Coffee Chat: Chasing Clouds

Hello dear.  Coffee's on.  We had cloudy skies several  mornings and rain, but now the skies are gray and the wind roaring down from the North... March does roar in, doesn't it?  My heart shaped puddle was back earlier this week.  It's probably putting in another appearance in the next couple of days.

The daffodils started blooming last week and looked so bright and brave on our dark rainy days, and then they were done and the iris and peach trees have bloomed.   Josh gifted me with the sole white iris that bloomed overnight.   I am waiting on more flowers to come into bloom from the fat buds I see everywhere.





I drove down a street in Macon last week and I thought "You'd think it was already spring with all the blooms!"   There was forsythia, Bradford Pear, Weigela , Japanese Magnolia, wild plums, daffodils.    I was stunned by all the blooms, especially since the trees in the river swamps had only just begun to show their first set of spring blooms.  Most of those trees bloom twice, so the first bloom is noticeable and lovely but the second blooming is showy and the prelude to leafing out.  The trees hurried up and rushed into second blooming this week.

I am always leery.  I listened to Granny tell me for years that once the Japanese Magnolia bloomed it was a sure sign we were in for a hard frost and long cold spell.   I'm not sure this year.  Do you know that Easter this year falls on April 1?  That's not so very far away and I've noted that the calendar can change but nature is always on the mark.   Come Easter there is always dogwood and pine trees that have already set new pinecones, no matter if it's in March or if it's in late April.  So this may well be our big bang towards spring!

I'm in no particular hurry about rushing the season but everything in me is straining towards spring.  I think this is natural come end of February.  This year especially, I think because I did nothing much to the house for winter following Christmas holidays.  It seems I need to see a bit of fresh somewhere and while I do have a few fresh flowers on hand, I have been slowly putting out something here and something there.  There's a bunny and a chick on the mantle with a vase of silk flowers that I find very sweet to look upon.

and a sweet little arrangement in the bedroom:

I printed out new pictures for the frames (which I repainted a fresh color) in the bathroom. 

I'd meant to buy new towels this year but I have postponed that purchase since all the money we've had extra so far went towards the windows and underpinning fund.   Yet I think now, that what I really waited for was for my head to catch up with what I knew was coming, the desire to change up that little room with more than new towels.  I just need to look and wait until I see the perfect something but I'm telling you, much as I've tried to resist it, pink is calling my name these days and I think a touch of pink must be in several rooms of the house.

I put a new wreath on the front door and went with my old favorite forsythia on the back door.

 I love my old canister set in orange-y red in the kitchen but I have this tray in the shed that is cream with a turquoise, black and pink motif on it.  I tried, but it is 1 inch too tall to fit on the shelf above the stove, as I'd planned.  I put the sweet little teapot on the shelf above the sink and the rose decorated coffee pots on the blue shelf above the stove...Pinks and blues.  So you see, it's meant to be and the change will come about, however slowly I must do it.

In the bedroom I mean to replace the very old candlestick lamps with ceramic lamps painted pink.  I have one ginger jar shaped lamp in the shed so I'm half way there on that change.  

I've given serious consideration to swapping out the charcoal gray curtains in the bedroom with the blue ones in the living dining room but I'm waiting to see what else the rooms tell me they must be before I begin a big fruit basket turnover. 

And I've plenty of time to consider things because, the kids moved in yesterday.  Yes...and as I recall how exhausted Bess and I were at the end of a day with a Josh who was not quite two, I wonder how much more so we will be with an Isaac who has just turned 1 and is trying to walk and a Josh who is 3.  I'll be doing lots of babysitting as Bess and Sam begin to refurbish the house they are moving into across the field, the house where my niece lived and my cousin before that.  

I looked across the yard from my bedroom window and realized I can just see the roof of their house.  And then I heard Granny in my head saying "When I stand on the porch, I can just see the roof of your house across the field..."   That was 21 years ago when the land between she and I was still mostly field.  Now it's all grown up and I can't see Granny's shed.  But I can see the house where Josh and Isaac will live and I know the pleasure it gives me thinking of them there must be what Granny also felt the day she told me that.

