7 Quick Takes (Vol 41)

The weeks just keep coming around and around and around. I think I feel dizzy.

-1-

Do you know what one of the benefits of being an "empty nester" is.....I am finally, after so many years that I lost count, finally caught up on the laundry. I don't know what to say, I really don't. I didn't think this day would ever happen. I just assumed that there would always be piles of it hanging around and multiplying, like fungus (and some of it may have been covered with fungus).

But, I walked into my laundry room the other day and realized....there was no laundry that needed to be done. I stood there for a moment and contemplated that. Just think about it for a moment.

No.....Laundry......That.....Needs......To.....Be........Done.

Joy!

-2-

Sometimes technology is the most amazing thing...and sometimes not. First the amazing.

I was able this week to have a nice long "Facebook chat" with The Engaged One. Me sitting at my computer here in the frozen north in Ohio and she sitting in her dorm room in Uganda. Really, that is just the most amazing thing. I was typing away and all of a sudden it just hit me that she was almost half a world away and 7 hours ahead in time. I have to say that being able to occasionally chat with her whether via Facebook, email or actually talking on the phone makes the worries that we have about her being so far away somewhat lessened. Yes we worry but she is the Lord's and His to protect. I just keep saying, "Worry solves nothing, worry solves nothing..." and sometimes I acutally believe that.

Now for the not so amazing. This month has brought the random "technology failures" that make life crazy some times. For three Fridays in a row we had our internet/cable go out on Friday. Just BLINK and then nothing, snow, a screen that is as blank as my brain after 9p. You call the cable company and a lower eschelon drone, who has no power or information whatsoever, tells you that they can probably get someone out there on Monday. MONDAY, are you joking. You are joking right because I work from home sometimes and I can't work if I don't have internet access. Every time it eventualy got fixed but usually it was at least 24 hours later. Grrrrr.

Then yesterday it wasn't the cable that went out but the phone. That isn't as much of a problem because we don't get too many calls on the land line, we use our cell phones. But it was just one more technology glitch. Thankfully "Jim" fixed it within 24 hours, and it wasn't inside the house so I didn't have to pay for it. Well, except in the continuing graying of my hair as I constantly picked up the phone to see if the dial tone had spontaneously come back.

-3-

I don't mean to be picky, I really don't. (Cartoon Girl stop laughing!) But if you are having a wedding present wrapped, and you wait for a rather long time for the sales girl to come back with the gift all wrapped up nicely, and even if the wrapping service is free, you do not expect that the gift will be wrapped in what I can only describe as a printed garbage bag like thing with a purple (purple?!?) bow attached and the top of the bag hacked off haphazardly and TAPE slapped onto the bottom of the gift. She handed it back to me, all smiles and, "Hey look at the beautiful job I did!" and I just didn't know what to say. What I WANTED to say but didn't was, "You have GOT to be kidding. Get back in there and do a good job on this thing!" But I held my tongue and just figured that I will have to go and get something else to wrap this up in for the wedding we are going to on Saturday. I like Kendall and Andrew too much to put that monstrosity of a gift wrapping job on the gift table.

-4-

I had to turn on the heat this week and that is just wrong. But my toes were cold and we had a house guest and I relented. But I am hoping that the weather will warm up a bit and that I can turn the furnaces back off for at least a few more days. I hope, I hope.....

-5-

Next week begins my least favorite part of gardening....the dreaded Fall clean up. This year I have determined that I am starting early, when there will be, perhaps, some warm days. There have been years when I had on hat, gloves, and winter gear and the snow was swirling as I was cutting back the last of the hosta and rudbekia. Tomorrow it begins. Unless of course it is raining and then I am not going out in that.

The job is one that I don't like but it is one of those things where, when you are done then you can heave a great big sigh of relief because it is done and all the beds look nice and neat. The other thing is that it makes it a whole lot easier to blow all of the leave that fall from the trees. Believe me we have A LOT of leaves that fall. Anything that makes that job easier I am all for. Although I really do love my leaf blower and how I can be all obsessive about blowing the leaves. I know, it is an issue.

-6-

I have noticed an interesting corollary. The more I blog the less I journal. I don't like that and I am taking measure to stop the slow slide into non-journaling. Journaling is a habit, just like brushing my teeth and I slipped in that habit. So, I am "re-sensitiving" myself to journaling every day but it has, sometimes me hard going. Do you think that each person only has so many words in them for any given day and that I spend them on you guys and then there are no more for my poor journal? I hope that isn't the case. My journal has been a life saver to me over the years. It is a place where I can be an "open book" and we all need a place like that.

-7-

I took the time to drive by my old house yesterday. It was sort of on the way back from the Subaru dealership (where Coco was having some maintainence work done) so I figured that I would swing by. It was a great house and we lived there for 10 years.
She is looking a little "worn" around the edges I think but then she was built in 1937. I miss her in a way but wouldn't go back that is for sure. And boy have the trees in the front yard gotten huge in the last 10 years. Hmmmm, maybe I should do a post on "houses I have known". What do you think?

Bye for now, have a great week if I only see you once a week. Do something fun and enjoy yourself cuz life is just too short to always be crabby. I think that is going to be my new motto, not that I am crabby all that much. The hysterectomy took care of that little problem.