I thought it was about time for another ‘adifrentdrumr’s choice song lyric’ — this is a bittersweet one, I have only heard sung a capella – and it made me cry more than once.  Lovely little thing:

 

The Lilac And The Apple
(Kate Wolf)

A Lilac bush and an Apple tree
Were standing in the woods,
Out on the hill above the town,
Where once a farmhouse stood.

In the winter the leaves are bare
And no one sees the signs
Of a house that stood and a garden that grew
And life in another time.

One Spring when the buds can bursting forth
And grass grew on the land,
The Lilac spoke to the Apple tree
As only a good friend can.

Do you think, said the Lilac, this might be the year
When someone will build here once more?
Here by the cellar, still open and deep,
There’s room for new walls and a floor.

Oh, no, said the Apple, there are so few
Who come here on the mountain this way,
And when they do, they don’t often see
Why we’re growing here, so far away.

A long time ago we were planted by hands
That worked in the mines and the mills,
When the country was young and the people who came
Built their homes in the hills.

But now there are cities, the roads have come,
And no one lives here today.
And the only signs of the farms in the hills
Are the things not carried away.

Broken dishes, piles of boards,
A tin plate, an old leather shoe.
And an Apple tree still bending down,
And a Lilac where a garden once grew.

 

 

Have a lovely day, Dear Reader, whatever it may bring….

 

 

 

So Much Work Ahead…

In response to my last entry she left this comment:

Fill In The Blank.

____ takes my breath away.

When I was a kid, my favorite toy was a ____.

I like to ____ when there is a blackout.

____ is probably the most ignorant person on earth.

The key to having a successful relationship is ____.

I have never ____, and I probably never will.

____ sucks.

The thing I look at first on a person is ____.

I think I want ____ for dinner tonight.

____ makes me feel weak

My favorite artist is ____.

I miss ____ so much!

____ is the best thing to do for a hangover.

Red, gold and ____.

my answers:

the March wind, troll doll, sleep, (too many candidates to choose just one), compromise, gone skiing, getting old, the whole picture, Indian Food, my arthritis, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, my brother Skip. to quit drinking, green

 

It’s

Spring!

 

The crocuses are in my backyard are fully a-bloom, little patches of calico purple and blue and gold, the early daffodils tucked up against the other side of the house are shining their cheery little yellow lights, the lone pussywillow by the driveway is wearing thousands of tiny fuzzy mittens, and fat rosy buds are swelling on the naked crabapple trees…

“Our” Mallard Ducks have come to rest in the creek out front, where they stop each year on their migratory journey to parts somewhere north.

And I have been eagerly studying my garden catalogs and haunting the lawn and garden displays in the local stores! Home Depot and Lowes have fruit trees already, so my first project this year will be to plant that row of apple trees along the driveway I have had planned for several years. I have been doing a lot of Spring Cleaning indoors as well. 

We sold our trailer down in the pines (on eBay!), and last weekend the new owners towed it away, closing another chapter in our lives for now.  I will kind of miss it, but on the other hand, I look forward to being home on weekends to enjoy the house and yard with Bernie (and maybe even have some friends over for barbecues this year!)

 

Brightest Blessings to all of you

as the Wheel of the Year turns once again!

 

 

In Honour of Saint Patrick’s Day

I cooked up something green for you:

a little fun quiz:

What Color Green Are You?

here are my results:

 

You Are Emerald Green

Deep and mysterious, it often seems like no one truly gets you. Inside, you are very emotional and moody – though you don’t let it show. People usually have a strong reaction to you… profound love or deep hate. But you can even get those who hate you to come around. There’s something naturally harmonious about you.

 

I don’t read Russian, but –

is this what I think it is???

This photo came from a Russian language website.

I am very environmentally conscious, but…

some things just don’t seem right, recycled…

 

this was posted on a bulletin board in a webgroup I belong to:

 

 

He didn’t like the casserole
And he didn’t like my cake.
He said my biscuits were too hard…
Not like his mother used to make.

I didn’t perk the coffee right
He didn’t like the stew,
I didn’t mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.

I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Then I turned around and smacked him…
Like his Mother used to do

 

 

Have a lovely day, and don’t take no B.S. from nobody!

 

 

Terror Alert

be afraid … be very afraid ….