I had a load of plans for this week. I knew the kids would be moving furniture this weekend but as of Saturday night my plans for this week began to crumble.  I'd planned a full heavy week of work and errands and more work and then Sam called and said he was coming in on Sunday night instead of Monday and he asked if I'd keep the boys on Friday for them.  Sure I would, they have to move and I know they can do it more easily without little boys underfoot.

Then when Sam arrived late Sunday evening, he was full of his plans and his week and he told me I'd have the kids on Thursday night.  Oh.  And that Bess would be here on Wednesday.  Oh.  So now I'd lost two days of all those planned days of work.  Mama called Monday morning and cancelled our outing then we arranged a new date of Tuesday morning because John had decided to work until noon on Tuesday.  He's also working half a day on Wednesday and 24 hours on Thursday. So I won't likely get back to cleaning porches this week but you never know.  I won't be trying to do any spring cleaning indoors because there's no point.  The slipcovers will get a fresh washing once the family moves out once more.  Suddenly my preparations for the week ahead were easy and to the point.    Rest while I can.  Work while I can.  Accept the changes.  Survive, lol.

Mama and I went out to breakfast this morning.  That was a nice change.  I note that more and more she has a really difficult time walking even the shortest distances.  I don't know what we shall do when she's unable to go out without a wheelchair.  I can get her down the ramp at her house but I cannot push her back up it again as it's a bit steep.  For now, she manages the walk to the car and into a restaurant or the short distance into a store to the electric carts.  I looked at her this morning with a momentary shock and said "Mama...will you be 81 this May?"   Of course, she will be.  I'm 59.  There's something about Mama, as there was about Granny and Big Mama that is not 'old'.  It's not that her hair has only just gone gray (I had more than she for many years), but there's some inner something that is still younger and that's about the best I can explain it.   It's not an attitude either.
Mama is, to be perfectly honest, a very negative soul.  She's never  been a happy person.   So you see it's not attitude either makes her seem young.  Perhaps it's merely my own feeling of not being old and therefore she can't be old either.

Although I knew the move in was imminent yesterday, Sam and John had both gone to work and Bess didn't plan to leave the hold house until noon-ish when she could feed the boys and then count on their going to sleep for part of the long ride.  I hurried about and moved some necessary items from the pantry and then I went through my kitchen cabinets, reorganizing, tossing unnecessary items and generally trying to get all things put in place before their arrival.  Naturally when Bess came in, she brought in luggage and boxes of foodstuffs that she was reluctant to store in the house until they have a chance to do the little work required to make it quite livable.  So I shifted things in the kitchen again for those items that we could use, repackaged a few to prevent ants visiting us and shared all the storage spaces I'd made in her room where she could put stuff to get it out of her way.

Bess is getting better and better at her housekeeping but I find that she tends to let things drop wherever she may be, but she now gets a little irritated and overwhelmed when clutter builds.  I am quick to point out to her that this or that can be put away here or there so that it's out of sight (and out of mind).  It's amazing how quickly one can put things in hiding and forget all about them.

So life in the Blue House has changed once more and we must change with it.  The guest room and the music room are in use as sleeping quarters for the family.  I shall do my best to keep what routine in place I can but I'm also mistress of 'good enough' these days and I know that there are things that can simply wait a week or six if necessary and that hitting on those basic five will do much to keep the house presentable: dishes, laundry, making the bed (or closing the door to rooms where a bed is unmade), emptying the trash and keeping floors as clear as possible will do much to keep things going.

Well I hear the family has returned from their 'venture' as Josh called it.   They walked up the road to their new home, and Bess took Josh on a grand tour of the house.   There's a dog there that apparently 'comes with the house'.   Which reminds me of a friend of mine who tells me that many years ago when her parents purchased an old house in an old town, they woke up the next morning to find a little old woman standing in the kitchen making breakfast.  She told them her name when they appeared and then said "And I's goes with the house."   And so she remained until the end of her days as their housekeeper, even beyond the years when she was useful and the family worked  for her.  I think that's a lovely story!  I always smile when I think of Bodie telling me of it.

Off I go loves.  I'll pop in as I can but little boys apparently need Gramma's time and attention and Gramma is all too happy to have them demanded.

Talk to you soon!