Summer lovin'

Here we are, about to slide into July.  And, while we seem to be getting a little bit more rain than some years, it's getting hot.  I'm about ready to put the umbrellas up over the garden to shade it and help preserve the water I can only put down once a week.  But for now, I'm enjoying the summer colors.  

The colors in this little bit of the garden caught my eye.  Purple, pink, multiple shades of green.  And, the 4 o'clocks weren't even open yet.  When they're open, the purples and pinks kind of fade behind them, so this was a good chance to see those flowers.  

And, the echinacea are going strong.  The pink ones have already bloomed and faded and I'm about to dead head them so they can bloom again later.  But, now the other colors are getting ready to do their thing.  This orange is already singing a sweet summer song.  

I lost one of the colored ones.  Not sure if it was the yellow or the red, but I bought this one to replace it.  The flowers are yellowish and fade to pink.  

And, the Texas Star Hibiscus gave me a flower.  I've got to move this.  It's in too much sun.  I have a seedling that I planted in a better spot, but it hasn't taken off like I thought it would, so I need to move the parent plant so I can make sure I preserve it.  But, it's been in the ground a long time and I"m a little worried about trying to move it.  

And, the last couple of daylilies that are in shadier spots and have survived the heat have bloomed.  

Weed, water, feed, replace the dead, move things to a better location.  It's the cycle of gardening.  There's always something that needs doing and never enough time to get it done.  And, I keep doing it, year after year.  And, I'm about to take up macrame, y'all.  Because my greenhouse shelves are full and I need more places for plants, so I'm gonna hang 'em from the rafters.  

Obsessive much?

But, it's easier than thinking about the terrorist attacks that our 'leader' has likely brought down on us.  Easier than thinking about what we're doing to our own country.  Easier than thinking about the lies and deceit and corruption.  Easier than thinking about the things that were missing from the grocery store shelves and where the food chain is vulnerable.  Easier than thinking about how the store doesn't have the staff to keep the products on the shelves.  Easier than to think about what comes next for my home, my family, my city, my country and my world.  

We are so busy at work, I could barely raise my head last week.  I have about 5 top priority projects going on at once and one day last week, I found myself asking two people to wait their turn while I helped one and while I was helping one of the other two, someone else got into my queue.  And, they all wanted to talk about something different, so I had to be really careful about staying on topic.  And after that, I took a break and played the uke for a half hour, just to let my brain cool down.  Two full time analysts and I are pulling data as fast as we can and when they get stuck, I'm going in and explaining the anomaly...that one item that didn't do what it should have done and figuring out whether that's a problem with the data an unusual customer request?  And, all of that while we're preparing to launch two new products later this year.  

Calgon, take me away!

No wonder I spend so much time in the garden and puttering with orchids and making quilts and playing the uke and cooking.  My brain needs simpler things to think about.  

And, if you don't know what Calgon was, then you didn't get that little joke.  But, the rest of us laughed out loud.  Age has its privileges.    

Everybody have a great week!  Find things you enjoy and immerse yourself into them.  If hard times are coming, they'll get here fast enough.  Enjoy the things you can now, and try to put off worrying for another day.  There's a time to worry, but there's also a time to relax and enjoy the small stuff.  

Lane

Taking care of business

Normally, when I have to be away from home, I spend weeks of angst, dreading it.  I'm trying to live life more day by day now, giving up some of that dread and worry, and I have to say it worked out for this trip.  There was just the normal level of anxiety that most people feel about getting to the airport, through security, and on the plane on time.  And, of course, the trip went well.  

I traveled alone this time.  My work team usually travels as a group, but one missed the conference because of a family reunion and another went up early and stayed later to spend time with family, so I was by myself this time.  I didn't mind.  I listened to music and read, walked the airport hallways and got my steps in.  

I got to Cleveland just as festivities were beginning, so I ubered to the hotel and checked in, then ubered to the restaurant and joined in the buffet.  I met quite a few people at that dinner that I hadn't met before and got to spend time with people I only see once a year.  This was the view from my room on the 27th floor.  Not too bad, eh?  Lake Erie as far as you can see.

There wasn't a lot of time for looking out the window, tho.  From that Monday night dinner, there was constantly something going on.  There were so many speakers.  The CEO spoke, then the leaders of all the different products that we sell, speakers that talked about what's coming next for the company and a speaker that talked about insurance fraud and how we catch people.  And I was ready for it.  

I fell asleep.  Yep.  I did.  I didn't fall out of my chair or anything.  But, I fell asleep at one point and realized I'd missed something the speaker said.  God, he was boring.  We were playing around at dinner, trying to find someone that didn't fall asleep while that guy talked.  Yes, there were people that could say they didn't drift off at least once while he spoke, but not many.  

The food was good, the time passed fast, and I got to talk to a lot of people.  At these events, everyone generally moves table to table and once in a while, you end up being part of a small group.  Those are the best.  Young people wanted to talk to me about my retirement and about planning for it and about why I postponed it.  And, when I told them that part of our early retirement plan depended on us being married and now I'm afraid we'll lose that, they hung and shook their heads in commiseration.  I felt very seen and heard.  They also wanted to talk about company history and how I got from where I started to where I ended up.  And, I explained that at one time, my job was a career goal, but for the younger people, it needed to be a stepping stone on the path to a career, they took that to heart.  I explained that I'd stayed at the company 41 years because there were opportunities to move from job to job as the company grew and that we're in a growth cycle now and it's not always this way, so they needed to take opportunities and new experiences as they come and not wait for the perfect job or to be tapped on the shoulder and asked to apply for it.  

It was a great opportunity to reconnect with young people and with the job, and I enjoyed it but was glad to be back home.  And, flying United wasn't bad at all.  They've certainly fixed the issues I had with them when I flew them several years ago (before switching exclusively to Southwest).  Most of the United Airlines employees were great!  Helpful to me and to other passengers.  No more treating us like the customer didn't matter.  There was a gate attendant in Houston that was probably ending a long and stressful day due to weather delays.  She wasn't very nice, but she was balanced by the flight attendants from my flight that were waiting at the gate with us.  An elderly flyer that didn't speak English walked up to them for help.  They all tried, but the young woman that spoke Spanish was the one that helped the lady, who turned out to be part of a group of elderly travelers that came by to express their appreciation and tell her how 'bonita' (pretty) she was.  It was a moment that touched my heart.  So, when I got on the plane, I took the opportunity to tell her what a nice moment it was and that it made a good impression.  

Good deeds have their own rewards, but it didn't hurt that just before takeoff, she tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a seat in a nearly empty row, where there was more room.  I think the guy across the aisle had his eyes on that seat.  Oops!

How about some flowers that aren't daylilies.  There are just a few daylilies left and it's gotten so hot that some of them are wilting before they open, but other things are really starting to pop.  

This is Turk's cap.  The red flowers draw hummingbirds, so when I look out of the kitchen window and see motion in the leaves, if I watch long enough, the hummingbird will come out and go for a more visible flower.  

These are swamp lilies and they aren't fully opened yet, but I couldn't wait to share a pic.  I'm sure there will be another one later of the fully opened flowers.  For such an unattractive name, they make a beauty of a flower. 

When I was walking yesterday, I came across a line of painted rocks.  This isn't unusual.  We have several rock painters in the neighborhood that do beautiful work and occasionally leave a rock at our house with a special message and we see them all around the neighborhood.  This time, there was a message written on the ground "If it speaks to you, take it."  And, this one spoke to me loudly (shouting!), so I took it.  And, waved my thanks at the front of the house.  

'The happiest people don't have the best of everything...they just make the best of everything they have.'

Words to live by.  

I really want to talk about politics, but I'm pretty sure the whole country spoke on that topic yesterday.  The few.  And, the many.  

Everybody have a great week.  Find something that makes you feel good about yourself.  Tackle something that normally gives you pause.  Rack up so many personal wins that you get tired of winning.  That's how I believe we 'win' in this situation.  

