Chas, you certainly have a sense of humor this morning. I rather thought yesterday’s header was rather brooding and scary.
Welcome to my day. I am off for some sleep. I finished 20 notes for folks to send back with a friend. Even to a few of my grands.
No kidding here.
I wonder how long this will go on. Forever maybe.
A man and a woman on TV sit across the room from each other.
It isn’t natural. No matter what the cause. It isn’t natural.
I see on TV a large group of men.
They were all dressed alike. In dark suits.
A female friend long ago said, “all men look alike.” What she meant is that they all dress the same. While women try to be different from each other.
The women are more interesting to look at.
The men don'[t care, in particular.
Actually, I believe a lot of women dress to look alike but in a unique way but not too unique but always in a pressing the limits way. It is rather bizarre.
I have been retired so long that I almost forgot what I did.
I was a photogrammetrist. We mapped denied areas using satellite photography. It was top secret.
Strange. What we were doing was classified.
However, we did the same thing on the moon and I gave a paper on it to the American Society of Photogrammetry.
A man on TV was discussing the space junk from a Chinese satellite that is supposed to land on earth this weekend. He said, “We should hold the Chinese accountable.”
So? What does that mean?
My grandson wore a ‘patriotic’ suit to attend prom with a group of guy friends. That, too, is a fad. My mom always told me to buy classic clothes and you will always be in style. There is a lot of truth to that. She also said most women dress for other women, not men and there is a lot of truth in that. There are times women dress for men, of course.
My husband just commented on the ridiculous eye glasses a woman was wearing. They were enormous. The sad thing is that it becomes difficult to find clothes, glasses etc. that are not ridiculous when almost everyone jumps on the bandwagon. I hate the tights look.
We built our house in a field. Now we have trees all around that tower over the house and have had to have some cut down. I forget how bare it was until I see pictures. Excpt I always remember the horrid wind in the winter and the horrible drifts. I love the trees and all the wild life that takes advantage of them. We are zone 3, BTW. Do you all know your plant zone?
Kathaleena, according to the plant magazines and internet zoning maps, we are in seven. I do not believe that. Instead, I plant for three with some special sites where we can try a four.
K, zone 5. Southern Ontario is in a unique zone because of how it is surrounded by the Great Lakes.
When my parents built their house, there were no trees where they built, while the forest was a solid line, as if along a field. That is what the property had been, a market garden field, stopping at the tree line. So all the tall pines and maples and birches we have now around the house were planted by my parents.
Kathaleena, 1st Arrow was in Duluth a week ago — May 1 — and he said the temperature got up to 90°! A record, I’m sure, for that early in the spring, or probably just about any time, I’m guessing, for there!
I am on break from working around the home today. I read about the “52/17 Rule,” or whatever you might call it, where people have determined that peak productivity happens with a 52-minutes-of-work to 17-minutes-of-break balance is done.
Hmmm, I thought, I will try that.
And now my timer just rang, after reading today’s posts and looking up zones, and posting, so it’s back to work now…! 🙂
I’m at the computer most of my days for work, which can take its toll, depending on how busy the day is for writing. I have remind myself to get up, walk around, go outside, do something, so I get some kind of a break. I work completely out of the back room off the kitchen where my desk is — and since working from home I never really go in there except for the day job. Once I’m off the clock, I emerge and leave the room behind, until I have to return on my next scheduled day.
I think this may be the day when I finally replace those hanging flower baskets. And the front yard is now filled with brown, ugly fox tails, hopefully that will be at least cosmetically taken care of when the gardener comes on Monday. Fox tail season, thankfully, only lasts a couple months.
I really wish I could just take the weedy grass out and put in colorful (but drought-resistant) plants, put in a drip line. But that’s a real process. I may talk to the gardener about it, I’m pretty sure they’ve done that before for other customers. Have no idea of costs, though, and right now probably isn’t the time.
My hardiness zone is 6A. We had frost this morning, though. Not a heavy frost, but there was frost on the roof of the car and some on the grass.
Well, I’ve taken my first outing with a tripod, and the animals were cooperative. My main stop was a woodpecker nest, and I saw several feedings, though I didn’t manage to capture any flight shots. (They mostly went around to the back of the tree before flying away.) We saw the female working on the nest several weeks ago, and have been watching the nest on and off ever since. The young are still small enough that the parents go inside to feed them; I’m watching for the day they peek out of the nest hole. Since it’s a mile away, I don’t plan to carry a tripod over there every day, but the nest is way high in a tree, too high for one of my cameras to get the shot well and even the lighter camera is too heavy to hold up in position for long, and I wasn’t even going to try it with the new, heavier one.
I’ve also been wanting to try a tripod at my local pond ever since we moved in three years ago, and today I had an excuse to do so. And the creatures cooperated! A muskrat didn’t pose for its photo, but it did show up, and so did quite a number of turtles of at least two species. A great blue heron find a spot and stayed there the whole time I did, though I never saw it catch anything. A Canada goose swam across and then quickly went past the heron to find its own patch of soil. A pair of mourning doves flew in and walked around. Several sandpipers moved around all over the place. Red-winged blackbirds were flying around and calling, and crows flew overhead in a large flock. And at one point I moved the camera, and just as I did a green heron flew–first I’ve seen this season. Its mate showed up later, and they flew around. A camera on a tripod is a limitation in some ways, and I didn’t get any good shots of the green heron, but I’m just glad to see them back and I hope they’ll nest this year. (I never saw young last year but saw them the two years before at this pond.) I might have heard a kingfisher, but I didn’t see one–it was the only one of the semi-regular species that didn’t show up. But today was the first day this season to see that many species at the pond, and thus a good day to be there with the tripod, even though I’m new with the camera and brand new with the tripod and undoubtedly could have done better with today’s sightings with more experience. (I also had my other camera with me and took a few shots handheld, but I was focusing mainly on the tripod and missed several shots that would have been best handheld, like the green herons flying around.)
When I am at work, it is like I have no existence outside of it. In concentrating on other people’s lives, my own existence becomes a secondary consideration. I eat and take breaks in order to gain and conserve energy to continue working. When you see twenty to thirty different patients, all with completely unique circumstances, every spare minute becomes precious. On 12 hour weekends I work alone and am both desk clerk and nurse, answering phonecalls and screening patients in between visits that are timed exactly as they are during the week. It is grueling work, and by night my brain is too exhausted to think outside the grooves of routine.
michelle, I’m seriously getting (more) depressed just seeing them (so I try not to look).
But I’d like to start sitting out on the front porch again to read or just to relax but it’s so unpleasant with the trailing dead sprigs hanging off the baskets on the porch.
Of course, the only thing on zillow right now is that eight bedroom, three million home or the one hundred sixty four acres for seven hundred thousand. Room for the dogs and sheep.
We are still bringing the petunias in at night but they are thriving, filling in nicely. Get on it, DJ, you know it always makes you feel better even with the watering.
I don’t know my plant zone. Al, I know is somethings grow here but not others. I wish I could grow gardenias. But I’ll settle for the lilacs we transplanted. No flowers yet, but the bush is 3′ tall. Oh, and our irises have started to bloom Lovely purple flowers.
We’re Zone 2, but sometimes we can get away with a Zone 3 plant. Until the one winter arrives with little snow cover to insulate – then those Zone 3’s are done.
It bugs me that the big box stores here sell plants/trees that are zone 5 – there is no way they’ll survive even if you have a micro climate in your yard. I’m currently looking for a perennial called sea holly – it’s a unique plant which I’ve seen and someone in Saskatoon is selling them from their own garden, but 2 ½ hours is a long way to go for a plant. I’ll keep looking.
