One Down, Three Thousand to Go

This is the second time in a month that our contractor has been blocked from exiting (first time was entering) the lot to work on the patio due to a fallen tree across the road. This happened just 30 minutes after he return from an errand! Please bring your trailer by if you need any firewood this winter. We have two widow makers over the path to the dock and no cash to deal with them at this time!!

Fall Projects

We had saved up a sum of money to put in a patio under our deck this fall and we now realize that was better than leaving it in the market! For the past week or so we have been doing our little bit for the economy by employing almost 4 men full time to clear grass, put in drains, set paver stone, aerate the lawn and seed the destroyed areas. It was supposed to take a little less than 4 days, but I think that with economy slowing down the landscape firm was in no rush to have staff return to the store and sit waiting for another assignment and so the crew was actually here for 7 days which did not increase the cost of the contract.

During that time my husband and I began clearing the garden and moving ALL of the soil (he did most of the work as I have been fighting some illness) and now we will level the whole area and put in a series of raised container beds. We spent the last of the wad of money on cedar boards--the worst grade they had which is stunningly beautiful even so---for the walls of the beds. Hopefully with landscape cloth and mulch on the paths between the beds, we will get some control over the weeds next year.

They had to tear up the lawn with the little bulldozer, but also aerated and reseeded the areas and now we wait for the lawn to come up once again. We also had them take down some dead trees on the edge of the lawn in the front yard, and now, guess what? I get to put in ANOTHER flower bed. (I still haven't gotten the deer fence up but I tend to be more optimistic than realistic!) The far side of this bed will be for cut flowers. I love cutting flowers and bringing them inside the house to enjoy as I do my chores.

The new patio provides a rather large sitting area beneath the deck that will be handy during the hottest part of summer and also nice for fall when we want to sit around a small fire pit. Right now a fine layer of dust and dirt is everywhere --- on the window sills, the deck chairs, the potted plants and the brick. Thus the project today, if the weather stays warm enough, is to wash all of the outside before the grandchildren show up on the weekend. S'mores anyone?

Walk the Walk

Sunday, an absolutely perfect fall day, was our reward for going to watch our son's band play for the Humane Society Walk for the Animals. This first photo was before most of the crowd showed with their dogs. His band played off and on for FIVE HOURS---10:00 to 3:00. He was fighting a head cold and had to be there at 6:30 that morning for early set up as they were closing Constitution Ave. in the A.M. It was a good cause, but I am glad he still has his day job.

The location, Constitution Gardens, was perfect for both dogs and their owners.

And my little Xman had a good time listening and dancing to his Uncle's beat. We all were afraid he would fall into that "E. coli" lake, but he kept his coordination together.

They were supposed to have a tent with potential animals to adopt and I was worried my husband would lock eyes with a mutt and fall in love from across the room (tent). But this was put on hold for another day, because we were so busy visiting, listening to the music, and watching the toddlers that we didn't make it back up the hill. We ARE going to get a dog, probably sometime this year, but we have escaped mutt love for the time.

The Good Life

Yesterday I went to a wine festival. I haven't attended one of these in a decade and discovered in my old age that my palate can get quite tired of the swishing and not swallowing as much as it got tired of the actual drinking. There is only so much wine an old palate can survey before it all starts tasting the same. I decided I was going to just compare the cabernet sauvignons, pinot grigios and maybe a chardonnay or two...but I also came across a new wine called a traminette. Some of you may be familiar with this white wine, which used to be NY65.533.13 and has only recently been given the name Traminette. It was developed at Cornell---those aggies have a grape breeding program. If you go to the link you can see that the wine grows best in a climate such as the mid-Atlantic and thus the one I tasted was both fruity/spicy and also smooth without being sweet. So with a 15% discount I had to pick up 6 bottles of this and then 6 of another wine they had, the Viognier. This is an old grape but also one with which I am not familiar.. Its buttery flavor on the tongue was what won me over.

I now have a mixed case of white wines to get me through the crisp fall days. I also bought a small basket of fuji apples that are so crunchy sweet we may eat them all before I get around to making another pie. I sliced (too lazy to peel) them and fried them in butter, brown sugar, threw in some cinnamon, freshly ground nutmeg, black walnuts and some dried sweet cranberries...a dessert that was so quick and easy last night and put the perfect ending on our dinner of fresh corn on the cob, tomato salad and crab from the dock. I have died and gone to heaven.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

A month ago I heard Jim Webb, best selling author, on National Public Radio talk about America's current situation. I liked so much what he said and even more so the tenor of his speech that I immediately ordered his book "A Time to Fight, Reclaiming a Just and Fair America." I am not as smart as I should be and I really didn't know anything about Webb prior to this radio interview and prior to reading this book. He is a bestselling author, a former much-decorated marine, an award winning journalist, a highly placed member of the Reagen administration and now a Senator with a son who fought as a marine in Iraq.

I have just finished this book and was relieved to find that intelligence and common sense do exist in at least one member of the Senate these days. This is not a fun read nor a beach read, but something that helped me put together the pieces of the puzzle that form the picture of America today. This book reassured me that leadership of the right kind can set this country back on track. Rome is burning, but its citizens can put out the fire with this election.