Lane

I'll fly away

 Today, I'm off to Cleveland for an annual conference.  Several of the senior people in my job group have retired and there are going to be a LOT of new people to meet.  Young people.  Selfishly, the people I want to get to know and have ask me questions.  Since I postponed my retirement just before the inauguration, I've been looking for ways to remain relevant in my job...I call it 'getting people to say my name.'  Or even better, being mentioned in an important email or 'getting my name in the paper'.  It used to happen all the time, but because I was retiring, I got missed in a cycle of projects and now I'm trying to create a project that becomes important.  I'm just hoping I can get something big in the next cycle.  

In the meantime, we're being audited by an outside organization and I'm trying to get all up in that and smear my name all over it, as in 'Lane provided...' and 'Lane was very helpful' or even better, 'Lane thought of a way to...."  

Vanity, thy name is Lane.

Anyway, I'll go up and make a good impression and shake a lot of hands and offer good advice and help and we'll see how it goes.  I will not indulge my terror of being the old man that fell asleep in the meeting and snored out loud.  That is NOT how I'm going out...but I've seen the agenda.  It might be a challenge.  

This is a new daylily.  The camera didn't quite catch the color.  It's more of a dark red.  All the nice daylilies are spread around, outside of the major clumps of yellow and orange.  If my Mom was right and the yellow and orange change the others to yellow and orange, then hopefully, these are far enough away to not be affected.  

These are also very red on the three dark petals and a pink-red on the lighter ones.  

This is a basket we picked up from the side of the road quite a few years ago.  I've struggled with what to plant in it.  I don't want to rust out the bottom of the basket, so I've been very careful about lining it.  This time, I used a huge plastic storage bag that has a flat bottom shaped into it and cut it to size and some drainage holes, put the coco mat around the sides and inserted the bag and filled it with soil.  We went to the garden center and picked up these pentas and vincas to fill it and this is the best that basket has ever looked.   

This was a trough I found in the phlox bed when I was putting in mulch.  I had forgotten it was there.  It was half full of soil, so I added some and two white begonias (one of which was obviously lying when I bought it...I swear they both had white flowers) and I had bought that trailing ground cover when it was on sale half price and nursed it back to health, so I put it in too.  Loving this little bit of different, surrounded by the phlox.  

I was walking around the garden yesterday.  I'd been out there working a couple hours and was trying to get "finished".  What a joke.  Everywhere I went to finish something, I found something else needed to be done.  It's never going to be finished.  And, that's the beauty of it.  It's like getting to work on the same quilt for years, starting small, growing over time, blocks taken out and replaced with something more colorful.  Or less.  Arranging colors and textures so they look balanced.  And, picking off loose threads (the equivalent of perpetual weeding).  And every year, when it's in its peak, I love it a little more than I did the year before.  

And, soon after that it becomes a chore as I try to save it from the blast furnace of climate change.  

Ya, there's plenty to talk about politically.  They're trying to pick a fight with the gays now, think pride month is the right time.  Renaming the Harvey Milk.  Blocking the park DC Pride is scheduled to happen in.  Intimidation.  The National Guard.  Fear.  

I keep thinking about Rep Sarah McBride (D-DE).  She's transgender and serving in congress.  Her days are much harder than mine.  And, yet she keeps getting up and living each day.  I can do that.  Not the congress part.  And, not the tolerating Nancy Mace's bigotry part.  But I can do the getting up and living each day part.  

However, I have too many other things to worry about today than what the orange and his false christians are doing.  I need to be focused on staying awake in meetings.  And, not getting lost in Chicago's O'hare.  

Everybody have a great week!  Do something you're good at.  And, be sure to also do something you love.  Lane

Ah-ah-ah

Choooooo!

Happy season of sneezes.  Before I took my allergy pill yesterday, I told Rob I thought I'd come down with something, but about a half hour after the pill, I was fine again.  Not quite sure what I'm allergic to right now, but whatever it is, it's got me good.  

While Rob was gone, I did some grout repair and it went so well, I'm going to do some more.  I'm doing an extra special job of sealing this time.  I've always sealed it, but not enough apparently because of the way it stains, so this time, I'm doing more and I am pretty sure it's going to be more effective.  And, if it's not, then I'm going to start looking into new countertops.  I love the 4" white tiles, but they are a pain.  

