It's Fall and I love it!

So we don't have any yellow, red, or orange leaves on the trees. It's our brand of fall, and I love it. To us, it's fall when you walk out the front door and don't immediately start sweating. If the humidity is below 50 percent, then it's bound to be fall.

The sky just seems bluer during the fall. It's just so pretty these days.

Spent a wonderful day with Dad yesterday. Even if it was talking him to the dr., it was still a great day. He seemed to feel better than usual lately, so that made it nice. Sometimes his sense of humor just amuses me. For him to comment that my car is a bit junky just cracked me up. You just never know what he'll notice.

I also like the Fall, as it's our busiest time of the year. You work so hard all day long and the day goes so quickly. Just makes things so much more enjoyable.

Ready to go

I feel like a kid on the night before school starts. My shop re-opens tomorrow after Hurricane Ike. Will the people return? Will we have a strong fall? Don't know at this point.

I'd love to have a big birthday party for the shop on Saturday. But is this the right time? Maybe I'll wait a bit. Happy 8th birthday to us!

I remember so well getting ready for the opening of the shop. We had about 500 candles and thought that was huge. I had no idea what to ever expect with this venture. Still amazes me that we have employees and ship nationwide. I thought I'd do everything and it would just be a shop only business. Didn't know the internet would kick in, and I resisted wholesale and fundraising as long as I could.

I wouldn't trade anything about it.

Oh My Achy, Breaky Body

Going from 0 to 60 is what my body feels like it did today. This old body is unaccustomed to physical labor. When you have several tons of wood fall out of your trees, then you have to pick it up. And we did.

I fear what this old body will feel like tomorrow. Just bending over and picking up even the lightest of sticks would make me sore. But, dragging big branches to the fire pit is likely to make me very tender for the next 24-48 hours. Wonder what the massage therapist is doing tomorrow? Think I'll be making an appointment if at all possible.

It amazes me how generous people can be. Our next door neighbors gave up their entire Sunday to help us today. The work wasn't easy, but these folks hung with us the whole day. So giving. So appreciated.

There's a long nap in my near future. Night night.

Randomness at its finest

As if I've not written enough about the weather, I return to blogging after quite the weather-related absence. Now that Ike has taken a hike, it's back to normal.



Ha! What's normal? I've been evacuated for the past 9 days. Such a surreal period of time. Seems like I did nothing, but I sure was exhausted every night. I can't believe that storm was already a week ago.



Things that you take so for granted have flown by the wayside. Even the local McDonald's has been closed all week. Huh? What? No quarter pounders? Not if you live in Maplewood. Even the shopping center nearest there has been closed all week. Unreal. Traffic lights are hit or miss still.



Came home to a phone call on the answering machine that thrilled me. A dear friend from college has resurfaced and tracked me down. I've missed her and was so pleased she found me. She and I go for years with no communication, but we always reconnect. Can't wait to hear the latest in her life. Always interesting and fascinating. Always was.



Gotta love it when your DH sets something on fire. Hurricane winds blew down trees in our yard, so he's burning tree branches and such. Mostly ours. However, winds carried an ember to the neighbors' yard and set one of their trees afire. At least they were nice about it.



So much to do to try to get life back to normal.

Little Labor on Labor Day

I love the weather. I really should have been a weather person. The radar, the pictures, the forecast. All of it. I even got up in the middle of the night to check the progress of Hurricane Gustav.

I'm really glad it's hitting somewhere that's not here. The sound of the high wind sends me over the edge. But I am addicted to weather.

Nothing is happening here. Figure I'll go to the grocery store and try to cook something today. I have a hankering for brisket, hash brown casserole and gussied up cornbread.

Looks to be a lazy day around here. How exciting is laundry? Ah, the life of a middle-aged housewife. Perfectly riveting.

And so it blows

News is covering little more than Hurricane Gustav today. And that's as it should be.

The mayor of New Orleans got on the level of his people as he told them something to the effect of "get your butts outta here." Whatever it takes to get the residents of New Orleans on the path to safety.

It's unbelievable to think that lower Louisiana is about to be hit so hard again. No one has forgotten Katrina or Rita. You think that history can't repeat itself, but we're about to see that it can. I really hope that the devastation will be far less widespread - I just have a feeling that it will be.

Growing up on the Gulf Coast, I can't remember such panic 0r so many storms as we've dodged in the last 3 years or so. Did we always have so many or are we just hyper-aware of them now? Can't answer that.

I can remember being terrified of Hurricane Alicia in 1983. I was 20 years old and huddled in the corner like a baby. The sounds of hurricanes and tropical storms just undo me.

I hope and pray that Gustav will pass quickly and leave little destruction.

Getting old sucks

In an ideal world, I, nor none of my loved ones would get old. To me, old = sick.

Spent the day with my Mom today. Much as I love her, it doesn't even feel like I'm with her anymore when we're together. I don't know who this woman is. She physically looks like my Mom, but it's not her. Somewhere along the way, dementia has robbed my Mom's body of my Mom.

And while I'm on it, dementia is the ugliest word. It's a Greek word, but it evokes thoughts of some mad person with dishevelled hair. Makes me think of a glassy eyed, babbling person who makes not a lick of sense.

Anyways, back to my Mom, it's not the same with her anymore. Everything is so dulled about her. When you speak to her, she just looks at you, without any recognition of what you've just told her. My description of this is that the velcro isn't sticking. She forgets the first of the sentence she's hearing by the time you're completing the sentence.

And then there's Dad. He looks so terribly frail and weak. One kidney is gone and the other is functioning at 20 percent. His body is wearing out. That is truly one of the toughest things I've ever watched.

Each time I say bye to him, I wonder if I'll get to see him again on this earth. It's that close. He's so miserable. As he suffers, it makes it easier for me to be able to say goodbye to him. I don't want to, but I know I'll have to. And soon. His little body simply can't function much longer.

I'm just so cheery tonight. I'm not even sure what would take my mind off of everything.

Heavy Heart

I'm waiting for the phone to ring. My Dad says his kidney dr. wants to talk to me. So I wait.

I'm not going to like what I hear. Dad's kidneys are just barely functioning. Bladder cancer has done its job on his bladder, and now his kidneys are affected. Does he have kidney cancer? I don't know.

This and That

My wagon is draggin' this morning. To get home from a concert after midnight is a bit on the extreme for this old lady. Then it took forever to fall asleep. Hate that.

About that concert. I was somewhat disappointed. Steely Dan has been around since the 70s and has quite the collection of well-known (at least for them) songs. Bring out the chestnuts, guys. When folks pay that much for tickets to see you, they expect the oldies-but-goodies, not the obscure side B records.

I think it's rather arrogant of a group to do what these guys did. As much as I'm bitching, I really did enjoy seeing the songs I knew performed. Quite the interesting crowd-watching too. Old rockers, music teachers, yuppies, drunks, little bit of everything.

Hated a message I had on the answering machine when I got home. Learned that one of my cousins had passed away yesterday. Just makes me sad to lose a relative. He'd been ill for months, if not years, and was in his 70s.

It's a dreary day for the most part. Work is sitting around like dirty dishes in the sink. Needs to be done. Might need to move in that direction.

First day of school. . .er, blogging

It was a dark and stormy night. Okay, it was daytime. But it's still dark and stormy.

I have a bazillion things to do, but I'm really just anticipating the Steely Dan concert tonight. Could care less about doing anything else right now.

I can always work tomorrow.