"In short, our problems are not systemic, as in those of other countries where despair, tyranny, and revolution became the order of the day. ..Our challenges are not in repairing our system of government but in improving the way we have been selecting our leaders. .. Those who do not want significant reform in America enjoy the emotional arguments that occupy hours of political commentary while keeping our citizens distracted from the issues that truly threaten our future. Should we imprison people who burn our flag? Should gays be permitted to marry? Can you love the troops and still hate the war? Should Britney spears be allowed to keep her kids? Did Charlie Wilson use cocaine?...

"We need to get past these artificialities and focus on the long-term good of the country. And today, the inalienable bottom line of solving America's may problems is to simply find good leaders and hold them accountable."

I saw the most recent debate and I am voting for the candidate who was not condescending, could look his opponent in the eye, dismissed simple solutions, and kept all options open, including diplomacy, in solving the worlds most dangerous problems. America is not about looking tough but about being tough.

Life in Interesting Times

After much anxiety these past days, I am pretty much against the bailout unless it goes directly to citizens who are losing their houses or who are losing jobs based on the decisions of the greedy barons. Those who made 6+ figure salaries and bonuses and actually had authority to make these greedy decisions should be sent home to lick their wounds and use this as a learning experience. There is no doubt in my mind that many of them have sheltered most of their wealth prior to this debacle anyway. I do not trust those on Paulson's team who decide who gets this big bag of money. I do not like the fact that they are giving the greedy and stupid a pass while those banks and investment firms that were careful and honest will not be rewarded for their contributions to keeping our economy stable. Maybe the money should go to those smaller banks and investment firms who are not in the red and let them decided which 'toxic' assets they wish to purchase at a discount. Let the Feds work on regulation---again!!

Having written the hard line above, I must admit that I have the luxury of not having to live off of my small stock portfolio which has already lost 30%. I have a small retirement salary that is insured by the feds as does my husband, our health insurance is insured and transferable and our daily needs have been reduced greatly in retirement. Our home is paid for. Our biggest expense is property taxes, but the value of my home has fallen 13%---so maybe in a year or two I will be rewarded by that.

Yes, I accept that inflation will rise rapidly (which it may do anyway) and that affects those who are not as lucky as I am. Perhaps we can use this money to stimulate that side of the economy, subsidizing fixed needs--let socialism rear is ugly head. I also accept that heating oil may triple in costs as will food. I also realize that my portfolio may disappear. Those who, with pain and sacrifice, lived through the Great Depression came through and were wiser and stronger. Maybe this is the dose of medicine America needs when we complain about how expensive it is to heat our swimming pools and eat in 4 star restaurants and plan those huge weddings and put gas in our luxury transportation vehicles. We already use most of the worlds resources per capita and now is time to pay the piper for that lifestyle.

Ike

A long while back I posted a story about the flooding of my house during a tropical storm in this blog entry. This story took place just 10 miles north of Galveston. During the time of this event I was working in Galveston part time. Ike has brought all those nasty memories back again.

Where I Fit In.

My husband was able to take some time off during his business trip to visit South Point on the Big Island of Hawaii. This point is the southernmost point of the United States and from what I remember during the two times I have visited there, it is a windy and vast and humbling place. If you walk toward the water you will see the green sand beaches where polished olivine mineral colors the sand with lime green. I love places like these. I love the desolate parts of the desert in the mid-west where the sound of human civilization is not heard. You are all alone and you can almost feel as if you are the only person on the planet. South Point also gives this isolated and breathtaking feeling. My inner spirit does not shrink with loneliness or fear or loss in places like these. I do not feel alone, but instead, feel as if I am part of something so big and so wonderful that I also have a place on the vast green beach just like the grains of sand. These isolated places are restorative for me. They give me some perspective on my daily problems and concerns.

While visting South Point, my husband encountered a Canadian couple on their honey-moon trying to take their own picture. He volunteered assistance and that lead to a conversation about the U.S. election. The Canadians asked my husband where he stood in this time in our history. My husband is an ardent supporter of Barrack Obama as he feels his ideas reflect global views and reasonable approaches. He explained that having a President of color would also improve the skewed view that the world currently has of us. It would show that we have moved beyond prejudice and finally grown up as a country. As they talked, the Canadians could not believe that there was still prejudice in the United States to the extent it would affect an election.

Well, it appears from a recent poll that the evidence (and I caution my readers that I do not place much weight in political polls nor do I think the connection of the dots in this particular poll is necessarily supported) does not bode well for our evolution as a country. If you are still afraid of something different, big changes or concerned with something you do not understand about human behavior that bothers you, I strongly recommend you take a course in Critical Thinking.

Jaded

For those of you who have passports, can you remember the first time you got yours? I can. I was heading out to live in Palau, Micronesia, and while a passport was not absolutely necessary since it was a U.S. Territory at the time, it was a good idea. After all, we were going to be pretty close to Asia and I might get a chance to visit those many exotic and intriguing countries...and I eventually did! I was in my early 20's and had never traveled outside the U.S.A. This passport was like a luxurious cruise ticket to me. I felt very sophisticated and as if the next best part of my life was just around the corner.

As a teenager I wanted so much to get out of that tiny farm town and see the world. I had no money and was barely able to save and borrow for college. But the best part of the world was just beyond my reach. I was so sheltered at that time, that a trip into Denver got me excited! I even considered joining the Peace Corps to insure travel, and while I got the big intimidating envelope they send out, after reading each page, I felt I could not afford the two years as a volunteer. I had to get on with college and get a job.

