Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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Settling down now

Trees 1538Yesterday was our first day of normal life in quite some time.  I’d been out of town for three weeks, home for one day and then involved in our Aunt’s medical crisis for more than two more weeks.  Yesterday we didn’t have to be anywhere, though husband did stop by the Aunt’s just to see how her first night alone in almost three weeks went.  Thankfully, she did fine and I’m sure she’s just as happy as we are to have us off her living room sofa.

Katie and I did some yard work; weeding and sniffing and such things as that.  Sometimes all we did was sit in the sun and enjoy being with each other.  I think that counts as yard work too.

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I dug up a small bed that had filled in with grass and weeds over the past couple of summers.  I’ll replant it later this spring.  It was a lot of work and reminds me that last time I dug this up I was younger and fitter.

While digging I came across these small plants, greenish red leaves and blue purple bells of flowers.  Tiny.  The smell when I crushed the leaves took me right back to my grandmother’s farm, where these lived in her lawn, particularly, as I recall, back by grandpa’s workshop.  I sat in the sun and crunched leaves and remembered playing on the farm, picking black raspberries, watching the pigs, playing with barn kittens.  It was a good place to play.  There are good memories there.

I  accidentally left a weed or two in my own garden yesterday just so I can pull them later and smell that old familiar small and relive the memories.

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Later on I got out the tiny teeter and Katie was all raring to go, walking over it, still carefully, especially at the pivot point, but without any apparent fear.  So I went and got her Dad, to show him how much more confident she is.  And guess what?  While he stood in the door watching she first refused to do the teeter at all, then CREPT up to the pivot point and laid down on it.  Well, that’s new!  And now she won’t go on it at all.

Ah Katie girl.  We’re going to school in about an hour, the first time in probably 6 or 7 weeks.  Hope you remember a little bit about heeling and staying.

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Should be interesting!


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Pruning and teeter

It was a beautiful day today, sunny and in the 50’s, just a bit of breeze coming to us from that storm on the east coast.  So I set about doing a bit of tree trimming.  Probably no one else but me will  be able to tell what I have trimmed out of three ornamental trees.  But I know.  Plus it felt really good to be outside doing some sort of yard work.  I put a few of the trimmed bits from my redbud tree in a stone vase.  Just in case they’d like to bloom a bit early inside.

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Then since it was so nice out, and because I’m leaving tomorrow for 3 weeks and won’t have another chance, Katie and I went out to try her teeter again.  This time no towels to muffle the banging.  She did pretty good.  It’s still not her favorite thing, but if enticed with cheese she’ll slowly trot across.  She stops at the central part to wait for it to drop, and I think that’s quite smart of her.  If I don’t have the treat ready she’d still rather hop off at the middle, but if the treat is waiting for her at the end of the plank she’ll inch her way down to it.

I don’t see the exuberance she exhibited when she figured out the dogwalk though.  I’m not sure she thinks this is fun yet.

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Where’s my treat Mom?

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Is this a good 2o2o?  How long do I have to stand like this anyway?

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I hope she has a good time with her Dad while I’m gone, and that she still remembers how easy teeter is next time I get it out.  She’s a smart dog, I’m sure she’ll humor me.

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To do list

I have a whole day off, no work, no previous commitments.  It’s been awhile so I have a few things I need to get done today.  Here’s the list:

  • Go for a run.  It’s been too long since my last attempt and if you don’t keep up you have to start over …again and again.
  • Make some bread.  I have a cookbook from my library with some great bread receipes in it and a whole new concept about storing unbaked bread dough so that you can bake bread every evening if you wanted fresh for dinner.  The book will be due before I ever get to this unless I put it on “THE LIST.”
  • Wrap a shower gift.  The wedding shower is tomorrow.  I purchased the gift weeks ago but it sits unwrapped.  I need a card too.  Darn.  That means a trip to a store somewhere.  What was I thinking when I got the gift?  That I’d use a marker and just write her (and my) name on the box?
  • Vacuum.  Have dog.  And husband.  Haven’t vacuumed in maybe three weeks.  Enough said.
  • Laundry.  See above.
  • Finish reading “Reliable Wife” by Robert Goolrick.  It’s a very good book and it was due back to the library two days ago. I’m on page 169 of a 290 page book.  Being a librarian means you have no time to read all the good books you see coming and going.  It’s a job hazard.
  • Take the dog to the park.  She’s already whining and it’s just barely 7:00 a.m.  Obviously she hasn’t read “THE LIST” yet.
  • Help husband dig up the roots to a tree he removed so that we can plant something there that doesn’t have suckers that grow up through everything.  I’m hoping it rains because I don’t have time.
  • Weed, especially the vegetable garden.  My little stubby beans are being overrun by non-vegetable matter.
  • Update the resume and write a cover letter for a librarian position that is 59 miles away.  It’s become apparent that I will be on lay off, maybe next week, maybe the end of summer, certainly prior to the end of the fiscal year this fall.  So it’s time to start looking again.  Maybe I should do this first.  Well.  Right after the run.

Katie girl, you better hang on tight, Mama’s going to be moving fast today!

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May, my favorite month

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Who can’t love the month of May?  The flower vendors are putting their flats of annuals out and you can still dream about the beautiful gardens you’ll have; the overflowing pots filled with beautiful colors, the luscious vegetables ripe for the picking, the roses bug free, the arborvite not yet consumed by the neighborhood deer.  There is just so much hope before the weeds begin to fill in the blanks, the rodents begin to dig up your bulbs, the rain ceases and the dust begins.  I love the optimisim of May.

