Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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Piping the weeds away

My sister is still in town and this morning she was practicing her bagpipes while I started weeding my small overgrown vegetable garden. She gets a lot of attention from people driving by as she plays her pipes in my yard.

My garden is totally overgrown. I don’t know when this happened. Possibly during this past week as I’ve been driving down to AA ? Or maybe it was before that when I didn’t want to think about the weed population and hoped it would somehow get weeded without me. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above.

Nevertheless, I needed to get to it today, and even then waited too long into the afternoon, so that the work was hot and miserable. Lesson learned again: Weed a little every morning, or you’ll need a bagpiper to accompany your groans of dismay.

The good news is that under all of this were a few green beans that the groundhog didn’t eat, a few peas, some chard and even some tiny cherry tomatoes! And of course my parsley, rosemary, thyme, basil and dill. Really. It’s all in there!


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No news

The family is still gathered around my uncle. All my siblings have been here the majority of the last week. Some are going back to work today, but will return when needed. My uncle, home under hospice care, is often alert, seems delighted and sometimes surprised to wake and find some or all of us surrounding his bed. He still smiles, acknowledges us and reaches out to shake our hands in greeting. Sometimes in his sleep he will reach for the hand of the person who happens to be sitting next to him. He appears to need our touch, so we and his immediate family are there. I am glad everyone got here while he was awake and able to listen to conversation, even though he can’t speak much. And I am proud of our family for making the effort to be together at this time.


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Eight done

I just finished an 8 mile training run. I had deep misgivings about the length of this run; it’s a lot longer than any I’ve done in a couple of years. But I’m following the program and have faith that as long as I do that I can get through whatever is scheduled. My plan was that when the dog got me up at 6:30 I’d leap out of bed, eat my Cheerios and blueberries and get out the door while it was still cool. And this time the plan worked, (except for the leaping part) even though I didn’t make it to bed till long after midnight. Last night I picked up another brother from the airport at 11:30 and of course we had to talk for a bit before going to bed.

It took me 1 hour, 47 minutes and 3 seconds to do 8 miles. The three seconds were the hardest part. Mostly I was doing 2/1’s (two minutes running, one minute walking)…but there were some 3/1’s, 4/1’s and one notable 5/1 followed by a 3/1 while going down a long hill that I paid for in the next mile. Usually I note nature stuff along the way to report, but I didn’t notice much this time. I considered this a serious run and concentrated on my watch, my feet and my breathing. I thought a lot about my uncle who is now home under hospice care. The doctors underestimated his strength when they told us he’d die “within hours” five days ago. Now he’s home focused on each breath, much like I was focused on my breathing as I ran. In the old days when I used to run marathons I’d get through them by ignoring the big picture of 26.2 miles and paying attention only to the mile I was in. Now I am reduced to focusing on the minute I’m in, and that isn’t at all bad.

I’m headed to the shower now, and then my two brothers and I are going down to Ann Arbor to visit with a man who is living in the moment.


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Vigil

I spent today getting ready for the arrival of my family. A brother is flying in tomorrow, a sister driving in on Thursday. Sadly it’s not a happy family reunion. My uncle, whose home I’ve stayed in many nights while a student, is gravely ill and we’ve been told it will only be hours, perhaps days before the inevitable occurs. Of course we heard that several days ago and he’s still actively engaged in conversation with his visitors. As usual, he is making predictions seem foolish; as a physicist he has always enjoyed proving assumptions wrong. And he’s doing it again now. If you can, say a little prayer for the family’s strength. I think we’re going to need it. Thanks.


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Mom

Today is the fourth anniversary of Mom’s death. Time really does help, though I wouldn’t have believed it back then. I’ve been working on a stack of photos, a mixture of old and new, pictures that I stole out of her photo albums four years ago and that I will put back into those albums soon. It’s an eclectic mix of times in our family, and for the past several days I’ve been pulling out photos that included Mom. There aren’t so many, she was usually the photographer. I have lots of great images of the four kids, but few of her.