Kenju had asked in the prior post if I had passed up a trip to Hawaii just so I could cook. I am a little embarrassed to admit that, in part, I did. I am somewhat jaded by my life experiences. While I love each and every unique island in Hawaii, I have been to Hawaii maybe a dozen times. I actually lived on Oahu for over a year when I went to graduate school there. I spent my honey-moon on the big island---which is very interesting life story in itself that I have to blog some day. I have passed through the tropical state and spent weekends recuperating on return trips from living or visiting various parts of Asia.

So, yes, Kenju, I did pass up the trip to Hawaii. I do know that I am not so jaded that had the month been January or February, I probably would have thrown a swimsuit into a bag and jumped at the opportunity. But for now, retirement and free scheduling around my house are still very fulfilling. After all, yesterday I cleaned out the refrigerator for the first time in two years! And today I have on my schedule to paint those two large iron suns that hang above the garage doors so that they match the window frame colors more closely. (Smile.)

Sometimes, being jaded just means you have lived a pretty rich and fulfilling life.

Fall is the busy season

The fact that my husband is again off to Hawaii means once again I can enjoy a free schedule and alone time. Thus I finished the apples and peaches and have a freezer full of pie fillings. Next my energies were focused on filling ice cube trays with parmesan pesto to use up a lot of the basil. Then I filled the cookie sheets with leaves of Thai basil, licorice basil, and lemon basil and then put those trays into the freezer for about 20 minutes. Then working like Speedy Gonzales I placed the flat leaves into zip lock freezer bags for this winter's meals.


Finally, I have begun to fall behind on using the fresh tomatoes---and believe me, this year we have a very small harvest because my husband put in a fast garden. I dread the tons of tomatoes we will harvest next year when he really gets his game on. I had to preserve the plum tomatoes and so I made my version of tomato sauce---which means I am too lazy to remove the seeds---and I got about two quarts of garlic, basil tomato sauce which I froze. I might have been able to make more if I had been less sloppy!


One of the nicest things about retirement is that one can enjoy life's harvest at leisure. I do not have to cram all this cooking into a weekend along with doing the laundry and driving kids places and paying bills! I can actually slow down and smell the sauce and take my time in labeling the zip locks and plastic containers so that I know what in the world these gray freezer bags contain when snow is on the ground and I need something for dinner. I can actually take time to rearrange the freezer under the refrigerator and the chest freezer in the garage so that the older things are near the top. (We finally finished the last of the frozen crab from last year this summer!)

Yes, one of the things about getting old is that it tends to be all about food!

Do Some Research!

I am trying to stay out of blogging about this election because I am so passionately opinionated and concerned...but Bill has a good blog referral here for everyone who is confused and/or thinks everyone is a crook and wonders why they should vote!!

Bloody Ground

This weekend we stopped by the Gettysburg National Military Park which has a brand new museum and visitor center, much of it is funded by Northrup Grumman. For some historians the Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in America's Civil War. The fact that hundreds of books, new ones each year, are written about America's Civil War are testament to this wound that still scars our history.


The photo above seems so sterile compared to the lives lost and blood soaked ground that it represents.

"In the aftermath of the battle, every farm field was a graveyard and every church, public building and even private homes were hospitals."

While reading some information about this war I came across this quote:

"The most astute theologian of the crisis, a layperson named Abraham Lincoln, framed the issue in simple terms: "Both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God." And since they prayed for different outcomes, "the prayers of both could not be answered." In an environment like ours in which the role of religion in public life is energetically debated and values such as freedom are said not to be "America's gift to the world" but instead "'God's gift to humanity," the Civil War provides a cautionary tale about the limits of religious belief in guiding a democracy."

Sound familiar? I guess what amazes me is how easily some folks take the high ground without a second thought. They clearly have a clearer channel to the pure truth than I do.

Fall Baking

Hanna must have dumped a lot of rain and not much wind. We don't have a rain gauge, but this storm left far less damage and mess than a recent summer storm that passed over our heads in July and brought a nearby tornado. Even the lawn is not covered with much debris. Ike does not appear to be planning to pee over our heads, so we may be spared this summer once again.

I brought back small baskets of apples and peaches from the farms in southern Pennsylvania and will be making pie filling all day today for enjoyment this winter. If I smell like nutmeg and/or cinnamon and the door handles to the garage (where the freezer now sits) are sticky you know I am in the midst of pie making.

Of course, this also means I have to spend more time on the elipitical in the future!!

P.S. Yes, the photo below is of one of my three humming birds that seem to spend most of their time fighting over the one lantana pot I have on the deck!

A Girl Scout is Prepared

They are talking about winds of 25-35 and gusts up to 50 MPH. Moved all the outside furniture and took the boat out of the water. Had to take down the hummingbird feeder, sorry. We have to be somewhere else over the weekend, so I hope the house is standing OK and dry when we get back.

JOY

There is clearly not enough joy shown by me in my life and the older I get the less it rears its orange head.

There are common places to find joy...other's joy...dogs, grandchildren, newlyweds, rock stars. Once self-consciousness and self-awareness begin to grow as we become teenagers and young adults, it seems that the joy level in many people gets buried under what looks right and what feels normal and what we know is acceptable. Or it manifests itself as dorkiness.