Yesterday afternoon, Boy came rushing in the house to go pee. He left both my door and the outside door (which is directly across the entryway from my door) open, and Heidi got out. (He said he closed them, but obviously he didn’t close them well enough.) Noticing that Gabby-Mom and Gabby and a boy from the daycare were out across the street, she went over to visit. The children got Heidi to come in by getting her to chase them, and then running through my open front doorway with her right behind. Smart children!
OK, I used a gift card from over a year ago and stocked up on pretty potted flowers, but they only had one trailing geranium for the hanging options. I bought that, but will need to find 2 more elsewhere that will at least blend with the look.
I am in the zone where no one owns a hose and everything stays green all year long. Oh, there is red grass season. You should see how tall my poinsettia bush is!
I see on TV that a Chinese rocket is scheduled to enter the atmosphere this weekend.
Seems to me that it needs to get to it if it plans to meet schedule.
All set up with Shirley’s husband next door who will help me get Cowboy into the car Monday morning. I can handle Tess OK, she’s amenable to putting her front paws up on the seat so I can then lift her back end in — but Cowboy is anxious by nature and just hunkers down to the ground, doubling his weight, so I need someone who can scoop his 50-lb dead-weight self up completely and set him into the Jeep.
Sounds like Shirley is making progress, he said she walked all the way down the hall (not easily, and with a leg brace and some help); but she also is getting some movement in her right hand, which is new.
It is currently around 21 tons. That could give you a headache. But the Shuttle Columbia was two hundred thousand pounds, broke up over Texas and injured nobody on the ground.
Last year’s Long March debris fell off the west coast of Africa, though I thought heard it landed on land as well.
How do dogs do that? Make themselves heavier? I know they do as I had a fearful Airedale that would do the same thing. He was heavy when he wanted to be!
Here’s a question. How would you define what it means to be a man or a woman or masculinity and femininity? I ask because I have seen these definitions of manhood and womanhood several times (not wanting this to descend into a discussion about the author, I’ll just give the definitions) and the one for women really rubs me the wrong way. This definition would say, for instance, that DJ should find some man to support and Roscuro needs to focus more on her dad and brothers-in-law than on her mom, sisters, nephews and nieces, and patients.
“A boy becomes a man when he becomes mature enough to embrace and enjoy the sense of responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women and children in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships in order to fulfill humanity’s God-given commission.”
“The essence of mature femininity is the freeing disposition to support and strengthen worthy leadership from men (and reject or redirect unworthy leadership) in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships in order to fulfill humanity’s God-given commission.”
Peter, to get the lilacs to bloom you need to dig around their roots. Mine did not bloom for a number of years until we put in a new mailbox post beside it. That did the trick.
Man: around fourteen
Woman: around fourteen
Masculine: protective of others, enjoys being responsible, interest in making a living and taking care of his home and family, somewhat competitive, willing to stand out for family or friends,
Feminine: protective of others, enjoys being responsible, interest in taking care of family through work or home, somewhat competitive, willing to stand out for family
Guess I am not very good at that. They are both human so have human qualities. But they go about them differently.
Our lilacs bloom beautifully every year, and I neither dig nor prune. The chickens and turkeys take care of all that. I am a live and let live person. Every now and then, I dig up baby lilacs around a tree and plant them around the place, and after a couple of years, they start blooming. Or the goats eat them. Or I cut them down and feed them to the goats. They prefer the baby poplars.
I’ve never told this before.
Don’t know why I’m telling it now.
But
I never proposed to Elvera.
I left home to join the AF on 2 August 1949 and only went back to visit.
My sister, since then, got married. But at the time her navy Chief was on a ship in the Mediterranean. She was staying with my parents.
I never took a girl to my house to visit my parents. i.e. None of their business.
I started dating Elvera in October, 1955. They didn’t know about her.
A friend, Bob Myers, pastured a small church in nearby North Charleston. He asked me to supply for him one Sunday. I agreed. It was Springtime, (March-April??)
I went home on Saturday before preaching next day. I took Elvera with me.
This is the first time, ever, that my family had ever seen a girl I knew.
They loved her immediately. My sister, I later learned, told my parents “I want her for my sister.” The next time I went down to supply for Bob and took Elvera, they had it set up. Velma (my sister) worked in a jewelry store. She had “found” a set of engagement-wedding rings on sale. Just the thing. She had Elvera wearing an engagement ring before she was engaged.
But by the next visit. We were engaged. It took another week to realize it, but they had us engaged before we decided to go along with it.
It was kind of silly, the way it happened. Likely would have happened anyhow. But my folks (especially Velma) were so anxious that they did it for us.
As I said, that was springtime. By summer, Elvera was wearing the ring and we were engaged. We didn’t marry until 9 June of next year.
But, looking back, it’s funny the way it happened.
I have said that it was a scheme God planned to get Chuck into the world.
Cheryl, in those definitions it is as if women and men don’t exist outside of how they relate to the opposite sex. It is ridiculous. Usually, as a nurse, I am an encourager of my patients as I teach them about their condition and what they can do for themselves. I am still in a position of power as the healthcare provider, but I make them a partner in their healing process. But occasionally, I get patients who have so little a sense of responsibility that they are a potential danger to themselves, to myself, and to others. In such cases, it doesn’t matter if they are male or female, for their protection and mine, I am the one who must take the lead, telling them what they have to do firmly and heading off any chaotic behaviours before it begins – those under the influence of substances or who have serious behavioural (read criminal) issues can quickly become dangerous if you aren’t in control of the situation. Such definitions of femininity are ludicrously out of touch with real world situations.
As for how I would define what it means to be a man or a woman, I would say that male and female are determined by their sex at birth. Both sexes may encompass a full range of personality types and a full range of interests, and outside the obvious difference of reproductive functions, there is no such thing as an inherently male or female activity. Rather, masculine and feminine norms are largely defined by culture.
Thus to characterize a home where, say, the woman works for a living and the man stays home as a caretaker of the children as being sinful is to go far outside of Scripture. In fact, I was just reading through Luke and when I read again about the women (some of whom were married) who traveled with Jesus and ministered to him, I was reminded how much Jesus treated women as normal humans and not some subspecies. I once did a study on the ‘keepers at home’ passage in Titus 2:5, and found the word ‘keepers’ carried the sense of guarding or keeping watch, rather than staying at home. Furthermore, I found that the Greek phrase about women in that passage is in fact synonymous with the phrase about elders in I Timothy 3:4, “able to rule (the sense is more to keep) well his own house.” As the command to children to obey parents, not just father, demonstrates, both parents are instructed to look after their family.
Definitions that define male and female solely by their relation to the opposite sex remind me of something my mother taught me about definitions. When she taught us spelling, she sometimes had us write in our own words what a word meant. Once when I defined a word by its root, she told me that wasn’t a definition. Defining men and women by their counterpart is not a definition.
Yes, 6 arrows, May 1st was unseasonably hot around here. Otherwise, we have been on the cold side of average.
There are a lot of different hardiness zones represented here. We also have places selling plants that are not going to make it except for a season. Lake Superior does affect the hardiness zone and when to plant. It is big enough to make things cooler by the lake in the summertime. I can also get away with some zone 4 plants in places like close to the house. I won’t plant for a few weeks yet, although I did buy from the greenhouse so that I could get a decent selection. I was out doing some weeding today. The temps were around sixty and it was nice and cool to get that finished. Plus there are no mosquitoes yet. The lilacs are just beginning to bud here.
