I thought of several things today that I could hardly wait to write about, but now that I have the time, I can’t remember what they were.  I know if I sat here long enough I would think of them, but since I have to go to work in the morning, getting to bed right about now is kind of important.  It was a good day.  I had a list and crossed a bunch of things off.  I have a couple more days off this week – Thursday and Friday – and then the weekend, but I think I will go help Julie pack again.  Her household is going into boxes in anticipation of the place God is going to provide, soon, we hope. If I give her three more days it should be nearly done.

 And at home I will need to get ready for our own departure for a week in Wisconsin.  I am looking for a house sitter/cat feeder person but haven’t found anyone yet. And someone will have to mow the grass because it is growing fast now. I am looking forward to our family reunion and having happy anticipation already as I prepare.  Next Tuesday we will meet up with Julie in Atlanta and share the same flight up to Minneapolis.  Esther and Jonathan will join our group in Hayward on Thursday. All my brothers will be there and many of their children, and of course, my mom and dad. 

One thing I might mention about my ongoing adventure with God.  It’s funny how I complain (mentally) about going to work and am always wishing I could stay home. It’s even to the point where I pray for something to change for me. And then when something does change – like my hours being cut this week – I start to panic and wonder if I’ll have enough money. (It seems that money is very useful for good things that I want to do and wonder if I can afford).  I need to be very careful what I pray for and not be surprised when I get it.

I heard something worth remembering about all that.  God is my provider.  Sometimes he does it through a job but he certainly isn’t limited to that.  I’d better not be worrying about it when God answers my prayer for less hard work.  He will still provide for whatever he wants me to do.  That whole realization helped me enjoy the time off today and will help me fend off the anxious thoughts about the rest of the month and having only three days pay until July rolls around. And I’m not saying that it will just help me feel better. I’m saying it will help because God is a provider, he cares and he will do something, something good.

As if the old projects ever got finished… just sayin’.  I set out to do whatever I could on the old “clean the garage” project this morning. Looking at the things piled in the middle of the floor and narrowing my focus to things that only pertained to me, I came to a bag of wool.  It was sheared off what could easily be the dirtiest sheep on the earth, and it was mine because of my curiousity about fibers, textiles and do-it-yourself crafts.  What would it be like to make your own wool yarn straight from the sheep?  Courtesy of Dr. Julia’s flock, I have opportunity to find out.

Clearly, the first task has to be to get it cleaned up.  This wool is strangely oiled, lanolin I guess.  Just pulling it out of the bag my hands were oily, and oh the wonderful smells of the farm… animal, pasture, poop.  It was all there.  I had read a little about this process online so I was smart enough not to just dump it all in the washing machine – thank God.  I tested a few handfuls in some hot water with laundry soap and just gently swished it around.  It does get clean, and I am encouraged by that to continue. 

I think I need some tools though.  Using what I have (cat brushes mostly) I am combing through, straightening out the mats so more debris can get loose and be removed.  I have a growing pile of whitish fluffy wool.  I’m thinking of looking for special carding combs to see if it speeds up the process.  Meanwhile I still have a lot of washing to do.


The dirty pile on the right is Sheepy’s winter coat and a good deal of his bedding and manure.




This little pile on the left is the result of the first washing and combing in process



I hear it a lot “if things would only get back to normal”, and I’m wondering how many of something it takes to make that thing the normal thing.  Do we know? 

I guess my normal day is one in which nothing special is happening. And you would think that I would have more of those days than any other, which is why they would be called normal.  But they are actually quite rare. I love normal days. I don’t have to remember any appointments, don’t have to make any tedious trips doing errands, don’t have any big expenses or serious illnesses or awful circumstances to deal with, no craziness at work, no storms, no embarrassing mistakes. Just a nice, normal day.  I had one today, although work was not totally normal but close enough.

I didn’t feel well yesterday which was not normal. I had a headache that got worse after I tried to nap it away. It felt better to sit up than lie down so I watched television for hours while doing 5 loads of laundry, both of which are not normal activities for me. Today I feel much better so far, much more normal.  We had a beautiful, very seasonally normal rain shower this afternoon.  I took a lovely bike ride on my new old bike. I’m a bit sweaty, but overall very relaxed and this is how I would like normal to be.  However, even as I say this, I am expecting any number of unusual things to possibly happen.  Life is absolutely full of the surprising, exciting, challenging, freaky, and often exasperating abnormal.  And we would be bored if it were not, just sayin…

Normal



Not so normal



I guess we are done celebrating graduation. Unless Esther decides to go back for a degree, we will not have anyone in school like that ever again.  It is the end of an era that began probably thirty years ago and now, here we are. It is over.

Today we held open house in Bradenton, the home town, for friends who weren’t able to make the trip up to Gainesville to see the actual graduation.  I know Julie probably wondered how many people would take the time to come. I wondered, especially when I started hearing from so many about their conflicting activities and how busy they were. There is a value in putting in an appearance at these kind of occassions.  I didn’t always think this way.  But now I know that just showing up is a gift of time that tells someone that you value them.  I am so thankful for everyone who came or called or sent a letter.

