Outdoor Wednesday #38

Whoo-hoo! Outdoor Wednesday time. Here’s the view out my front door this foggy morning.

And from the upstairs dormer windows on a clear day.

Wonderfully cool on Tuesday morning. Opened my office window and looked down into the side garden. Ooops– I saw the waterfall pond had gone near dry! Pump was still chugging, and dear water lily gasping for breath. (Yes, only one water lily, just haven’t gotten to putting in more.)

6 AM, and in pajamas and flip-flops, with robe flying out behind me, I ran downstairs and out the door, dragged the hose over to start filling the pond. Folding up the sleeves of my robe, I bent over the rocks of the waterfall and began rearranging them, as is my compulsive nature. We have a problem with the pond leaking water. It does not leak if the pump is not running, so we believe the problem is in the waterfall but as yet have not been able to get the rocks in correct position.

Since I was there anyway, I dug out leaves and gunk and cleaned the pump filter. Suddenly the hose on the pump came off, and brown scummy water sprayed out of the pump and all over me. For some reason I had the idea that I could get the hose back onto the pump with the water spraying out. With my glasses covered in water, I realized the impossibility of this task. Throwing the pump on the bank, I hurried over rocks and through scratchy bushes to reach the box and jerk out the plug. Then it was hurrying out of the bug-infested jungle to the yard, all the while slipping and sliding on wet flip-flops.

I returned to the kitchen, stepped in and stood there, a wet hen.

Bigstreetrod said, “Why didn’t you just leave the pump in the water?”

“Well, I didn’t want it to suck water back in through the open hole.”

“It’s got water in there. That’s what it does. It pumps water.”

The light dawned.

Here’s a shot of our ponds in the side garden. Someday they will work correctly and have many plants. I want a garden pond, not fish. Can you imagine how I would have been with fish in the pond?

Thanks to our host, Susan, at A Southern Daydreamer. Pop over and enjoy other posts by Outdoor Wednesday participants.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

Novel Synopsis, Life, and Nana

The plan had been for me to ahead to our new home in Alabama and spend three to six months handling the renovations and repairs, while Bigstreetrod would visit back and forth until our Oklahoma house sold. Ahh. I pictured visiting  with our son and grandchildren living only minutes away and creating a comfortable new home to suit a new phase of our lives. I anticipated solitude for peaceful gardening and passionate writing. I had a new vision for my life, this final third part of the journey, where I’ve come to know who I am and what I want. Oh, joy!

Well, life is very much like a novel synopsis. Neither of them are given to going along as planned.

Within weeks of moving, I joined the ranks of grandparents who are parenting for the second time around, when I took on the daily care of one of our grandchildren. Enter Sweetie Pie, a high-spirited two-year-old boy, and exit  unpacking and decorating and writing, and really a whole lot of knowing who I am and what I’m about. God really does have a sense of humor. I find myself in much the same position I was in when I began a writing career some twenty-eight years ago; I’m juggling the need and ambition to write and the desire to nurture a little boy. When I think of it, both passions are quite similar. With writing and with raising a child, one is learning all the time about oneself and life.

You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once.  ~Polish Proverb

Thankfully we are in the support position, not full-time parenting. Our single-parent son is a reliable and caring father. Each evening, Sweetie-Pie runs into his daddy’s arms, and goes home, which leaves me the evenings free to write. Or so I have told myself with good intention. However, by then I can do little more than throw myself into bed to fall asleep with my glasses down my nose and a book on my chest.

“Nana, come on.” “Nana, run…chase me.” “Nana, play cars.” “Nannnaaa…Nannnaaaa!”

One day during the first week, I took Sweetie-Pie with me to the pool supply store. While I transacted business, Sweetie Pie proceeded to knock over signs, throw things into spas, empty the water-cooler on the floor, and dump M&Ms on the carpet. Red with embarrassment, not to mention hair on end, I finally managed to corral him. I, the woman with books sold around the world, mature and knowing who she was and where she was going, felt totally inept.

