Carding Mill and Vanessa Bell

When I used to drink wine and purchase bottles of it, the scribbled descriptions of the tasting notes mattered. And so did the look of the label. I felt that drinking wine from a gorgeously designed bottle was part of the whole pleasurable experience.

In planting roses, I'm finding the same pull toward a rose not only because of its size, color, disease resistance, fragrance, but also because the description and the photos are just so good, and the name! Oh, the name!

It's not true that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Ms. Juliet. For me, an apricot pink Carding Mill Rose or a pale yellow Vanessa Bell (both with me at breakfast)...

... bring forth images: of Cardin Mill Valley in Shropshire England (where David Austin roses are imagined and developed). Fells and vales, moors and lakes. With roses climbing over fences, or growing abundantly in cottage gardens. And a Vanessa Bell Rose, named after the artist and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group (and sister of Virginia Woolf) -- wouldn't you want to have that rose in your garden? There grows a Vanessa Bell, in the memory of the Vanessa Bell!

 

("wait -- inside, on my chair again?!) 

 

 

 (there's room for both of us!)

 

 

("tomorrow on the porch, okay?")

 

 

Now, about Millie. All roads lead to her, don't they... It's a doggie daycare day for her and I'd say she really will profit from a good many hours of play. Her energy levels remain high and I would not be surprised if they stayed high through the first two or three years of her life. People always remark how fast she moves. (When you approach her, she takes that as an invitation to run circles around you.) And today, Julie at Happy Dogz tells me that she is really enjoying playing with a St Bernard doodle! (A St. Bernard doodle? How does that even look on a dog -- a mix of poodle and St Bernard?)

After dropping her off, I go to Home Depot to pick up my drain pipe. They don't come in medium sizes -- you have a choice of 15 inches or ten feet. Of course I need the bigger one, but will it fit in my car?

FYI: a ten foot drain pipe does not fit in a Subaru Crosstreck.

I open the front window, stick out the pipe there and hold on to it with my non driving arm. And I mean hold on! The wind on the highway zips right through the pipe's tunnel and threatens to lift the whole thing and carry it away. Next time, take Ed's truck!

My tin snip guy comes over and cuts the pipe down to size. It's looking good out there, even before I plant the 12 new roses and 6 perennials that are on their way to Steffi's House.   (You'd think my gardening space was large. It isn't: the plot is only 0.11 acres and of course, the house and driveway out back take up most of the spaces. Still, I keep seing patches of sod that I could take out...

 

In the afternoon, I pick up the kids. Boys first...

Then the girl...

The boys are heavily into some game on their tablets (with frequent, loud directions being issued by Sparrow), but Snowdrop just likes to hang around the grownups. I walk Goose, so she walks Goose with me...

I sit down to read, she grabs my computer and sits next to me, creating some story or other. And every few minutes we talk. She tells me that when she came back from camp this summer, she thought nothing would change. But of course, to ride the back of a clichee -- time doesn't stand still. Change is everywhere. We all feel it. All the time. To me, it's normal to be constantly riding the waves of change (ha! get me writing late and I'm full of clichees!). For a child? Well that depends -- on where you're at in your school, your development, your emotions.

She asks too to pick up Millie with me. It's late, but I agree. A good snuggle with Millie is very therapeutic. I can share my pup with her for a few minutes, before I take Millie home and watch her tear apart the floor mat in the bathroom. Millie!

with so much love... 

 

why not just do it...

The owner of Rusty, Millie's dad, posted a photo of him on Facebook and, while she was at it, photos of Millie's sisters. One she kept and one that she babysits when the owner is away. I know about this second pup -- she went to a woman who had lost her doodle to old age and was looking for a young doodle. And they sold it to her, despite the fact that this dog lover was 89 years old. I was informed that "she's very spry!"  That would well describe the dog as well. Rusty's pups are long legged gazelles. Millie, too, is very spry!

