Small Things, Big Joy

As I sat on the patio reading my Bible and a daily devotional, I enjoyed the cool and quiet of early morning. That period of time after Miss T gets on the bus and before my house and pets call for me to get busy is my favorite time. I have had a feathered companion on the past few mornings. A very young and a little scraggly looking male cardinal has been nearby. When I sit with Miss T on the front porch waiting for the bus, he chirps his greetings from the tree in the front yard. When I gather my devotional materials and head for the backyard, he joins me. He chirps from the bushes and occasionally joins the other birds for a snack at the feeders. He doesn't seem to mind Maddie's company as long as she is sitting quietly by my side. I've really come to look forward to his morning visits. It makes me slow down for just a bit and feel pure joy, no matter how busy the day ahead looks or what trials I have to contend with.
I guess I entitled this entry small things because this small bird doesn't doesn't take up much physical space on this earth, but he creates a joy that is so big it can't be measured.

Weekly Favorites

Here it is the last Sunday in August. I had a devotional time early this morning on the patio. I'm currently going through My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers. As I enjoyed the peace of early morning, a flock of geese flew low over my house. I watch them fly over each morning, and sometimes I catch their evening fly over. It always fills me with joy. I started to think about things that bring me joy. Some days it is an easy thing to do. Some days the list is very long and other days I have to stretch my thinking to find it. Joy is always there, it's just that sometimes it is buried under the every day busyness and struggles. So in an effort to make myself uncover that joy that gets buried in life, I am going to post an occasional joy list. Perhaps everyone could think about their own joys and add to it. So here goes.
A Joyful Sunday
1. the sound of geese on a quiet morning.
2. a good cup of coffee. (My son Jim's is the best)
3. the smiles of my grandaughters
4. a fall sunset
5. a day when I've accomplished everything I've set out to do.

Garden Update

Maddie checks things out and gives me updates through out the day. I do sometimes detect a little "onion" breath.
The pole beans are putting out runners and climbing the wire. The bush peas seem a little slow, but we'll see.
We ate our first yellow squash a couple of days ago. We are going to be up to our eyeballs in them real soon. The zucchini should be ready to pick tomorrow. I like them grilled the best. The cucumbers are climbing the trellis and it won't be long before we'll see little cucumbers. Some of the tomato plants already have little tomatoes. I'm looking forward to "homegrown" tomatoes versus "store bought".
Maddie so far has only tasted the onion tops. She is more likely to just walk among the plants and sniff. However, I did fence off the beans and peas to protect them from her big feet!

Cold Snap

After a lot of rain in the last two weeks, all is sunny but not warm here. We're having the early April cold snap that comes after the garden has been planted. Usually around Easter. If you wait to put in your garden until mid April, the plants will wilt in the summer heat (which will probably be here by May 1st). So what you see in the pictures is our way of protecting the plants from the freeze warning that was issued for last night and tonight. The tomato plants' cages were wrapped in plastic trash bags. Yes, I know it is not ecologically correct and we've enlarged our footprint, but it is what works best. I'll try to find a second use for the plastic. Under the buckets are the squash and zucchini plants. It's a good thing I save those detergent buckets. They are so multipurpose! Everything else is blanketed in pine straw, except for the onions. I've never grown onions before, but they seem pretty hardy.

Now I've got to go out and uncover the plants with plastic and buckets before the sun makes it too warm for them. We will cover them again this evening. I'm going to leave the pine straw alone. All this just makes the vegetables taste so much better than store bought when we finally harvest.

Labs, Dachshunds & Girls

The photos of Maddie and Trellany, I've entitled A Girl and Her Dog. Dogs can be a girl's best friend. They listen to your problems or wishes and keep your secrets very well. They give kisses and extra love when you're sad. They are just plain fun and good for laugh when you need one the most. As you've read in previous posts, life with Maddie the Lab is never dull!

Sometimes I feel like Minnie Mouse the Dachshund. I just want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head. Minnie is good for snuggling and when awake, can look at you with such intelligence! It is as if she knows what you're thinking. Smart dog!

Spring In My Backyard

I love the view from the kitchen window these days. During the winter, I watch the birds at my feeders and hope to glimpse a cardinal or two. Mostly I'm visited by doves, chirping sparrows, house finches, and our winter visitors the yellow finches. When the yellow finches arrive before Christmas, they are mostly gray, but in late March when they leave, they are a bright yellow.

