Out of Place

Over the past weeks and months spent preparing for Lukas and Denise's wedding, Sam and I spent a lot of time moving stuff from one place to another. So much so, that this conversation was repeated more times than I care to think about.
"So, what did you do today?"
"I moved s*#t around. What did you do today?"
"I moved s*#t around."
"Do you think we'll ever have our s*#t where it belongs?"
"Not in this lifetime."

In all of this cleaning, clearing, decorating, undecorating, entertaining and memory-making, a few things were bound to be out of place. Some of them were placed (or misplaced) by human hands, and the rest, well, just looked weird.

It took 2 days to find my toothpaste

 Then I found this blackberry charger in a bag with some beef sticks in the downstairs frig

I am ashamed to admit it, but a full 2 weeks passed before I noticed this one

Yes, that's a gallon jar of barbeque sauce from the groom's dinner. It may still be there. Maybe the coyotes have carried it off and are enjoying it.

I planted this brown-eyed susan vine in June. 2 days before a killing frost, it finally decided to bloom

I missed cutting back this hosta bloom and here's what happened

Not exactly the fall scene I was going for but this is what happens with October temps in the 70s

 OK, here's a photo I'm going to stick in here now, just because I love it. It makes me laugh every time I look at it. And is a tiny snapshot of how hard everyone worked to set up for the wedding. This is my brother-in-law Gary carefully guarding the sound equipment.

A few days ago I came home and found this in my bedroom. That's our dog Gus's blanket and pillow on my side of the bed. And a deer antler.

Gus is a 24 lb 13 1/2 year old, deaf Lhasa Apso. He maneuvered this antler through our TWO doggie doors.

 After all that, I felt really bad taking it away from him.

Then, Tuesday night, I received the following photo on my phone

with the message, "Hi, Mom."

You'll have to ask Addie about that one. 

Thanks for dropping by. I'd love to hear your "out of place" stories. It's lonely here in crazy-town.

A week from tomorrow

is the wedding. I'm home cleaning my house today. With all the needs to be done, here's what I'm doing:

Spray painting outlet covers.

Because I'm too cheap to buy new ones and I read a hint in Heloise. One can of Hammered Copper metallic paint and I'm feeling mighty fine about this little project.

Umm. I may have spoken too soon. A couple problems:
I should have been more careful with the tape--so took them off and am painting them outside
Light switch easy to do both on and off positions. Garbage disposal, a little more complicated.

An Inconvenient Deluge

About 3 pm yesterday the skies darkened, thunder rumbled, lightning criss-crossed the sky and rain began falling. It rained through the evening, all night long and continues to rain as I am writing this post. Our rain gauge is under a tree (don't even get me started about that situation) but it was overflowing at 5". I dumped it out. When I took Mom to her house, she said, "Look and see how much water is in the bucket."
"Mom, I can't tell for sure, there are tomatoes and a few cabbage leaves floating on top, but looks like about 8 inches"
But at least she didn't position her improvised rain gauge under a tree. Ok, so we may have to perform a few displacement theory calculations, but I'm guessing we're in the ballpark at 8 inches and counting.

So for those of us (and you) who are looking forward to the:

(Totally unrelated to this post, but I think we may have put the d's backwards.  Good thing they're just tacked on)

Let's be grateful that this record-breaking storm did not happen next week as we would have been rounding up boats instead of golf carts to transport you:

What I know for sure

is that these months and years of having Mom live with us could provide enough blogging material for many years to come.

This morning I was taking her to her house for the day and as usual, asked her what she was going to do.

"Well, I have a few things to put away from yesterday. But mostly, it'll take me most of the time to get ready to go have coffee with (former pastor) Rasches. Carolyn is picking me up."

Mom doesn't get a lot of social outings and I know she's been looking forward to this event. 

I drove up to the sidewalk and unlocked the house door. As Mom exited the car and slowing climbed the steps up the deck, she said, " I should probably go to the garden and pick the squash."

Now, my reaction was not that of a sweet, kind, patient, loving caregiver. It was more like a mental What the h@#l? that came out as "Why do you think you need to pick the squash."

"Well, it's supposed to rain."

I replied, "Those squash are going to be just fine out there."

"I know, I'm not going to do it. I was just saying I should probably be doing it."

And you know what, I knew exactly what she meant. Lest we anticipate or, heaven forbid, enjoy a social outing in the middle of the week, let us pause for a moment to consider the "slackitude" and possible loss of garden produce associated with having any fun at all.

Behold

I heard the sound like that of a mighty rushing wind.

Well, not exactly, more like that of a vacuum cleaner. Outside. On the roof.

And the roof was dirty. Very, very dirty.

And lo, the leaf blower removeth the dirt.

And it was good.

There is a wedding here in 2 weeks. The roof is clean. 70 benches are made. A dumptruck load of mulch has been spread. There has been trenching, sawing, landscaping, more work than you can imagine.

Today I organized my makeup bag.

And it was good/


\

Please forgive me

for my prolonged absence from my blog. Life has been crazy. My laptop uncooperative.

I promise I will be back--Addie and I are leaving tomorrow for San Francisco and I hope to have some time to write while I'm there.






 

Jam Love

Steamy summer days are good for more than hatching mosquitoes. The copious amounts of rain and high humidity have resulted in a beautiful crop of raspberries. These were picked my my mother-in-law, Louise, who blessed us with 10 pints of these beauties

 

Aren't they amazing?

Last night I made jam. We had eaten most of the berries fresh so it was a small batch--but I was thinking that I should share my recipe. It also comes from Louise and I've never been disappointed in the results. Hopefully you can read this around the smudges and splatters:

When I make raspberry jam, I strain the seeds out using a fine mesh strainer after the berries have cooked with the vinegar, before adding the sugar. Oftentimes I use more fruit than the recipe calls for--and throw in some whole berries toward the end of the cooking time. I used this recipe for the strawberries and wild black raspberries also. The jam made last night is quite thin so will make great ice cream topping or syrup. I probably could have cooked it longer. 

 

Such lusciousness--it could be illegal.