Iced Tea Chat: Water Bugging

Her mums look autumnal, don't they?  But yes, you can see we're back at the 'Iced Tea' stage of things. Ugh.  It's not that the heat is so awful, though it's bad enough if you're trying to work outdoors, but the gnats, the blasted gnats that simply must get right in your ear with an obnoxious high pitched 'bzzzzzzzzz' or fly into your eyes, mouth or nose if they possibly can.  So we'll do as this cool looking lady has done and take our tea indoors.  How's that sound?

My title says it all: Water bugging.  Water bugs do nothing much but skim along the surface of the water.  They never swim or get down into the deep of things.  They are strictly all about what's on the surface of things and to be honest, that's  exactly how I feel I've been of late.  True, there are those Proverbial Woman posts which are proving to be even more difficult to work out than I'd thought they would and I'd figured on them being plenty tough as it was.  So there's that bit of depth to my existence these days but the rest?  Skimming along.  I look busy enough but am getting little done for all the show of going places and doing things. Prayer time, Bible study, menus, goals....Just skimming.

Frankly I'm not fond of this state but it occurs now and again whether I mean it to occur or not.  Sigh.  I'm not bored, not in the least.  I'm not over tired nor overly busy.  I'm just not accomplishing much of anything for all that I appear to be busy at all times.  And my mind just won't truly quiet off, as I like it to do so that I can read and study and delve and create.  

I've had all sorts of trouble of late with my cursor on my computer screen.  It came on following an update of Windows 10 and it's a little better but heaven help me if I go visit Facebook.  Then it's agony to forward down the page or to type a comment.  And once I leave facebook it's equal agony to try to type a blog post.  I might well have a lovely bit of inspired thinking to share on those Proverbial Woman posts but by the time I type two letters and wait 30 seconds for the cursor to reboot and type three words and wait 30 seconds for the cursor to reboot and type a period and wait for the cursor to reboot...well inspired thinking is gone and frustration reigns.  You might want to know that I haven't been to Facebook today and so I'm happily tapping at the moment with just the very occasional delay.  I don't always have that option to avoid Facebook before blogging... 

I was weary tired end of last week and told John I was.  We worked right up until time for Shabat and then we both took a kind of extended leave from working on the house after Saturday.  Not to say that we're done...No indeed!  I was busy Thursday morning painting the last of the bathroom cabinets and touching up the door frame.  I also painted some of the beadboard in the kitchen (ends of the cabinets are faced with beadboard).   I hung some pictures, got two containers of stuff ready to go to the shed, did the bits of housework needed.   I did a little light work  outdoors despite the stinking gnats bzzing in my ears.  I long to purchase mums and pansies and plant parsley but it isn't happening just now.

And on Friday I lay out another ten landscape blocks (now $.07 more than they were two weeks ago...) but I need 8 more to finish that one section.  So in two weeks I'll buy ten more.  It's a challenge to have to do things in bits and pieces but I must, and it won't get done otherwise.

But through with the house?  No, by no means.  We were in DIY shopping mode on Friday and planning the next bit of work on our bathroom and then we sat here that evening and talked about changes we'd like to make outdoors...The kitchen isn't finished (painting cabinets and chiffarobe, purchasing a rug, chairs and a table for the kitchen sitting area), the guest room is still in transitional mode...So no, we're not done, we just needed a break!  

It's so dry.  We haven't had a measureable amount of rain in a few months now. I don't think we're even having dew.  It's that dry.  And though we had a nice break in the hot weather last weekend, it's right back up to 90F or above this weekend.  It might be Christmas this year before I get to wear any Fall clothing. It might be after the New Year.  We've had years like that before and I don't like them.  It makes me feel I'm living in the tropics...except the tropics are wetter.

I called Mama Thursday morning to ask if she'd like to go to lunch next week and she happened to be here in Reynolds.  I'm not just sure what she was doing here but she was at her house.  We talked a few minutes then she mentioned she'd come out for coffee if I didn't mind.  Well I didn't mind in the least.  I was a bit hesitant about what we'd have for lunch, since I knew just what I had in the fridge and it wasn't much of anything at all.  I suggested a turkey Spam sandwich which she promptly turned down, lol.   Good thing, as having organized the pantry, I knew there was no turkey Spam to be had.  Eventually we hit upon the idea of riding over to the town to the north of me and getting an order of fried chicken livers.  We shared a single dinner and I still had a serving to put in the freezer after.  We meandered along roadways back to my house and she headed off to her new home.