It was one of those hosting experiences where the house gets fuller and fuller until I simply can’t tend to everyone and I start letting them take care of themselves. The ice cream is out on the counter, melting. The table is full of used plates. I’m trying to carry on several conversations at once while I’m also trying to take pictures and find toys for the children to play with. I’m concerned when someone seems to be on the sidelines with no one to talk to, and conscious that there are no more places left to sit down. But all seem to be happy and engaged for the most part.  And what a mixture of friends it was. Julie’s housecleaning clients, and her business co-horts, childhood and school friends, church friends, fellow horse lovers and relatives – many of them knowing each other because they knew Julie. 

And then they all took their turn leaving until the house was quiet again.  It was one of those kind of sad but kind of happy moments for the three of us, Dennis, myself and Julie.  She packed up her truck and we met in the kitchen, somehow more deeply aware of ourselves as a family than we have been in a long time.  We did family hug and acknowledged our far away Esther and how we missed her. There were tears. We are a sentimental bunch. And then Julie left.

I am tired, and my legs hurt.  I never eat very well on days that I do a party – too many short snacks with no balance whatever. There is always left over food to deal with. I will be eating celery and dip for days. And then there are the things that are too expensive to throw away now but after they sit in the fridg for a couple weeks it will be okay.  A party has been had. An occassion has been marked.  Tomorrow is another day, and I must get rested for it. Just sayin’…

 

The sea was angry today.  It was white and grey and brown instead of its usual tropical shades of blue. The only people on the beach were those curious souls who wanted to see how big the waves were getting. The high tide came at the same time that the last bands of tropical storm Andrea were hitting us. When the neighbor’s dock across the bayou was no longer visible we knew it was significantly high.  I should have taken a picture of the bayou as I was on my way home – normally I just get glimpses of it from the road – but today it joined the road at the small public boat landing and came up into the art center parking lot.  I’m just sayin’ there was a lot more water around today, and a lot of wind and rain.  Thank you Andrea.

As I drove to work this morning, knowing this storm was beginning, I wondered whether I would have to batten the hatches at my place of employment.  This kind of storm developes quickly so there’s not much preparation time. People also never know whether to take it seriously or not being that it is not a real hurricane, just a storm.  To my surprise my client checked the weather channel and said she was going to get her swim in before the storm hit. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me to keep your cats in the house because the weather is too bad, but you decide to ignore tornado warnings, wind and rain and swim in your pool.  I kept my mouth shut but I probably did have that “you’ve got to be kidding” look on my face.  A few minutes later she asked “you don’t want me to go out do you?” It was much easier that way, letting her think it over and decide.  I only had to confirm.

There was a tornado or two in the area. They didn’t do significant damage, but you never know.  I’ve role played (mentally) what I would do if I were aware that a tornado was approaching and my client was in the pool.  The picture always goes blank when the pool cage gets ripped off and all the water is sucked out of the pool as I’m trying to get my quadriplegic friend back into her wheelchair.  They say that waterspouts, which are tornadoes on the water, suck up everything under them and when the stuff falls back to earth it can actually be raining fish. I’ve never seen that. 

So we spent the whole morning inside, watching the sea rise and the wind whip the awnings and boat cover until we were afraid we might lose them. I went out once to rescue the chairs on the boat deck, and fetch the mail before it got soggy. That was enough.  It was a good storm. I’m just saying, we needed the water.

This could be another episode in a soap opera if it were not so ordinary and maybe even boring? I took the bike back to the pawn shop. The husband and I didn’t even have to discuss it. He reads my blog, in fact it may have become our major point of communication. He announced that I could have the truck, early in the morning before I left for my trip so I could return the gearless wonder.

In spite of the fact that on the bottom of the receipt was “All Sales Final, No Returns, No Exchanges” I approached the matter with a positive attitude. My tactic was to admit that my priorities were somewhat foolish and that after riding the bike for two days I had come to the conclusion that I just didn’t feel safe on it. And I wasn’t asking for a return or an exchange. I was asking for an upgrade which is different, and to their advantage.  I got a different salesperson this time and I think he was the owner.  He did not say a single frightening thing. In fact the very first thing he said was that he didn’t want me feeling unsafe and he was sure he could work something out. He was a bit more helpful and understood completely about me wanting a cable attached to the gear shift. And after I took his recommendation, test rode his Avalon Next 7000 series and liked it, he gave it to me even trade even though it was priced $10 higher than the return.

I looked up reviews on this bike – they sell, or used to sell it at WalMart.  The used ones were going for around $100 and this one was a little over half that amount. I think I got a good deal. It’s also mostly aluminum so it’s clean and shiny, no rust.  It is a bit of an “old lady” bike but at least it’s not a three wheeler, and I am almost an old lady.  Just sayin’.