Sure, there are lots of cool souls that keep their joy levels erupting at regular intervals and feeding energy into the atmosphere for the rest of us. I remember years ago going to a country western bar at Disney World, and as the band started playing, this 70-something lady in a country western skirt and shirt began clapping her hands high over her head as she stood in front of the band and let the music fill her soul. She was singing out and having the best time of her life and would have been acting this way even if no one else was in the room. I am guessing that she would not need a country western band to let her joy show. She is the kind of person that probably shows joy in a perfect morning breeze! You know, the person who throws their head back and grins at the sky as they walk.

Several of "my" bloggers are the joy-filled type. I could get a whole new perspective if I hung out with them. They savor the minutes and give thanks through passionate release of joy each day.

I will give you a full-faced smile, but that is the extent of my dorkiness release. I am married to someone who has no problem dancing in the streets at a moments notice. He can get excited like a puppy dog at bait fish jumping or a lovely sunset. He is that balding wild guy at the wedding that has a ton of fun without a sip of alcohol. And,yes, the joyful energy is magnetic.

Hey, I can show happiness...but joy(?), I have always been too auto-pilot self-conscious. I guess I have to work on that before turn into an old fart.

Alot and videos

After hours of finagling and testing I downloaded the alOt toolbar into Firefox in order to both search and view videos and it seems to be working. Who knows what kind of spam or problems I may have in the future by doing this!! The toolbar has a nice search engine and lets me see the videos so I am happy.

"Who We Are:

We are an eclectic bunch of people…while our day jobs are at ALOT, we have a music-maestro, a trivia buff and a ballroom dancer within our team. We’re a group of fun-loving folk, based in Soho, NYC and what brings such a varied group together is one thing – our passion for making great Internet products that help people find information easily.

We’re a small group that’s part of a larger family. We’re owned by a NASDAQ-listed company, MIVA, Inc."

Three day weekend

I got back yesterday and totally collapsed. Napped on the couch for about an hour in the afternoon and then watched chick flicks and ate snacks. Fortunately hubby can heat up leftovers---of which there are many---for himself. A three year-old totally drains every drop of energy and then watching his one-year-old sister yesterday morning was the final hill that I climbed.

Today, my son and his girlfriend are coming to spend the night. I was thinking about how nervous she probably is...and of course, for no real reason. But visiting with the guys parents is always a bit of a challenge.

I have shopped for food and cleaned the house after Xman's adventures.

I am too tired to write anything creative and also kind of in a slump about the hurricane that is heading to Louisiana. The one right behind it is currently heading our way...ugh.

Thursday Thoughts #12

I learned and did so many new things this week that they will fill my Thursday Thoughts for a long time:

1) One of the most special times wishing someone good night after the traditional two stories, the prayers, the traditional made-up "monkey story" and the kiss good night, is when the little guy calls you back one last time and asks you to give him a dream :-)

2) I had forgotten how special it was to touch the back of a turtle and to let a monarch caterpillar tickle your hand and to let an inch worm tickle your arm.

3) Running and running and running is hard, but it is harder carrying back 30 pounds after all the running is done.

4) The muffled voices of grandpa and grandson as they make putty animals on the deck is like the sound of the ocean waves or the rush of the wind in the trees. Very soothing.

5) If you are going to the toy store to pick out a toy you have to be firm that the little one STAYS in the shopping cart. If you give in and let him free, all is lost.

6) Waking up to the sound of a little voice rather than an alarm clock is golden.

7) Bubble baths in the big tub are very wet even if you are not the one getting the bubble bath. And it is very wicked if your daughter puts some "squirty balls" in the overnight bag.

8) The biggest surprise of all this week was that he never got homesick. Sitting on the couch one evening, he asked my why I have my own house. And one other night he asked about his mommy and daddy. But not once did he fell sad or ask to go home. We are heading out late this afternoon to return to his home after a brief appointment and I will miss him soooooo much! I will miss him from the earth to the sun as he says.

9) I do know how to count my blessings.

Alarm Clocks

Sometimes the stars are aligned perfectly, the gods are satisfied with their place in the universe, Mother Earth is taking a little zenful rest, and the golden energies of karma are everywhere...That is the way things were this morning at 7:00 when my grandson awoke and then crawled into bed with my husband and I. His peaceful chatter about the hummingbird outside the window, the bird song in the trees, the plastic snake on the windowsill and various other miscellaneous bits of news were music...the music of temple bells dancing over the bed.

This lasted about ten minutes and then the kid grew 10 new elbows and at least a dozen more knees...ugh. Time for breakfast.

Passing the Time

Company (my kids) should be here in less than an hour. Hubby has harvested the last batch of crab and I am steaming them as I type this blog. I do not like the sound of scratching claws on the inside of the pot so have retreated upstairs to blog and pretend that I am not actually killing my lunch.

I can no longer view videos in either Firefox or Internet Explorer on my PC and decided to try to solve that new and irritating problem. I have upgraded Adobe Flash as suggested, cleaned up the tools section of both browsers and still I cannot view any videos. Popups are not blocked and I 'think' I have adjusted anything on my firewall that could prevent me from watching something on YouTUBE and still I cannot view videos. Ach! One of the disadvantages of retirement is that you loose that little group of geeky guys who would most generously stop by and fix my computer. I hate technology and how it wastes ones time.