Now that it is spring, there are other colors to brighten the view. The plumbago has pretty deep pink flowers. The white flowers of the spirea really stand out against the darker colored bushes. The jasmine on the fence still has a few yellow flowers, but reached its peak in February with a bright yellow display. It was gorgeous. I don't know why I didn't take a picture! Oh well.
I love that the grass (and weeds) are green. Unfortunately that means mowing. I use a push mower in the backyard. I don't mind cutting grass when it is 85 degrees or less. I also don't mind cutting grass once a week. Unfortunately, it gets above 85 from April to September and thanks to Rick's use of Weed and Feed, I have to cut grass every three days or risk losing Minnie the Dachshund in a jungle!

As you can see from all the roofs in the background, there are a lot of houses around me. Thanks to fences, there is a little privacy to enjoy the view. Fences really do make good neighbors. It gives you a place to retreat when you don't feel like company sometimes.

Maddie Gets Mad

Maddie the Lab was not amused when I left her Thursday to take Trellany to a karate demo in Daphne. Her anger pushed her to do something Bo, our previous Lab did when he was about Maddie's age which is 17 months. Rick came home from work to find that Maddie had chewed his TV remote to pieces. Bo ate not only ate one remote, but also ate the replacement remote which had been placed on a high shelf out of his reach or so we thought. Bo lived to be almost 13 years old and we never figured out how he did it. From now on, our replacement remote will be placed in a drawer when we leave Maddie.

Her mischief doesn't end there. The next day while I was substitute teaching and Rick went to the grocery store, Maddie took a supposedly empty yellow ink cartridge from the trash can by my desk. I usually recycle them, but was in a hurry before I went to work and dropped it in my trash. When Maddie greeted Rick, she had bright yellow whiskers, a bright yellow tongue and yellow feet. There is now a yellow stain on my carpet. Rick called Epson to see if the ink was toxic (which it wasn't), the vet to see if the ink and plastic were harmful. The vet's office, after a good laugh, told Rick to just watch her to make sure the plastic passed and didn't bind up in her system.

Up until now Maddie has been really good! She hasn't eaten the garbage, books, homework, tables and entire chair arms as Bo did. Yes, there were some skeptical teachers when my sons said the dog ate their homework. They were vindicated when they produced the text books totally chewed up! I guess she's entered the terrible twos of a Lab puppy. She's a late bloomer.

Spring Garden

The first picture shows what used to be a flower bed, but has been changed to a vegetable garden. I put in sets of onions in the closest one. In the second one I've planted pole beans, purple hull peas, and radishes. The seeds have all sprouted and now have to be thinned out.
In the second picture is the main garden or Rick's division. He is in charge of tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. The cucumbers seeds have just barely poked their heads up by the trellis in the back. The rest were all plants purchased at Lowe's. I'm hoping to try to get in ahead of Rick when possible to try to keep him from needing the use of pesticides. He does love his chemicals!

Maddie Takes Over

Due to a back injury, Minnie Mouse the Dachshund has had to be confined in the kennel to keep her from jumping and running so that she can heal. During one of Minnie's breaks from the kennel, Maddie decided to take over that space. Not only did she take over the kennel, but she also took over one of Minnie's favorite squeaking toys. In the past, there have been many tug of wars over "Hootie".

A Good Day

Today was a good day. There was nothing special about it. I didn't go anywhere. There were no visitors. The Publisher's Clearing House didn't ring my doorbell and and announce, "Rhonda Roberts. You've just won one million dollars!!"
This morning I slept in until 8:00 and had a quiet breakfast with my husband. He did the cooking. I had a second and third cup of coffee which were sipped while watching the birds at the backyard feeders and reading the newspaper. Rick walked Maddie early so she wasn't nagging me for her walk. Since it's Saturday, there was no mad dash to get Trellany to school, plus she was with her dad this morning.
I piddled at my computer reading emails, tweets, blogs, and most important of all, watching Naomi videos on You tube.(Thanks Jim!) My industrious husband in the meantime gathered the ingredients to make a big pot of shrimp gumbo. I did my Wii Fit routine for 20 minutes. I can make that hula hoop go around pretty fast! :o
I then felt a little industrious myself and cleaned out the linen closet. I ended up with a bag full of trash, a bag for Goodwill and an empty shelf. I was a happy woman! I really like it when I can open a closet door and see exactly what I need.
My closest friend called. It was good to catch up on things with her. She is the sister of my heart. I had a cup of tea in my favorite tea cup. I walked Maddie mid afternoon. By this time Rick's gumbo was really smelling good! After supper Trellany and I did some Wii bowling (I had 5 strikes!), tennis, and baseball.
Well here it is evening. I plan on getting into my comfy PJs, climbing into bed and watching a movie. As you've read there is no big special thing that made my day great. Instead there were many small simple things that came together to bring calm blessings in a usually busy life.