 

…and can you believe the guy he shot actually apologized to him?

For what? Being in the way?

 

 

 

Snow Day!

 

Remember how exciting those two words used to be?  As you get older, they definitely lose their charm. 

It was a really awesome storm — a nor’easter.  Because the air was so unstable, we experienced the rare phenomenon of “thundersnow” — just like a thunderstorm, but with snow instead of rain.  The lightning was the same, but the snow in the air sorta muffles the thunder so it has a different sound.  The wind was pretty strong, too, leaving some nice drifts, and making a lot of noise during the night.  A couple of times I looked outside, and there were whiteout conditions — you couldn’t see more than a few feet.  The official total here for the snowfall was just short of 18 inches.  It is really pretty, as long as you don’t have to do anything with it.  Trying to shovel the walk today was fun — it was just warm enough to make this the kind of damp snow that sticks to the shovel — and seems to weigh a ton. 

Fortunately I had taken care of all errands yesterday, so I didn’t have to go anywhere. As sick as Bernie has been, he insisted on getting dressed and going out to clean the snow off the Jeep and start it up. I think it was a combination of cabin fever, the call of his inner child (who wanted to go play in the snow, Im sure)  and his worry of my report that I had trouble starting the Jeep yesterday, and then couldn’t get the gearshift out of park.  I ended up doing my pre-storm errands in the truck — no problem, I love the truck, but we prefer the Jeep in the snow — it’s smaller and easier to maneuver out of tight situations.  Costs less to fix if it gets a dent, too.  Well, when Bernie tried, it started right up today and went in gear with no trouble. I guess it was just a temporary glitch on my part yesterday.  Just going out and doing that took all Bernie’s energy, though, which I suspected.  It is so hard to do anything when your lungs aren’t working right.  He is just getting a taste of what it is like all the time for me with my asthma!

For the first time ever — I had to shovel the patio before I shoveled the steps and sidewalk to the driveway.  Pearl woke me up this morning wanting to go out and potty.  She is finally starting to prefer outside over her papers in the hallway, and is much better than Dolly at letting me know when she needs the door opened.  Such a smart little whip, when she figures things out.  Well, I opened the door for her, she tried to go out — you couldn’t even see the steps, she had to kind of jump up on the snow at the doorway, and then just floundered around like she was swimming.  Poor thing looked me with those sad eyes, so forlorn, and flopped back into the house.  So we went to the breezeway and tried there — I got the snowshovel and cleared off the 2 steps there, but she refused to go out and try again. 

When I came back in the house with the snowshovel to go shovel from the hallway door to the patio, Pearl was just finishing her business on her papers inside.  Meanwhile, Dolly slept through this whole process.  I think she knew that eventually she was going to have to go out and squat in that cold white stuff, because it was there the night before.  I cleared the 3 steps from the hall door to the patio, and called Dolly to go out and potty. She went down the 2 steps, looked at the wall of snow, and then looked at me as if to say “no thanks, I’ll hold it”. I guess she didn’t have to go bad enough to just go on the steps.  So I went and piled some warmer clothes on, and cleared about a 5 foot squarish space on the patio at the base of the steps.  Only then did Princess Dolly come out and piddle, followed closely by Missy Pearl, as usual.

I guess tomorrow I will shovel off a bigger space so they can get a little more exercise out there.  We called a friend to arrange for plowing the driveway tomorrow morning, and the county has done a really good job with the road, so we should be perfectly mobile by the time we want to go anywhere.  Not a big deal, as far as snowstorms go, but I think people made such an issue about it because we have had such unusually warm weather this winter and everyone got spoiled. 

I’ll try to get some photos tomorrow, too.

 

 

I can’t believe that this blog has been sitting here for several weeks — as a private entry!  I had planned on making a couple of changes to it, and then turning it public, and completely forgot.  The past couple of weeks have been a blur, I have been going through a low-energy phase, and using all the energy I could muster trying to catch up on housecleaning and projects I neglected at the end of the last year.  And then on top of that, Bernie has been sick again for the past week — he has a nasty chest cold again.  Today we finally got some antibiotics called in to the pharmacy, so hopefully he will be feeling better soon.  With his already-compromised lung function, a bronchial infection really gets him down.  And there is nothing worse than a sick husband!