Since I am not a gardener, I was unfamiliar with hardiness zones. So I looked it up, and here is what I found:
“Most of the state of Connecticut falls in hardiness zone 6, although the extreme northwest part of the state is zone 5, and the southern coastal region is now considered zone 7.”
Cheryl – It seems to me that there is a wide spectrum in both masculinity and femininity. What is interesting – something that Nightingale and I have seen and discussed – is that in our modern, “woke” world, so many people who don’t fall within the paradigms of the stereotypes of masculine or feminine are assumed to be homosexual or transgender. Children, even toddlers, who seem to gravitate to the stereotypical interests of the opposite sex are way too often these days assumed to be transgender.
This seems very odd considering our society tends to value individuality and not following the “rules” that previously generations have set down. (Not sure I am describing this well enough.)
Nightingale pointed out that Easy Bake Ovens (usually considered a girl’s toy, but one which can be enjoyed by boys, too) used to be blue, but now are pink. That is one example of how some toys have been changed to look more stereotypically for girls or boys. (But then there was that Mr. Potato Head silliness.)
It seems that the transgender “females” I have seen tend to be quite stereotypically “female”, with long hair, make-up, dresses, etc.
OK, I picked up 2 more hanging baskets — all three are trailing geraniums, very hardy, so they’ll last a while. The last hanging flowers did, too. Until they didn’t.
I also bought a sweet pea bush. My mom was the gardener and I sometimes I’ll see something at the nursery and I remember her talking about how her sweet peas (or whatever) were doing. So I’ll buy them.
I don’t understand Cheryl’s comment about how I should find a man to support. Not that there aren’t plenty around to pick from, mostly living in tents on sidewalks. Maybe there are more I could support in Winchester.
I’m already envisioning putting some benches around the new pine tree once it’s planted. And some flowers, maybe some embedded pavers and/or bricks.
Almost forgot to mention. . .Finally heard back from the Teamsters Pension Fund with the paperwork to fill out and send in. According to the letter that came with it, I will be receiving almost $200 more than the estimate that was given me last month.
The funny thing is that the letter is dated May 3, 2021 and informs me that I was eligible to collect as of April 1, 2021.
I’m wondering if they will send that payment, too, when it finally starts. Either way, I am very grateful to have this pension, which I didn’t even know I was eligible for. I will have to pay taxes, and pay for my own health insurance (as well as saving up for deductibles and whatnot), but it will still be more than I was initially expecting (which was only Social Security).
Now I am looking forward to seeing how much it will be after taxes, and how much my insurance will be, so Nightingale and I can make out a new budget.
DJ (and Kizzie), the definition I quoted in 7:15 defined femininity by “support[ing] and strengthen[ing] worthy leadership from men.” So my comment was that it’s absurd to suggest that that is the only–or even the best–way a woman can be feminine. It is true (up to a point) for a married woman, but it strongly suggests that a single woman either can’t be feminine at all, or that she can only be feminine if she has a significant male in her life.
When I was getting ready to get married, one or two of my siblings suggested strongly that my oldest brother must sign off on the marriage or I couldn’t biblically marry. I pointed out that my brother had never supported me financially and was a very irregular part of my life (we talked by phone once or twice a year, and I saw him for an evening every other year or so, except for the occasional family wedding or funeral). I was basically told I should have put myself under his authority, and that saying he hadn’t supported me was admitting my own culpability. (Granted he never called and offered me a place to live, and he traveled a good part of the year and his family already filled up his car. But apparently I was supposed to call him and ask him to take me in.) I don’t really think this writer has this sort of relationship in mind, so I don’t really know what he means.
“Femininity” cannot be defined based on what it looks like in a loving marriage, nor “masculinity” what it looks like in such a place.
There was some debate about these definitions a couple of years ago, and I figured most people had probably seen that they aren’t adequate. But I just saw them quoted again in an article about raising a son to be a godly man.
As Mumsee suggested, most of the traits of a godly man are traits of a godly human being, and likewise with the traits of a godly woman. I do think that femininity and masculinity can be defined beyond that a little more specifically, but defining a man or a woman only in terms of that person’s role in marriage is forgetting that many people never marry and most of us will only be married about half of our lives. A good definition has to fit singles, whether young adults who aren’t married yet, middle-aged adults who have never married, or widows. If a definition of manhood wouldn’t fit Jesus, it’s a bad definition. But also, if Christlikeness can only be defined in terms of masculine traits, it’s also a bad definition.
Chas’ story reminds me of hippie friends who didn’t bother to get married, even though they were 8 months pregnant. They went home to visit her mom before the delivery.
Mom was taking a cake decorating class and just happened to have decorated a wedding cake.
She showed it to,them. “What a shame for a wedding cake to go to waste.”
They agreed, went to city hall (in overalls!) and got married!
Still going strong, and now believers, 45 years later!
Women and men are very different. I don’t feel that their work roles define them, as work is work, and someone needs to get it done. I don’t seek out feminine or masculine qualities per se, but look for those who conduct themselves as ladies or gentlemen. My mother always used to say ” act like a lady and others will treat you like one”. I have found that to be true on so many different levels.
As for 6arrows question about work/break schedules, at my place of employment, you might work a 12 hour shift and never have a chance to take a break, or eat anything. Just depends on the day. Most days are hopping. At home, I tend to get up and be on the go all day long. I often sit down to eat supper and realize I have not sat down all day long. That is just me. I like to work. When doing school, I have to have a break every hour, or my brain will shut down.
Kizzie, plant hardiness zones are a way of classifying if a plant can survive year after year when planted outside. That’s why I can have an apple tree, but not an orange tree. Although I do have a mock orange bush which has beautiful white blossoms in June and smells like orange blossoms.
Philidelphus Lewisii! Syringa Mock Orange, the Idaho State flower. Shockingly, we have those as well. One was here when we moved in, I purchased one, and took a clipping of the one that was here and started more. Happy plants.
And it should be a happy mother’s day for any on here who ever had a mother. And if you didn’t, perhaps you could shed some light on that whole UFO deal.
Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows.
Glad it’s landed with no destruction or injuries.
And Happy Mother’s Day!
It’s a May Gray morning here — the cat was all wound up, she would not let me sleep any later. She was head-butting, purring and loudly meowing constantly, pestering, pestering, walking on top of me, back and forth. Get up. Get up. Feed me now. What a brat.
After getting fed, she raced back and forth through the house a few times, thundering paws. Now she’s gone back to bed.
I needed to throw some things into the dryer anyway, so just as well I was up “early” (6:30) for me. And this gives me extra time to get ready for church, last week I made it in time but just barely. We’re carrying on with our second week of sermons on Revelation.
Shirley’s family will be visiting her today (except for the one son and family who decided not to get the vaccine — apparently that’s the rehab’s requirement for visitors now, along with tests).
And I was thinking about Lucero, the neighbor on the other side of me — this will be her first Mother’s Day since her one son died (last August), leaving her with just one son. They’ve had a lot of heartache since moving in here, including the unexpected loss of the husband/dad probably about 8 years ago now.
L’s mom from Mexico is now staying with them permanently after moving about 6 months ago; she’d come up for visits every year, but she’s in her 90s (they’re not really sure of her age, there’s no birth certificate they’ve ever seen, apparently) and they decided it was time she come to stay with them for good. They have a lot of family in Mexico still.
