Winding Down

Today was horribly humid and hot. The kind of day when one hurries into air-conditioned coolness. I worked many hours in the library. I was tired. After supper, the neighbor down the street called. He had planted two tomato plants and now he can’t keep up with the bumper crop. He remembered our chat about tomatoes at one of the community lunches, and he wondered if I would like some of his surplus. How thoughtful. He brought me 5 nice red tomatoes. These are just-right-two-person sized.

 

The plants are looking tired, too, in the heat. One of my rose bushes has a few buds yet to open, but the other has completely petered out.  The calibrachoa had a fungus problem early on and never recovered. There are a few flowers, but hardly any leaves. The verbena (yes, I discovered the bright pink clusters are verbenas) look pretty good. Once I discovered what they are, my internet reading told me to prune back in order to have a second blooming. I am enjoying the benefits of the pruning. Not many new flowers coming now, but there are still blooms all around the pot. The moss roses completely buried the cheddar pinks. I’m not sure the pinks will come back next year. I hope so as they bloom before most of the other plants. A bright cheery note is all of the sunflowers blooming around the neighborhood. The large maple I can see out my bedroom window has tinges of red on the ends of some branches. It will be a month probably before the tree completely changes, but the leafy green of summer is ending.

 

Last Friday, after eating breakfast out, we drove to a church rummage sale. I found a pink and white blouse that fits so well. It cost me 75 cents. It looks hardly worn. I plan to drive to Fort Wayne Friday to do some shopping at the mall. It is really inconvenient that Penneys shut down here in Warsaw. The Carson’s and Kohl’s in Fort Wayne are almost twice the size of the local stores; I like to browse Macy’s, too.

 

My neighbor who has breast cancer stopped in the library. She recently had some terrible side effects from her medication. She said that she has stage 4 cancer, the first time I have had that verified though I suspected as much. Her doctor is a fighter and told her not to give up, that he still has options in his arsenal. I didn’t sleep well last night. I started thinking how fast our retirement years are flying by. That means life is flying by as well. Maybe 18-20 years left if we are lucky. We have witnessed the decline of so many GV residents in these past 3 years of living here. It is sobering. Our countdown to heaven seems so very real and rather short; but we are ready whenever God wants to call us home. Are you?