Mostly A Miss

The grass is brown, crunchy, and it’s patchy like a sad old dog with a case of the mange. The blades are practically stretching to their limits as if getting closer to the sky would bring the rain.

We were “promised” a good rain-day today, but that certainly didn’t come to fruition. And of course, when we heard about this rain a ‘coming, all 80% of it, we went racing outside with the first sign of cloud-cover to put the ferns, all eight of them, where they could get fresh rainwater.

We got just enough of a sprinkle to make us both sprint to the front porch, practically tripping over one another and our own feet to see what real rain looks like again. We could actually stand there and count the drops as they hit the hot concrete and dried as fast as they seemed to land. Then my husband looked at me and I looked at him, and we both looked out in the yard at the ferns strewn about, and we just turned around and went right back into the house.

We came back inside, turned the television to the weather channel for what would seem like the 47^th time today, to make sure we were at least watching the weather predictions for the right county! And I’m telling you all, it still says we have a 90% chance of thunderstorms tonight! I’m just not seeing that happening.

Now because of all this non-rain we’ve had in the glorious month of “April showers bring May flowers”, I have been watering my yard with the water sprinkler. Funny story about that: our faucet that we connect the water hose to has been “leaking” for about two years now. At first it was just a dribble, then it became an irritating spew. But this year – it became an all-out hostile fireworks water display.

And even though you know how far and wide it’s going to spray because it’s already happened MANY times, and you turn your head to prepare; well you just can’t. It gets you every time anyway. Not only do I have to bend-over, one foot on the ground for balance, and one leg up in the air behind me like a ballerina’s pirouette, half of my face is almost touching the dirt, and the other half is dodging the limbs on the bush that is right next to the faucet so I don’t poke my eye out. So I’m trying to balance, not fall-over and scrape my face upon the side of the house, and dodge the water all at the same time.

After three separate nights of being drenched from my ankles to my ENTIRE FACE, I decided to take charge of getting that dang faucet replaced. I called a local plumber who had done some work for us before. Eighteen total minutes of work and $130 later, I had water that only came out of the bottom of the faucet.

With that kind of work/time to dollar ratio – how my parents didn’t insist that I become a plumber is beyond me!

The Truth Will Set You Free

I remember it like it was yesterday. So many questions would begin to whirl around in my head. How good at it would I be? Could I even do it? I had never even baby-sat or changed a diaper. But I was soon to learn about all of those things – because I was going to be a first-time mother.

That nine months would fly by as fast as a speeding bullet, just as some of those days would seem like they took forever to turn into the next. I don’t think I completely understood at the time the miracle that was growing inside of me, but I knew enough to know, that this would be one of the most special and precious times of my life.

When my baby was no bigger than the size of a pea, I could already feel an unexplainable connection. I would sing, I would read, and my hands were constantly making contact with the vessel in which I was carrying my first born.

And then my baby was born. And for years and years, I made all the decisions. What clothes looked best, the ways in which to fix the hair, and the shoes that went on each foot. Never really thinking about the day that would come, that none of those things would be my decision any longer. And certainly never knowing that the way I looked at my child’s life, my child’s being, may not be the way that my children would see their own reflection.

It’s a hard thing the day you acknowledge and I mean truly admit to yourself – that as a woman, as a mother, you were simply the means to a beginning. You were nothing more than the vessel, but hopefully the one to be a guide for their educational, emotional and physical needs. It’s a startling realization to know that you never really were in charge of their destiny.  

Both of my children are very independent, intelligent, and open-minded. By the time they were both 18 years old, they had very significant and strong ideas about who they were and how their lives were about to proceed.

This may be the truest/hardest story I have ever written – for when I say – that my children’s favorite saying to each other was always “you’re not the boss of me” – it is now being silently said to me.

My oldest child’s story is not mine to tell. I already have my own story and it is in progress, and ever-moving. My children are but chapters in my story, just as hopefully I will always be contributing and continuous chapter’s in theirs.

Changes of major proportions are being made and it has been an emotional struggle for everyone involved. But this beautiful person will always be my child, and will always be loved. And I am the Mama that cannot be anything other than the same Mama I have always been.

Happy 31^st Birthday to my oldest child, J.  May you progressively plow through this sometimes treacherous and scary world, and hopefully find comfort and peace within. 

Angel Wings

Any of my neighbors could testify that I spend hours upon hours sitting on my front porch, on the right-hand side of our glider, because that’s “my” side; more times than not with a camera strapped around my neck. 

My name is Michelle, and I am addicted to bird watching. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much time has passed; until suddenly the sun has moved/gone down considerably from the time I originally planted myself and all my camera apparatus in my seat.

A few weeks ago now, I asked my husband to move our shepherd hooks (again) that our bird feeders hang on. I couldn’t seem to find the optimal location for them so that I could take my bird pictures in full view. We (he) had just moved them two weeks prior, putting them right where I asked him to, all the while telling me they would be too close to the front porch and the birds would be afraid to feed there. After another two weeks of no-show birds, I admitted he was right.

So when I asked him once again to move them, he never complained, he just went right outside and did it all over again for me. Now during this move, I’m perched up on my glider, giving directions (which you probably already knew) and he manages to get one of them in the ground, in the spot I picked, successfully. The other one, which I asked to be placed on the opposite of my jasmine-covered swing, is being stubborn about going into the ground. No matter which way he seems to move it, two inches either direction, it’s not going down.

