For the Love of Gardening

Gardening is about more than plants and produce, seeds and weeds.  It’s about color and texture, emotional satisfaction and visual pleasure.  Visiting my garden this morning, I noticed more than what’s in bloom, what’s ripe, what needs harvested, what needs weeded.  I “felt” my plants and greens.

Cloudy overhead, the space felt calm, peaceful as I admired Mother Nature in all her glory. She felt rich and sensual…grounding.  It felt good.  I felt good.

Gazing at my lush growth, I notice that my eggplant and cinnamon basil share common coloring.  My pumpkin is plump and round as it ripens to a gorgeous orange and it made me smile.

It reminded me of kids and fun and fall–my favorite season of all. 

With a nip in the air, a stillness in my heart, I enjoyed the moment.  I went on to check my tomatoes.  Beauties in the making, working their way to luscious red.

And speaking of red, my red cabbage are safe and secure beneath their netting (we have cricket issues), appearing more like flowers than food.  How can a gal not love flowers in her garden?

Impossible, in my book.  And as I gaze out over my garden in its entirety, I crave to linger, immerse myself in the leisure of life. 

But I can’t.  Work calls, kids holler, the husband phoned…  I’m needed elsewhere at the moment (another lovely feeling!), so I’ll tuck this memory away and return later.

Am I the only one that looks at vegetables differently?  Do you have a garden to live by?

 

Back To School…

This is a big year in our house.  The last of our little birds has started her senior year.   That pic up there is her first day of Kindergarten, and her first day of 12th grade. 

We went through this with my son five years ago, but this one is hitting me a little more nostalgically.  I think because the first time around I knew we still had one coming up through the ranks.  Now, everything is the “last time”. 

We had the last start up pep rally last week.  This is her last marching season in the band for the football games.  She made the theater production troupe this year, so this will be the last of all that.

I remember graduating and thinking that those friends would be forever, so when she and her friends talk about the hook ups they will make on college breaks and when my daughter gets leave (she’s going into the Navy), I get a little sad.  I’ve seen some of these kids since Kindergarten, and I know how they will drift apart once they aren’t together every day.

This picture below was from her first grade class, where she made a new best friend, Kenzie.  My daughter is the one looking like she’s eating her purple Scooby Doo backpack.  Kenzie is on the left looking shy and sweet.

This is them a few weeks ago, as I took them on our annual girls day school clothes shopping spree for the very last time!

They are young women now.  About to go off into the big world after this last crazy year.  That’s amazing to me.

I think it’s going to be a roller coaster of a year!!

What are your back to school experiences like?

 

The End of Summer

For our family, this week is the official last week of summer. I frankly can’t believe it is August and the summer is almost over. It seems the older my kids get, the busier we are and the shorter summer becomes. While I’m ready to get back into some semblance of a routine, here are a few things I have enjoyed about this summer:

Snickers at Lake with Friends

1. House full of kids. We’ve had an unusually high amount of sleepovers at our house this summer. From teenaged boys crashed in the basement after hours of ping-pong and video games to girls dancing overhead in my daughter’s room. I love that the kids gather at our house, even though it means I’m usually low on food and never seem to know what day of the week it is. I hope next summer is exactly the same.

2. A weeklong family vacation. We spent a week, just the four of us, in Colorado this summer. It’s not often that we go away just as a family and I love our time together. The kids get along because they don’t have anyone else to talk to. My kids count the years until we don’t have to do this again, while my husband and I tearfully count how few years are left of having the kids under our roof.

Hershey at Lake with Friends

3. Group vacations. We took several multi-family vacations this year. From our baseball tournament in Florida to our week at the lake with friends and several weekend hops, we have spent a lot of time in the company of our dear friends. The kids enjoy traveling with friends and there’s nothing better than sharing memories with others.

I had hoped to get a lot of work accomplished this summer, but I can’t seem to finish a thought, much less a manuscript. I hope your summer has been as wonderful and not as hectic as mine. If you have a moment, I’d love to hear about your summer, too.

Am I Selfish?

Am I selfish to want more time for myself, my writing?  Does it make me a bad person that I’m happy my kids are attending summer day camp for the next two weeks?  I mean, I did sign on as Stay-at-Home Mom.  When we married, it was agreed that my husband would assume the work/financial support role while I took on the house and kids.  Eventually it was understood I’d transition back into the workforce, once the kids were out of the house…

But I’m writing and publishing NOW, despite the fact it will be half a dozen years before my youngest moves out to college.  So technically, I’m breaking the agreement.  But I can’t help it.  I love to write.  I want to write.  And something needs to fill my days other than household chores, else I go mad.

So it’s with enthusiasm and joy that I dropped my kids off at the camp this morning.  I’m starting a new project, looking forward to a new release… 

Life is good.  Life is fulfilling.  Yet I feel guilty.  Okay, I don’t harbor a LOT of guilt, but I do have some.  Is it me?  Am I alone? 

I know mothers who work “outside” the home experience a conflict between duties, families and chores pulling at them as bosses and coworkers do the same.  But in my case, I’m bringing this upon myself.  Voluntarily.  I don’t HAVE to work.  I WANT to work.  I’m happier when I work, creating, sharing.  I need to work.  It’s an outlet.  It keeps me sane.  Yet sometimes, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m “sneaking” it in between the layers of my real life.

Maybe when I earn enough to support myself and the family I won’t feel this way.  Maybe not.  I’m not sure.  I’m conflicted.  Anyone else feel the same?

 

Vacation Update

Okay, we survived vacation.  Hip, hip, hooray!  Though my son was lucky to make it home alive, what with his sassy tone and grumpy disposition at being awakened to leave at the crack fo dawn for our return departure.  Sheesh, there’s no pleasing kids these days!  Grumpy to rise, bored the second a minute passes without fun-filled action and distraction.  I couldn’t have entertained them better if I tried.  We went tubing and fishing, hiking and horse-back riding–we even stopped at Stone Mountain Ga on the way up for a break in the drive.

A beautiful place that is, especially when you arrive post thunderstorm and the park is cleared of clouds and people upon your arrival.  LOVE that.  While there we treated ourselves to a few Southern gourmet delights like fried okra and catfish, collards and corn bread, chicken and dumplings and of course no meal would be complete without a pint or two of sweet tea!  Mmm…that was some good food.  Bad for you, but mighty tasty!

We also visited the Chattanooga Aquarium for a change of scenery.  Very cool place that I’d highly recommend visiting if you’re in the area.  Not only neat marine life-like these upside down jellyfish, but it’s located on the river and the weekend we visited, their infamous River Bend concert series was gearing up to begin a week-long celebration of music and fun.

Next up was a stop at Ruby Falls.  Deep in the limestone below Chattanooga, lights lit up the falls to our delight.  It was a half hour in and a half hour out (which I wished I knew ahead of time–comfort value and all) traveling caverns lined with stalactites, stalagmites, helictites and more.  All sounded Greek to me, but it sure did look interesting.  We also included a brief jaunt through Rock City, much to my kids’ delight.  This is the one place they did not want to leave!

My friend relayed a story from when she visited with her family as a child.  Seems while walking through one of the more narrow passageways in the rock garden, her father became stuck.  Yes, stuck, much to her mother’s horror and embarrassment.  For an hour he couldn’t move forward or back.  She doesn’t recall how he ultimately freed himself (probably blocked it out, repression and all), but he did.

This is the scene of the crime, affectionately referred to by the park as “Fat Man’s Squeeze.”  Needless to say, I passed through with extra caution, not entirely trusting my feminine curves to the clutches of these vicious rocks.