By the way, the photo above was not a wind vane....

My Little Secret

This next week I will be taking care of my grandson, Xman, since his Montessori school has closed for 8 days. My daughter took off from work last week for three days to watch him and when she asked us to take him this week, we agreed. It will save her money and we love the child, so, are more than happy to get geared up for the challenge. He is inquisitive, emotional and self-centered. He is physically active and has no fear. He finds joy in most things but can get quite unhappy when he doesn't get his way. I am guessing that without Dad or Mom or the 'other grandmother' to run interference for him, he will be more amenable to hearing a 'no' now and then.

I have my reservations on his homesickness level as this will be the first time that this 3+ year-old will be away from both parents and his home for at least four nights and five days. I know that it will be a good growing experience, but that does not mean we won't have down times. I am going out to buy some games and videos this afternoon as tranquilizers if needed.

Xman then gets returned on Friday of next week by us. Then my son's girl friend has talked him into coming down on Sunday and spending the night through Labor Day to spend time with us. My Secret is that, guiltily, I did not invite my daughter for this three day weekend as well, because I would really like some adult only time with my son and his girl. Hubby wanted everyone here for that three-day weekend, but I would end up doing most of the cooking and much of the babysitting and wouldn't get a chance for adult exchange and told him that. My daughter and I can rarely complete sentences with each other when both little ones are underfoot! Hubby looked surprised...but then when we have company he is...well, let's just say he doesn't notice why things run pretty smoothly.

I don't really like family politics.

Time is Such a Moving Thing

I have not had much energy nor any ideas for blogging lately, but probably exhausted due to the following activities:

Celebrating my granddaughter's first birthday
Transferring and editing the video and slides I took of my granddaughter's first birthday
Putting in a 30 foot pyracantha hedge to hide the vegetable garden from the front window
Replanting the sod from area where we planted the hedge
Loading and distributing a wagon load of mulch, (free mulch is crap and we won't do that again)
Moving an entire palate of leftover brick to the back of the yard
Meeting with Comcast twice to resolve the issues we are having with the sporadic cable TV connection, the phone connection and the PC...Cause is probably one of the two cables to the house being able to push only 80% of the signal. They said it is because we live so far out in the country and they can't boost the signal anymore. I asked if I only had to pay 80% of my bill, but they ignored me.
I have also managed to squeeze in some housecleaning, laundry, and bill paying.
We are also meeting with a landscape company to put in the back patio under the deck and since they are talking over 10K it will have to go in in stages. They did agree to put in and level that strange fountain we bought a while back.
AND as a reward, I took a short day trip to a lovely east coast beach town and ate lunch in a charming little restaurant and watched the activities on main street.

My Blog List is gone

That's all I have to say. I went away for the weekend and the deer did not eat my roses, but blogger ate my blog list.

Just Asking

I am going away for the weekend. Can you keep these guys away from my rose bush---and everything else for that matter? (Don't you wonder what they were whispering about before I showed up?)

The City Mouse and The Country Mouse

The majority of my recent adult life I have lived in the suburbs and most recently I have lived in the city...or within walking distance of one of the city centers. I enjoyed the ability to be able to walk to a large movie theater and safely walk home after seeing the movie. I enjoyed being able to walk to restaurants, and even better, being able to visit a large Borders Book store and waste away a Sunday afternoon.

Then we started and finished that epic part of our lives where we built the cliche retirement home in the country. We are so far into the country that, if I have my bedroom windows open, I hear roosters crowing in the distance in the early morning. I hear strange noises in the night such as large limbs falling from trees in the ravine or screech owls as the dawn breaks. Yes, living in the woods is just as noisy as living in the city.

I love the country, but schizophrenic soul that I am, I also miss the city. I miss the restaurants and plays and museums and little stores for shopping. Last year we learned that our small town, which consisted primarily of a brand new post office, a corner gas station, a liquor store, and the elementary school, was going to build a new shopping center...actually two little centers within a quarter mile of each other. These were not malls, but traditional shopping centers: one anchored by a SuperGiant grocery. It has been exciting watching the one area go up with a doughnut shop, a cleaners, a pharmacy, a steak and ale house, a small exercise gym, a real estate office, a nic-nac shop and a second liquor store among others.

The second and slightly larger shopping area started with a Starbucks! This got me excited but in the year it has been open, I have driven by each time on my way to the post office and not stopped once. This second center, which is just down the road, added the Giant grocery, a Food Shoppers grocery, another cleaners, two pizza restaurants(!), another pharmacy, another liquor store, another doughnut shop--this one with an ice cream wing, two mexican restaurants, one Korean restaurant (totally awful food and terrible service), one Japanese/Chinese restaurant (serving even worse food in a clinical plastic table atmosphere), and a paint store. There are several finished buildings waiting to be leased, but I have long since given up any interest.

Is this a country thing? What economics planning went into this development? This is a rural community, although with a nearby military base and all the resulting contracting companies, a nearby atomic energy plant that is adding another reactor, and a growing community of city retirees---I don't view this as a typical rural community.

