day. Also, I miss that 4:30-5:30 hour of peace. It’s a good way to start a day and I recommend it. Now, I’ll semi-sort-of wake up around 5:15-5:30, crack an eye at the clock or mumble something to Terry about the time, then squeeze in another 30-45 minutes. None of this hopping out of bed quietly (so as not to wake Himself up) with happy anticipation of an entire hour to myself with no chugging appliances, ringing phones, or requests shouted through the closed bathroom door.
I used to think when the kids were no longer toddlers, those closed bathroom door shouty things would stop. However, that offspring radar that informs them I am in a state of undress or digestive incapacity is still effective and well in use. Only now I can shout back and tell them to find it themselves.
So, now that the morning routine has shifted back to a more typical (for the rest of the world) drag-out-of-bed-in-the-nick-of-time, it is…of course…nearly Daylight Savings Time. I don’t like it except for the daylight in the evenings,which mean we can eat a lingering evening meal on the patio, and that Terry will be home before dark and we might be able to enjoy a cocktail outside on the porch swing…I like all that.
Maybe once this cold/cough/wretchedness/disease is done with, and there’s no more midnight codeine going on, the 4:30 starts-to-the-day will return. Hopefully before March 10 (or whenever…)
It’s raining today, and is predicted to do so all week long. I like that! Rainy days mean productivity. The sound of of rain, heard through an open window, is the sound of whispers encouraging creativity and focus. It’s Time. That fabric which sat on the shelf for 6 months, awaiting inspiration, gave a little chirp last week, and my mind said “AHA!” Originally it was purchased with the intention of a skirt and vest sort of thing. I have a pattern for a 1900′s era skirt- 7 gored with a kick pleat, and a same-period woman’s vest-double breasted with 20 tiny buttons, very fitted. The fabric was purchased with those in mind but something didn’t quite sit well. It is an outfit I would have worn cheerfully 25 years and 75 pounds ago. Now tho, I’d look like Lilly Langtry desperately holding on to the last tattered vestiges of her youth. I believe in aging gracefully, and sincerely want to look like a well dressed 47 year old woman, and not a 47 year old pretending she was 22. There is something sad about that, to me. Undignified,even. I can manage lack of dignity quite well, thankyouverymuch, without having to dress the part.
So last Sunday, the decision was made to Do Something With That Fabric. 5 yards of tropic weight Valentino wool,charcoal grey. Breathtakingly expensive…more than I’d ever spent on anything-fabric or ready made. This was the source of the indecision. What if I didn’t get it right? I have, however, 3 dresses made from a particular pattern. Every time I wear one of those dresses (a classic tailored button up dress. A-line skirt, no gathers or fluffy stuff),I am complimented. Who doesn’t like being complimented on what they’re wearing? For someone who was told endlessly as a teenager “You dress weird”, getting a compliment is like sunshine and fertilizer.
So, the dress was cut out last week. I am confident with the pattern, I know how it fits, how it goes together, AND….there’s a dozen vintage black glass buttons to go down the front. Mom gave me her extensive button collection last year, and I spent a solid week sorting them, putting together the sets, and so on. There are a few sets that will have to have something made JUST so I can use them- they’re that cool.
Anyway, after cutting the dress out, a nasty cold came to visit. So sewing was put off. Now, tho, there’s only a cough left, inspiration has arrived, and motivation in the form of rain on the roof and a day free of obligations (Until 1:30, when the 12 year old daughter of a friend will show up for a sewing lesson). Boz Scaggs station on Pandora, cool breeze through a barely opened window…I am looking forward to this day! I’ll take a picture of the dress when it’s finished.