And I thought I was old getting a young pup! (I do have a designated person to care for her just in case.) 

My attitude toward a lot of projects right now is "why not just do it!" You do not postpone things when you're 73. 

This is why I'm pushing forward with planting the side yard at Steffi's. This is why I must have lifted one hundred acres of sod today. Okay, perhaps not quite that, but it was a hefty amount. This is why I dug holes for new plants. Roses mostly but not only.

It is the perfect day for it -- initially cool, so cool in fact that I decide to have breakfast inside.

 

 

 

Millie is puzzled. Why is there stuff on her chair?

Eventually she accepts her fate and tries to find joy playing on the couch. Not the same! It offers no view to the outside world.

 (oh! you moved the tray to make room for me! much better!)

 

 

And when she rests, I work on the sod removal project.

 

Shortly after  noon I have had it. I'll finish this stage of the expansion later. Time for lunch with Ed at Tati's.

Millie swallows her disappointment when we are told that they're out of whipped cream (for a pup cup). Ed shares a couple of pieces of chicken with her. She is placated.

 

 

 

So long as Ed is in my neighborhood, I ask his advice on a couple of trivial things at home: downspout extensions, furnace filters -- small stuff, but then, he likes to offer advice on small stuff (never on important stuff, holding on to the belief that important decisions are best left to the person affected by them). We spend a long time studying downspouts on the computer. This is such familiar to me intimacy! He and I will always enjoy studying tools and metals about which I know nothing, even as I have firm ideas as to what I want to do with them. Inevitably he will steer me to the cheapest option. Downspout for $19. Good enough! Dont buy the tin snips to cut it to size. Use mine. Shouldn't I have a pair? You'll never use them after this. 

It's very helpful to have a guy with tin snips as your beloved almost-neighbor.

And in the afternoon? I dig holes in tough soil and construction junk. I needed that. Two friends now with serious health issues. Are you for the most part healthy? Thank your lucky stars. I do. A quiet thank you, every time I look up and catch that star.

with so much love... 

rose book

Keeping records of your life... What for? For whom? For yourself really. (Is Ocean for myself? In many ways it is, though it is also for the lot of you.) I wrote journals when I was younger. Age 11 through maybe 47. I threw away most of them -- certainly the ones that were written in my adult years. I embarrassed even myself at their content. I do wish I had been like my mother (in this one way!) and had kept a record of books I'd read. With notes on what, if anything, they meant to me. I'd reread that compilation, if only to remember ones that were fantastic, but now long forgotten. I read that? Really? I guess I did, but I surely don't remember!

Ocean jogs my memory on trips taken. And in the food department -- there I used to keep a very very fat notebook of favorite recipes. That was fun: a collection, with a rating system. A star with an exclamation mark for a particularly successful buche de Noel. I still reach for that notebook at Christmas time.

But how about my garden? Steffi's Garden.

Well, I've tried keeping gardening notes before -- lists of flowers purchased, of farmette flower beds, with directives on what to plant where, come spring. It was, however, a hopeless effort. The beds were huge, the flowers -- most of them purchased in years prior to my record book. And the encroachment of trees, invasives, the self sowing -- it was all out of control before I even got started. 

Today, I stopped by the farmhouse to drop off some food for Ed and to pick up some freezer stuff and some odd dishes that I do not really want to get rid of. As I walked past the flower fields, I was horrified at how quickly the weeds had taken over. I suggested to Ed that he mow it all down. The place went from looking heavenly (last year) to looking ghastly. (He may not share my view -- I really don't know.)

I come back to the idea of a gardening notebook for Steffi's House. Now is the time to start. I know exactly what I planted where. I haven't forgotten. The tags have all stayed in place. But again, what for? For whom? Will it help me in any way? I'm thinking that like with the Labor Day rose purchase, I should do it and then worry about what purpose it serves (and where to plant the new roses).  It's a now or never kind of thing.

