by jphilo | Nov 19, 2008 | Daily Life
Yesterday, several of you shared your solutions to beat winter’s gloom and darkness. I’m doing all I can to follow your advice.
As Sean suggested, I took a walk and enjoyed being outdoors. The Old Firefighter and Janet reminded me that winter is a good time to think and ponder and complete projects that get crowded out by good weather. I haven’t gotten the daylight light bulbs yet, but they’re on my shopping list.
Here’s what I do on sunny days, like today. I move my laptop, which usually lives in my office in the northwest corner of the house, to my kitchen. I work at the island in front of the big south and west corner windows and soak up the sun. I feel a little like a cat sunning itself on a window ledge. Most of the time, I resist the urge to purr.
But, winter is looong along my gravel road, and not every day is sunny. So I could use more gloom and darkness buster suggestions or I won’t outlast the season. So keep your ideas coming.
In the meantime, let this thought cheer you. On December 21, the amount of daylight will start to increase. Only 32 more days. Wahoo! I can hardly wait!
by jphilo | Nov 18, 2008 | Daily Life
Get a load of the blue sky above my gravel road today. The past few weeks have been overcast, wet, and gloomy so sunshine during my walk was a welcome treat. The clear sky made for chilly temperatures: I held out until ten o’clock, when the temperature had risen from eighteen to twenty-six degrees, before I hit the road.
By this afternoon, the sky was overcast again and though it’s not five in the afternoon yet, the sun is going down. I’m sinking into a darkness-induced depression, ready to hibernate until February. My best gloom-busting trick doesn’t go into effect until the Sunday after Thanksgiving when we string white lights all over the place and put up the Christmas tree.
Please, tell me I’m not alone in this. Misery loves company, so please add a comment about how winter’s gloom and darkness affects you and, most importantly, how you cope with it. Let’s get the ideas rolling. I’m not sure I’ll make it until November 30 without your help!
by jphilo | Nov 10, 2008 | Daily Life
Saturday and Sunday, Hiram and I went to Parents’ Weekend at Northwestern. SInce the college is only twenty minutes from my hometown, we took Mom along and stayed at my cousin’s house. We, Anne included, spent more time with relatives than at college.
Sunday morning, Anne drove over and we went to church where I grew up and where Hiram and I were married. The candle lighters used the same candle lighting gizmos to light the same candles I used during my childhood. We saw old neighbors and friends, former college professors. Some looked about the same, some looked much older and the visit reminded me time doesn’t stand still.
Our visit with Anne was further proof of the passage of time. Last year when we arrived, she was overjoyed to see us. She stayed overnight with us at my cousin’s. This year she was glad to see us, but eager to return to her dorm at the end of the day, busy with homework and her friends.
My walk down the gravel road this morning reminded me again of how quickly time passes. Winter is in the air. The leaves are gone and the temperature was about 20 degrees. It even snowed over the weekend, though it didn’t stick.
My to do list for the week is huge. I need to do research about the marketing and business end of my book, not to mention technical research related to my website. I need to cut and slash more from Slick Creek and keep up with all my new friends on Facebook. I won’t have enough time. I can just feel it. So I’ll do what I can, trust God with the rest, and wait for the snow.
by jphilo | Oct 31, 2008 | Daily Life
Confession time!
For the past two days, assisted by my mother who came to visit, I have successfully employed every diversionary tactic in my arsenal. I’m avoiding a writing job – preschool curriculum for a mid-week church club program – that needs to be done before Thanksgiving.
With my book manuscript in the hands of readers, this is the perfect chance to work on the curriculum, but you tell me how to rewrite the story of Abraham sending his servant to hunt up a wife for his son Isaac and integrate it into the theme of “Families Care About Each Other,” for preschoolers, no less. I’m thinking the servant’s camels, water jugs and Rebekah’s bangle bracelets are going to play big in this one.
With this daunting challenge ahead, is it any surprise I’m looking for diversions? Unfortunately, my supply is running low. I took Mom back to my brother’s yesterday, so that excuse is gone. And I put the last of the bushel and a half of apples friends gave us into the dehydrator this morning, so that one’s gone to. I dilly-dallied on my walk this morning and planned to spend as long as possible taking pictures of the wasp’s nest along the road, but the camera battery died after a couple shots, so that diversion tanked. The farmer down the road is harvesting his corn, and I’m sorely tempted to take pictures once the camera battery is recharged, but the excursion involves climbing around in ditches full of poking, diabolical weeds, so I’ll pass.
This diversion thing is common among writers. In fact one once said to me, “It’s amazing how important alphabetizing your spice cupboard becomes when staring at an empty computer screen.” Amen, sister.
Which comes first, cloves or cumin?
by jphilo | Oct 29, 2008 | Daily Life
The temperature has been dancing around the freezing mark for the past two weeks, without any significant damage to my flowerbeds. The cosmos and daisies have put on quite an October show, unlike any I can remember. One rose bush kept blooming, too.
But a cold front moved in Sunday. When the skies cleared late Monday afternoon, the temperature dropped. Tuesday morning the world glittered with frost, and the flowers were toast. Even the fall mums shivered and drooped.
It’s time to pull the cosmos stalks and shake the seed heads on the bare patches of dirt. Fall is half-gone and winter’s on the way. Spring will be here before I know it. I want my flowerbeds to be ready.
by jphilo | Oct 2, 2008 | Daily Life
Over a week ago, I scheduled an appointment with my husband, “Next Wednesday,” I proclaimed fiercely, “I get three hours of your time.” He looked slightly wild-eyed as I exacted a promise from him.
Wednesday is his day off, and he usually fills it with middle school youth group work, guitar-making, lawn mowing, whatever. Since it’s the only day when the two off us can do yard work, most years I don’t think ahead and nab a spot on his calendar before his time is committed elsewhere. Then, about mid-November, I kick myself because I didn’t salvage the Grandma Newell heritage geranium or bring any other plants inside before a killing frost.
Normally, it’s not such a big deal because Mom took cuttings from her Grandma Newell geraniums in the fall and gave me new ones in the spring. But not this year. With her at my brother’s for the winter, it’s up to me to tend the geraniums. Hence, my overbearing attitude when scheduling yard work with my hubby.
Yesterday was a great day for yard work – sunny, no wind, cool. We started at nine o’clock, weeding the flower beds which have been sadly neglected since Anne left for college. I found a sack of daffodil bulbs Mom gave me earlier in the summer, so Hiram dug a trench and I planted them, too. Finally, we took down the hanging pots and transplanted asparagus fern, vinca vine and the heritage geraniums. For now they’re all on the porch, adjusting to semi-indoor conditions before they come inside for the winter.
By noon we were done. Hiram thought the fence and all the other places where the pots had been hanging looked bare. But I focused more on the flower beds which look so much better, I can quit closing my eyes every time I walk by them.
Yesterday was a good day, but a sad day, too. I can’t deny the approaching winter or the change in Mom’s health which don’t allow me to rely on her anymore. But as we got in the car to go out to lunch, as a sort of celebration, the fall mum by the fence caught my eye. It’s the only mum of its kind that survived a late frost two springs ago. It not only survived, it’s thriving, spectacular.
The sight of it cheered me and gave me hope. If it could make it in spite of the killing frost, maybe the Grandma Newell geraniums will survive my erratic care. Maybe they’ll bloom for another generation or more when I entrust them to Anne’s flower and beauty-loving hands. Mom, I know, would like that.