It has always been difficult to imagine Mom as anything other than my mom. But as I sort through these photos I begin to see her as a person, separate, though always connected, to her role as a mother. Most of the pictures have some or all of us in them. But these few simple pictures spanning fifty years, which are spread out before me encapsulate her adult life. They make her more real to me, a person with more facets and interests than the mother I knew way back then. In these photos I can see her evolve.

I miss her. Every single day. And I don’t think that is going to change; but then I don’t think I’d want it to change. I’m lucky that I have these memories, a lot of pictures, (hundreds more than the few I borrowed late that night in July of 2004 wait for me back at the lake house), and some pretty cool stories to tell. I was very lucky to have her as my Mom.

Thanks Mom, see you later.


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Art Fair

Today my husband’s uncle and I went to the famed Ann Arbor Art Fair. It’s a really big series of art fairs, blocks and blocks of juried art, paintings, sculpture, glass, mixed media, wood. Just about anything you can imagine, and a good bit you never thought of was there. We arrived on the streets of AA about 9 a.m. when it was a tiny bit cooler and less crowded.

But as the sun moved in the sky it got warmer and warmer, and more crowded. For a respite from the heat we also explored some buildings on campus, and hung out in bits of shade drinking cold water purchased from boy scouts. We saw lots of fun stuff, both colorful and black and white.

We had fun, saw lots of great art and escaped the heat midday. Good plan, fully executed!


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Struggling with employment

I’m struggling with finding employment as a librarian in a library near where I live. There has only been one position posted so far that I have interviewed for, and I wasn’t offered that position. Now the library where I worked during school is posting a full time librarian position, and part of me thinks I should apply, and the other half of my brain is reminding me how horrible the commute down to Ann Arbor was. An eight hour work day will become a ten hour day at the least. Sometimes longer. The cost of the commute is escalating along with the cost of gas. I’d need to purchase a more fuel efficient vehicle…I might break even sometime during the first year. Maybe. Yet I enjoyed working for that library and would again enjoy working with them.

Now a full time librarian job has been posted at a town north of me. Forty miles north, the trip per map quest would be 45 minutes. There is no salary listed in this new posting, but it will be less than what is offered at my previous library, because this library is not in an affluent community. The commute would be better in the sense that I’d be going against the main flow of traffic, going north when most people go south in the morning, and coming back south when most people travel north in the evenings. When I first saw this posting I thought “GREAT!” a position just north of me. But I didn’t realize how far north.

So the question is, does it make sense to apply for the northern position for less money and about a ten minute shorter commute and NOT apply for the position that pays better but has a slightly longer (and overall more difficult) commute? Or should I not apply to either of them because they’re both too far away and wait it out to see what happens around here?

I just don’t know what to do.


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Second try

This evening I took some photos of day lilies that the deer haven’t found…yet. These few are in bloom among many more stalks with the tops chomped off. So I’m going to put these pictures into a gallery and see if I can get them to post here. Really.

COOL! It works! Some of these plants are really tall; the one with several upright lily blossoms creamy yellow is over 6 feet tall. Others are tiny hidden among the shrubs with a better chance of escaping notice of our neighborhood deer.


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Misc. stuff

I’m trying to learn new stuff in relationship to this blog. So it won’t be boring for me, or for you! And I now can upload pictures in a gallery…and maybe give you access to that gallery…hmmm…I have succeeded in uploading three garden pictures to a gallery I called “summer garden” (how creative, ey?) but now I have to figure out how to get that gallery into this blog post. Right. Hang tight…humming elevator music now…well…unsuccessful at figuring out how to add it. But I know someone will let me know!

Meanwhile. I went out to my little herb garden to gather some basil for a tomato and goat cheese soup I made this afternoon. (really good, if you want the recipe, let me know!) I thought I’d check on the young cardinal that was sitting in a nest nearby last time I was out in the garden (see post of July 8). Imagine my surprise to see a snake curled up inside the nest. I hope the youngster flew away before the snake arrived. But I imagine that the snake wouldn’t be there if there had been no bird. Sad story.

So..anyone have help about how to use the gallery feature? Post away! 🙂

[POST EDIT – Spike]