by jphilo | Apr 29, 2013 | Daily Life
The weekend’s warm weather gave us
The oomph to clean the sun porch
So the wintered over plants could be moved there
To start adjusting to outdoor air.
But when the plants, previously scattered around the
Dining room, living room, and two bedrooms,
Were gathered in one place,
I wondered if the yard would be big enough to hold them all.
I stood on the porch wondering if I’d overdone
The fall repotting,
The late winter pruning,
And the early spring rerooting.
I wondered if I had too many plants.
Then Grandma Josie whispered in my ear,
Silly girl, you can never have too many plants.
Now, take this piece of sugar bread outside to eat,
So you don’t spill on the floor and attract ants.
My thoughts filled with plants,
Grandma Josie, sugar bread, and an ant-free home,
I walked indoors,
Grateful for spring.
by jphilo | Apr 19, 2013 | Daily Life
Last spring and this spring couldn’t be more different, as a mason jar full of rooted geranium slips shows.
Last spring, I started rooting geraniums in March, which turned out to be too late for an early spring.
This spring, I started rooting them in February, which turned out to be too early for a late spring.
Last spring, warm weather hit in mid-March.
This spring, we’re still waiting for warm weather in mid-April.
Last spring, the geranium slips didn’t have enough roots on them when the weather was warm enough for potting them.
This spring, the geranium slips have so many roots, they may be hard to pull apart…if it ever gets warm enough to pot them.
Last spring was dry.
This spring’s been rainy.
Last spring ended with a drought.
Let’s hope this spring ends the drought.
by jphilo | Apr 12, 2013 | Daily Life
Yup, you read that right. There’s a new bully at our house.
Though I took the bully by the horns last October, wrestling into submission the vinca vine (see above picture) that was sucking the life out of my ivy geranium, the bully scourge has reared it’s ugly head once again.
How’s that for mixing metaphors?
Everything was peachy-keen from October to Christmas when the ivy geranium, now warmly ensconced in a sunny upstairs bedroom, recovered enough to bloom at about the same time as the first blizzard of the season hit. (See photo below.)
The peachy-keenness continued unabated through January and February. No more blossoms, but the geranium and the vinca vine co-existed peacefully, thanks to their roomy pot, the sunny east window, and weekly watering.
But this week, when I turned the pot around so the backside of the plant could enjoy the direct sunlight, it was obvious that the former victim of bullying had become the bully. Miss Snooty-Tooty Ivy Geranium is now so large she’s hogging the sunlight and water, while Mr. Victim Vinca Vine is hanging on for dear life. (See photo below.)
Okay, so maybe “hanging on for dear life” is a bit of an exaggeration, especially since vinca vines are supposed to hang. Even so, it’s obviously time for spring to arrive so I can kick the new bully out of the house and move her not-so-innocent victim into a separate pot for the summer.
Plants. I can’t live with ’em, and I can’t live without ’em!
by jphilo | Mar 22, 2013 | Daily Life
Modern consumers pay good money for cold stuff.
Think Wells Blue Bunny ice cream
Think hockey tickets:
Photo Source
Think ice fishing:
Photo Source
Think Disney on Ice:
Photo Source
And yet this year, we’ve had an entire bonus month of cold stuff absolutely free of charge, thanks to the generosity of Mother Nature.
Think Spring on Ice
Photo Source: The rain bucket beside our garage on March 22, 2013 at 1:15 PM
by jphilo | Feb 25, 2013 | Daily Life
Who knew remodeling could be sexy? Certainly not me, until I went upstairs to investigate the progress on the hall floor project. Remember that project? The one we foolishly thought would take only a month or two. The one that enters its eleventh month of progress (or lack thereof) in March.
With no end in sight.
The finish work came to a screeching halt when a respiratory virus nailed both of us in January. But the man of steel is hard at work again, attacking the baseboards with plaster of Paris and a putty knife. I’m not sure what the purpose is, but he assures me it’ll look great…eventually.
Whenever eventually comes.
In the meantime, and perhaps in an effort to snazz things up in the midst of the mess, he decided to tape off the baseboards with not only customary painter’s tape, but also with the leopard skin duct tape that somehow landed in his Christmas stocking a few years back, along with hot pink and Hello Kitty varieties.
He was not amused at the time.
But now he’s come to grips with Santa’s thoughtless de-mannifying of the most manly of man tools: duct tape. In fact, the man of steel is expressing his inner interior decorator more the longer the project drags on. Revealing his feminine side in a most manly and surprising way. With leopard skin duct tape.
Remodeling doesn’t get any sexier than this.
by jphilo | Feb 18, 2013 | Daily Life
Mysteries have been my drug of choice ever since Mrs. Eggleston read one of the Bobsey Twins books aloud to our second grade class. Thereafter, I ditched swinging at recess for playing detective with whoever I could convince to be Freddie to my Flossie.
Mrs. Eggleston had no idea the Bobsey Twins could be an entrance drug.
During my middle school years, Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden ensnared me. By high school and into college, I was hooked on Agatha Christie. During our South Dakota years, I mainlined P. D. James and Arthur Conan Doyle. Once we moved to Boone, and books were freely available on the street corner than housed the city library, my habit grew: Elizabeth Peters, Diane Mott Davidson, Lilian Jackson, MC Beaton, Catherine Hart, Sue Grafton.
Those are only a few of the authors who turned me into a life long mystery junkie.
These days, I’m reading Craig Johnson, Jane Haddam, Jacqueline Winspear, Anne George, Elizabeth George, David Rosenfelt, and whoever else I can get my hands on. Reading when time allows. Listening to audiobooks when it doesn’t. Watching PBS Mysteries when I’m desperate.
But those fixes no longer satisfy my cravings.
I want more. Much more. Now I dream about making my own stuff, of setting up a little fiction lab in the living room. I’ve read two cookbooks–Elizabeth George’s Write Away and James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure. I’ve gathered the ingredients: the strange disappearance of a rancher in northwest South Dakota, a greenhorn elementary teacher who comes to town and lands in the middle of the mystery. I’ve scrounged together a theme, a plot. I even have time to work on it. All that remains is to mix everything together and cook the book, so to speak.
But I’m scared. Really scared.
What if mystery writing consumes all my time? What if the book never gets published? What if it leads to unforeseen consequences? What if I’m a coward and turn my back on this opportunity? What if I fail? What if I succeed?
Why did Mrs. Eggleston have to introduce our class to those Bobsey twins?
But even if she hadn’t, even if she’d stuck with less edgy second grade fare like Dick and Jane, I probably wouldn’t have heard, “Run, Jane, run!” I would have heard, “Write, Jolene, write.” Because I hated to run. But I was hooked on stories. Even before the Bobsey Twins. So here goes nothing…
…write, Jolene, write!