An older gentleman spoke to me as I was leaving. “You wouldn’t take anything for him,” he said in his soft, Southern drawl.

“Well, if anyone took him, they would bring him back,” I said, panting.

The man chuckled and said that his own grandson had not been worth anything when small. Then, proudly, “But now he’s nine, and he’s turnin’ out pretty good, a great boy.”

The man’s eyes, very blue, I suddenly realized, became intent. He said, “Grandparents can make all the difference. Mine did for me. I would not be sittin’ here right now, having the good life I have, if it had not been for my grandparents. They made all the difference.”

I carried his words with me as I drove back home and got Sweetie-Pie a popsicle and me a cold tea, throwing myself down in a porch chair to catch my breath. I realized the man was my angel sent to boost me. Every time I remember, I smile.

To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. ~Marilyn French

This month Bigstreetrod, aka Papa, finally joined me permanently in Alabama. We have instituted firmly the ‘hold my hand’ rule when going into a store, even if Sweetie-Pie is wily and often gets away from Nana, who admittedly is not strong in the discipline department. Papa is. We’re a good team.With the two of us, things are easier, though I have to say that at times we are both wilted in the porch chairs. My hat is off to you grandparents who manage more than one.We now have Sweetie-Pie enrolled in pre-school two short days a week. That gives us time to catch our breath, unpack a box or two, while he gets time with other children.

I keep trying to find my way back to the writer that I was and the life I had envisioned, although it doesn’t seem quite as important as before.  As I read what I have written, I laugh. It is a mixture about writing and about raising a precious little one. Such is my life.

Even as Bigstreetrod was bringing more boxes into the house from the moving POD, stacking them around my desk, I said to him: “Tuesdays are going to be my days to write. They are from now on inviolable.  I just have to write to keep track of myself.”

He looks a little perplexed. “You can have Thursdays, too.” It is Thursday, so he can’t figure out why I am talking about Tuesday. I’m preparing for the closest day to come when I will have time.

This may all be a little disjointed. I originally had thirty minutes but have stretched it to an hour and a half, and I can tell I didn’t stick to any one theme. No matter. I have written and found myself, and I can breathe again. Now I rush away to pick up Sweetie-Pie from pre-school.  I’m excited as I think of the greeting I will receive, when that little boy jumps into my arms. We’ll have cookies on the way home and point out big trucks and “‘tool buses.”

I will proof this tonight, if I don’t fall asleep first. Maybe I will post it as it is.

CurtissAnn, aka Nana.

Outdoor Wednesday

I made it! Finally got some blogging time and photos to take part in Outdoor Wednesday. I’m tickled as a dog with two tails. My thanks to Susan at A Southern Daydreamer for sponsoring this inspiring theme that encourages me to look at my own backyard, as well as the opportunity to see beauty from other blogs.

These surprises started popping up here and there around the yard of my new home. Such gifts! Thanks to a couple of garden bloggers, I learned they are red spider lilies, often called Hurricane Lilies, because they bloom at hurricane season. They send up these lovely blooms on tall stalks, then the leaves will come later.

I’ve been wondering the name of this shrub that grows between my two tiny ponds~

Then I was looking through Alabama & Mississippi Gardener’s Guide and found it! Fatsia. What a funny name. I adore it!

These banana plants are favorites of Bigstreetrod. I did not like them. Then–surprise! I discovered this one blooming. Beautiful!

Last week, I looked up and saw, rather horrified, one half of an enormous pecan tree was dead as a doornail. I went around to look, and here is what I found.

Half the tree is truly dead. I swear I did not see the tree ailing, and I had mowed beneath it only a week prior. We wonder if it was struck by lightning. Or is that some odd pattern made by a tree-killing insect or disease? I am loathe to cut it and intend to wait until spring.

