Better

I'm in better spirits today. I bought a bouquet at the grocery store yesterday. Now I have pretty flowers to enjoy for awhile.

My rosebush next to my porch has lots of blooms now, too, as well as the Stella d'oro lilies dispensing yellow "sunshine".

The concert we attended last night was a mixed bag. The opener was a man playing fingered guitar. He played one Billy Joel song (which I didn't know) and the rest were his original compositions. I am sure he has much skill in this type of guitar playing, but he wasn't very personable and I never warmed up to him and his songs. After 30 minutes, the main performers appeared for a longer concert.

The Burchfield Brothers were pleasant and entertaining. It was almost a relief to be hearing "normal" music after the strange guitar pieces. Jon played a classical guitar; Ben played a malletKat, a midi synthesizer geared for percussion. He was constantly fiddling with the controls to change the sound. Ben's other contributions were different whistles, including his own vocal whistling in several songs, most notably in Wayfarin' Stranger.

They had the audience join in singing a few praise choruses. If Southern Gospel is a favorite for you, you can cruise in the Bahamas on Carnival's Elation in January. It was never clear if these brothers would be performing (they are not on the brochure) or just promoting this event for a referral commission.

This concert is part of a series sponsored by Grace College to serve as a substitute for MasterWorks which the institution hosted until two years ago when they asked the group to leave. The explanation was that the college was subsidizing a large part of the expenses by providing housing and no longer could do so. The attendance last night was maybe 1/8 what the former summer concerts attracted.

I'm not too sure these substitutionary choices are going to catch on.

This morning I went to a yard sale at Courts of Colfax. My mother-in-law lived in one of the senior apartments about a decade ago. There was jewelry, knitted items, besides clothes, household goods, puzzles, books. I bought 4 mass market paperbacks at 10 cents each which I will donate to Grace Village library. I also bought a puzzle for me.

One lady was giving away a few of her beaded jewelry pieces. I picked up some with purple beads. I have been looking for some purple earrings. I will redo these using the faceted rounds (not the cone beads).

At lunch I tried a new flavor of Sparkling Ice. I found the first swallow refreshing, but when I drank it with my meal, it clashed with the cantaloupe melon. I probably will stick with the Black Raspberry flavor.

My husband told me he would haul off the discarded books to the public library so I won't have to carry heavy stuff while my back is bothering me.

Floundering

I have felt unmotivated and somewhat down the past few days. Perhaps it is summer doldrums; it has certainly been hot enough lately to feel like summer.

I try to remind myself of that saying, "When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade", but it hasn't helped much. My pot of pink geraniums that I bought to cheer me from having no crocus blooms, no moss rose plants (they have completely died I guess from too much standing water), no irises this year has had its own disaster. The pot had blown off the little teak table once before, but I didn't think that yesterday's storm was that gusty. However, I guess the pot is too unstable to sit off the ground. The pot lay on its side, dirt smearing the porch and broken off blooms, stems, and leaves littering the dirt. I put some of the blooms in my pitcher/vase from our Ohio trip ("making lemonade") and kept the upright pot off of the table, but I feel a little sad at the loss of the flowers and promising buds. Trying to enjoy having some flowers inside since it is too hot to sit outside.

Because the library shelves are too full for the donated books I just processed (the last of 8 boxes, only kept 4 boxes worth), I had to do some weeding in the non-fiction section today. Making space is an on-going struggle. I guess I should look on the positive that the library is getting "new" books, but weeding and then having to haul off heavy bags of books is my least favorite thing to do for the library. My back has been bothering me for awhile now, and carrying these bags aggravates it more.

I did have a pleasant 40th anniversary Sunday, eating steak at a Fort Wayne restaurant followed by a complimentary chocolate dessert. But I have been reflecting on my life at this milestone, thinking of the limited years ahead for us. My husband and I did talk of loosening the purse strings more to enjoy travel while we are still able to do so.

Maybe I will get into sorting thru papers, the next KonMari category, next week. I need to do the house cleaning I have put off, too. It is supposed to be a little cooler next week. In fact, I think Monday I will take a walk on the Winona trails. I suggested that we attend a concert tomorrow night at the Heritage Room, too. A change of routine would probably do me good.

Why Not Orange?

In the past few days I have been adding some photos to my decorating ideas folders. I noticed in the hundreds of photos that there was an absence of orange. I was not surprised; I dislike the color orange.

I don't look good wearing the color orange. (In fact, I try to avoid orangish-red and stick with bluish-red). However, I also don't look good in yellow, but my decorating folders have scads of photos with yellow. My flattering fashion palette doesn't include peach or coral, but I like those colors better than orange. I wear a lot of purple, but not many of the interior decorating schemes had purple. So part of my aversion to orange might be a lack of exposure, but that can't be all of it.

At the mall on Sunday, a lady rounded the corner wearing a bright orange top. I mentally recoiled; it was almost visceral. She looked fine in the orange so why this reaction?

I guess there is a science or psychology of color preferences. Supposedly 35% of Americans like blue best. I fall into that group.

Some of the preferences are culturally based. Some of the preferences might be because of individual associative memories. 

Orange is such an attention-grabbing color that it isn't used much in home decorating except as small accents. I associate orange with traffic cones, pumpkins, the sun, autumn leaves. Except for the traffic cones, I have mostly positive associations with orange. However, when I think of orange I tend to think most of food: the fruit, winter squash, yams, peaches.

Do you know somebody whose favorite color is orange? Why do you think that is the case?

A Little Time Outdoors

This afternoon we acted on an invitation to visit an acquaintance's 4 acres of woods and wetlands. It is another beautiful spring day. She showed us her bulldozer; she loves pushing down trees, moving dirt to make trails. Her next project is a gazebo in a grove of trees. She will be busy all through her retirement years if her health holds up.

As we drove the gravel road back to her house, the sign Caber Woods appeared. She said a caber is a Scottish pole and because her wetlands have lots of poles (dead limbless trunks), it is an apt name.

Her mother is a neighbor of ours at Grace Village Robin Hood condos; however, I saw this family occasionally as the parents served as missionaries over the border into Mexico the same as my aunt and uncle. Linda's husband later worked at Grace College when we were employed there.

They bought the property almost 20 years ago, putting a double wide trailer on it. About 10 years ago they removed the trailer and had a manufactured home set on the grounds to which they added a garage.

We saw Linda about town, but it was a few weeks ago when we attended an introductory meeting about ACRES Land Trust at Grace Village that she told us about her property and invited us to come visit.

It is not far from Highway 30, but is peaceful with lots of birds, turtles, frogs, and other critters. She has a big shady patio as well as benches and chairs in the sun to enjoy the outdoors.

More work than I would want in retirement, but it is a nice haven for her mother and aunt to while away time.

Linda has flowers well-suited to naturalization. One plant I asked about turned out to be lamb's ear. She has volunteer plants poking up. She told me I was welcome to take some. Maybe next week I will go back and get some as my portulaca that was just starting to peek through the soil apparently has died from all of the standing water in our heavy rains. The Lamb's Ear could propagate and become a ground covering replacement. Doesn't bloom until summer though.

Do you have any experience with Lamb's Ear? Will it spread so much that I will be sorry I planted it?
I need something besides bare dirt and  weeds behind my condo.