I’m headed out very early tomorrow morning for D.C.  Wish us well!  I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.

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Holy springtime Batman!

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Wasn’t it just last week that we had snow?  OK, maybe two weeks ago tops?  And it’s been icky and cold and rainy since.  Then we got one or two days of warm weather and while I wasn’t paying attention spring appears to have sprung!

This morning Katie and I went on a little yard reconnaissance to see what we could see.  First off, out near the mailbox our creeping phlox has little pink buds!  Yesterday there were only small green nubs easing up out of the cold wet soil.  I’m sure of it.  And the peonies that were planted a couple of years ago?  A day or so ago there was no sign of them.  This morning?  Well, see for yourself:

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And my violets are blooming,  trees-9371 as is the bleeding heart that had only just sprouted out of the ground last time I checked.  Even the red bud tree is in bud!  trees-940

Everywhere we looked we saw signs of spring.  Katie had a wonderful time, such wonderful things to smell!  trees-933 I tried not to look at the dandelions flourishing in among the chosen plants.  trees-9421 Have to get cracking or I’ll be overrun again this summer!

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My backyard

I was mowing the yard yesterday for the last time this summer (again…what’s with this warm weather?) when I realized there was still a LOT of fall color, particularly in the shrubs and some of the newer trees. So I stopped right in the middle of the lawn and went inside for the camera. For the rest of the afternoon I mowed slower, stopped more often, and enjoyed the task more as I snapped pictures along the way. As my husband painted the house, and the dog watched from her kennel, I’m sure they were wondering what I was doing. Tonight I had a chance to look at what I shot for the first time. There were so many pretty pictures I couldn’t figure out which to show you. So I put several together below. I really think this will be the last of the fall color blogs. Maybe.

See ya,


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In the present

During these stressful times we sometimes forget to enjoy what is right here, right now. And though I so enjoyed my trip up north a couple of weeks ago, I realized today as I was mowing my yard for perhaps the last time this summer, that I have a very beautiful place to live right here. I think it’s important not to lose sight of the good things we already have while working toward the good things we hope to achieve. These photos are of beautiful places within walking distance of my house. Some are virtually in my back yard. I am truly blessed.


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Tales from the lawnmower

This morning, while mowing the yard I noticed a fair number of unusual things. I thought oddities only occurred in Ann Arbor, but here’s the country version of a stroll down State Street. I live on the corner of a county road that dead ends about half a mile from me and a subdivision road that doesn’t go anywhere either. So there isn’t much traffic other than those of us that live here. That’s nice, and one of the reasons we bought here.

Today as I began to mow the section of our lawn that runs along the county road I notice the neighbor’s dog laying in some shade at the end of his driveway watching me. This is unusual as he is usually with his people, but he was on his own property so I didn’t think much about it. As I continued to mow he trotted off down the road. Once I turned and headed back I saw that he was now laying in some shade but in the middle of the road. Well that wasn’t good. So I turned off my mower, climbed down and went out into the road to entice him back into his own driveway. He was a bit wary of me, but came along when I ran backwards and called him. Once he settled back into his own driveway I went back across the street and started mowing again.

As I turned the mower around for another sweep I saw a fawn dancing around at the other end of my mower run, coming out of a little pathway we have in the wilder section of our yard. Startled, I turned the mower off and watched. Mama deer was further back along the path, eating something. Baby was leaping around playing at the mouth of the path, just a few yards from me. The sleeping dog was to my left across the road in his driveway. I stay quietly on my mower watching the fawn play until it noticed me and leaped back, then ran back to and past mama, who ran after it and back into the woods. Shaking my head I started up the mower again.

On my next sweep back past the once sleeping dog I saw a young woman and her toddler standing at the end of the driveway. The toddler was petting the dog. That seems odd; I’ve never seen these two people before; but the dog wasn’t wary of the toddler so maybe they belong at my neighbor’s house? The mother is obviously waiting for something, she looks up and down the road regularly. The baby continues to play with the dog. Hmmm…. I turn away and mow some more.

On my next pass I was startled again, this time by a golden horse pulling a beautiful cream buggy in which sits a lady wearing a top hat coming down the subdivision street. It paused at the stop sign and then turned away from the driveway in which waited the woman and child, toward the direction of the dead end. The child stopped petting the dog, shrieked in glee, and raced into the street toward the horse. The horse seems to jump and trots away faster, the mother races after the toddler, the dog races after everyone. And in the midst of the chaos, an innocent, and slightly bewildered driver of a PT Cruiser eases to a stop at the stop sign in utter confusion.

I laugh out loud…it’s amazing what you can see while you’re mowing the lawn.


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Running today for sure

Early this morning I noitced several plane trails across the sky above the house. I wish I were going somewhere! But I can’t because:

1. I don’t have any disposable income.

2. Travel costs so much more now with the price of fuel.

3. I have 10 yards of wood chips to move

4. I need to get my training run in.

So sadly, I headed out on my 30 minute run. I’m supposed to get two of these completed each week prior to the “LONG” run that I do on Thursday mornings. So far I’m only doing one 30 minute run during the week. I have no excuse, it’s not like I’m employed. So this morning I knew I had to get it moving…Thursday is looming. I wore a hat for the first time ever for this run. I hate hats. But it kept my hair off my neck, and actually turned out OK, so it may become a running staple after all.

Then I moved wood chips. All day. Husband came out during the afternoon and it went much faster after that. But I have over half of the 10 yards still in a heap in my driveway. Wish that I were Samatha Stevens and could wiggle my nose and make them all disappear!

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