It’s not really my garden because my husband maintains all of it. I just walk through, admire, and take pictures.
I have hundreds of pictures. So many that I had to create a Garden album in my IPhone photos.
I love watching the bees on the lavender they’re my favorite to observe.
The lavender got pummeled by the rain and wind we had last night.
I could spend all day sitting in my garden.
I had a really amazing summer vacation in June. My husband and I drove to Nashville, Tennessee to meet up with cousins flying in from Washington State. We have visited with them many times and enjoy their company. The driving trip brought back memories of our trip across the country in 1995. I already talked about that here.
We spent four days driving there with three overnights in Hagerstown MD, Asheville NC, and Gatlinburg TN.
We stayed in an air bnb just a few blocks from Broadway and really got to see the city with the Hop On, Hop Off trolley, and a lot of walking! The food was amazing, and sunsets from the pedestrian bridge across the Cumberland River were so beautiful.
We parted ways with one couple on Wednesday and we and the other couple headed to Memphis to listen to the music and visit Graceland. Memphis is much different than Nashville but I enjoyed the atmosphere and the music. The food was very good there too!
We headed home on Friday and initially wondered if we’d be able to make it home by Saturday evening. It was no problem getting to Roanoke VA and pulling into our driveway on Saturday evening. It was no surprise that the only accident delay we encountered was at the very end about a half hour from home!
We enjoyed the trip and would like to get back down to the Maryland area to scout out more battlefields, and are thinking of other places to go that allow us to drive and sightsee.
This week’s mediation with Dennis Morton on Peloton is again, visualization. I think it’s all month actually!
He says to imagine a door – make it double doors – and as you breathe in bring yourself closer to the door. As you breathe out, the doors open and you go through them. Over and over again.
This is hard for me because I just want those doors to open and to come out on the other side, like to a babbling brook, not to another door!
My doors are big doors, with rivets framing the edges and a metal pad where you would put your hand to push it. Sometimes they are blue and remind me of the double doors leading out to the stairwell at my elementary school. There’s a rectangle window in each one so you can see if someone is on the other side.
Sometimes they are doors like in my mudroom, stained wood with rain glass in the window panes you can’t see the mess on the other side. Except they open out, and would crack me in the head.
What would your door look like if you wanted to bust through one while meditating?
I was sitting outside reading and noticed a pretty scent in the air. There were no flowers around me so I thought, “someone is doing laundry!” Then I thought, “I’m doing laundry”. But to have a scent would be impossible because I use All Free-Clear which is 100% free of perfumes & dyes.
But when I took my laundry out of the dryer, I inhaled the pillow case in my hand and sure enough, there was that scent! Each piece of laundry I took out of the dryer, I put to my nose to inhale the scent.
So evidently, something that is free of perfumes does not NOT have a scent?
My husband and I are taking a road trip this summer from Connecticut to Nashville to meet up with cousins from Washington State and then continuing on with one couple to Memphis for 2 nights and one full day.
I’ve taken similar road trips over the last 31 years with the most memorable one being our one way cross-country trip from California to Connecticut. We had some troubles in our California living, mainly that it was too expensive to live there in 1995. My dad, who had been alone for 8 years after my mother died, was reluctant to sell the family home to me in 1989 when I asked, but was convinced five years later by my sister to do it. We’re glad it all worked out.
We sold our home in a very short time, packed up our belongings, shipped the pickup truck ahead of us, watched the moving van people pack our boxes, and we headed out the door.
We drove south to say goodbye to family and then headed east. Our trip included stops at Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon because who knew when we’d have the chance again? We planned a somewhat leisurely trip, planning also 2 days in Oklahoma to visit family, a stop in Washington DC, and Baltimore Maryland.
We stayed overnight in Kingman and Flagstaff Arizona, and Santa Rosa New Mexico. Once we hit Oklahoma, those plans flew out the window. We just wanted to get “Home”. That, and the moving van arrived sooner than expected and my father was freaking out! He kept saying, “there’s room in the garage”, and I kept replying, “I don’t know about that”. Unfortunately, I was right! So, we decided it was time to keep moving.
We cut our time short in Oklahoma by a day, made it to Memphis Tennessee, then Roanoke Virginia, and pulled into Connecticut on Saturday evening. 3,051 miles in eight days.
Our son, who was almost 5 at the time was such a trooper! There were no “no child in the front seat” or “children in car seats until a certain weight” back then so he and I took turns in the front seat, or sometimes I was in the back seat with him playing games, or very often, he entertained himself drawing or listening to music. I made sure that every Best Western we stayed at had a pool and that made him happy. He never complained about the hours in the car.
This time, we’re taking our time to Nashville (I swear!), and stopping in Maryland with a trip to Antietam Battle Grounds the next day, followed by Asheville North Carolina, Gatlinburg, and on to Nashville. Each stop includes some planned time to explore.