And the most important component of this book of flowers is the rose chapter. Indeed, I think the roses deserve their own notebook. I started it today.

After the last five arrive (sometime next week maybe), I will have put in 55 new roses (plus one transplant from the farmette). Three have lost their tags. Meaning I have no idea what they are. They were the very first purchases (some while I was still at Sally's House). I had seen Millie chomp away at plants on the screened porch there and I decided on roses for her yard because (among other reasons like "exciting new project," beauty, fragrance, challenge!) you cant kill a dog with rose bushes. The big test will come in spring: will they survive? Will they thrive? What mistakes did I make? For now, I snitched one of the pretty notebooks I once purchased for one of the kids and got started.

All this after breakfast of course. Millie and I began our breakfast routine outside...

 

 

 

... but I got cold pretty quickly, sweatshirt notwithstanding, so we finished inside.

Imagine, it's in the 60s F (over 16 C) and I'm cold! My summer blood has turned me into a softie! I need to develop my winter coat!

 

Millie goes back to doggie daycare, I catch up on errands.

And then come the kids: Sandpiper...

then Sparrow... (why are you out so much later? My teacher is SO slow!! But you had a better day than last Friday? Yes! I learned that kids have very short memories!)

And from another school -- Snowdrop (she is all about friends now... as was I at her age; it passed!).

I still haven't developed a good routine with them. We stay at their house -- so that's a big change. We're not reading together, not any of us. I walk Goose with one of them, I water their new trees with two, I make sure their eating healthy snacks. And maybe routines aren't needed yet. Or ever. I mean, my pup loves routines. [ Final late night walk, then I say the magic words -- let's go upstairs, and she starts the trot up. I turn on the bedroom light, recharge my watch, my phone. She watches from her (otherwise unused) bed. I go to the bathroom to wash up, she follows and waits for me there. I come out, she hops on the bed knowing that I'll join her in a sec. I read, she leans against the second pillow and waits for her ear and chest rub. Five minutes, no more. Then like clockwork, she moves from the pillow to the foot of the bed. I tell her I love her, wish her a good night, and eventually turn off the light. Every single night -- same set of motions, same reactions.] Maybe kids are okay with the occasional chaos. Maybe that's when they grow most?

Home with Millie tonight. I return to filling out my Rose Book.

with so much love... 

 

roses and a doodle

That's it. That was my day. Work outside, play with Millie. Nothing more.

I woke up thinking I should treat this as a spa day. No appointments, no obligations. No cook-out, no meet-ups. Why not soak in a tub and then give myself a massage. What, you dont think I can? Last week I took my own photo for a passport renewal. If I can do that, I can massage my stiff and sore muscles (so many buckets of soil carried up the hill!). But here's the thing: the glow that is generated by spa treatments (even and perhaps especially ones you do yourself) have no staying power. Five minutes later and you have to remind yourself that you actually did something relaxing, because your muscles are stiff again and your mind has moved on to the next worry. Now, if I am traveling and there happens to be a spa at my location (it's rare, but it happens), then why not! It's part of the entirety. Indulgence magnified. But at home? I'm better off being productive.

First, a wake up with Millie. She has had an upset tummy (excitement generated) so you know what's first on my agenda. Out comes the enzyme spray, I get to work. Poor girl -- she tries really hard to do what is expected of her (except when she tilts her head and goes after the bathroom rug or takes out the last bit of stuffing from her snuggle pup).

 

It's a beautiful morning out there! A soft mist, sunshine, a delicate breeze. Not too hot yet...

 

Breakfast outside, of course.

 

 

 

I wait for Millie to be ready for her nap. It takes her a while to settle today -- she sets off the alarm when she sees through the window that a white plastic bag has landed in the gutter.

 

 

 

Truly, you'd think it was an invasion of aliens coming to take us both away. She is absolutely certain (and most certainly vocal about it)  that I should take heed! 

 

 

Eventually she tires herself out and I crate her and go outside. Here's my challenge: yesterday Heirloom Roses posted an irresistible Labor Day sale on their roses. By midnight I caved and bought four. With free shipping, it was a steal. (Nurseries offload their stock now left and right.) 

It is true that eventually, I want to keep stripping the side yard (the one with the fenced AC unit) of most of its lawn and plant flowers. I got a good head start this summer and I was going to leave the rest til spring (by which time I will have developed a plan for it), but of course, in spring, everything is at full price. So, I did the smart thing budget wise but dumb thing because I do not have a plan.

When Millie sleeps, I go out and study the yard. (And of course, I have to water the back yard plants because it is so warm and so dry still...) 

 

 

 

So, what do I see as the future of the side yard? I use stones as markers for potential expansion and rose placement. And I settle on a front-side positioning, because more people will see the roses there. I've never done gardening for show, but these roses (if I treat them with care) are stunning and I do believe people will enjoy seeing them, sniffing their scent, perhaps smiling at their abundance of blooms. 

Roses, Millie, a coffee and a good book -- those are surefire smile inducing things in my life right now. Not the only smile inducing things, but certainly near the top of any list of mine. 

I dig, move out a lily, expand the front garden, remove sod. I dont get it all done, but by the time the plants arrive, I'll be ready for them.

 

By mid afternoon Millie is up and demanding a release. Okay, little one. Backyard time!

 

And of course, there's the daily grooming session... There! My most perfect girl!

 

 

 

I would call this a strenuous day work wise. If Labor Day stands for solidarity, for uniting in strength, for taking time off to reflect at all that you've achieved in life (or in your garden), then I will have to count this one as successful indeed. Planting for my community. Reflecting on the beauty of a garden. 

And let's not forget my pup. With the help of the above Millie photo, I generated (using Frame & Tail presets) a small poster of her for one of the walls at Steffi's House. Here it is:

 

 

Millie, celebrating Labor Day in the best way known to woman and dog.

with so much love... 

expansion

 Let's be honest here: I will always find ways to improve the garden. I will never feel satisfied or think it to be "done." Time spent on the lovely bench (which I freshly treated with teak oil this week) in the rose garden (a.k.a. Millie's yard)? Negligible. Time spent digging, adding, snipping, clearing, moving, training, watering, weeding, mulching, feeding, pruning? Hours upon hours. 

The often spoken words "you must love gardening" never seemed right. There are tasks in that list that I do not especially like doing. But I love how working in my garden makes me feel. The effort! Being outside with purpose! The engagement of all the senses!  And perhaps the best of them all -- the clear mind. It's magic really. When I work outside, my only thoughts are about flowers and gardens. The calm that comes with it is priceless!

I am aware of the privilege here: I have a garden with plenty of sunshine and I am starting from scratch.  Picking up a flower or two every other day may be relatively inexpensive (roses do not belong in that pricing category!), but it's like treating yourself to a latte every day (which I have stopped doing for this reason) -- it adds up! At least I don't have to work with landscape people to remove sod. I do it myself. Digging? Myself. And I try not to bother Ed with any of it either. He's not a garden person. He'd rather pay pickle ball.

Today, however, I did call him for help. That blasted AC fence! It's just too hard to put it up alone and without a drill. And so, soon after breakfast, with buds from my current rose favorite -- David Austin's Carding Mill (I change my mind about favorites but this one has stuck around in my heart and head for a while now)...

 ... I ask Ed if he could come over. Bring a drill! 

As I said yesterday, I went with a cheap option (but one I like!) and I was only willing to dish out money for two sides. Still, I think once the roses fill out (planted by me immediately after the fence went up -- the heavily scented Parfuma Bliss, though these are small still so it'll take a few years), the entire side of the house should look just fine.

I did a lot of sod removal while I was working in the side yard. At first Millie stayed in the house, but she could hear me shuffling around out there and she made her preferences known, so I brought her out as Ed drilled and I dug (tying her to the hose!).

 

 

 

(wait -- maybe I should consider David Austen's Alnwick Rose as a favorite of the day...)

 

  

We resume Sunday family dinners today. With Goose of course. Millie is a little dazed by the sudden burst of activity. But, it's a fine evening and she has certainly learned to hold her own. When she herself is not held...

(inside: everyone loves the reading nook...)

 

A late night for me again. So much to read, so much to contemplate...

with so much love... 

 

the good guys

There are those out there who do their job with energy, resolve, patience, wisdom. (Then there are those who are egomaniacs and protect only themselves, trampling over anyone and everyone in their way, but we wont talk about those -- why ruin a perfectly fine Saturday?!) They serve as board members of HOAs and they devote countless hours to maintain a peaceful, plentiful, caring community of neighbors. My friend Diane is such a board member. And today, I met another two -- both serving on the HOA in the new development - the place where Millie and I live. The place of Steffi's House. This morning, after a fine breakfast on the porch...

 

... I shepherded Millie to her crate and biked over to Tati's, because our HOA Board set aside two hours there to talk about future developments in the new development. I went solely because I wanted to find out when the road cutting through toward the dog park would be finished, but I stayed a while. One of the board members lives across the street from me and I have to say, he makes the perfect neighbor (as does his wife, who is active in the various social groups that have sprung up here). Both of them are incredibly friendly and cheerful -- something I haven't seen much in people since oh, I don't know -- maybe Covid. 

People drifted in and asked questions about dogs, about trees, about the efforts to built out in an environmentally friendly way. [I had to laugh at that last one because of course, Ed and I were regulars at council meetings for many many years, trying to block the development in the first place. But our efforts (and those of many others) weren't for nothing -- the developer took seriously our concerns and being a smart person, decided to use "environmentally friendly" as a marketing tool. As a result, many come here to learn about the various strategies used here to channel runoff, create median prairie strips and ponds where water would drain from the sloped terrain.] I stayed for the whole hour. You learn things from good people. And all the while I kept thinking -- wow, and he's my neighbor too!]

I came back just as Ed arrived with many, many ears of corn. Stoneman's corn farm is closing after this weekend and Ed nicely drove out to be there just as they first unloaded their corn today. He said by the time he left, the line of buyers was more than 30 people deep, that's how much people from around here love their corn! I'll be freezing the kernels for winter soups and possibly Thanksgiving dinner. If there is anything that makes me feel like the next season has arrived, it's shucking and freezing the last of the freshly harvested corn.

But did I do it? Did I freeze bagfuls of corn kernels? 

I did not. 

I had good intentions, but during Millie's afternoon nap, I had to attend to my mini expansion of the garden. To accommodate those two (or three) remaining roses. I dug out turf. I shoveled out a hole, and when a box arrived from Amazon, I set to building that AC cover fence, in front of which I plan to put in at least two new roses.

Honestly, I'm quite okay at putting things together, so long as no special tools are required. But if reviewers tell me something is complicated and takes hours -- I avoid it like the plague. I feel I could put the time toward better use. When I purchased this fence, I had three imperatives: fast delivery, cheap, fairly easy to assemble. A.I. told me a drill was helpful but not required. 

It took a while! Getting the slats aligned, screwing in the screws without a drill -- it took a while. I worked on it on the porch so that Millie could keep me company. Millie and a thousand pollinators, not of the pretty butterfly kind, but irritating waspy looking bugs that chose my arms and legs just to see if there was anything resembling pollen on them. And of course, because the whole thing was cheap, the holes did not align. New ones will have to be drilled. Ed!....  

 

So, it looks like I am still fully immersed in planting, and especially rose planting (though not only -- I have a couple of campanulas to put in -- they will nicely offset the... um, roses!), yes?

Yes.

 

 

 

 

 (that little frog that loved my lilies? It loves my roses too!)

 

It is my balm, my form of meditation, my hard work (so much sod removal today!), my delight. Well, yes, and then there's Millie. My best companion. 

 

 

 

My love.

with so much love... 

 

storms and heat and fences

If it's "going to be a hot one" today, then why am I wearing my hoodie this morning? I'll tell you why: waves of storms are coming our way -- not big ones that'll knock your house down, but storms and winds nonetheless. One batch passes, the air gets thick and humid, sweatshirt tossed aside, the next one comes an hour later and I give a small shudder. Out comes the hoodie once more.

Millie, I stayed up too late. A group Zoom call, followed by a period of decompression. Can we push wake up time just a little this morning?

("okay with me...")

We manage to fit in a breakfast on the porch, with fresh rose buds to cheer us on.

... and a yellow jacket to annoy us...

 

 

 

But within minutes, the stormy clouds arrive once again and I retreat to the reading corner with the rest of my coffee and with Millie, ready for a cuddle.

My pup needs a good rest after her very active pup play time yesterday and so I postpone taking her to doggie daycare. While she naps, I search the internet (let's face it -- mostly Amazon) for a cheap but sturdy fence. I am minutely scrutinizing the yard for planting options. September is a fine time to add stuff to your garden if you have the stamina for it. I have never been interested in planting in the fall. Typically I am so done with the whole gardening project by then! But this year I keep finding ways to improve what's out there. And sometimes, I have to find new ways to plant because I will have watched a rose bargaining session on line (every Thursday!) and will have walked away with a real deal on a plant that may be stunningly beautiful, even as I have no idea what I can do with it. 

At this moment, I have three roses coming that do not have an obvious home. I dont want to crowd things (roses hate being crowded!), so I'm looking for expansion possibilities. One obvious place would be by the western side of the house, where all the mechanicals are unattractively positioned (think: ugly AC unit). But I need to visually block off the machinery. So I look for a sturdy fence -- under $100. I'll put the roses in front of that. (Less grass to cut!) Next task then: dig up the turf there and find a place to dispose of it. That's tomorrow's project.

In the early afternoon, I take the pup to doggie daycare and one by one, I pick up the kids. 

I had this idea that I would take them all to Door Creek Orchard this afternoon. It's an heirloom apple orchard just to the east of Madison and I thought they might enjoy learning more about growing apples. Or, I might enjoy learning more and they'll enjoy picking the fruit. In many ways, u-picks with kids are not for the fussy food types like me, who examines every berry before she snips it off and puts it in a basket. Kids are nicely indiscriminate in their pickings (even though they do then fuss if the fruit isn't as they would like it to be. Still, picking apples is up there with swimming and learning to cross the street with care. It's an activity "of value" in my book.

I cant say that every one of them shares my enthusiasm for the outing. Snowdrop is on board, but Sparrow had a rough day at school and his idea of a decent afternoon would be to lose himself in his tablet. And Sandpiper? Well, I guess I talked too much about today's storms. There are clouds hovering to the west. He's willing to come along, but less willing to get out of the car once there. Storms! -- he explains. 

But in the end they all join in on the project of collecting apples in four separate bags. Who knew that they were all McIntosh fans!

Three t-shirts and many, many pounds of apples later and we head back home. And I pick up Millie.  From Julie --"She was clingy and tired today. She perked up eventually, but it was a slow start..." I suppose that matches our afternoon as well. One grumpy boy, one scared one going there, three happy kids coming back. On the car ride, Sandpiper, who has very rarely gone on outings with me in my car, asks for music. The big two quickly tell him -- gaga doesn't have playlists. She just sometimes puts on the radio at Christmas time. I dont disavow this. For one thing, I like having conversations with them in the car and for another -- I've heard there are strong feelings expressed when music is payed in their car. I want to avoid that on our rare trips together. The reference to Chirstmas has them thinking about seasona music and they challenge themselves to think of all the Christmas songs they know that haven't Biblical references in them. By the time we pulled up to their home, they are laughing hysterically about a song where the kid wants a hippopotamus for Christmas.

And I was laughing with them.

with so much love... 

a downpour that missed Steffi's House and Yard

I had a lovely chat with my doc this morning. I like her and have had her now for some dozen years. We are on a friendly platform -- meaning we always manage to spend just a few minutes on sharing trip plans or reflections on trips taken. This time I was curious about her most recent trip. She'd been telling me about it for a long time now. This summer she will have gone for the first time to Europe. With kids and husband. She has traveled plenty as she is by birth from Korea, but Europe is a first for her. She was excited. The plan was to go to the north of Norway and then to Scotland. To hike, to admire the landscapes.

Predictably, the trip was a total success. As she reflected on it, she said to me -- I'll never forget it. As we stood on a mountain summits after a hike, I felt this wave of gratitude. Here we were, healthy, together, witnessing something beautiful.

When you are a doctor, you see it all. Sometimes you heal an anxious patient, sometimes you don't. You see families break up from the tragic spillover effects of medical crises. I suppose one gift you have after a rough day is that you develop an ability to feel gratitude for all that is yours very deeply. Many of us say we're grateful for what we have, especially around Thanksgiving, but that gratitude is fleeting. We move on quickly to groaning about some inconvenience or aggravation. 

I've had some near misses in life. Maybe we all have had those. Mine were sometimes my fault -- recklessness seemed to have been my middle name at times. How else to explain such horrors as unprotected sex or drinking excessively? Youthful transgressions? Perhaps, only some of them weren't so youthful. People are often boastful about their past misdeeds. Who can come up with the most egregious story of crimes committed? Me, I'm just glad that mine were all misses. That recklessness didnt lead to damage. That poor health and so many surgeries all resulted in cures rather than a death sentence. Like my father, I've always felt grateful for being so darn lucky. That things worked out (for the most part). That I got to 73 without crashing. That I wasn't at the WTC on 9/11. That I was born in postwar Poland rather than in the middle of that horrible war. That I learned English by immersion, that I escaped storms while riding a bike, that I had two daughters that I loved, that I found something to love in a person who is so different than me. Lucky. So yes, life is very much like the downpour I experienced this morning while driving Millie to doggie daycare: it happens in some spots, it misses others. Chances are you've had some lucky breaks too (or else you wouldn't be reading this). Stay grateful. For each and every one of them.

 

My pup is tired! Late nights, early wake ups. And a full day ahead! 

 

 

 

Breakfast, on the porch, with market flowers.

And a morning of doc visits, weeding, and to be honest -- lying on the couch and wondering how long my luck will hold. 

 

In the afternoon I am with the kids. First the boys. And truly, it's heartwarming to see the older one show his little brother how to "do school!" 

 

Then Snowdrop, and to their home. The new routines take some getting used to. We're not reading yet -- not me with the boys nor with Snowdrop. We'll get there! For now, I do some online shopping with the girl for sweatpants for the three of them. After a minute, she takes the laptop from my hands and says "here, let me do it... you're too slow!" Click click, to the checkout, auto fill  here, credit card there. I shake my head -- it's too easy. Shopping is just too easy. You could pick up my laptop and fill the cart with thousands of dollars' worth of stuff. No I couldn't. I dont know your security code! I dont tell her that many vendors have that stored in their memory bank as well.

She asks to tag along with me to pick up Millie from doggie daycare.

 

 

 How those kids love my snuggle pup! Truly a teddy bear parading as a dog.

 

Ed comes over in the evening. I scramble eggs, we watch the last episode of Clarkson's Farm. Not to spoil it for those who are still set to watch it, but I have to say, it's a bit of a downer. People have issues. Not to state the obvious, but even very rich people! I come back to the idea of gratitude. For all the days we get to be with people we love. Deep gratitude. 

with so much love...