An Ordinary Day

I headed out the front door a few minutes ago with the watering can to give my mums a drink. Tonight I will have to put the pot in the garage because a freeze is expected. Toasty in the house with the sunshine pouring through the south windows, but the wind had picked up since I went grocery shopping this morning and then I had on a jacket. It was cold! I stopped in my tracks when I beheld a single rose bud on my bush. I clipped it off and brought it inside. The last rose for this year.

   

We have guests coming for Thanksgiving dinner. I am not sure my mums will be on the porch to greet them. Thanksgiving Day itself is forecast to be fairly mild, but we expect snow Saturday and freezing temperatures at night through Tuesday or Wednesday. But since the pear trees on our block are just beautiful right now, I thought at least there would be some color next Thursday. However, with this wind, the leaves are swirling at my feet and trying to creep in the door every time I open it.

 

Last night’s vision as we drove to a restaurant for dinner proves that you don’t need leaves to have beauty. The sun sinking in the Western sky below the cloud bank was dazzling gold. A beam of light in the tree tops as far as we could see gilded the bare branches. I have never anything quite like it; it was breathtaking.

 This afternoon I finally had time to open my ebay purchase and arrange the pee gee hydrangeas that were shipped from Washington. The Grace Village landscaper planted some small hydrangea bushes on the west side of my condo in September. I am eager to see what kind of blossoms will appear next summer. I would like to try drying some. I see from my purchased blooms that working with hydrangeas can be messy. Every time I picked up a sprig to put in the vase, little “flower leaves” fell on the table and floor. When I was done arranging, I pulled out the vacuum cleaner. These hydrangeas will be nice to have around in winter, and the blooms look nice in the wooden vase my husband turned on his lathe.

   

I see many of the blogs I read commenting on the Paris atrocities. I am at a loss for words when confronted with cold blooded murder of people who were going about life in an ordinary way just like me. I keep on cherishing my life and its ordinariness in an unpredictable and violent world.