Busy Happy Day

 We usually eat breakfast in a restaurant on Friday mornings; but since we no longer get a Friday morning newspaper delivered to us (it comes in the mail), my husband thinks he would like to switch to Thursday. That way he can go to the gym on Friday and not have 3 days of not going over the weekend. 

This morning we had the Super Imperial Omelet (to share) at American Table. By the time we left, it was raining slightly. A little before 10 a.m. we headed for North Webster where the Friends of the Library were holding a book sale. What great prices! 50 cents per item. I have never seen them have such low prices for hardbound books and DVD's. I bought Sense and Sensibility on DVD to replace our VCR tape copy. I can't get the audio to work on our machine. I also bought a DVD of Call the Midwife. 

My husband bought a few books for himself. Mostly he paid for some of my heavy decorating books and took them to the car so I could keep browsing and filling up my bag.

The Shaffer book is secular, and the author unfamiliar to me. At 50 cents, not much of a gamble. I can't remember if I have read any Tyndall. Fisher and Austin I have read before.

 The Francine Rivers book is a novel about Amos the Biblical prophet. I have a soft spot for Amos because of the connection to the weeks my husband and I spent in Israel as consultants to the Institute of Holy Land Studies on Mount Zion. I went out with the college students on some of the field trips. We were taken to Tekoa. The bus stopped next to the road, and the occupants found rocks to sit on scattered in a field that probably pretty much looked the way it did when Amos shepherded his sheep. We spent personal time in prayer and devotions. 

We had several stops on Indiana 13 today enroute to the book sale because of roadwork. We came home on some country roads that took us to Old Highway 30. The redbud trees burst into full bloom just this week. It was a very pretty drive.

It got to 80 this afternoon. I sat on the porch for a while. Our neighborhood pear trees are also blooming; my quince bush blossoms are just starting to open up. Tomorrow brings more rain and a drop in temps for the weekend. It won't be porch-sitting weather even next week.

The shadows of the day are the struggles of two friends with heart conditions, one in the hospital in Fort Wayne undergoing tests, the other having been told by his doctor that nothing more could be done to help him. I also learned that the sweet lady who moved with her husband into my former sister-in-law's apartment in July died this morning. She had a stroke several weeks ago; a valve was damaged, and the doctors offered no hope of fixing it. In a senior community, folks struggle with health issues. Death is not a stranger.

The Real Deal

The pear trees blossomed Tuesday and are now at full bloom.
We have settled into a warmer weather pattern which brings thunderstorms besides the flowers.

Today when I drove to Walmart there were redbuds to be seen as well. I took my electric blanket off the bed last night in exchange for a lighter blanket. My little pot of flowers on the porch is doing well. 

I have seen tulips, too. I hope to get to Peabody on Saturday; rain forecasted for tomorrow. Maybe we will go to El Mesquite, the Mexican restaurant in North Manchester, on Cinco de Mayo for lunch or supper. 

Spring is all around us now. A little late arriving, but we are happy to see it. 

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.

 

 

 

At the End of the Block

  Pear trees blooming in March? A rarity in Northern Indiana but true this year as seen from this photo in front of my condo. Sometimes I feel cloistered in my condo retirement community. I like being the last house on the cul-de-sac, abutting the backyards of two "regular" houses. It makes me feel still attached to the outside world eight months after our move.

A reason to move to this retirement community was to be part of a discrete community. I value the sense of belonging, but at the same time I feel slightly boxed in, my world narrowing. Out my front door and to the west I walk a neighborhood of diversity. Turning to the east instead, I pass beige condo after beige condo of retirees. We have different backgrounds and experiences, yet we are quite homogenous and mostly products of a certain era. We are turned inward, our circled wagons creating security to face together the challenges of aging and dying. I need to go beyond the perimeter more to view a more expansive world and its perspectives, to leave behind what could become a fortress mentality. From the end of the block, I can look out my window and be reminded to claim the best of both worlds.