DJ, my being allowed to sleep in is the exact reason Misten got her breakfast in the 10:00 hour. I figured if I happened to oversleep, she wouldn’t go hungry and she wouldn’t wake me up–it benefited both of us.
As it turns out, Misten was a super polite dog and she never bugged me about eating. She would start looking at me if it moved past her mealtime, but she wouldn’t be all that forceful about it. If she was looking at me and I was sitting, she’d be lying down across the room. If I stood, she figured I was about to feed her, and she would stand too. But if I sat back down (to see her reaction), she’d simply lie down again. Our pastor and his wife kept her if we went out of town, and our pastor’s wife once confessed Misten missed supper one night because Misten was looking at her and our pastor’s wife figured she wanted to be petted, and she petted her, and it was only during the night or the next morning that she realized the staring was a very polite reminder dinner time had arrived. Well, Misten would occasionally come and lay her head on my leg if she wanted to be petted, but she was never even that insistent on mealtime; she simply waited and watched me until I noticed the time.
Of course, when she was a few months old and quite tall, a few times she rested her chin on the table for a few seconds to watch me eat and let me know what I was eating smelled quite good. I made her lie down, and if she continued to stare at me from that position, I put her outside. By the time she was a year old, she ignored me–and any guests I might have–while I ate, which was a whole lot nicer, probably more pleasant for both of us!
For Jo or others who like to read women’s fiction, a book of four novellas in Here at Hare’s Crossing by Robin Lee Hatcher, available free for Kindle today. I hope Jo sees this while it is still on for free.
I have a rose bush blooming that my MIL gave me years ago. That is my gift for today. Also, yesterday God gave me a near perfect photo of a clover bloom to post with my haiku. I took two photos and one was all blurry. I was surprised at how nicely the second one turned out.
I just found out that a first cousin died of Covid.
We had a mock orange bush at our previous house. It was ugly for all but a few weeks of the year. I wanted to cut it down, but two daughters wouldn’t let me because of the white flowers in June. Once the two moved out, I cut it back to just a foot or two tall so we could sell the house. It was right next to the kitchen, so in plain sight of the street.
A middle-aged man carrying a bouquet of flowers was on his way out of the supermarket as I was walking in — that’s all he bought, I figured someone had a late reminder (or maybe he was driving somewhere and it was just easier to stop off and pick them up at the market). There were a lot of street vendors working all the intersections, too, buckets of flowers close by.
Cheryl, therein lies one of the big practical differences between dog and cat ownership.
My dogs are polite also, since working from home their dinner has been shifted from first thing in the morning to early-mid afternoon. I’ll usually give them a biscuit first thing in the morning.
Ah, but cats.
They are very different creatures who eat several times a day, a couple mouthfuls at a time.
And they are not polite.
I can’t leave her food out as Tess will some way, somehow — even though it’s up high on a butcher block table — to stand up and steal the food, dish and all.
I had Boy write a little note in a blank note card for Nightingale, and I wrote her a card myself, and included a check, for a rather large amount, to be for Mother’s Day, her upcoming birthday, and the end of her school year. She has been working so hard, and dealing with a lot of stress, and had expressed wanting to do a couple nice, but expensive, things for herself when this semester is over, so I am giving her some money to go towards those things. (One is a skin care treatment, and the other is participating in a fitness challenge.)
When X’s-Mom came to pick up Boy for their visit, she brought two bouquets of roses mixed with some other flowers, and had Boy choose which one is for Nightingale and which one is for me. (I got the red roses, since he knows that red is my favorite color.)
Got it Janice, thanks.
I am still writing notes and God is reminding me. I realized on Mother’s Day I should write my stepmom and I also made the card for her 90th birthday at the beginning of June. I am sure there will be a party, but I will not be there. Isn’t God good to remind me at the right time?
I bought a new flex hose through Amazon a week ago (well, 2, actually, one for the front, one for the back) so after church spent some time getting the one in the backyard all set up and broken in. I was getting more wet than the plants with the old ones — the flex/fabric hoses are so much easier to use but don’t last s long as the heavy-duty vinyl hoses.
They are not supposed to stay out in the sun. Or run across barbed wire. Just so you know. But they sure are convenient for those hard to get places and dragging heavy hoses.
Well hubby just installed some new, brighter ceiling lights in our hallway that I’ve been wanting. He bought them at Home Depot yesterday. Does that count?
The cousin who died was a good bit older than his brother and sister who I knew fairly well. I hardly ever saw this cousin who just died. Another cousin who was in a nursing home in Albany, GA died in a nursing facility rather early into Covid. As far as I know, these are my only relatives who have died from it.
Nightingale ordered, and had delivered, pizza, wings, and tiramisu for our Mother’s Day dinner. Yummy! Being relieved that I had heard from Chickadee, I was more easily able to enjoy our time together. She let Boy go upstairs when he finished eating, and then she and I sat at the table and talked and laughed. A nice time.
I’m surprised to see I’m in the same plant zone as Cheryl, who’s far south of me, but I guess that’s because of what Roscuro said. Being surrounded by the Great Lakes moderates our winters. I notice that in central Michigan, away from the Lakes, they’re in 4b and 5.
I’ve managed to keep one of my lifelong goals, of avoiding seeing snow in May. The town we moved from three years ago had snow last night and some slush around this morning. (Not just a few flakes, in other words, but actual snow.) I got out of Chicago before I had to experience that, but I got too close to it today and am glad we didn’t get it.
Wandering Views 
Good evening Jo.
Good morning everyone else.
So? What is it?
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I haven’t seen such an ugly picture since LindaS posted a picture of me.
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Chas, you certainly have a sense of humor this morning. I rather thought yesterday’s header was rather brooding and scary.
Welcome to my day. I am off for some sleep. I finished 20 notes for folks to send back with a friend. Even to a few of my grands.
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No kidding here.
I wonder how long this will go on. Forever maybe.
A man and a woman on TV sit across the room from each other.
It isn’t natural. No matter what the cause. It isn’t natural.
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I see on TV a large group of men.
They were all dressed alike. In dark suits.
A female friend long ago said, “all men look alike.” What she meant is that they all dress the same. While women try to be different from each other.
The women are more interesting to look at.
The men don'[t care, in particular.
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Good morning. A beautiful day here.
Actually, I believe a lot of women dress to look alike but in a unique way but not too unique but always in a pressing the limits way. It is rather bizarre.
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That is why many of my daughters now run around in tights.
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Chas doesn’t remember the 70s when men’s suits came in a rainbow of colors. Now they are all various shades of dark.
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I never went in for fads. But I wore coat and tie to work every day until the day I retired. I made a point of wearing a sportsshirt that day.
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I have been retired so long that I almost forgot what I did.
I was a photogrammetrist. We mapped denied areas using satellite photography. It was top secret.
Strange. What we were doing was classified.
However, we did the same thing on the moon and I gave a paper on it to the American Society of Photogrammetry.
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A man on TV was discussing the space junk from a Chinese satellite that is supposed to land on earth this weekend. He said, “We should hold the Chinese accountable.”
So? What does that mean?
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My grandson wore a ‘patriotic’ suit to attend prom with a group of guy friends. That, too, is a fad. My mom always told me to buy classic clothes and you will always be in style. There is a lot of truth to that. She also said most women dress for other women, not men and there is a lot of truth in that. There are times women dress for men, of course.
My husband just commented on the ridiculous eye glasses a woman was wearing. They were enormous. The sad thing is that it becomes difficult to find clothes, glasses etc. that are not ridiculous when almost everyone jumps on the bandwagon. I hate the tights look.