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Anyway, here is the Missing Holiday Blog — I know it’s a long one, read it if you want…

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As promised, here are some pictures of home and decorations, and some more about my holiday:

 

As you probably know, if you have been following my blogs, I got sick at the end of November, and had a nasty chest cold/upper respiratory infection thingy over the holidays, which my husband graciously decided to share.  Actually, he was in far worse shape than I was by December 22 or so, and we figured that Christmas was going to be a very low key holiday this year.  I managed to get a few decorations down from the attic, and had put the wreaths up outside at the beginning of the month – we like wreaths   — we put them on the front door, side door, and both garage doors, and also on the front grills of both our jeep and pickup truck.

Indoor decorations this year were far less elaborate than my usual, and the tree didn’t get decorated until Christmas day.  I had been expending all my limited energy in the weeks leading up to Christmas doing a very thorough cleaning of the living room and kitchen (which still isn’t finished) — moving furniture and cleaning hardwood floors, doing windows, polishing woodwork and furniture, working on some upholstery projects, and so on.  As I went along, I brought out things like seasonal pillows, furniture throws (a must with 5 furry animals!) in festive holiday colors, candles and holiday candy jars, which lent a festive holiday air without bringing out a lot of the traditional decorations.

I had brought the little white fiberoptic tree down a week or so before the holiday, but didn’t bother bringing down the big boxes of ornaments from the attic.  Getting boxes of stuff in and out of storage is a two-person process here, with one person at the foot of the ladder, and another handing things up or down.  Well, the other person in this house was working his sweet little butt off with hours and hours of overrtime at the Post Office (’tis the season) delivering both his route and parts of other peoples’.  Poor guy was exhausted, which is probably why he ended up so sick.  So I didn’t bother him with getting stuff out of the attic, beyond the first few boxes we brought down at the beginning of the month (with the wreaths) 

The Christmas cacti were in bloom, and with my two “welcome light” electric candles that flank my picture window year ’round,  and a poinsettia-splashed plaid pillow, the front of the living room looked quite festive with no more embellishment from me.

By Christmas eve, we decided to forego our usual Christmas day routine of visitng his best buddy Albert and his extended family at their house, enjoying some of the warmest hospitality anyone can imagine as well as his wife Judy’s “world famous ‘balls and sauce”.   My brother and his family were planning on coming out to his inlaws house in Croyden, PA on monday after Christmas, and that was when they were supposed to visit here as well.  For the first time ever, it was going to be my brother and SIL, both nephews and both of their ladies — a monumentous event I had been eagerly anticipating. 

I had also planned on inviting my stepmom Flo, aunt Mary, cousin Shirley and her new husband Andy, plus perhaps an elderly neighbor and her daughter, who have been close family friends for years.  It would have been a great little party, and a reunion of sorts, because my bro’s family don’t get in to visit much at all (aside from funerals, it seems)  But, since Bernie seemed to be getting worse, and I was just totally exhausted, we decided early on not to invite the whole crowd.   When I spoke to Flo, it turned out she had the same chest cold thingy, and wouldn’t be able to make it anyway.  Things were not looking good at all. 

After Bernie came home from work on Christmas eve saturday, we went to the “Super Shoprite” and loaded up on prepared foods.  Super Shoprite is a eally cool place, part grocery store, and part food court, with every imaginable type of food already cooked up and packaged to go.  We bought swedish meatballs, meatloaf, tortellini, some chinese food, deli salads and seasoned potato wedges.  We also got a bunch of assorted fruit juices (lots of fluids and vitamin c!) cinnamon rolls, muffins, spiral sliced oven-ready ham, fresh rolls, an assortment of cheeses, a stick of pepperoni and a box of crackers.  We were ready.  Even if we were going to be too sick to cook for ourselves, we would at least be able to eat like it was a special occasion!    And while Bernie waited in the check-out line, I looked through the seasonal items (which were on clearance sale) and found a couple of last minute gifts, and 3 packages of 10 glass Christmas balls for 99 cents each!  That would take care of my undecorated tree.

We went home,  ate some of what we had bought, and Bernie crawled off to bed.  I wrapped gifts and puttered around with more housecleaning, then fell asleep watching tv.

