Constant State of Emergency

 

This has been a year when I feel that I’m nearly living in a constant state of emergency. We have had, in our house, some sort of virus affecting one of us almost every month. Add to that an accelerated date of retirement for my husband due to his job being eliminated at the beginning of the year, necessitating quickly figuring out health insurance for each of us, finances, and a huge change in routine all while dealing with illness. The washer broke and had to be replaced, the bathtub was rusting and had to be dealt with, the van needed work and our home health aide was in a motorcycle accident and is not expected to be back before October. It’s a lot of stuff to wade through, but we did it and do it because it’s just life. Through it all we try to maintain a positive attitude and keep moving forward. Sometimes, however, it’s tough when the world seems determined to focus on the negatives.so here are some good things that have happened. I have a brand new washer! It works really well and the man that delivered and installed it could not have been nicer, patiently explaining things and showing us how to set the controls, etc. My bathtub is now rust free and beautiful, and safer as we added safety bars. It’s such a pleasure using it! We had a man come and power wash the outside of our house, decks, and patio and seal all the wood. It looks brand new and we bought a new table and umbrella for the patio, and lovely annuals we put in pots and hanging baskets. We also have a patio garden on wheels that is yielding some zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers! The extra hot and humid sauna like weather really helped everything grow this year. The van, once repaired has been reliable and took us to visit family in another state for a few days. We had a nice visit in beautiful surroundings. We got home safely and have had some time to relax before resuming attending to the many appointments and responsibilities that are part of life.

So you see, there are many positives in life, and I try to focus on those to counter the negatives that come our way, and the ones that the news casters and social media seem to feel we need to be inundated with on a daily if not hourly basis. I wish you peace.

                                It was a steamy, cloudy morning in the mountains where we were.

   The new bathtub and safety bars.

Flowers on the patio.

          A beautiful sunset sky after a thunderstorm. I love the colors and the way the clouds are.

          The fire in the fire pit at my sister in law’s place, I think the log “ chimney” is so cool!

Suddenly It’s July

Well here we are in July already! I’m not sure how it happened so fast, it seems like it was just the end of May and poof! June is gone!

Happy Birthday, America!

This little goldfinch visited our yard one day. He sat for a few minutes on the shepherd’s hook preening, was joined by his mate, then they both flew away. I’ve been keeping my eye out, hoping they are nesting nearby and will come visit again. They’re so beautiful!

These two pictures of the setting sun were taken a couple weeks apart. It’s so hard to believe that smoke from fires so far away can be affecting us here. Some days we can even smell it! Strange times.

The Smokey sun inspired poetry.

There had been rain the night before and I was outside looking at the plants in our patio garden very early in the day. I thought the raindrops clinging to this leaf was cool so I took a picture, then changed it to black and white for the backdrop to a rhyme.

This is the same picture in color. Not sure if this is a zucchini leaf, or an eggplant leaf. The plants are doing really well this year!