We built our house in a field. Now we have trees all around that tower over the house and have had to have some cut down. I forget how bare it was until I see pictures. Excpt I always remember the horrid wind in the winter and the horrible drifts. I love the trees and all the wild life that takes advantage of them. We are zone 3, BTW. Do you all know your plant zone?
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Kathy
No.
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Kathaleena, according to the plant magazines and internet zoning maps, we are in seven. I do not believe that. Instead, I plant for three with some special sites where we can try a four.
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K, zone 5. Southern Ontario is in a unique zone because of how it is surrounded by the Great Lakes.
When my parents built their house, there were no trees where they built, while the forest was a solid line, as if along a field. That is what the property had been, a market garden field, stopping at the tree line. So all the tall pines and maples and birches we have now around the house were planted by my parents.
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10b
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4a. 2nd Arrow is 4b. 1st Arrow is 3a.
Kathaleena, 1st Arrow was in Duluth a week ago — May 1 — and he said the temperature got up to 90°! A record, I’m sure, for that early in the spring, or probably just about any time, I’m guessing, for there!
I am on break from working around the home today. I read about the “52/17 Rule,” or whatever you might call it, where people have determined that peak productivity happens with a 52-minutes-of-work to 17-minutes-of-break balance is done.
Hmmm, I thought, I will try that.
And now my timer just rang, after reading today’s posts and looking up zones, and posting, so it’s back to work now…! 🙂
How do you all work best?
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I haven’t done any work in years now.
I’m presently waiting for a great-grandson to come cut my grass.
No. It’s not fun.
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I am a dictator. I dictate from my chair.
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If you’re going to shut down a gas pipeline on the east coast, the middle of May is the best time to do it.
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I’m at the computer most of my days for work, which can take its toll, depending on how busy the day is for writing. I have remind myself to get up, walk around, go outside, do something, so I get some kind of a break. I work completely out of the back room off the kitchen where my desk is — and since working from home I never really go in there except for the day job. Once I’m off the clock, I emerge and leave the room behind, until I have to return on my next scheduled day.
I think this may be the day when I finally replace those hanging flower baskets. And the front yard is now filled with brown, ugly fox tails, hopefully that will be at least cosmetically taken care of when the gardener comes on Monday. Fox tail season, thankfully, only lasts a couple months.
I really wish I could just take the weedy grass out and put in colorful (but drought-resistant) plants, put in a drip line. But that’s a real process. I may talk to the gardener about it, I’m pretty sure they’ve done that before for other customers. Have no idea of costs, though, and right now probably isn’t the time.
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https://twitter.com/buitengebieden_/status/1390924897350729732
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My hardiness zone is 6A. We had frost this morning, though. Not a heavy frost, but there was frost on the roof of the car and some on the grass.
Well, I’ve taken my first outing with a tripod, and the animals were cooperative. My main stop was a woodpecker nest, and I saw several feedings, though I didn’t manage to capture any flight shots. (They mostly went around to the back of the tree before flying away.) We saw the female working on the nest several weeks ago, and have been watching the nest on and off ever since. The young are still small enough that the parents go inside to feed them; I’m watching for the day they peek out of the nest hole. Since it’s a mile away, I don’t plan to carry a tripod over there every day, but the nest is way high in a tree, too high for one of my cameras to get the shot well and even the lighter camera is too heavy to hold up in position for long, and I wasn’t even going to try it with the new, heavier one.
I’ve also been wanting to try a tripod at my local pond ever since we moved in three years ago, and today I had an excuse to do so. And the creatures cooperated! A muskrat didn’t pose for its photo, but it did show up, and so did quite a number of turtles of at least two species. A great blue heron find a spot and stayed there the whole time I did, though I never saw it catch anything. A Canada goose swam across and then quickly went past the heron to find its own patch of soil. A pair of mourning doves flew in and walked around. Several sandpipers moved around all over the place. Red-winged blackbirds were flying around and calling, and crows flew overhead in a large flock. And at one point I moved the camera, and just as I did a green heron flew–first I’ve seen this season. Its mate showed up later, and they flew around. A camera on a tripod is a limitation in some ways, and I didn’t get any good shots of the green heron, but I’m just glad to see them back and I hope they’ll nest this year. (I never saw young last year but saw them the two years before at this pond.) I might have heard a kingfisher, but I didn’t see one–it was the only one of the semi-regular species that didn’t show up. But today was the first day this season to see that many species at the pond, and thus a good day to be there with the tripod, even though I’m new with the camera and brand new with the tripod and undoubtedly could have done better with today’s sightings with more experience. (I also had my other camera with me and took a few shots handheld, but I was focusing mainly on the tripod and missed several shots that would have been best handheld, like the green herons flying around.)
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When I am at work, it is like I have no existence outside of it. In concentrating on other people’s lives, my own existence becomes a secondary consideration. I eat and take breaks in order to gain and conserve energy to continue working. When you see twenty to thirty different patients, all with completely unique circumstances, every spare minute becomes precious. On 12 hour weekends I work alone and am both desk clerk and nurse, answering phonecalls and screening patients in between visits that are timed exactly as they are during the week. It is grueling work, and by night my brain is too exhausted to think outside the grooves of routine.
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Honestly, DJ, do I need to come down there to replace those dead plants?
Or, perhaps I should start in my own backyard . . . .? 😦
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michelle, I’m seriously getting (more) depressed just seeing them (so I try not to look).
But I’d like to start sitting out on the front porch again to read or just to relax but it’s so unpleasant with the trailing dead sprigs hanging off the baskets on the porch.
Then there’s the brown pine tree in the back …
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Would Home Depot be crowded today because of Mother’s Day? But if I wait too long the hanging baskets may be down to a slim choice.
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Winchester is usually quite green or white.
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Of course, the only thing on zillow right now is that eight bedroom, three million home or the one hundred sixty four acres for seven hundred thousand. Room for the dogs and sheep.
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We are still bringing the petunias in at night but they are thriving, filling in nicely. Get on it, DJ, you know it always makes you feel better even with the watering.
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I don’t know my plant zone. Al, I know is somethings grow here but not others. I wish I could grow gardenias. But I’ll settle for the lilacs we transplanted. No flowers yet, but the bush is 3′ tall. Oh, and our irises have started to bloom Lovely purple flowers.
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We’re Zone 2, but sometimes we can get away with a Zone 3 plant. Until the one winter arrives with little snow cover to insulate – then those Zone 3’s are done.
It bugs me that the big box stores here sell plants/trees that are zone 5 – there is no way they’ll survive even if you have a micro climate in your yard. I’m currently looking for a perennial called sea holly – it’s a unique plant which I’ve seen and someone in Saskatoon is selling them from their own garden, but 2 ½ hours is a long way to go for a plant. I’ll keep looking.
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52 minutes isn’t enough time to clean out a refrigerator when one doesn’t clean out the refrigerator often.
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New camera, Cheryl? Cool. 🙂
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9b
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Some of these posts look like people telling their shoe sizes. But I know what they mean.
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Yesterday afternoon, Boy came rushing in the house to go pee. He left both my door and the outside door (which is directly across the entryway from my door) open, and Heidi got out. (He said he closed them, but obviously he didn’t close them well enough.) Noticing that Gabby-Mom and Gabby and a boy from the daycare were out across the street, she went over to visit. The children got Heidi to come in by getting her to chase them, and then running through my open front doorway with her right behind. Smart children!
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Kizzie, that worked out!