Next day, Christmas morning… Bernie woke up with a low fever.  I volunteered to do his usual Sunday-morning 7-11 run for his papers and my coffee.  Got to 7-11 and found it closed.  Went to Quick-Chek, the next nearest convenience store, and ordered some fresh-made breakfast sandwiches on Ciabotta bread (yummy)  Spilled my coffee all over their counter (and myself) while waiting.  Had a pretty good time joking around with someof the other people waiting in their really long checkout line — who had also come there after finding our 7-11 closed.  There is such a feeling of camaraderie and friendship among people on Christmas day … shame it can’t happen all the time.

Later in the day, I talked to my brother, and we decided to make a last-minute decision about their visit.  He was to call me at noon from their inlaws’ house, and find out if they were coming over or not.  Plan B was for me to meet them at his inlaws house and leave Bernie here, if Bernie was not up for company.  SIL, Barb, strictly forbade me from touching any food if they were coming over.  She said they would order a pizza or something, so germs didn’t get spread.  I told her about all the pre-made food we had, and we decided that they could just raid my fridge and help themselves.  My nephew Wayne’s girlfriend,  Chrissy, was scheduled for knee surgery in the beginning of January, and she really didn’t need to be sick for that.  Seemed like a good plan, to me, either A or B, so I just let Bernie sleep for most of the day while I puttered around with more housecleaning and decorating.  I managed to get two light boxes of stuff down from the attic — mostly my “Christmas toys” – the stuffed animals that are always a part of the decorations in one way or another (this year they are under the tree) and the family’s Christmas stockings. 

yes, Ziggy is watching TV in this picture!

Later, between his naps, Bernie and I exchanged our gifts to each other and gave our furry kids their treats and gifts.  Among my gifts sfrom Bernie were a new cellphone, a DVD of the last Grateful Dead tour, and a nifty little tack hammer that looks sorta like a miniature rubber mallet — it has a clear plastic head on one side and a rubber one on the other — I am sure it will come in quite handy with my upholstery projects.  Among other things, I gave him a movie style popcorn set that came with a stove-top popcorn popper, pre-packaged seasoned popcorn and oil packets, and some DVDs that  I felt were 3 essentials to a home movie collection — The Godfather trilogy box set, and two of the  funniest movies ever — Snatch and Young Frankenstein. 

We both went to sleep early, and monday morning, he decided that he was feeling healthy enough for company that evening.  So I spent the day cleaning and getting things ready.  I cleaned scrubbed and disinfected the kitchen and bathroom, and put the ham in the oven. The rest of the food was up to them when they arrived.

These are some pictures from last year — the decorations were the same this year:

garden Buddha by the side door wearing festive holiday beads

bathroom done up for the holiday — but this year, I don’t have a plant hanging from the shower rod.

Around 6, my brother and family arrived, with my nephew Wayne’s 6 month old Pug/Jack Russell puppy, Bailey.  Dolly and Pearl were thrilled to have company, and they played for hours with a great deal of running around, barking, play-growling, and some chasing of the household cats.  Wayne also brought my old computer along with him — it had been at his house for a year, waiting for him to find out why it broke down and if it could be fixed.  It turned out that there were just some files that got corrupted in the video driver, probably in the power surge that fried my old monitor.  So if was back to working order and didn’t cost a thing to fix!

I sent my nephew Brian, who likes to cook, into the kitchen to glaze the ham.  He made himself quite at home and finished up the ham, then helped his mother and the two girls get other food out of the fridge and into the microwave, and so on.  It was kind of odd having company in my house but not being the one doing the food prep and serving, but it worked out quite well. 

We exchanged our gifts, opening the gifts from the nephews first — a nice Calphalon saucepan from Brian and his girlfriend Sarah,  and a wireless router and adaptor for the computer from Wayne and his girlfriend Chrissy.  Chrissy also gave me a cute decorated flowerpot full of home made fudge — to die for! They all got a real kick out of their gifts, especially Barb’s pink terry bathrobe with the yellow ducky appliques (I liked it so much, I got one for myself, too — which Bernie “gave me” for Christmas)  I now have further incentive to clean out the Red Room, because I will be setting up the old computer in there on the new wireless network, so I can have a secluded workspace for when I really need to concentrate on what I am doing, and so Bernie and I can both be online at the same time if the spirit moves us when he is home.