Simple Pleasures

Simple pleasures can be an absolute joy. They aren't complicated. They don't require much money, if any at all. They just make you feel good. So here are a few thoughts that bring me enjoyment.

1. A clear blue sky on a very cold day. (We don't have very many cold days here in LA.)
2. Making a pot of chili on a very cold day.
3. Doing cross stitch sitting near a sunny window.
4. Snuggling with a Dachshund.
5. Watching Martha Stewart in the afternoon.

Being Around

I had an appointment with the new doctor who took over my old doctor's practice when he moved. I like going to a female doctor. She is about my age and really tells it like it is, which is what I needed. After reviewing my cholesterol tests from last April, she asked why I wasn't taking Levostatin. As I explained to my previous doctor, I said I was trying to correct the situation with diet and exercise. I had to admit I was not doing so well in that area. It was then that she told me my numbers were too high to reduce them with diet and exercise alone. The overall total was 266. The bad cholesterol total was 166. I didn't know it had been that high. This was in April. I've since gained 10 pounds so it is probably higher by now. My old doctor never really pressed home the urgency of this. He was content to let me do it on my own. The new doctor kindly told me that diet and exercise are good, but to lower these cholesterol numbers "you can't get there from here" with out some help. She was pretty convincing so I took my first levostatin tonight. It is supposed to be taken at bedtime and on an empty stomach. That gives me incentive to skip the bedtime snack and maybe lose the 10 pounds I've gained in the bargain.
It also makes me realize that I need to take better care of myself. I want to be at the weddings of my beautiful granddaughters some day. I know that it will be quite some time before these events take place after all one is 12 years old and the other is 12 days old today. The point is I want to be there and I don't want to be there in a wheelchair! I want to walk in wearing high heels, looking and feeling great. So that said, I'm going to take the medication faithfully and have my cholesterol checked in 4-6 weeks. I'm going to exercise daily (easier said than done) and eat more fish and less red meat.
All I know is I want to be around for a long, long time. One day you'll see me riding around in a red convertible VW Beetle with the top down at the beach with Trellany and Naomi. I'll be the one riding in the back seat with my hands in the air singing some rowdy rock song!

Sunsets

This picture was captured this evening in Fairhope.  I saw the opportunity to work on goal #4 (See previous post) and I took it.  This was the view I enjoyed tonight as I dined on a thermos of vegetable soup and a Subway sandwich.  This was a view that really fed my soul.  I'm really going to have to do this more often.  After the sunset, I admired all the beautiful lights in the trees in downtown Fairhope. No wonder Fairhope was chosen by Southern Living magazine as the third best small town to live in in the southern USA.

Another New Year Already!

Yes, it's true 2009 is here. That means a new round of goals. Some of last years goals were achieved, some are a work still in progress. I guess my goals for 2009 are more abstract this year. As you've read from my 2008 blogs ( the few I've done), my life is very hectic. I guess I've found myself so busy with the dailies of life and my LA family's needs that I lost myself some where in there. 

 So that said, here are my goals for 2009.

1. Simplify, simplify, simplify.  Stop knocking myself out to be perfect, try doing things the easy way & just be happy!

2. I want to get to know my new granddaughter Naomi. Naomi has such awesome parents, so I'm thrilled that I get to do the fun stuff that comes with being a grandmother.

3. Visit WA state where I can work on goal #2. I miss my WA family so much! I loved WA. when I visited lasted year.  The life there is more in tune with who God made me to be. 

4. In the meantime, try to bloom where I'm planted right now. By this I mean watching sunsets from a pier on the bay, making time to walk on the beach, playing Wii more, conquering Miss T's Raymon Rabbid Nintendo game, spending time doing things I want & enjoy doing.  

5. Do more needlework. It soothes my soul.(Naomi's baby blanket helped keep me from insanity on many a day!) I could have included this in #4 but I've done this for 30 years no matter where I've lived and want to get back into it. Maybe  come up with my own designs. 

6. Just say NO! If my heart isn't in it don't do it.

7.  Laugh more and be spontaneous sometimes!  It's sad when you "always" have to plan fun!

(And last but not least)

8. Be happy with myself. After all, I am a child of the Most High God and He doesn't make junk!!