I also did this spot, which is almost finished.  This is the space between the house and my greenhouse.  It was a mess.  So, I pulled everything out and weeded, then put down weed barrier fabric and then did a string line and marked the center of the pavers and lined them up, giving myself more cement at the end where the hoses are.  I put in that little flowerbed along the foundation.  I also went around the greenhouse base with a galvanized steel edging.  The problem we're trying to solve is that our lawn slopes down to the greenhouse, so soil washes down the hill and gets to the greenhouse and builds up around the base.  That caused the board at the base of the greenhouse (you know, the main one that the whole greenhouse is built upon) to rot and Rob had to replace it in the greenhouse re-do (we got lucky that there was still enough he could do that.  In addition to the edging, I want to put a narrow flowerbed in front of it to also catch some of that water and soil rushing down the hill.  

I'd have liked to take a pic while the hoses are rolled up, but if we wait for that, you may never see this space.  

Yesterday, we took out two crabapple trees, one that was dead and one dying.  My dad gave them to me soon after we moved into this house.  They were old and had lived out their full lifespan.  The arborist said they wouldn't ever do anything because our soil was not acidic enough.  And, he was right.  They never did anything, just stood there and grew and made leaves and crabapples.  They never sang or danced or played the fiddle.  Disappointing trees.  There was a lot of acidic fertilizer put down around them.  

The yellow and orange daylilies are done.  They were beautiful.  But, now a whole different set of daylilies is getting started.  

Okay, this one isn't new, but it was the last one and was the largest and most perfect flower I've seen on this plant.  It was huge!

There is so much going on in the garden.  I just wander around, stopping every so often to look at something.   Some effect I've created by putting a certain group of plants together by chance, because there's certainly no plan, except bring a pretty plant home and find a place for it.  A couple weeks ago, there were yellow daylillies all around the yard to tie it all together.  Now, the phlox have started and they're doing the same thing.  No plan.  I just had a ton of phlox, so I put them here and there...and there, and there, and there.  In the sunny spots where it's too hot for phlox, the echinacea does the same thing.  

Labor Day weekend, I put the wedding ring quilt together and put it on the bed to see how it looked.  It's supposed to be one row larger than the other quilt...except I seem to have struggled with the maths and made a quilt that's the exact same size as the other one.  Dagnabbit! (yeah, let's pretend that's what I said).  Anyway, I've started another row.  And, am hoping I can make a row that doesn't stand out as different.  I pulled fabric over last week and started the arcs (7 blocks = 15 wedges = 30 arcs).  I had 20 usable templates left, so I'm making 20 arcs.  Fortunately, the last time I was in JoAnn's, I bought the last couple yards off the last bolt they had of the background fabric (I don't know why, but am glad I did), so I have plenty of that.  I was very disappointed, but am so glad I decided to make the extra row.  There was considerable discussion about how maybe we didn't need it...but I'd always know that I "cheaped out" and didn't make the quilt I wanted to make.  

Yesterday, I made blackberry jam.  We can pretend it was from the blackberries I grew, but my $70 blackberries ended up being just over a cup of fruit.  We will not be calculating that into the cost of the jam.  It went very well.  I guess jam takes a little practice, and having practiced a little, it went very smoothly.  We were in goodwill the other day and I bought a practically new water batch canner for $7.  It's much smaller than my old one, which was designed for quart jars.  I donated it a couple years ago because I don't can quarts of anything.  On Saturday, they had two, a small one that would have done half pint jars and a larger one that was great for these half pints and is deep enough that if I wanted to do some quart jars, I could.  

So, I feel like I'm all set for jam for a while.  Let's hope I don't have to go back to baking my own bread to eat it on.  

I really don't have much to say about politics right now.  I can share that I'm enjoying watching truth and lies collide.  Pretense and reality, crashing into one another, and I think this is just the beginning of that trend.  I'm still preparing for hard times, but I'm feeling less certain that they're impending.  I'm more focused on keeping my life moving forward and doctors appointments and home repairs and the garden.  What can I do something about vs feeling like I can't do anything about anything.  What's the most important thing I can do today?  What will help me or someone else today?  What keeps life moving forward today?  And, how much time can I steal to sew arcs or play the ukulele today?  And, just remember, TACO.  TACO, TACO, TACO.  

How about tacos for lunch?  

Lane