I drive by a large dirt filled area behind the new bank and hold my breath while wishing for a movie theater with a wine/beer/cheese bar attached and a little second hand bookstore on the side or a branch of the library which is 12 miles away. I also would love a non-chain restaurant that serves interesting and healthy food.

Yes, I know. If I want all this I should move back to the city.

Getting Ones Work Set Out for Them

My husband is off on a 'business' trip to Hawaii...something that is either winding down or winding up. Anyway, prior to his departure, he picked all of the above that are sitting in glasses of water on the kitchen counter. Various varieties of basil. He then encouraged me to begin the process of freezing this abundance for the winter months when their pungent goodness would be better appreciated. Licorice, cinnamon, lemon...whatevhah! So, tomorrow I head out to find ice cube trays, as I recently gave all of mine away. I also just added all of the pinion nuts to a dessert dish and those would have come in handy for a pesto. Planning is everything.

An Inventory of Reading

The Big Read motivates a personal inventory.

Bearnaked reminded me of this inventory. The books I have read...some many, many years ago and some as a college assignments...are in bold. Which books have you read? Post this list on your blog!

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkienn
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Can't remember?)
11. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (80%??)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkienn
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Tabor's Holiday

View from inside the African American Museum

I have had two sets of company visiting and staying back to back last week. (I am really not the social animal that is painted by this blog. I do not attend a church, belong to any clubs (yet), or party hearty on weekends. While no one I know would describe me as an introvert I do seek out the quiet times more often than not. I am fortunate to know some nice people who drop by during the summer months. Actually my husband is the real social butterfly in this finely aged duo.)

Anyway, Mr. Butterfly invited two buddies down for a weekend of fishing after the above busy week and I was immediately motivated to conclude that Tabor needed an 'alone' holiday. I headed up to my daughter's house for the same weekend. She was going to be away with family, and I would have the whole place to myself. The tiny house is within walking distance of a metro's ride to the center of Washington D.C. and all of its free and wonderful museums...are you getting jealous?

The famous Smithsonian Castle

Entry to Moongate Garden

I took my camera along and found that I needed this alone time to adjust my viewpoint and to take time for some focused photography. Having seen these outside architectural pleasantries many times, I photographed with a new eye and new angles and then used Paintshop Pro to have fun tweaking away with styles, hues, etc. I personally think they look cool and refreshing in this way...little egocentric gal that I am. You can click on them for a larger view.

Moongate Garden

Pausing

To quote a quote..."Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."

A friend who had been having shortness of breath called on Monday telling us that he was heading to the city hospital for recommended open heart surgery. Then he found out on Tuesday that the scar tissue from a prior surgery was going to prevent any new surgery on this old heart of his. He has said that he will just have to adjust to this new twist in his life and slow down. He is very active and very industrious and never appeared compromised if you did not know his health background. This will not be easy for him or for his wife. I can see the dark premonitions in her eyes. I sit out on my deck asking the powers that be to give them some inner peace on this journey ahead.

I pause thankful that I still have reasonably good health.
I pause knowing that there are no guarantees in this life preventing me from being in his shoes in the future.
I pause knowing that there are no guarantees that my husband will not face a similar fate.
I pause knowing how important each day is in this too short life.
I pause knowing that pausing to smell the air is very important for the soul.

Some Bad Karma--Life Story #15

Fear is a really useful but also dangerous energy in this life. (The most obvious recent example of the bad things fear can do is the 100's of thousand deaths of innocent people caused by this stupid war brought about in fear of a vague enemy.) I have not been truly afraid for a long, long time and so this recent fear came to me as a strong jolt, and in hindsight, I am not all that proud of how I reacted.

Hubby was working down at the dock getting the boat cleaned and I had finished some errands in the house and was heading down to ask him some question. We were going to take some friends out on the boat that afternoon, and since we are all getting older, one of my routines is to pick up all the newly fallen broken sticks and branches in the path to the boat so that no one accidentally falls on the hilly path.

When I reached the dock and hubby emerged from the small boat cabin, I asked how things were going. He looked at me and asked me,

"Didn't you see the dead copperhead on the path?"

I, who had so carefully scanned each and every inch of that path picking up snake-sized sticks did not see anything out of the ordinary, and I told him that. He looked at me in disbelief wondering how I could have missed it. He explained that he had almost stepped on it as a bucket in his hand had blocked the view of the path and he immediately knew he would dispatch it with a large log by smashing the head. (Killing snakes is not nice even if they are poisonous, but he had a grandson who ran willy nilly to the dock recently, and therefore, we would not be able to sleep at night letting this pit viper survive.)

Hubby followed me back up the path to show me the location of the snake with the smashed head. We got there and we peered every which way. There was no snake. Hubby was sure he had crushed the small skull, and therefore, wondered if in the short ten minute span an animal had taken it away to eat. I said it might have been alive enough to crawl under one of the logs lining the path. We poked around another minute or so and then decided it had snuck away to die a slow but peaceful death. I turned to head back up the hill and as I got closer to the top I saw the fat fellow just a foot away. It lay right in the middle of the black sand path as still as a curved stick and looked none the worse for wear. If you have never seen a copperhead, it is truly a beautiful animal. It almost looks as though some artist had painted the coppery and grayish tones of color across its back with a brush.