I mentioned that my sole bit of diving deep of late has been with those Proverbial Woman posts.  They have really stretched me!  I am enjoying the study and work that I put into those posts.  I know that you can read any one of them in about  one minute or perhaps two...I promise you I do not write them that quickly.  No indeed, I spend two or three hours studying and preparing each of these posts and sometimes longer!  That is one reason why you can expect to continue this series into November.  I thought I would write a post a day for 21 days and that would be that.  I have had to do a lot of research and study and I promise you I think I could start the series all over again at the end of this and find even more to share with you on these verses!  And no, that two or three hours of time in each does not include the writing of the post with all the bips and bops and reboots!   That is just a hard test of how much I want to get those words out, that's all, lol.

I said we took time 'off' this week.  We grocery shopped and I've worked on genealogy pages.  I take notes in a composition book when I have a few spare minutes to research or something comes up in my inbox  and then I transfer that information to the pages in my notebook.  Well...I have THREE notebooks of notes and haven't transferred any notes to pages in far too long.  I finished one notebook this week.  I told John I'd about had enough of it but I do feel I want to post the rest of those notes to the pages, just so I could redo the pages since the notes are now all ajumble over the orginal pages.  I'd like to do them sequentially.

Gracious! There's my alarm clock going off!  It rather scared me.  I'm not at all accustomed to hearing it at this hour of the day!  My goodness.  It sounds a good bit different at this hour than it does in the wee morning hours when it rings.  My heart is pitter pattering!  Isn't it funny how a common enough noise heard out of context can startle you so?

Well!  That scattered my thoughts.  Honestly my thoughts are so much dry leaves these days anyway.  One good pouf of wind and off they scamper without any sort of order at all.   Just as well it interrupted me in that talk of genealogy because I can soon be lost down all sorts of rabbit trails when it comes to that subject!

Jd surprised me with a text earlier this week saying he was  'free' for Thanksgiving as well.  It takes no digging to understand his meaning:  I'll be home for Thanksgiving...What are you cooking?  Well as it happens I'd had an invite to my brother's new place for dinner that day.  I've not made Thanksgiving plans in years for here at home though so I tend to hesitate when I have an invitation and I begged for a week to 'see what I have on my calendar'.  Jd sent his text with plenty of time to make that decision but then I felt it should be as much a family holiday as we can make it.  I texted Katie and Bess and within 30 minutes plans were gelled.  We'll have our dinner at Bess and Sam's home.  Katie is going to try and come down (her plans are still up in the air at the moment) and go with me.  John will be working.  Sam lives within an hour of Jd's home in Kingsland so this works well for him and his children.  Bess assured me I was not to plan on providing the feast and then driving three hours to set it on the table.  I laughed.  I'd have done just that and she knows it well!  I'll work out details with Sam (the main cook for holidays) and Bess and Katie a little later.  I will certainly take a dish or two with me. 

My deepest regret is that John is working, but then again, it's a blessing he's working because of the added hours he's paid for working a holiday.  It's supposed to be his last holiday shift but you know over the last 23 years every time he's cycled off the holidays work  schedule, someone has shaken up the schedule and John's been right back on the holiday cycle all over again.  I told him this week, it's really just a matter of a few weeks now and he's due a schedule change.  He laughed, but ruefully, and said "Oh you're right!"

Did I tell you all that Bess is expecting a boy?  Josh wanted a brother or Mickey Mouse.  I'm so glad he gave her a choice!  lol

Katie added some new items to her shop this week.  She told me how excited she was to start this new creative outlet this week.  She was bemoaning the fact that in order for her to 'play' with her new supplies and tools she had to wait for Taylor to go to bed, lol.  I remember those days well when a new book called me in an alluring manner to read it long before Katie was setteled for the night.  And there was no such thing as crafting alone.  Katie has always loved being crafty.  She used to have the most fun with stuff I'd set aside that was really just so much trash and she'd glue and paint and tape and staple and cover and unravel and voila!  There was something new.  We would have craft parties at Christmas and plan items the girls could make, again using stuff that was really just trash.  One year we made the cutest little snowmen and penguins from coffee creamer bottles that we filled with homemade hot cocoa mix.  

In her last year of middle school she started sewing.  Next thing I knew she'd cut up her bedsheets and was making tote bags to sell to girls at school!  I shared about that with Rhonda and she went through her fabric stash and shipped Katie a box of it, as did another girl who sewed.  What a blessing for Katie that was and she used that fabric over many years. I still have the odd piece or two of some of that fabric and it makes me smile when I'm rambling through my fabric stash and see it. Those days were fun and Katie has just increased her abilities over the years.

Have you noticed it?  The sun starts setting earlier and earlier.  I closed the curtains last night at 7:15 because the blackness without was advancing into the rooms.  Time changes next weekend.  I do not care for time change.  It's bad enough as it is, without changing an hour ahead or backwards (backwards as it happens this time).  I already long to go to bed at 9:15 every night and it's sheer stubborness and the very real reluctance to have John awaken me when he comes to bed that keeps me from it.  When time changes, will I be wanting to crawl into bed at 8 instead?  Heaven forbid!

And isn't it apparently the whole opposites attract thing all over again when it comes to sleep?  John can and will sleep any time any where.  He closes his eyes and off he goes.  Crowds roar, dogs bark, kids trip over his feet and he sleeps.  Do NOT tiptoe past him or whisper, however.  Instantly awake and watchful!  Josh was much amused that Dampa nodded off the weekend he stayed with us.  He'd look at him and smile and then turn to me and point at John.  Then he'd put his finger on his lips and shhhh at me.  John tells me that he once went to sleep at a Grand Funk concert.  I mean, seriously...a rock concert!

Well I am just the opposite.  I have a hard time napping and it's a sign of illness or extreme exhaustion that ever sends me off for a nap.  And I need it to be quiet. Not 'can't hear a pin drop' but for goodness sake don't stand outside the door and have a conversation either!  No lights.  Not much noise.  I seem to skim along in sleep as well unfortunately and so I will awaken easily and readily.  I am a creature of habits and if my routine is off so is my sleep pattern. 

Of course, John firmly believes that his way of sleeping is the best and therefore if I'm tired I should just take a nap.  And if I am taking a nap then he ought to continue in his normal tone of voice, shut doors, open drawers, march across floors, switch on lights, turn up the TV, etc.  That's it.  I'm done with my nap before it's begun.  He is kinder at night.  Although he likes to have on a fan and a white noise machine and have a nightlight in every room of the house and doesn't mind a bit that the LED security light shines like a lighthouse into the room either.  I prefer not to awaken and find myself well able to read any book on the bedside table.   We compromised on the light.  I agreed to a few nightlights scattered through the house and none in the bedroom.  I also hung black out curtains and blinds in the bedroom and our bath. 

The white noise machine is a compromise,too.  For years upon we played a CD all night long on repeat which was fine but  then we failed to wake to the alarm if it was set to play music.  So we set a timer and we could have music or an hour and wake to an alarm.  With the new clock radio we can't set an alarm, only because we're doggone unable to figure it out.  There are instructions for turning on the radio and increasing or decreasing volume but not word one about setting an alarm.  We supposedly have a sleep button but setting it is impossible.  Yep...no instructions.  And invariably no matter how much the station might be an 'all music' one the minute I doze off, they suddenly begin to air a special series of conversations with someone or other or give prolonged news reports.  The moment I hear a stranger speak in my bedroom I'm over sleep.  Hence the white noise machine.

John has that set to ocean waves.  Very relaxing, right?  He turns the volume up so that I swear I've heard the real ocean sound just so when I was standing with my feet in the surf.  It's too much for the bedroom!  Yes, I want to dream of being by the ocean but not of tide coming in and me scrambling to keep my bedclothes dry. 

Well that's just what I mean.  Opposites attract and when it comes to sleep we're complete opposites.

Despite the return to warm temperatures I am enjoying having the curtains and blinds wide open.  The angle of sun has changed for autumn and the light has a golden quality that is just lovely.  The trees are giving us a minor show of color and it LOOKS like autumn outdoors no matter how warm it insists upon being.  I do love autumn and I don't need to remind myself to enjoy it the way I might have to remind myself in other seasons to take note of the changes in the natural world about it.

Well, as I said I'm just now skimming along on the surface of things and this is about as deep as I go...I have enjoyed our short conversation and look forward to our next chat, hopefully a nice chilly day with lots of coffee or cocoa!