Driving back to Connecticut though will be reminiscent of the last days of our 1995 trip though since we want to push to get home by Saturday (again). Memphis to Roanoke to Connecticut.
Every morning I meditate for 10 minutes using my Peloton. A few months ago, they started a program in which you do the same class for 7 days. A variety of instructors and a variety of types of meditation. This week, with Anna Greenberg is self-visualization, and I am really enjoying it more than any of the other types.
My mind immediately heads outside to our garden and an arbor that my husband recently built between four raised planting beds.
It’s the perfect spot to spread a blanket and hide away for someone my size. Outside, but not exposed. Cozy, but not cramped. I can lean against a planter and read a book, or lay down on the blanket and look out at the sky. If my husband is working in the garden, he’s nearby, but doing his own thing.
It reminds me of the Cinderella song by Rodgers and Hammerstein, “in my own little corner in my own little world, I can be who ever I want to be”.
Do you have a place you go, either real or in your mind to get away?
It’s been a few weeks since I was able to get to Sunday mass between an anticipated Mother’s Day breakfast that fell through because of my son and his wife being sick, followed by my own sickness, and then last week when I think I was just exhausted by a chronic cough – whew!
Up and out for 7:30 mass this morning and what fun to hear some of my old favorite songs because today is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. I spent 8 years at Holy Trinity School which is part of the Holy Trinity parish, which then became Most Holy Trinity, and now is part of the St. Benedict of Nursia community of 3 churches.
I enjoy mass and miss it when I’m not there. Today Father Lane (my favorite if we’re allowed favorites), talked about what is the Holy Trinity and how it ties into love, and how loved is in our DNA by being given life. It just really touched me and I left promising myself to react with love. I guess that means scrolling by those social media posts that really irk me!
So, with the spirit of love, I leave you with some photos of the sights around my yard and I hope you have a lovely day.
I’m still getting over my cold or bronchitis and I think now it’s drifted into the “seasonal allergies” stage. I thought everything would be done “blooming” by now, but somehow I think it will be all summer long.
Saturday is our Tea Party fundraiser for the Preservation Trust organization where I volunteer. Whew. This is the fourth year, but my first. From what I’ve gathered, every year has been a little different, with the first two years at one of the homes in the Trust and last year and this year’s will be at the head of the Trust’s home. It keeps growing in size and this year they added two additional rooms to set up tables bringing the attendance to 95. We had a heck of a time pulling together 95 place settings from the collections and are at the point where we’re filling in missing saucers and knives from our homes!
Since it’s primarily volunteer driven with a few donations, that means women are making and baking 100 to 200 items. I had to make 100 cupcake size cheese cakes. Previously the most I ever made was 30 and the first time was a month ago! Let’s just say, I’ve been short on sleep due to worrying whether they’ll come out ok!
I’m getting settled in to working with a group of women and enjoy their company. But volunteering is hard work while still working almost full time.
I’m hoping for nice weather tomorrow – not to hot, not to cool because there will be 18 women on a screened porch. Wish me luck.
I have a friend in his mid-20s that I’ve known since he was six years old. We became acquainted through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.
He hasn’t had an easy life, and living with his grandmother and mother and moving through life devoid of any male guidance or mentor, meant he learned it, or made it up as it came along. Through the years, I tried to give him practical advice, made sure he had a male teacher or two, and even attended meetings in middle school with his advisors.
He started working right out of high school and was living on his own with a friend. He lost his job after a disagreement with the manager of the restoration company where he was employed and came to us asking for a job four years ago. I saw this as a great opportunity to work around good men, learn the carpentry trade, and have a good future with a thriving company. We’ve known him for so long, he was like a son to us.
Our contact before that had been minimal but with him as an employee, he’d stop in my office at the end of the day to talk and I was available to help him whatever he needed outside of work.
It was a rough few years, and we let him go in March. We both professed that it wouldn’t hurt our relationship, but because of how he left, it did.
It was hard to watch someone who was given an opportunity to learn a trade, learn from good people, just toss it aside because of he couldn’t take direction, or criticism. No matter how much I tried to guide him.
He’s now working on his own as a 1099 contractor without any of the benefits of being an employee like health insurance or someone else taking care of your taxes. But he’s making the money he thinks he deserves and he’ll figure it out. Some people just have to do it their way, and in the end, they can be successful. And that’s what I wish for him.
What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
I will admit to hanging onto things for a very long time, but today the oldest thing I’m wearing today is my skin. HAHA! It is sixty-six years old and although it has seen better days, a little worn and out of shape from the day I received it, it is serving me well.
Right after I wrote that, I realized I am wearing my mother’s initial ring on my pinky finger. It has her initials EP on it.
I don’t know how old she was when she received it, but if I were to say she got it as a high school graduation gift, that would make it 86 years old.
Her ring is the oldest thing I’m wearing today. After my skin 😉
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 