I looked down at his feet (because he said his feet were starting to hurt) and he had on his rubber clog thingies.  So I said/suggested “Well, why don’t you go inside and put on your hard-soled boots to try and do that?” He walked slowly away from the hook, which is still half in the ground and half out, his head is down and he’s shaking it from side to side, and then probably counting to ten, he stopped. He looked back at me and said, like I’m the biggest ignoramus in the world, “Michelle, 200 pounds is 200 pounds, no matter what pair of shoes I have on – that hook ain’t going in the ground right there.”

Those hooks are now in a much better place, and my nightly/morning/feeding-time bird shots have resumed.

I post a lot of the pictures I take on Facebook and the other night a friend of mine who has recently

lost her husband, the love of her life, posted a comment that maybe he was one of the cardinals visiting my yard that particular evening.  And as broad and proud as the shoulders were on that one particular cardinal, I’d say my friend was exactly right.

I’ve heard all of my life that cardinals are angels visiting from heaven. Flying-high angel’s right here at Easter are both a beautiful thought and comfort, to myself included. Wishing Easter blessings to all.

The Purge

I pulled the doors open wide, switched on the overhead light, and just stood there, pondering my next move. I don’t really know what I thought I needed to decide, I already knew what needed to be done. But it was taking that first step, making that initial move, forcing myself to either keep the things before me or give them up.

It’s hard sometimes to know just exactly what you’ve had long enough, what has served its purpose, and what you can now do without. And as I stood there with plenty of built-up energy and all-day-long for time, I knew I was ready to take the plunge.

I’m just like every other female I know, I cannot seem to bring myself to give up any article of clothing – no matter that it hasn’t been seen or worn since two sizes ago, no matter that my body may never see the likes of those peg-legged pants again, and no matter that I cannot even remember when

I would have ever thought that style of blouse and the color of it, would have looked good on me.

But today I woke-up in a positive frame-of-mind. I had laid there still in my bed, in the earlier morning hours, making plans for how my day was to go. And this, this closet full of far too many non-worn clothes was to be my main project of the day. I made-up the rules in my head as I went along, knowing that I would have to be the worker-bee AND the boss today. I would have to be firm with myself, and MAKE myself part with things that had been hanging in that closet so long, they practically had “she knows full well I don’t fit anymore” signs attached to each hanger.

So out it all came, whatever I knew I hadn’t worn, or heck knew I hadn’t even SEEN in over a year, and it was put in a stack to go. Little by little I whittled the closet down as the stack on the top of my bed grew. I had bags set to the side so that when I was done, I would place all the to-go-clothes in those bags and I would immediately place them in my vehicle and take them to a drop point. Mainly, because I knew if I didn’t carry this act all the way out, it would never happen. There have been times I have ridden around with bags of clothes in the back of my vehicle for weeks, just because I was in denial that I really need to part with them.

My husband’s closets are next – and believe it or not – he has three to my one! But I wasn’t about to try and bag up any of his stuff – his relics – like some shirt he’s had since 1977 that he wore to a Nascar race one time when Dale Earnhardt Sr won. Oh no sir. I’d be digging those bags back out of the Goodwill box come daybreak! But his closets are next! I guarantee it!

Christmas in Spring

For everybody that knows me, they also know that for me, Lowes is the home of devil. The everywhere-you-look-you-find-something-you-love –devil; especially this time of the year. It’s as if they find every single solitary color of flower, plant and bush they can and pile it all up at the entrance to the garden department. As a matter of fact, it is spilling out of all most every entrance orifice of the entire building

Bags and bags of dirt, every kind of dirt you could imagine to be bought is there and just waiting to jump on your cart. Plain dirt, dirt with all the stuff already in it to set your new flowers into pots without the fuss and mess of mixing it up yourself. Fertilizer’s set-up right beside all these stacks of dirt for anything you might want to boost for the highest expectancy of bloom.

And right next to all of that, the gardening utensils. Hoes, shovels, hand shovels, gloves, and gardening hats. Big floppy hats, stiff safari hats – the choices and colors are endless. They give you every opportunity upon arrival, to leave with everything you need to at least appear as a professional gardener, even if you really have no idea what to do with it all when you get home.

And the carts – they come in all sizes as well. The big heavy duty carts with rails are for the serious gardener who absolutely means business. The medium sized cart is probably best suited for the customer whose needs are more for a low maintenance lawn/garden. And the regular buggy carts – well in my humble opinion, those are meant for people who really didn’t come to get much of anything. They’re just lurkers who have wandered into that area, and really have no idea why they even ended up in lawn and garden.

We of course, had the king daddy dog cart – because I knew exactly what my mission was to be. We walked out of there with 8 green hanging-ferns, 2 planters with various flowers to fill-up my pots, and a huge bag of compost dirt with all the special stuff already mixed.

Now here is the best part – I got to the check-out counter and started flipping through my wallet looking for my debit card. I watched from a side-ways glance at my husband who had been quiet mostly, as I had previously piled all this stuff on my cart, but now appeared to be sweating profusely and frowning as he waited for the final price announcement.

When low and behold, I found a card in there that was a Lowes in-store-credit card! We had both totally forgotten about a wall heater we had purchased last fall that didn’t work as we thought it should, and my husband had returned it. Well, they don’t give cash-back, they give you one of those cards.

Santa Claus suddenly appeared right there in the sunshine of the lawn and garden center – my balance owed after swiping that card was $1.55! What a wonderful forgotten surprise and happy spring to us!