OK, I used a gift card from over a year ago and stocked up on pretty potted flowers, but they only had one trailing geranium for the hanging options. I bought that, but will need to find 2 more elsewhere that will at least blend with the look.
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all my IDs
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A Chinese rocket is going to crash somewhere in the Pacific, they think.
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A poignant Olasky column on abortion:
https://wng.org/roundups/abortion-where-things-stand-1619878191
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I am in the zone where no one owns a hose and everything stays green all year long. Oh, there is red grass season. You should see how tall my poinsettia bush is!
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Donna @ 1:14
Home Depot is not the place husbands go to buy a present for their wives.
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I see on TV that a Chinese rocket is scheduled to enter the atmosphere this weekend.
Seems to me that it needs to get to it if it plans to meet schedule.
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I would have to move to the deep South to live in a zone that matches my shoe size. 😉
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Uh oh, my husband buys me things from home depot.
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Good progress, DJ. Don’t forget to water.
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Sounds like they are thinking the Long March rocket core will end in the Atlantic.
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All set up with Shirley’s husband next door who will help me get Cowboy into the car Monday morning. I can handle Tess OK, she’s amenable to putting her front paws up on the seat so I can then lift her back end in — but Cowboy is anxious by nature and just hunkers down to the ground, doubling his weight, so I need someone who can scoop his 50-lb dead-weight self up completely and set him into the Jeep.
Sounds like Shirley is making progress, he said she walked all the way down the hall (not easily, and with a leg brace and some help); but she also is getting some movement in her right hand, which is new.
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It is currently around 21 tons. That could give you a headache. But the Shuttle Columbia was two hundred thousand pounds, broke up over Texas and injured nobody on the ground.
Last year’s Long March debris fell off the west coast of Africa, though I thought heard it landed on land as well.
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Good news on Shirley!
How do dogs do that? Make themselves heavier? I know they do as I had a fearful Airedale that would do the same thing. He was heavy when he wanted to be!
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Here’s a question. How would you define what it means to be a man or a woman or masculinity and femininity? I ask because I have seen these definitions of manhood and womanhood several times (not wanting this to descend into a discussion about the author, I’ll just give the definitions) and the one for women really rubs me the wrong way. This definition would say, for instance, that DJ should find some man to support and Roscuro needs to focus more on her dad and brothers-in-law than on her mom, sisters, nephews and nieces, and patients.
“A boy becomes a man when he becomes mature enough to embrace and enjoy the sense of responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women and children in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships in order to fulfill humanity’s God-given commission.”
“The essence of mature femininity is the freeing disposition to support and strengthen worthy leadership from men (and reject or redirect unworthy leadership) in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships in order to fulfill humanity’s God-given commission.”
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Hardiness Zone 7b for Atlanta.
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Peter, to get the lilacs to bloom you need to dig around their roots. Mine did not bloom for a number of years until we put in a new mailbox post beside it. That did the trick.
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Man: around fourteen
Woman: around fourteen
Masculine: protective of others, enjoys being responsible, interest in making a living and taking care of his home and family, somewhat competitive, willing to stand out for family or friends,
Feminine: protective of others, enjoys being responsible, interest in taking care of family through work or home, somewhat competitive, willing to stand out for family
Guess I am not very good at that. They are both human so have human qualities. But they go about them differently.
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Our lilacs bloom beautifully every year, and I neither dig nor prune. The chickens and turkeys take care of all that. I am a live and let live person. Every now and then, I dig up baby lilacs around a tree and plant them around the place, and after a couple of years, they start blooming. Or the goats eat them. Or I cut them down and feed them to the goats. They prefer the baby poplars.
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I’ve never told this before.
Don’t know why I’m telling it now.
But
I never proposed to Elvera.
I left home to join the AF on 2 August 1949 and only went back to visit.
My sister, since then, got married. But at the time her navy Chief was on a ship in the Mediterranean. She was staying with my parents.
I never took a girl to my house to visit my parents. i.e. None of their business.
I started dating Elvera in October, 1955. They didn’t know about her.
A friend, Bob Myers, pastured a small church in nearby North Charleston. He asked me to supply for him one Sunday. I agreed. It was Springtime, (March-April??)
I went home on Saturday before preaching next day. I took Elvera with me.
This is the first time, ever, that my family had ever seen a girl I knew.
They loved her immediately. My sister, I later learned, told my parents “I want her for my sister.” The next time I went down to supply for Bob and took Elvera, they had it set up. Velma (my sister) worked in a jewelry store. She had “found” a set of engagement-wedding rings on sale. Just the thing. She had Elvera wearing an engagement ring before she was engaged.
But by the next visit. We were engaged. It took another week to realize it, but they had us engaged before we decided to go along with it.
It was kind of silly, the way it happened. Likely would have happened anyhow. But my folks (especially Velma) were so anxious that they did it for us.
As I said, that was springtime. By summer, Elvera was wearing the ring and we were engaged. We didn’t marry until 9 June of next year.
But, looking back, it’s funny the way it happened.
I have said that it was a scheme God planned to get Chuck into the world.
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Cheryl, in those definitions it is as if women and men don’t exist outside of how they relate to the opposite sex. It is ridiculous. Usually, as a nurse, I am an encourager of my patients as I teach them about their condition and what they can do for themselves. I am still in a position of power as the healthcare provider, but I make them a partner in their healing process. But occasionally, I get patients who have so little a sense of responsibility that they are a potential danger to themselves, to myself, and to others. In such cases, it doesn’t matter if they are male or female, for their protection and mine, I am the one who must take the lead, telling them what they have to do firmly and heading off any chaotic behaviours before it begins – those under the influence of substances or who have serious behavioural (read criminal) issues can quickly become dangerous if you aren’t in control of the situation. Such definitions of femininity are ludicrously out of touch with real world situations.
As for how I would define what it means to be a man or a woman, I would say that male and female are determined by their sex at birth. Both sexes may encompass a full range of personality types and a full range of interests, and outside the obvious difference of reproductive functions, there is no such thing as an inherently male or female activity. Rather, masculine and feminine norms are largely defined by culture.
Thus to characterize a home where, say, the woman works for a living and the man stays home as a caretaker of the children as being sinful is to go far outside of Scripture. In fact, I was just reading through Luke and when I read again about the women (some of whom were married) who traveled with Jesus and ministered to him, I was reminded how much Jesus treated women as normal humans and not some subspecies. I once did a study on the ‘keepers at home’ passage in Titus 2:5, and found the word ‘keepers’ carried the sense of guarding or keeping watch, rather than staying at home. Furthermore, I found that the Greek phrase about women in that passage is in fact synonymous with the phrase about elders in I Timothy 3:4, “able to rule (the sense is more to keep) well his own house.” As the command to children to obey parents, not just father, demonstrates, both parents are instructed to look after their family.
Definitions that define male and female solely by their relation to the opposite sex remind me of something my mother taught me about definitions. When she taught us spelling, she sometimes had us write in our own words what a word meant. Once when I defined a word by its root, she told me that wasn’t a definition. Defining men and women by their counterpart is not a definition.
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Chas, very cool story.
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Yes, 6 arrows, May 1st was unseasonably hot around here. Otherwise, we have been on the cold side of average.
There are a lot of different hardiness zones represented here. We also have places selling plants that are not going to make it except for a season. Lake Superior does affect the hardiness zone and when to plant. It is big enough to make things cooler by the lake in the summertime. I can also get away with some zone 4 plants in places like close to the house. I won’t plant for a few weeks yet, although I did buy from the greenhouse so that I could get a decent selection. I was out doing some weeding today. The temps were around sixty and it was nice and cool to get that finished. Plus there are no mosquitoes yet. The lilacs are just beginning to bud here.