Lastly, I was excited to see the first buds on the camellias! The first camellias I’ve ever had. I hope they’re pink!

It occurs to me that I’ve been speaking of many surprises. All except for the pecan tree have been delightful, and even the pecan tree is interesting. I watch the tree, wondering: what next?

I think of the people who planted all this years before. Surely the pecan farmer, when he planted the trees, never thought ahead to how someone like myself would come along and be in love with them. I imagine the person who planted the lilies, see a woman going about the yard digging a hole and plopping in a bulb, no doubt thinking she was planting only for herself. And each of the other bushes. Here I am now getting great pleasure in seeing the beauty. We rarely give thought to how small, seemingly insignificant actions on our part can be great blessings to others. That is the natural working of life.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. ~Romans 8:27-29.

Blessings,

CurtissAnn

Home Sweet Home, at last

Let me just say that moving a household, after nearly twenty-five years in one place, half way across the country, is not an endeavor for sissies. Obviously I’m a bold woman–I’m also moving my blog, again.

There’s nothing like staying at home for real comfort. ~Jane Austen

I had thought we would be settled at our new home in several months. I had even promised my agent to have a new book proposal and chapters to her in September. Oh, how I have underestimated this moving job! I first saw our south Alabama home online last September, then in person in October. Now one year later, and we are finally here, although far from settled.

My office reading nook–shelves await books, as the entire house awaits with much promise.

Look closer. The position of the pillow illustrates perfectly our lives at the moment–upside down!

I feel quite like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz–swept up, tossed about, then dumped out helter-skelter in a strange land. I have not yet found a hair dresser, nor, most importantly, a massage therapist. If anyone knows of either in Mobile, Alabama, please let me know.) Just today we got telephones hooked up, and are instantly getting wrong numbers.

I have been very happy with my homes, but homes really are no more than the people who live in them. ~Nancy Reagan.

Last week we sold our Oklahoma house, and this week Bigstreetrod finally joined me here in Alabama, so it really does feel like home. We now set about getting things in order, although we’re starting out with a lot of porch-sitting and talking about what to do next. As Bigstreetrod says, “These things have to stay in the planning stages for a while.”

What feels good is that I’m writing this from my new office, a room that makes me smile each time I enter it. I let go of a lot of furniture I no longer needed and am settling in with a more simple style. Little by little order is not no much made as emerges. During the process, I discover anew the truth of the old saying: home is where the heart is.

The Art of Daydreaming

Originally published March 23, 2009

Shush, woman daydreaming.

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. ~Satchel Paige.

I still, after all these years, tend to feel guilty for my strong requirement for time alone to do nothing other than daydream. The world worships goals and productivity. One does not see books with titles such as “7 Habits of Highly Inefficient Daydreamers.”

“I was so busy today,” seems to be the modern, and expected refrain. This is perfectly acceptable, however, to say, “You know I chose not to do anything or to see anyone today, I did not even answer my phone,” is taken as highly unusual, if not suspect.

One day last week, I realized I was angry. In the way I have learned to deal with this, I asked myself, “Honey, what’s going on with you?”

The whisper came: “Doing too much. Time to relax and rest.”

Ah. I had been trying to keep up with the ‘Jones’ in many areas, losing myself in the process. Time to get back to me. Time to refill the well, as it is known in writer talk.

He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities. ~Benjamin Franklin.

It is an art to be cultivated, this resting. Not sleeping, which I very often have done because it seems productive, and an unobtrusive way to hide. But to simply allow the soul to rest, to daydream and simply be is what is needed. It is amazing how simply sitting still for five minutes can sometimes be the most difficult thing, yet the most refreshing. Just sit with no agenda. No well-meaning prayer, no purposeful meditation, no paper and pen to write or plan.

For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: “ In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” ~Isaiah 30:15

Cat on the lap and cup of tea do seem to to encourage daydreaming.

Enjoy some daydreaming today.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn