Ruth and Naomi...

... we were not.  

We didn't have that much in common, my mother-in-law and I.  

She loved dogs.

I'm terrified of them. 

She played tennis at the age of 80.

My idea of exercise is a brisk walk.

She was book club.

I'm luncheon club.

She could knit and crochet, and her work was exquisite.   

My idea of handiwork is decoupage. 

She leaned toward Danish modern and geometrics.

I like colonial and toile. 

She raised 5 boys in a very blue household.

I raised 2 girls and a lot of pink.  

She was a gifted cook and could whip up masterpieces

in her incredible self-cleaning kitchen. 

Pot luck is my Waterloo, and my kitchen is Katrina. 

We didn't read the same books, she and I.  We didn't like the same movies either. Like her son, she didn't mind the silence that I generally feel the need to fill with prattle. We were pretty much opposites in every area. Every area, that is, except one.  

She loved him with all her heart, 

and so do I. 

After a brief stay in the hospital last week, my mother-in-law passed away yesterday afternoon. She leaves four broken-hearted sons behind, sons who were blessed beyond measure to be raised in the home she made. I am blessed beyond measure to be married to the good man she raised.  Her fingerprints are all over him.

Please pray for my family today. 

Comments are closed.   

Simply Nauseating

I don't have anything earth shattering to report this morning. No giant steps. No long jumps into the Stepping Out hall of fame. The only thing I've stepped into is a pair of walking shoes.

I've mentioned before that morning walks with the husband are among my simple pleasures. I even mentioned that winter walks are my favorite walks of all. That's because I get to dress up like the Unibomber and walk incognito.

We haven't been doing much walking lately. 

I'd like to blame it on the Christmas busyness or the fact that I married a traveling man, but I can't. I'd also like to blame the fibro pain that seems to have settled in my feet of all places, but I can't do that either.

The plain truth is that the only legitimate way to combat fibromyalgia is to move through it. With fibro, less is more and more is less. The less you move, the more you hurt, and the more you move the less you hurt.

No, pain isn't the reason that I haven't been walking; it's the excuse. Laziness is the reason.

There. I said it.

So yesterday morning, I put on my walking shoes and limped out the door with my faithful companion at my side. Bet you think that's what this post is all about, don't you?

Well, it isn't.

It's about what happened after the walk. We were turning into the driveway, you see, when the husband looked up and said,

Looks like we missed an opportunity.  

And then, he pointed.

Can you see it?

It's mistletoe... Smack dab in the middle of our Bradford pear.  It had probably been there for months, but it was hiding under all the leafy stuff.

Now folks,  I know that the Christmas season is over, but mistletoe is mistletoe, and in my world every season is smooching season. So I planted myself under that Kissing Tree and gave him the face until he got the clue.

Stepping out has it privileges.

In fact, I enjoyed the privilege so much that I convinced him to walk again after dinner. We walked  this morning, too, and I have plans for a little blue hour stroll.

I'm convinced that my feet feel better already, and we still have one more morning before he leaves to go out of town.  At this rate, I'll be wearing stilettos by Valentine's Day.

That would be just about how long he's willing to leave the mistletoe undisturbed in the tree, too. He may be a romantic, but he's a left- brained romantic. Apparently, mistletoe is actually a parasite, and he thinks it ought to be whacked back before budding season.  He has  promised to leave just a little bit, though, if I promise to keep walking.

So there you have it:

Why Sir Lotsa Hair Kissed the Unibomber and Nauseated the Neighborhood.

Otherwise known as this week's

  simple pleasure.

The Story of the Vanishing Blogger

I was upstairs painting in the closet when it all began.

I was interrupted by the telephone, and when I answered it, it was the Man of the House.  He was  calling from his cell phone and explained that he was actually walking up the stairs as he spoke, but he hadn't wanted to startle me.

I startle easily you know...

In fact, as I've confessed time and time again, my panic button is generally set on automatic. Fear and anxiety are my besties, and I don't go anywhere without them. I'm loyal like that. Therefore, when the Traveling Man walks through the door on a Tuesday afternoon when he is supposed to be in Florida,  I do not assume that he's passing through to share glad tidings of great joy.

He wasn't.

He's a man of few words so he just blurted it out. The entire outside sales force of his company had just been eliminated. In case you missed it, that's a fancy way of saying that he lost his job, effective immediately.

Friends, I could literally feel my reaction. It started as a churning way down in the pit of my stomach and worked its way up to my chest, and my throat, and my head. It was an overwhelming feeling.

And do you know what that feeling was?

It was peace.

No, really... I'm as shocked as you are. I mean, I teach  peace. I sing  peace. I pray peace. I like to talk it up a lot, too. That afternoon, though, I... we... did something altogether different.

We chose peace.

I'd love to take credit for the choice, but in all sincerity, I might have reached for my bag of fear had it not been for the man I married. Before I could move an inch, he sat me down, took both of my hands in his, and explained that we had a conscious decision to make.  As he saw it, we had three choices.  

 We could count the numbers.  

Let's face it folks, the numbers stink. 23 million people out there who earnestly want to work are looking for jobs right now. 68 people from his company alone had joined the ranks that day, all with the same skill set, too. On top of that, we're no spring chickens. He's 51 years old. No, the numbers aren't so good. We agreed not to count them.    

We could count on the world.

The world is all too eager for us to count on it, after all. All signs point to it becoming more eager by the minute, too.  Immediately after the unfortunate conference call, his phone began buzzing with calls from (former) colleagues, brainstorming and networking and just plain commiserating to the point of  noise.   (Actually, he used the word cacophony. He may be a man of few words, but they all seem to be worth ten dollars. It's annoying, but I digress...)

And then, it happened.

The still, small, voice cut through all that cacophony, and it said, "Do you trust Me?"

And there it was, the third choice. Trust, it seems, is just like peace. We teach about it. We sing about  it. We pray about it, and we love to talk it up. Then, life gets very real and it's a time for choosing. 

One thing these over-the-hill Bible teachers know, though, is that God never has allowed himself to be among our choices. If we choose Him, we choose Him alone.

So he reached over and turned off his phone.

And for the rest of his trip home, he just listened to God.

If we could count on anything, he decided, it was God alone. After all, we had been through this before, and He had been faithful.

For the next three days, he did absolutely nothing related to the job situation. We told very, very few people about it and asked them to respect our decision not to play this thing out on the public stage. It's not that we were ashamed. We weren't and aren't. We just felt called to silence. (I'm sure you can imagine how difficult that was for me.)  I'm a yakker, after all, and I love to tell a story.

But here's the thing:

Sometimes, God has a story to tell through you, and sometimes... sometimes... He has a story to tell to you. This was one of those times.

I couldn't have yakked it abroad if I wanted to, though, because within 24 hours, he had to return his blackberry and computer. He adopted Della the Demon Possessed Laptop as his own for the job search since beating the pavement has been replaced with banging the keyboard.

And that's where I've been this past month and why you haven't seen my flower cart meandering about in Blog Land. Oh, I tried,  but it just didn't work to invade his space.  Besides that, we worked nonstop on some projects around here to keep ourselves busy.

After all, 2012 was dubbed the year of Finding the Sunshine, wherever, whenever, and however God sends it. If God chose to send me a handy man around the house, who am I to argue?

Now folks, I don't know what happens when you jump off a blog cliff. I don't know if anyone will even bother to read this post. I decided to write it anyway, though, and try to explain my vanishing act as well as I could.

As to the end of the story? 

I'll leave that to your imaginations. The fact that I'm here today ought to say something.

Well that, and the fact that I serve a mighty God, one who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. How do you think this story ends?

For Better Or For Worse

Have I mentioned that I'm neurotically early?   It's true. I have huge anxiety about arriving late to any function. I'm the kind of gal who rushes around the house like a screaming banshee to get some place, only to arrive so early that I have to sit  hide in the car for 30 minutes to avoid that conspicuous feeling of being the first to arrive.

Can anyone relate?

I only mention this to explain my conspicuous earliness for this post. You see, tomorrow, not today, we'll be celebrating our  anniversary.  Yep. Twenty seven years ago tomorrow, Sir Lotsa Hair took this talkative woman to be his lawfully wedded wife.

So I'm heading to Atlanta to meet him there for our annual celebration. In twenty-seven years of marriage, we've had years of plenty and years of want, but through it all, we've always managed to do something special to celebrate.

If you do the math, you'll calculate that I got married in 1984, smack dab between Diana and Fergie.

Which means that I had  a Big Fat 80s Wedding

I wore a big old 80s  princess dress complete with pouf sleeves and ruffled lace. My veil was attached to a ring of fresh flowers. (I'm pretty sure Fergie stole that idea from me, but I've never been able to prove it.)

My bridesmaids were bedecked in magenta taffeta,

...bless their hearts.

They had the pouf thing going on as well, and long trains which swished around at the altar and .... um....bustled up for the reception.

Which was outside

In June

In Georgia

At High Noon.

Yeah, I'm not sure what I was thinking either, but I had always wanted an outdoor reception, and the Duchess was all about making dreams come true.

They did.

When I think back on that day, I'm pretty sure I would change some things. It would be a little smaller, and a little cooler, and hopefully a little less itchy.

But even though I'll concede that those magenta frocks might be candidates for the movie 27 Dresses, and  the outdoor reception might not have been the wisest choice, I still think that was all pretty special.

And even though that skinny boy has wrinkles around his twinkles and a little gray in his lotsa hair, I still think he's pretty special, too.

*****

So what about about you?

Is there anything you would change about your special day?

Simply Plucking

There was no contest for this week's simple pleasure. It's one as faithful as those seasons that I yakked about yesterday and something that I look forward to every year.

You see,  it's jonquil season on the country commute.

I explained my affection for the quirky yellow flower last year at this time, but since very few friends were around here then, I thought I would copy the applicable portion of the explanation again.  To those who have already read it, my apologies.

We join this yakabout already in progress...

When I met the man of the house all those years ago, we were both in college and living on ramen noodle budgets.  Since I was child number 4 of 4, and he was number 4 of 5, neither one of us was enjoying the limousine lifestyle.

In fact, there wasn't a set of wheels between us. Our dates were limited to those places within walking distance and usually involved anything that we could do for free.

So every afternoon, weather permitting, we would take a walk.

And we ( that would be mostly I ) would talk. I would yakkity yak across the campus and through the Athens side roads. (The man should probably wear a button of full disclosure that he knew exactly what he was getting when he married me…)

One afternoon, in the spring of our relationship, I noticed a patch of jonquils bursting into bloom. I was delighted. He called them weeds and said he wasn't at all fond of a jonquil, but then he reached down and plucked up a yellow weed bouquet just for me. 

And that's how the whole thing started.

In the months that followed, he helped himself to a variety of plucked bouquets, most of which were pilfered from random gardens along our talking route. While I talked, he did flower surveillance and a commando raid on some unsuspecting blossom.

It was our first adventure.

Of course when the Duchess heard about the Great Plucking Adventure, she nearly fainted.

That is STEALING, Deb-rah!

It was? Seriously, we never considered that gardeners would mind a random pluck or two in the interest of true love. I had always thought of flower lovers as the ultimate romantics.

Well, either due to guilt... or fear that there was an APB out for the phantom Romeo of Milledge Avenue… or probably because the newness of the relationship wore off… he eventually stopped the serial petal plucking.

But to this day, when I see a patch of jonquils burst forth in the early spring, I remember those walks and the skinny boy who used to pluck me flowers when he couldn't afford to take me to dinner.

And I pluck myself a bouquet...

Or two...

and it makes me smile.

 Plucking up a memory is this week's simple pleasure.

*****

Joining today with Dayle at

A Collection of This and That.
Come over to read more Simple Pleasures.

Simply Stowing Away

 

I can’t remember the exact date of my first stow away adventure, but I know it was sometime between 1986 and 1989. It was evening, and the husband was leaving for his usual week of business travel. It was late enough that I was already in my pajamas.

While he walked inside for that one final load, I hopped into the passenger seat of his car and waited for him with what he calls my Max the Grinch Dog look on my face.

Now, there's nothing at all Grinchy about the husband. He just chuckled. Then, he looked at me for a few seconds and asked if I really did want to come along for the ride.

It took me less than a few seconds to say that I did.

(Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the same way that other proposal went down as well.)

Funny that it hadn’t occurred to us before then…

We hadn’t thought about it, but since it was summer vacation, there wasn’t really a good reason for me to stay home alone while he traveled about, equally alone.

So I skedaddled back into the house and threw some things in a bag. He battened down the hatches, and away we went.

Business travel was more spartan in those days.  We didn’t have two room king-sized suites with little micro fridges. We shared a double room with one unnecessary bed and lived out of a cooler.  I would bring along some food for the day, and at night we’d go out to eat. Sometimes, we'd just eat in. It wasn't at all about the luxury. It was about spending time together.

And it was grand.

While he worked, 

I stayed at the hotel and soaked up some sun…

Or some local color…

Or found some shopping within walking distance..

It never has taken much to entertain me.

As we approached our empty nest, we had discussed the possibility of some tagalong adventures, but since I teach two days a week, the ball never got rolling.

But Saturday, when I was in the middle of my “terrible horrible very bad no good shopping” lamentation, he interrupted my wokking long enough to ask if I wanted to road trip to Atlanta with him.

It took me less than a few seconds to say that I did.

And so, because we’re not the spontaneous kids that we were a quarter of a century ago, we planned a little adventure.  After all, we don’t pack as lightly as we used to. We have to add laptops and garment bags and a cosmetic case large enough to hold all of my spackle.  

One thing hasn't changed, though. He still drives, and I still yak away at my captive audience. It’s a good thing there’s no Georgia statute against driving while retreating to your happy place…

Midway to Atlanta, we got to stop here.

 And surprise our two

favorite coeds.

The rest of the trip? Well, it’s been a shopping adventure of epic proportions. That story will have to wait until tomorrow, however. Today, I'm just focusing my simple pleasure. 

And this week, that simple pleasure was tagging along with my very favorite friend.   

*****

Sharing with Dayle
at A Collection of This and That

and the other wonderful bloggers 

at her Simple Pleasures Party.

Come join us.

The Great Bedroom Breakfast Adventure

Just a little update from the

breakfast for two that I yakked about

 on Tablescape Thursday...

 in case anyone is sitting on the edge of her seat waiting…

Anyone? Anyone?

I didn’t think so, but here’s the update anyway.

The husband arrived home late Friday afternoon and headed upstairs to unpack his bags as usual. I chirped along behind him as usual.  He spotted the table immediately. Why, he even complimented it.

Is that for your tablescape?

(Because, you see, I yak all about the tablescapes…)

I said that it was, but then I continued that

actually, it was for us.

He shook his head,

and I saw that smirk begin to appear on his face…

which is why I didn’t look at his face

as I launched in to an explanation

of the Great Breakfast Adventure…

which is why I failed to notice him

 whip out his bottle

of Snickering Testosterone
before he  proceeded to sprinkle

all over my breakfast table.


Apparently this is not a man's coffee cup.  

According to him, it is a tea cup.  Mr. Coffee also informed me that no man after the 19th century wanted to use a cup of  that size first thing in the morning.  He wasn’t sure, he opined, that they could get their fingers through the holder if they wanted to. He tried though, holding the girly teacup with pinky perched in the air.

Such a smarty pants I married.

I was seriously close to sticking a pear in his mouth, but I chose instead to act a little wounded, and although he knew that I was being a big fat faker, he agreed to meet me for breakfast and leave the snickering testosterone behind. 

I knew he would.

But I made a few changes in the name of marital compromise.  I replaced the dainty tea cups with some simple white coffee mugs.

And while I was at it, I replaced the embroidered linens with some simple green cotton ones. I removed the plant to give a little more room to the bull in the china shop and replaced it with a small vase of daisies. Then I moved his big old man chair over to the table so that he could smirk in comfort. 

And we enjoyed our breakfast.

I took that shot after the fact. You just don't bring a shiny red Kodak to a romantic breakfast for two, people…

He talked about his week and his visit with the girls and Miss Whimsy’s affection toward him right in front of her new friends. I talked about nothing at all, and he listened.
As usual.

He even said that he would like to do it again.

So there you have it.

I dub The Great Breakfast Adventure

a smashing success.

Now, I’m thinking about, 

a  candlelight dinner in the garden. 

Too bad I don't have a garden... 

Simply Colorful

Believe it or not,

I *almost* missed my simple pleasure this week.

 I was racing along those 30 country miles,

completely consumed in my thoughts...

clicking off the mental checklist...

worrying about the dinner I had yet to plan...

I was about a half mile or so from the entrance to our neighbhorhood

when I happened to glance over my left shoulder,

and I saw this.

Isn't that beautiful?

How in the world could I have *almost* missed it?

The husband would never have missed it.

Nope.

He would have been on the lookout for it.

Rainbows, you see, are his simple pleasure.

I have never seen anyone more delighted about a bunch of colors in the sky than that man.

He becomes like a little child.

The minute he sees a ray of sunshine breaking through the rain, he begins the hunt,

twisting his neck in all sorts of positions…

peering through the clouds for the burst of color that he's positive he'll see.

Generally, he's rewarded for his efforts, too.

I can't count the number of times that I have been busy about the house only to be beckoned with a sense of urgency to come out of doors. Years ago, it would alarm me. I would be certain that some show shopping, life altering occurance had taken place. My panic button is pretty much set on "automatic", after all.  

He will just  point to the sky.

Look!

Sometimes, he calls me from the road just to report a significant one. Once he phoned, almost speechless.
Believe it or not, he told me,  he had just driven through a rainbow. The colors had crept through his car window and literally crossed over his arms as he drove. It may seem unlikely, but I believed him.

If God were going to color any person with a rainbow, it would be that man.

So when I saw this perfect arch in the sky the other day, I knew that I had to stop the car, pull out the shiny red Kodak and try… somewhat unsuccessfully... to capture it for him.  Then, I realized that he was home, holed up in an office which looks out, not on the open sky, but on that  piney stick forest.  Very probably, he had no idea what was just though the trees.

So I called him.

And with great urgency, I said,

“Quick! Get outside and meet me in the driveway!” 

He didn't ask why.  He just did it. His panic button is set on "almost never".  I pulled into the neighbhorhood, and there he was, craning that neck like an owl and peering up through the trees.

 So I rolled down the window and yelled to him.

“If you’re looking for a rainbow, you’re going to have to hop in.”

He hopped. 

We sat beside the road for a while, just admiring it.

He dubbed it one of the prettiest ones he had ever seen.

Quite a compliment coming from such a rainbow aficionado.

Now, if you’re thinking that my simple pleasure this week is that rainbow,
 you would be wrong.

I like them, but rainbows are his simple pleasure,

not really mine.

My simple pleasure this week was
watching him
 enjoying his.

****

Sharing this with Dayle at A Collection of This and That

The Bucket List

The husband is a collector of buckets. He  uses them to tidy his lawn. He uses them to tidy his garden shed. He uses them to tidy his garage. He lines them up to hold everything from charcoal to the kitty litter that he spreads over leaks from the girls' clunkity old car.

 Aptly named "Flo"

Yes, indeed. Mr. Clean  is also Mr. Bucket.  That's why buckets were the container of choice for last week's  Great Pine Cone Adventure

 Last night, he made a rare pit stop in the middle of his business travel. It was a treat to find his car in the garage when I returned home from Wednesdays with the Duchess.  It was even a bigger treat when I opened the door, and I walked smack into this.

A bucket full of flowers. 

I saw him sitting in the den and called out the obvious (I hoped) question. "Is this for ME?" He never moved. He didn't even glance in my direction. He just chomped on his crackers and wore the smirk.
Finally he said, "Well, you did give me that lovely bucket of pine cones..." And he sat there... very pleased with himself.

I was very pleased with him too. I even resisted the urge to make sure they were wholesale.
 I'm thankful for that man.

So this morning, my next thing is to arrange all of these...

... and spread the love all over the house. 

I love flowers. 

And then, my next thing will be to head to the store.

Because I have been thinking this morning.... I'm always thinking...

If a bucket of pine cones can turn into a bucket of flowers, it might be a very good idea to refill his bucket of this:

And I'll email him the picture...

Is anyone following me here?

Mr. Bucket. Buckets of Fun.

Piney Pick Up Sticks

I haven’t been updating daily on my 29 Day Giving Challenge, mainly because most of them are pretty self explanatory from the little list on the right. It has been a fun challenge, though, and I’m happy to report that I haven’t, as yet, missed a day.

I was all set to yakkity yak about my gift from Day 21 when I opened  Jennie's Blog and I read about her Great Mulching Adventure while Super Sam was out of town. In case you didn’t read it, Jennie ordered and spread a truck load of mulch with one hand… with the other hand simultaneously feeding, bathing, diapering, deboogering, schooling, and snuggling three small children.

OK, I added most of that, but it was still a pretty impressive undertaking in my book… so I hesitate to cackle about my own proud accomplishment.

Because I picked up sticks and pinecones. 

I could say in my defense that I don’t usually do yard maintenance… if that statement in and of itself didn’t need defending as well. In our division of labor, lawn maintenance falls mostly to the husband.

Because, welll...

I am, however, trusted to help with the game of pick up sticks. This is not such a difficult task in the front lawn, but as I’ve mentioned, our back yard is mostly a piney Georgia stick forest which rains down sticks, pinecones, and other debris in a never ending backyard blitzkrieg.

I hate it.

That’s why I procreated slave labor. That system worked for me until The Practical One went to college, leaving only one daughter at home to help.  And since that daughter has been a whirling dervish of over scheduled senioritis lately, the piney stick forest has kind of… well…gotten out of control.

And so for the entire household, and for our back door neighbors, I did back yard patrol for my gift of the day. This was actually a pretty big task since the up and down motion wreaks havoc on my lower back. So I sandwiched it between other chores every ten minutes on the hour until the job was done.

 I picked up every piece of pine menace no matter how small.

And then I emailed this picture to the husband…

Subject: My gift of the day

And I waited for his response.

And I waited.

Finally, I got an email back.

And it said…

“Please tell me that there is not a gift box  full of pinecones sitting on my bed.”

Such a smarty pants I married.

Marrying Mr. Clean

I love my husband. I have yakked about him HERE.
And HERE.

He’s a wonderful husband, the kind who pitches in and does all sorts of chores around the house. He cooks. He cleans. He helps with the laundry. He’s Super Dad.

I’m very blessed.

But sometimes... sometimes…I sort of wish that he didn’t know a Downy ball from a softball.

Because I married Mr. Clean.

My husband has a love affair with Scotch Brite Sponges. He buys them in bulk for perpetual availability and stores them in a gallon sized baggie under my sink. This Scotch Brite affection is so legendary that he has actually received boxes of them for Christmas gifts. He was thrilled.

He has used his Scotch Brite sponges and Mr. Clean biceps to scrub my kitchen into oblivion. He scoured  the finish off a laminate counter... He dulled the shine on a glass cooktop... And I might be the only wife in America who had to replace Revere Ware cookery because her husband scrubbed off the handles.

I hoarded them.

When he is not scrubbing my pots and pans, he is scrubbing out baggies. He turns them inside out, attacks them with the Scotch Brite, and pitches little tents all around my kitchen sink...

...a little baggie Hooverville.

That particular mess doesn’t bother him one iota. After all, he's an outie... and an even bigger reuser than I am. I once returned home to discover a single piece of paper towel spread out on the counter, drying. Apparently, Mr. Clean had decided that it was a perfectly good piece of paper towel because, as he explained to me, he had merely used it to wipe up some water.

I introduced him to Mr. Dish Towel.

He became infatuated.

So much so that a kitchen clean-up is only complete when he flies the Hooverville flag from the oven door. Now, This wouldn’t bother me so much if all of my towels didn’t look just like that one.

I have tried to replace them with pretty, colorful towels, but I have finally surrendered.
You see, the man is also just a tad germaphobic and certifiably addicted to the bottle of Clorox. He believes that every load of towels requires a cup of the stuff.  I have tried to explain to him that most towels are used to dry clean things. Therefore, industrial strength disinfection seems like overkill. Nevertheless, he stays on perpetual bleach offensive.

So we play a little game.

I buy new towels.

And he turns them into this:

Or this:

Sigh... 

You might be wondering what set Little Debbie off on this ramble today...

Well, it’s this:
I discovered yesterday that Mr. Clean has won the current round of dish towel tag. I can not find one single dish towel fit for anything but the rag bag.

And so, I will venture into THAT place.
And I will purchase some new ones.
Again.

But while I’m there, I am going to pick up some Scotch Brite sponges. Because I also discovered that his sponge baggie is almost empty. And that is my gift for today. I might even wrap them.

Honestly and truly, Sponge Bob will be thrilled.

He loves me... He loves me not...

They’re here.

Finally!

I was beginning to worry that the Georgia winter of 2010 had frightened all of the spring blossoms into permanent hibernation or something. These little fellows wake up every year, usually during the month of February. They were a bit late this year, but I had been watching… and waiting… for these jonquils.

They pop up in this field...

...beside this abandoned old house...

...along the 30 country mile commute.

Now to most of the people I know, a jonquil is about three steps above a weed. It’s a wannabe daffodil with that love it/ hate it smell of the narcissus.

But to me, it’s a favorite flower. It reminds me of my early dating days with the husband. I use the term  loosely because it hardly resembles the jet setting date life of this current generation.

The man and I met in college where we were both living on a ramen noodle budget. Since I was child number 4 of 4, and he was number 4 of 5, neither one of us was afforded the a limousine lifestyle. 

In fact, there wasn't a set of wheels between us. Our dates were limited to those places within walking distance and usually involved anything that we could do for free.

So every afternoon, weather permitting, we would take a walk.

And we ( that would be mostly I ) would talk. I would yakkity yak across the campus and  through the Athens side roads. (The man should probably wear a button of full disclosure that he knew exactly what he was getting when he married me…)

One afternoon, in the spring of our relationship, I noticed a patch of jonquils bursting into bloom. I  was delighted.  He called them weeds and said he wasn't at all fond of a jonquil, but then he  reached down and plucked up a yellow weed bouquet and handed it to me.  

And that's how it all started.

 In the months that followed, he helped himself to a variety of plucked bouquets, most of which were pilfered from random gardens along our talking route. While I talked, he did flower surveillance and a commando raid on some unsuspecting blossom.

It was an adventure.

Of course when the Duchess heard about the Great Plucking Adventure, she nearly fainted.

That is STEALING, Deb-rah!

 It was? Seriously, we never considered that gardeners would mind a random pluck or two in the interest of true love. Aren't flower lovers the ultimate romantics? 

Well, either due to guilt... or fear that there was an APB out for the phantom Romeo of Milledge Avenue… or probably because the newness wore off of the relationship… he eventually stopped the serial petal plucking.

But to this day, when I see a patch of jonquils burst forth in the early spring, I remember those walks and the skinny boy who used to pluck me flowers a when he couldn't afford  to take me to dinner.

And I pluck myself a bouquet.

Or two…

And it always makes me smile.

A Different Drum

If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears however measured or far away.
                                                                                                                   Henry David Thoreau


I love to watch the world meander through the calendar color wheel as we dutifully follow those preset color rules. The reds and greens of December give way to happy white snowmen on backgrounds of blue for January. July is colored with red, white, and blue. March is dyed green. February, of course, bursts forth in one huge scarlet explosion created by the domination of red with hints of pink here and there for contrast. It’s everywhere: red cards at the Hallmark, red hearts of candy, red balloons, bouquets of red roses, or red carnations, or red tulips arranged in their whimsical little red vases and tied with their red bows.

So I wonder what the florist thought when the husband ordered my valentine flowers this year. I wonder if he had to repeat himself for clarity…or if he was gently nudged by the order taker that he must have missed the memo… or if he was warned with a condescending smirk that he was making some sort of garish valentine faux pas.

Because in the midst of that beautiful scarlet explosion,

 my valentine flowers looked like this.

They arrived with a card that simply said, “I got that clue”.

"I got that clue” is familyspeak birthed when Miss Whimsy was a little girl. In the middle of a frustrated mommy rant over some chaos I’ve long forgotten, I looked at her and said, “Get… a… clue.” She schlumped off to attend to whatever had caused the commotion and muttered, “I got that clue. I didn’t like that clue.” The cuteness of the moment diffused the situation, as The Practical One and I fell into giggles. From that point on, “I got that clue” is our family’s way of saying, “I get it.”

Oddball though I might be, the husband gets me completely, and he knows what makes me smile. So he asked them to add a little yellow to the red and make it orange.

How pretty is that?

I got that clue too. Here’s my gift to him, which included, among other things, some dried orange fruit dipped in chocolate. (I gave him some dipped strawberries too, but they don’t fit with this post so...)

So we danced through Valentines Day to the beat of a different drummer. Next on deck is St. Patrick’s Day. I plan on following the rules then, though. After all, I work in an elementary school. And I don’t want to get pinched.

Top Ten Tuesday Challenge

I’m flying solo these days because the man of the house is out of town. That’s not an oddity in this family. Since he's in sales, he often travels during the week and has done so for the 25 years of our marriage. Now, one would think that after a quarter of a century, I would be used to his absence. I’m not. I still miss him every moment that he’s gone, pester him incessantly by cell phone, and get excited when I see him pull in the driveway. Maybe that’s a hidden blessing of marrying a traveling man. Absence makes the heart grow fonder… and fonder… and fonder. So, in honor of the upcoming Valentines Day holiday, and to practice the art of the edit, I have compiled a short list of ten things that I love about that man. A finite list, I have discovered, is very difficult for the chronically verbose. At the risk of being a nauseating, I will say that 101 things would have been easier…

Here’s a challenge: Try it yourself between now and the Big Day. I have a hunch that you will find it more difficult than you think to limit your I LOVE reasons to a meager ten.

Without further rambling, I’ll give it a whirl.

Ten Things I Love About That Man…

1. He loves the LORD and is a wonderful spiritual head of our household.

2. He notices. If you know him, no further explanation necessary.

3. In his business itinerary, all roads lead through Macon…

4. He peels the apples, sieves the pulp, and never tells Miss Whimsy that 17 years is more than enough time to grow out of idiosyncrasies.

5. He believes a book bag, which has been lugged from car to school and class to class is far too heavy to be carried between the car and the house. And he acts upon that belief.

6. He would still rather have a child-centered photo gift than anything else in the world... and the children are 17 and 20.

Ghosts of Christmas Past...

...and present

And he decorates his office with them.

No matter how old or broken they become.

7. He is a strong enough man to love strong women... yet enough of a gentleman to treat even a strong woman like a lady.

8. He brings me coffee in bed when he’s home. That one really ought to be # 1B...

9. He has a servant’s heart.

10. For 25 years, he has vicariously experienced PMS, post partum depression, insecurities, weight watchers, Akins, sugar busters, the rotation diet, counting points, counting fat grams, counting calories, counting carbs, counting points again... working mom guilt, stay-at-home mom guilt, part time teacher guilt, monsters in the closet, brontophobia, carcinophobia, aviophobia, musophobia…

…yet for some oddball reason, he loves me back.