After all the other gufts were unwrapped, my brother pulled one of his classic holiday tricks on us.  The gift from him and Barb was in a big box, which he had wrapped in an old plastic tablecloth Barb had lying around — the thin disposable kind you use for parties.  He said they ran out of wrapping paper, but later I found out why.  He thought the table cloth was too plain, and he had wanted to potato stamp it, but Berb wouldn’t give him a potato (he didn’t have any paint either) so he had cut a stencil, and spray painted stars on the package. He even spray painted the ribbon.  I guess my bro has really lost his mind this time. Thats what happens when the weather is bad and he can’t work outside.  Living in the apartment ratehr than the house has apparently left him with idle hands now and then!  So he sat me down to open this unusual package, and inside there was another (completely giftwrapped) package.  And so on.  After the first few, I found notes attached to them, encouraging me to keep unwrapping.  I think there were something like 7 or 8 carboard boxes in all, all the way down to a small flat hinged plastic box. The note inside said “now that you have spent all this time unwrapping all these boxes, you will find your real gift inside the bottom flap of one of the boxes you already unwrapped”!!  So back I went, box by box, finding notes that said — “good try, but this isn’t it”, “look again”, “sorry”, and so on.  Inside the bottom flap of the second box I unwrapped I found an envelope, which, of course, contained another envelope.  And inside that envelope was a $100 gift card for Lowes!

Leave it to my brother.     This trick has been played out in many variations over the years within my family, but never fails to get the whole room laughing.  And Skip and I love to play tricks on each other.  This time, however, we had two people present who had never seen such a thing — Sarah and Chrissy.  And we thought all families were as nuts as ours! 

All in all, it was a great visit. Low key, but so nice to have everyone together. And a new puppy to play with as well!  By the end of the evening, after a few hours of hard play, all three dogs were getting kind of tired, and my girls touchy once they thought there was food available. The smell of ham brought out their territorial nature, and Bailey was not used to having other dogs around while there was food in the room. 

Dogs have a mental and emotional capacity that can be compared to a 3 or 4 year old child, and just like kids, they were all getting a bit cranky as they got tired.  So the inevitable argument broke out — between my girls!  When they go at it, a thing which happens every month or so, you would think they are trying to kill each other. Snapping, snarling, slobbering over each other — and pity the poor fool who tried to put their hand in to break it up (Bernie has done this, despite my warnings) But really they are just talking trash, and after the ruckus calms down and Pearl admits Dolly is boss, they go right back to best of friends.  I had a feeling they were about due for a dominance confrontation, because Pearl had been pushing her limits with Dolly earlier in the day, before the company even arrived.  It was a good thing that the disagreement didn’t involve the newcomer, but we decided they all needed a break to calm down. So the evening ended with Bernie holding Dolly, Chrissy holding Bailey, and me holding Pearl, each in separate corners.  Like a bunch of toddlers on time-out!  They weren’t the only ones that were tired out — Sarah was dozing on the couch with her head on Brians shoulder. 

By the time the humans said their goodbyes, with much hugging and good natured teasing, the dogs had settled down and were back to their old selves.  Dolly and Pearl even said goodbye to their new little friend with doggy kises on the nose.  It was great having everyone there, but sad, too, because I don’t know when we will all be together again.  Brian and Sarah live in North Carolina, and unless we go to visit them there, it will probably be next Christmas before they come back here.  Hopefully I will be seeing more of Barb and Skip this year, now that they are settled in their apartment and all, but still a three hour drive is an obstacle.  Same thing for Wayne and Chrissy, who live about the same distance away.  Thats really a shame, because Dolly and Pearl don’t often get to play with friends their own size.  Chrissy’s parents live just across the river from me, so I told her they were more than welcome to stop by any time they are in to visit her folks.  Hopefully they will take me up on that invite.  Even though Wayne got the new wireless router hooked up and stuff, I still have some things I need help with on this computer, and I know I will need more when I get the other one set up in the Red Room.

There are still a few more Christmas gifts to deliver, but there is no law saying that this can only be done during the traditional holiday season.  I will just keep the packages on the mantle and as I get in touch with the peopel we did not see during the holidays, we will have a little Christmas then (even if it’s July!)

Christmas tree with lights on