But, this close encounter caused me to almost swallow my tongue as I leaped back to my husband's side. It had appeared as if by magic out of nowhere. It was fat and healthy and not moving---thank goodness. If it had been scurrying, I would have probably swallowed both my tongue and heart in fear. Hubby quickly grabbed another large piece of wood and pinned its head against the sand once again. I told my husband not to move while I hurried up the path to the garage for the shovel. When I returned he severed the head quickly with the edge of the shovel and we threw the beautiful animal into the river.

I realize that copperheads are not as aggressive as people commonly believe and that the freezing in place was its defence mechanism and that we should have just tossed him by stick into the woods to go on his way or walked widely around him. But neither my husband or I could bring ourselves to be so fair. We were frightened for our grandchildren and that deep primitive urge to protect our own rushed forward bringing with it adrenaline and no immediate regret as we ended the life of this innocent animal.

I am sad that I did this, but I also am honest with myself and mother nature, in that I would certainly do the same again.

(Seems to be an unusual amount of references to snakes, rubber and real, in my blog these days!! What's that all about?)

The Big Weekend or A Precautionary Tale

This blog entry is a tale for those future grandmothers/grandfathers wondering if their young adults are ever going to get it on and present them with some grandchildren. Remember, it is said that you sometimes get what you wish for...

Recipe for potential disaster, mix the following carefully:
4 thirty-somethings--two males and two females
2 toddlers--11 months and 12 months
2 preschoolers--3 + years old
2 old farts

If your first-born grandson sleeps in your room because the baby sister is sick with a fever, you will not need an alarm clock. He will present you with a rubber snake before the sun is up.


Fortunately, he can pretty much dress himself. This is very useful as your eyes are not yet open, and, unlike him, you cannot form complete sentences. Thus, you are not much help.


Baby sister does not let a little flu bug hold her down. She may have gotten the household up three or four times crying with a stopped up nose and congested lungs, but she still takes her morning crawl right after a breakfast of blueberry pancakes. Note to new grandparents...you had better keep up! Mommy is barely functioning.




Once you pass the test to see if you can get to all the dangerous places in the house before the crawler and retrieve all the bugs you thought you had vacuumed, then it is time to go on the post-breakfast constitutional. This usually results in one or the other being carried on the way back as the morning gets hotter. Do not hold your breath as you will not be the one to be carried.


After lunch it is time for the mid-day swim. Remember to keep your camera dry because you will get wet even though you do not get into the tiny pool.

No one is safe from getting wet including the local wildlife.

The first day begins to wind down with a toe counting exercise. As luck would have it all of them have all of their toes!!

And, as usual, it is the male of the species that crashes just before dinner as the sun is receding behind the trees.

Footnotes:
1)The adult males were the only ones who had time to play several games of ping pong, fish from the dock and actually stay up late and watch a movie. How in the hell we let them get away with that I don't know, but we continue to let them think they are the stronger and smarter.

2) This visit 90% of the folks were excellent eaters and praised my meals until I got that warm glow of energy to do it all again the next day.

3) Tabor lost 1.5 pounds!! I have been putting in two miles on the elipitcal many mornings with out budging any fat cells. I just need more weekends like these where I never sit and rarely eat.

It is not even Halloween

While cleaning the storms broken branches and leaves from the driveway, we came across this black jelly-like fungus in the photo above that was curled in the rocks. It is cubist in form and was about fours inches in size. Any ideas anyone? What are the chances of a mycologist reading my blog? And, no, we didn't drop anything chemical in nature...that we can think of.

Glutton for Punishment?

Oh, yes, I guess that is what I am...a glutton for punishment. Sometimes it seems that things happen to me without any pro activeness on my part. Actually I do know that this coming weekend was not even a glimmer of an idea in my mind, because I have been sleeping so well these evenings. Certainly this was actually all my daughter's idea. I do NOT remember initiating this. I do not even remember talking about it at length with anyone...but then, one of the lovely attributes of getting older is that darn forgetting part. Just because you do not have it written on the calender, does not mean it was not scheduled. After all, it WAS on someone else's calendar.

Tabor's B&B is once again opening for weekend business. It seems that my daughter and her husband and her two toddlers are joining us ALONG with her friend and her friend's husband and THEIR TWO TODDLERS. Yes, I will be entertaining four very tired adult parents and four very active tots under the age of 3.5 that are pretty much as mobile and curious as un-housebroken puppy dogs. This may be just the breakthrough I need to lose those last 5...10...alright, 15(!) pounds.

I have planned a menu or two and am cleaning the house, although with four little rugrats being set loose, only God knows why! I have battened down the hatches, even though I have found that little fingers are really experts at hatches. I have stocked the 'larder' with applesauce, microwave mac & cheese, colored goldfish, and frozen juice bars. I will set up the small rubber swimming pool with grandmotherly sprightliness. I will take my vitamins. If I were the religious type, I would pray, but perhaps some of you can do that for me.

OH, this should be so much fun...right? Photos to follow...

The New Blogger

While leaping into the new blogger and using the easier editing features which add the ability to change fonts, background colors, and to some extent, drag and drop various page elements, I also found that adding links to a list such as the blog roll was much easier. To create the blog roll you just have to add the URL into a window menu and it will automatically add the blog name as well as organize it by title or by most recent blog entry! Saves me a lot of time not writing the html code for a bulleted list as I did in the old days. The template that I chose was not as flexible, but maybe I will fiddle with another template in the future and just make it part II while linking back to the old blog...!

