Mother nature

Today is bulb day. Mid October, we've had some chill in the air to prepare the dirt for a good winter sleep, and the few bulbs I actually purchased for this year have arrived.

I have been psyched for this for weeks. I have counted on this day to help me ease out of warm summer days and into fallwinter. It seems to me that we only have 3 seasons around here. Spring, Summer, and fallwinter. One day it will be a high of 50 and the next a frigid 22 low from mid Oct to late Feburary.

Although we've had several cool nights and days, today presented with humidity and the promise of August heat. I suspected something was amiss when I first put my glasses on this morning and they fogged. Usually it is my brain that stays in a bit of a fog, but today my glasses decided to give it a try.

I put on my overalls and went downstairs for tea. When I broke a sweat coming down the stairs I wondered "What in the world?"

When I got into the Cabrio, the top automatically opened. I turned on the radio and caught the weather report. "High of 86 today" my radio sweated the news to me.

I couldn't believe it. I'd been sleeping under a blanket for a while now, and suddenly we're stepping into summer again? Was Mother nature P-M-S-ing? or what?

Oh, well, I decided. The heat won't hang around long, I'll bulb anyway.

When I arrived at work, I went downstairs and brought up the two boxes of tulip bulbs and early blooming daffs that have been resting all summer. The early daffs came from a church member who willingly thinned her bed out early summer for me. For the church. I noticed the flowers on her plants were just a tad smaller and delicate than the strong yellow flowers I planted a year ago and I thought the variety would look nice. The members here are generous that way. Many people are when it comes to plant sharing, I have discovered.

I made the trip for compost, loaded up my car with bags of it and put on my garden gloves. I sharpened my hand shovel, popped a piece of super bubble into the old mouth and brought the boxes outside.

My bulb collection has grown allsummer. Most I either dug up or begged for from others' yards,

I decided to plant seasonally starting with early spring bloomers. Windflowers.
I hoped they would be a groundcover of daisy-like blooms that would eventually cover the daff greenery after the blooms had faded.

I pulled out the bags of little black bulbs and set them on the ground where I wanted to plant them all along the front beds of the church.

When I got to the end of the bed I turned around and, with shovel in hand, I headed back to where i started, ready to plant where they lay.

The bulbs were no longer laying on the dirt where I had left them. They were some, back in the bag, some scattered in the box, and a few others rolling around in the grass.

Hmmm,I thought to myself. I scooped a handful of the AWOL bulbs and walked over to the dirt. I pressed my shovel into the rich earth and made a lovely hole, warm, comforting and inviting for any bulb to inhabit.

I dropped a bulb into the hole and it flew right up like Marilyn Monroe's white dress in that scene on the sidewalk. Luckily, I caught it. I tried again, this time placing rather than dropping. The bulb reacted to the hole as two resistant magnets. The little black ball would not, could not, or maybe just refused to go to bed.

The 86 had hit by that time with 100% humidity and I looked like I had just run through the sprinkler. Wishful thinking. Suddenly, I was weary. Hot and bothered. I decided that Mother nature knows better than human nature sometimes, and this was one of those times. I bagged up the bulbs and carried them back inside.

Maybe next week will bring a bulb day again.

Fall 2008

Where to start?
Yesterday was the first day of Fall and I realized I have been lacking the time to write chronicles. Plenty has happened, but the adventures haven’t made it into type.

Where to start? Now that fall is here, ringing in the beginning of the church year, the pace has picked up. Actually, the pace has picked me up and thrown me looping around and around. Yes, the busy season is in full swing, as it is in most churches right now. Deep breaths have run into hiding. Staff meetings run past lunch.
The birds who visit my feeders are packing their cheeks and carrying miniature Samsonites with travel stickers on them. My boss has become a blur of movement. My hidden bag of “Emergency Only” chocolates is getting low again and that’s a sure sign of stress and busy. Why, as I type, there is a coworker reaching under my desk for the chocolate stash. Will it be dark or milk chocolate today, I wonder?

I go home most days and think to myself, “ What did I do today?” as I collapse into my chair before going to the Y. Maybe it’s not just me. Maybe the world is spinning a little faster. Or, maybe MY world is spinning faster. At any rate, I miss writing, and hope to post snippets as they enter my days.

Home church is hopping, too. This year, I gave up volunteering with the 2-5th graders so that I can hide in Libby’s office and knit. Call it sanctuary. We all need that. Home church holds several of those for me... the balcony, the cubby, and always the kitchen. Soon it will be time for the soupathon and my weekends and weeknights will be spent at home church brewing up vegetable beef soup, chili, and black bean soup. I have grown to look forward to that time because it helps me get through the dreariness of winter. But wait! It is only Fall!!

The state fair will be here soon, and I’ll enjoy Maple cotton candy!! I’ll be listening to friends’ kids talk about the rides, and I’ll be so glad I’m not on them!! I’d much rather watch nausea form on the faces of others, than to feel it myself.

Messy Chef has some gigs coming up, too. I look forward to those.

Summer was good. Slower and calmer, and just nice. I dried tomatoes from my gardenette to use for soup later, and I ate a cucumber sandwich nearly every day at work. I kept knitting, and hoping that one day, I would be able to create two socks that resemble each other. It could happen. After all, I’m using the same directions. Go figure. 7 socks later, they still don't really look much closer than 4th cousins. I have Melanized the socks. Maybe I'll sell them as singles. Choose your sock. i dunno.

Summer. I’m not ready to give it up yet. The girls’ annual beach week was great. 3 of my 4 made it and we enjoyed each other as we always do. We read and swam, and laughed. I rode my bike to get shrimp. We watched the “Closer”- our favorite summer show. I knitted. What could be better than spending time with my girls?

My oldest had the most brilliant idea.
We learned that a local grocery would bag your groceries if you ordered online ahead. ARE you kidding me? For 20 something years, I have been the grocer on this trip, and to think that someone else would shop FOR me?

I went online and tried to shop but discovered that I need to be perusing the aisles, so my lovely daughter offered to go with me to a local store and act as secretary. We did just that, me pretending we were at the beach shopping, and she writing it all down. She then put the order in online and we paid for it and viola!! When we arrived at the beach, and gave our name, our groceries magically appeared. I still can’t get over it. What a love to do that just to save me time.
She also made my bed when we arrived. I just don’t see how it can get any better that that for vaca. Do you?

My thoughts are skipping, I’ll add more when I can. Gosh, it is good to be back.

Freefalling into fall

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

It was a dark and stormy night....

She was working on the altar Guild booklet, as she had been for many many nights.

a note popped up! She was being missed!!!

Funny, she thought to herself.. to be missed by someone I don't know.. Hey!! I miss myself, and I don't know myself, how about that? Could I have sent myself that comment? NO,

Her friend, Lanie, looked over the weary church chick's slumped shoulder. "You need a nap".

I need to write, she thought to herself. She was so tired, that she wasn't sure if she spoke or thought or typed that consideration.

sigh.... I'll be back soon. I am hungry to share some church snackling stories. Hope my readers don't give up on me.