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Since I am not a gardener, I was unfamiliar with hardiness zones. So I looked it up, and here is what I found:
“Most of the state of Connecticut falls in hardiness zone 6, although the extreme northwest part of the state is zone 5, and the southern coastal region is now considered zone 7.”
But I have no idea what that means. 🙂
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It means you got zone 61, Kizzie, and I get zone 62. 😉
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Cheryl – It seems to me that there is a wide spectrum in both masculinity and femininity. What is interesting – something that Nightingale and I have seen and discussed – is that in our modern, “woke” world, so many people who don’t fall within the paradigms of the stereotypes of masculine or feminine are assumed to be homosexual or transgender. Children, even toddlers, who seem to gravitate to the stereotypical interests of the opposite sex are way too often these days assumed to be transgender.
This seems very odd considering our society tends to value individuality and not following the “rules” that previously generations have set down. (Not sure I am describing this well enough.)
Nightingale pointed out that Easy Bake Ovens (usually considered a girl’s toy, but one which can be enjoyed by boys, too) used to be blue, but now are pink. That is one example of how some toys have been changed to look more stereotypically for girls or boys. (But then there was that Mr. Potato Head silliness.)
It seems that the transgender “females” I have seen tend to be quite stereotypically “female”, with long hair, make-up, dresses, etc.
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OK, I picked up 2 more hanging baskets — all three are trailing geraniums, very hardy, so they’ll last a while. The last hanging flowers did, too. Until they didn’t.
I also bought a sweet pea bush. My mom was the gardener and I sometimes I’ll see something at the nursery and I remember her talking about how her sweet peas (or whatever) were doing. So I’ll buy them.
I don’t understand Cheryl’s comment about how I should find a man to support. Not that there aren’t plenty around to pick from, mostly living in tents on sidewalks. Maybe there are more I could support in Winchester.
I’m already envisioning putting some benches around the new pine tree once it’s planted. And some flowers, maybe some embedded pavers and/or bricks.
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6 Arrows – Cool!
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DJ – I am guessing that Cheryl meant to add “her” after “support”. Get on that, will ya?
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Almost forgot to mention. . .Finally heard back from the Teamsters Pension Fund with the paperwork to fill out and send in. According to the letter that came with it, I will be receiving almost $200 more than the estimate that was given me last month.
The funny thing is that the letter is dated May 3, 2021 and informs me that I was eligible to collect as of April 1, 2021.
I’m wondering if they will send that payment, too, when it finally starts. Either way, I am very grateful to have this pension, which I didn’t even know I was eligible for. I will have to pay taxes, and pay for my own health insurance (as well as saving up for deductibles and whatnot), but it will still be more than I was initially expecting (which was only Social Security).
Now I am looking forward to seeing how much it will be after taxes, and how much my insurance will be, so Nightingale and I can make out a new budget.
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DJ (and Kizzie), the definition I quoted in 7:15 defined femininity by “support[ing] and strengthen[ing] worthy leadership from men.” So my comment was that it’s absurd to suggest that that is the only–or even the best–way a woman can be feminine. It is true (up to a point) for a married woman, but it strongly suggests that a single woman either can’t be feminine at all, or that she can only be feminine if she has a significant male in her life.
When I was getting ready to get married, one or two of my siblings suggested strongly that my oldest brother must sign off on the marriage or I couldn’t biblically marry. I pointed out that my brother had never supported me financially and was a very irregular part of my life (we talked by phone once or twice a year, and I saw him for an evening every other year or so, except for the occasional family wedding or funeral). I was basically told I should have put myself under his authority, and that saying he hadn’t supported me was admitting my own culpability. (Granted he never called and offered me a place to live, and he traveled a good part of the year and his family already filled up his car. But apparently I was supposed to call him and ask him to take me in.) I don’t really think this writer has this sort of relationship in mind, so I don’t really know what he means.
“Femininity” cannot be defined based on what it looks like in a loving marriage, nor “masculinity” what it looks like in such a place.
There was some debate about these definitions a couple of years ago, and I figured most people had probably seen that they aren’t adequate. But I just saw them quoted again in an article about raising a son to be a godly man.
As Mumsee suggested, most of the traits of a godly man are traits of a godly human being, and likewise with the traits of a godly woman. I do think that femininity and masculinity can be defined beyond that a little more specifically, but defining a man or a woman only in terms of that person’s role in marriage is forgetting that many people never marry and most of us will only be married about half of our lives. A good definition has to fit singles, whether young adults who aren’t married yet, middle-aged adults who have never married, or widows. If a definition of manhood wouldn’t fit Jesus, it’s a bad definition. But also, if Christlikeness can only be defined in terms of masculine traits, it’s also a bad definition.
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Chas’ story reminds me of hippie friends who didn’t bother to get married, even though they were 8 months pregnant. They went home to visit her mom before the delivery.
Mom was taking a cake decorating class and just happened to have decorated a wedding cake.
She showed it to,them. “What a shame for a wedding cake to go to waste.”
They agreed, went to city hall (in overalls!) and got married!
Still going strong, and now believers, 45 years later!
That was SOME cake! 🙂
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I live in zone 4 due to the elevation.
Women and men are very different. I don’t feel that their work roles define them, as work is work, and someone needs to get it done. I don’t seek out feminine or masculine qualities per se, but look for those who conduct themselves as ladies or gentlemen. My mother always used to say ” act like a lady and others will treat you like one”. I have found that to be true on so many different levels.
As for 6arrows question about work/break schedules, at my place of employment, you might work a 12 hour shift and never have a chance to take a break, or eat anything. Just depends on the day. Most days are hopping. At home, I tend to get up and be on the go all day long. I often sit down to eat supper and realize I have not sat down all day long. That is just me. I like to work. When doing school, I have to have a break every hour, or my brain will shut down.
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Kizzie, plant hardiness zones are a way of classifying if a plant can survive year after year when planted outside. That’s why I can have an apple tree, but not an orange tree. Although I do have a mock orange bush which has beautiful white blossoms in June and smells like orange blossoms.
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Friends had me over for lunch after church. Then wished me a Happy Mother’s Day and even had a gift for me. I had forgotten all about it
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Philidelphus Lewisii! Syringa Mock Orange, the Idaho State flower. Shockingly, we have those as well. One was here when we moved in, I purchased one, and took a clipping of the one that was here and started more. Happy plants.
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Good morning, got to get out to the chores so I can get back for church in Virginia.
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The Indian Ocean? I did not expect that. I was thinking the Atlantic. No wonder I am not an astronaut.
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Tiny, of her own volition, wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. Something precious to store away.
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And it should be a happy mother’s day for any on here who ever had a mother. And if you didn’t, perhaps you could shed some light on that whole UFO deal.
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Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows.
Glad it’s landed with no destruction or injuries.
And Happy Mother’s Day!
It’s a May Gray morning here — the cat was all wound up, she would not let me sleep any later. She was head-butting, purring and loudly meowing constantly, pestering, pestering, walking on top of me, back and forth. Get up. Get up. Feed me now. What a brat.
After getting fed, she raced back and forth through the house a few times, thundering paws. Now she’s gone back to bed.
I needed to throw some things into the dryer anyway, so just as well I was up “early” (6:30) for me. And this gives me extra time to get ready for church, last week I made it in time but just barely. We’re carrying on with our second week of sermons on Revelation.