Cha..Cha...Changes

Richard in Atwater has mentioned that I could 'stretch' my photo uploads for better viewing. I usually post in low-res for those who do not have great band-width, but thought 'stretching' the photos on the template might be nice.

Unfortunately, you must completely re-load your template and I mis-read thinking it was going to back up the old blog template...which it did not. Then to make my morning more challenging, it does not appear that the template I had chosen allows me to use the blog 'stretch' feature, because I cannot find that option anywhere.

And just to keep me on my toes, I have lost my blogroll in the process. I do have the blogs bookmarked so I will have to reconstruct that all again in the future. I must say, that I usually am the type to look before I leap, but when it comes to computers, I just plunge in!

Anyway, here is one of the looks I settled on after getting sick of changing fonts, colors, etc. I do not know if I can live with...will. see.

Tabor Dancing

The weather has been so hot and muggy that hubby and I decided we just had to head to the nearby mountains---nearby being a relative term as it was about a 5 hour drive, carbon footprints be damned. We had visited and even camped in this national park many times, and thus, it was like visiting another home. Some of my blog readers will be able to identify it, I am sure.

We stayed at one of the lodges but I am proud to say that the second day we put in a 10 mile hike. I have not done that type of hiking in years and am glad that I found I still had the stamina.

The initial trails are usually clear and well worn even though you can see the summer has been wet.

The initial signs are usually quite clear for the trails as well even though the Park Service is on tighter and tighter budgets.

As we got farther into the more isolated trails, we found the signs not only less clear but even more telling!

Coming across this on the path gave us pause and also helped us understand the previous sign.

Even though we were above 4,000 feet the mid-day temperatures were pretty warm and we frequently sought shelter under the shade of trees in the high meadows. We were careful when we left the trail, because as you can see from the photo above, the trail can soon disappear. I photo-shopped it with ladybugs to show how camouflaged it could get just a few yards off the beaten path.

This lovely spruce forest floor makes for very quiet walking and that is why I stepped on a 2.5 foot snake without he/she or I being aware in time to avoid each other politely. I had paused to catch my breath when hubby came up behind me and looking at my feet said calmly but sternly, "Keep moving. Keep moving." As I lifted my right foot I glanced down to see the coils and instantly danced to the other side of some rocks skinning my shins nicely. While my legs have some lovely scabs, the poor snake got the worst of it as he seemed to be somewhat lumpy as he scooted away. We had been returning from the day's long hike, and I was being rather heavy footed with fatigue. We, of course, tried to remember what mountain rattlesnakes and copperheads really looked like as we hustled more carefully on down the trail counting our blessings only to see a smooth green snake scoot in the grass ahead and also what we identified as a common water snake just ten minutes further down the trail. We were blessed, I guess. Upon reaching a visitors center we pulled one of the guidebooks and determined that I had stepped on a juvenile rat snake.

In spite of the adrenalin rush the rewards of the hike were many including fresh blueberries for munching and...

...a blanket of wild bee balm.

We stopped at the top of the ridge for a late lunch and had some of the best views above the woods. I don't know of any fancy restaurants that can provide this kind of atmosphere.

That's the Limit

While I was sleeping someone caught his limit and more! So hot and humid here that I think it is time for a two-day trip to the mountains tomorrow. I will let you know if we did it.

This Sunday Morning

Although I have been retired for some time, I do not seem to be falling into much of a regular pattern of daytime/nightime activity. Yesterday I slept until 7:30 (after being lightly wakened by hubby at 4:00 who was heading off for a fishing trip with buddies) and this morning I woke up abruptly, looked at the clock and saw that it was only 4:30. I tried to drift back to sleep, but after 40 minutes I admitted defeat and got up.

Sitting here on the stairwell balcony, where I blog, I can smell the coffee that is ready in the kitchen, hear the faint chirp of birds just waking and hear the deep and regular breathing of my husband in the bedroom below. Today, like most days, is a totally free day for me. I can do whatever I want. Yes, I have a project list, compulsive creature that I am, but I also know that 90% of the things on this list do not have emergency status.

I am not yet too full of free time, not yet satiated and ready for something scheduled that forces me to get up and get going. Perhaps this winter I will look for something to do that fulfills that need, but now I am still in wonder at this endless free time given to me each day. I sometimes think of my mother and father and the early years of their retirement. I wonder what thoughts they had about this time in their life with their children grown and involved with their own lives. My parents were busy and hardworking people and idle time did not come easily to their generation. I know that in their last years watching baseball on TV in the afternoons was my father's respite after clearing weeds and working in the garden. My mother would do her flower gardening and some canning in the summer and then look forward to an afternoon nap. Was this enough to fill their day and the all the rest of the days of their lives?

I do know that the nagging concern I had about having too much time with my husband and not enough alone time, which I so desperately need, has not been a reality. He is a self-starter most days and we spend about 50% of our time doing things together and 50% on our own separate projects. He does not need me to be his oxygen and that is a relief. He also continues to let me be the bossy one in structuring many activities and I am trying to be more compromising in that area. Now that I have so much unstructured time I do not feel the need to be so regimented.

Another good thing I have noticed is I am becoming less anxious about this thing called retirement. Eventually, I may more easily accept it as my new way of life!