Shirley’s family will be visiting her today (except for the one son and family who decided not to get the vaccine — apparently that’s the rehab’s requirement for visitors now, along with tests).
And I was thinking about Lucero, the neighbor on the other side of me — this will be her first Mother’s Day since her one son died (last August), leaving her with just one son. They’ve had a lot of heartache since moving in here, including the unexpected loss of the husband/dad probably about 8 years ago now.
L’s mom from Mexico is now staying with them permanently after moving about 6 months ago; she’d come up for visits every year, but she’s in her 90s (they’re not really sure of her age, there’s no birth certificate they’ve ever seen, apparently) and they decided it was time she come to stay with them for good. They have a lot of family in Mexico still.
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So who got Mother’s Day gifts from Home Depot today?
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And where’s NancyJill?
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No Mother’s Day gifts here, so none from Home Depot.
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The most precious gifts Elvera received were the ones from the 5 and 10 cent store by Chuck.
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My gift wasn’t material this year. I played hymns for my mother as she rested. It has been a while since I did that.
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DJ, my being allowed to sleep in is the exact reason Misten got her breakfast in the 10:00 hour. I figured if I happened to oversleep, she wouldn’t go hungry and she wouldn’t wake me up–it benefited both of us.
As it turns out, Misten was a super polite dog and she never bugged me about eating. She would start looking at me if it moved past her mealtime, but she wouldn’t be all that forceful about it. If she was looking at me and I was sitting, she’d be lying down across the room. If I stood, she figured I was about to feed her, and she would stand too. But if I sat back down (to see her reaction), she’d simply lie down again. Our pastor and his wife kept her if we went out of town, and our pastor’s wife once confessed Misten missed supper one night because Misten was looking at her and our pastor’s wife figured she wanted to be petted, and she petted her, and it was only during the night or the next morning that she realized the staring was a very polite reminder dinner time had arrived. Well, Misten would occasionally come and lay her head on my leg if she wanted to be petted, but she was never even that insistent on mealtime; she simply waited and watched me until I noticed the time.
Of course, when she was a few months old and quite tall, a few times she rested her chin on the table for a few seconds to watch me eat and let me know what I was eating smelled quite good. I made her lie down, and if she continued to stare at me from that position, I put her outside. By the time she was a year old, she ignored me–and any guests I might have–while I ate, which was a whole lot nicer, probably more pleasant for both of us!
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For Jo or others who like to read women’s fiction, a book of four novellas in Here at Hare’s Crossing by Robin Lee Hatcher, available free for Kindle today. I hope Jo sees this while it is still on for free.
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I have a rose bush blooming that my MIL gave me years ago. That is my gift for today. Also, yesterday God gave me a near perfect photo of a clover bloom to post with my haiku. I took two photos and one was all blurry. I was surprised at how nicely the second one turned out.
I just found out that a first cousin died of Covid.
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We had a mock orange bush at our previous house. It was ugly for all but a few weeks of the year. I wanted to cut it down, but two daughters wouldn’t let me because of the white flowers in June. Once the two moved out, I cut it back to just a foot or two tall so we could sell the house. It was right next to the kitchen, so in plain sight of the street.
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I’m so sorry, Janice.
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A middle-aged man carrying a bouquet of flowers was on his way out of the supermarket as I was walking in — that’s all he bought, I figured someone had a late reminder (or maybe he was driving somewhere and it was just easier to stop off and pick them up at the market). There were a lot of street vendors working all the intersections, too, buckets of flowers close by.
Cheryl, therein lies one of the big practical differences between dog and cat ownership.
My dogs are polite also, since working from home their dinner has been shifted from first thing in the morning to early-mid afternoon. I’ll usually give them a biscuit first thing in the morning.
Ah, but cats.
They are very different creatures who eat several times a day, a couple mouthfuls at a time.
And they are not polite.
I can’t leave her food out as Tess will some way, somehow — even though it’s up high on a butcher block table — to stand up and steal the food, dish and all.
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Janice, condolences, that is so sad. I’m sorry.
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My flowers came from Safeway–or I think that’s what #2 child said. 🙂
#1 is ordering Thai food on behalf of his wife, and has invited his mother over, too.
I told him I wanted Pad Thai . . . .
#3 and #4 are in Orange County together so #3 can get a ride to LAX!
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Janice – I am sorry to hear about your cousin. 😦
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I had Boy write a little note in a blank note card for Nightingale, and I wrote her a card myself, and included a check, for a rather large amount, to be for Mother’s Day, her upcoming birthday, and the end of her school year. She has been working so hard, and dealing with a lot of stress, and had expressed wanting to do a couple nice, but expensive, things for herself when this semester is over, so I am giving her some money to go towards those things. (One is a skin care treatment, and the other is participating in a fitness challenge.)
When X’s-Mom came to pick up Boy for their visit, she brought two bouquets of roses mixed with some other flowers, and had Boy choose which one is for Nightingale and which one is for me. (I got the red roses, since he knows that red is my favorite color.)
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Got it Janice, thanks.
I am still writing notes and God is reminding me. I realized on Mother’s Day I should write my stepmom and I also made the card for her 90th birthday at the beginning of June. I am sure there will be a party, but I will not be there. Isn’t God good to remind me at the right time?
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All of that sounds perfect, Kizzie.
I bought a new flex hose through Amazon a week ago (well, 2, actually, one for the front, one for the back) so after church spent some time getting the one in the backyard all set up and broken in. I was getting more wet than the plants with the old ones — the flex/fabric hoses are so much easier to use but don’t last s long as the heavy-duty vinyl hoses.
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They are not supposed to stay out in the sun. Or run across barbed wire. Just so you know. But they sure are convenient for those hard to get places and dragging heavy hoses.
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Well hubby just installed some new, brighter ceiling lights in our hallway that I’ve been wanting. He bought them at Home Depot yesterday. Does that count?
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It was as easy as 1, 2, 3 to get to 100!😀
I will be Zooming soon with Wesley.
The cousin who died was a good bit older than his brother and sister who I knew fairly well. I hardly ever saw this cousin who just died. Another cousin who was in a nursing home in Albany, GA died in a nursing facility rather early into Covid. As far as I know, these are my only relatives who have died from it.
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Linda @ 6:53
That counts.
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Nightingale ordered, and had delivered, pizza, wings, and tiramisu for our Mother’s Day dinner. Yummy! Being relieved that I had heard from Chickadee, I was more easily able to enjoy our time together. She let Boy go upstairs when he finished eating, and then she and I sat at the table and talked and laughed. A nice time.
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Well, I don’t think I’ve heard of plant zones before, but looking it up I see I’m in 6a. Learning something new every day…
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I’m surprised to see I’m in the same plant zone as Cheryl, who’s far south of me, but I guess that’s because of what Roscuro said. Being surrounded by the Great Lakes moderates our winters. I notice that in central Michigan, away from the Lakes, they’re in 4b and 5.
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Okay, I looked it up. I’m in 6a also.
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Mother’s Day celebration was going swimmingly, and then I fell into the pool, completely dressed in street clothes!
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Michelle…..
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I’ve managed to keep one of my lifelong goals, of avoiding seeing snow in May. The town we moved from three years ago had snow last night and some slush around this morning. (Not just a few flakes, in other words, but actual snow.) I got out of Chicago before I had to experience that, but I got too close to it today and am glad we didn’t get it.
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No harm done, Michelle
Unless you were wearing your watch.
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Or worse, carrying the new iPhone
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