Diary for July: Week Two

July 7, Shabat Saturday:  So very much I want to chatter over today and perhaps I will...I don't typically write on Shabat, having always seen writing as work, but just now it's not work but pleasure to have the time to myself to write things out.


Where to start?   Usually it's to start at the beginning isn't it?  But I want to share a bit of this and a bit of that and these things don't fall in sequence at all nor are they all related.  So I shall just begin where I begin, much as I do when faced with one of those intricate adult coloring pages and decide how to go on from there.



I'm not telling tales out of school here...But the grown kids here had agreed to a minimal amount for rent and a share in the cost of grocery and then things went wrong in all sorts of directions, none of which were their failing, but no rent and no grocery money for a few months.   The first month they managed both just fine.  In month two they managed rent but no grocery money and the rent helped but in month three, sigh, they could do nothing at all and as I said it wasn't as though they'd gone in for a sudden bout of frivolous living.  No, they shared openly  the things that hit them all at once and they cut back hard and stringently.  Sometimes it wasn't until  after the fact that we knew just how very hard things had gotten for them, like the two weeks that Bess walked up to the house to work.  I thought she'd gone in for physical exercise.  It's only half a mile by road to walk to her house. She was saving gasoline because she only had enough left to make it to the station in town but she never let on until they got paid and the car was filled once more!

We decided, John and I, that Sam had always been reliable in the past in repayment of loans and we told him we'd count the rent as a loan and he could pay when he could pay, which made his eyes fill with tears.  We talked over the matter of groceries and explained that while we'd gone well over budget the month before buying all the usual needs and wants, we couldn't keep on at that rate and we'd have to trim to what we might usually spend for just the two of us.  We'd provide food.  They'd tend to diapers and occasionally a gallon of milk.   We'd manage best we could on our budget.

Well if May was tough, June just showed it's behind but good. (That's Southern for 'June was very badly behaved,"!)  We ALL got hit hard in one way or another with unexpected bills, higher than planned bills, delays in funds that ought to have come in without a problem, etc.,  doctor bills and prescriptions and the natural medications that I swear are not doing a single thing for me but cost more than the doctor's bill, neither of which my insurance would cover.   It was just that sort of month.  And so money was really very tight.

All that to say not that we need money (we are managing, thank you God, because of years of training in living frugally) but that just as I said at one point that I'd felt in some ways my life had come back full circle, the need to be especially frugal was  just another facet of that full circle thing.  I've pulled out all the old tricks.  I dared anyone to toss one single bit of food before I personally inspected it to see if anything edible could be made of it.  Very little got past me!  No one has been grossed out by any meal put upon the table except Josh who is grossed out by all food except candy.  We made it through May and June with the food budget for two intact if at the higher end of what we'd spend, and we fed six or seven.  No one went hungry.  Often we stretched a meal just a little further and squeezed a lunch for John and Sam for work days from it all.

Last pay round, I'd spent all I could for June and there simply wasn't a thing more I could do.  I'd already borrowed liberally from several of our sub accounts to pay the unexpected bills, and at the point I was mighty worried how we'd manage July with car insurance coming due and the June electric bill jumping higher than it's ever been for June yet.  Bess scraped together a little money from their last pay period and said "I'm going to Macon to Aldi...I'll do the best I can."  When she returned she said she felt unwell and took herself off to her room for a good long bit and I wondered what was ailing her but there was a meal to be made.  I put the groceries away and set the meal on the table and we all ate and then she went off to her room once more.

It was a bit later in the afternoon, while she was still sheltered away in her room and I'd gone off to my own to fight out another attack of anxiety that we began to text.  And as we texted over nothings (and yes, I do think it terribly silly for two people to text while in the same house but often it's the only uninterrupted method of communication!) she typed "I felt so sick shopping trying to figure out what we could best use for my little amount of money...and I knew if I'd had $300 it wouldn't have been enough...How you ever did it with seven to feed and so much less than I had today I will never know."

Ah....I understood far better why she'd been 'unwell' when she came in and  I understood it very well. I can still recall my own agony as I hung over the meat counter eyeing ground beef and whole chickens trying to determine if I could afford an extra pound of meat or would I best spend the same amount of money on pasta, potatoes or rice and try to stretch things further?  I remembered the sick feeling in my stomach as I tried to work out if the register was going to ring things up as I'd figured them as I placed items in my cart.  I had $40 to spend then, with two in disposable diapers because nursery and school didn't deal with cloth ones and one infant on  formula always needing that one extra can each week that the WIC didn't quite stretch to cover and five adults to feed and sometimes the money had to stretch to TWO weeks.  I remembered the headache as I got in my car to go home to put away what seemed a pittance of groceries.  And the very real worry as I stood putting away groceries wondering if I could possibly feed everyone three meals a day and keep them from being hungry.  Yes I did indeed understand!

Later,  after supper,  even though it was her money spent, she handed me the grocery receipt and said "Please look it over and see if there's any place I might have done better..."  Well I couldn't find a thing I'd have changed and said so.  I remarked on one item and compared it to another and told her I'd be curious to see how that worked out since it was not something I would normally buy.  She had experience in making that item and told me about what she'd gotten from it and I thought it very clever of her to buy both so we could compare them and said so.  She glowed with pride over her accomplishment as well she might.  It really wasn't much money at all but God bless the girl, she'd spent plenty of time watching me pick and choose and scrape together meals and she brought home good solid basic foods.   Later in the week she told Josh he couldn't eat an over ripe banana but not to worry, Gramma would make it into something tasty for him and so I made Banana nut waffles, enough to go into the freezer and make a hearty breakfast as well.

I thought of all this yesterday as I made bread for Shabat and cooked up chicken carcasses (a half gallon pail of broth and 3 cups of meat from that) and pulled a bit of frozen butternut squash from the freezer that had been leftovers of a winter meal which made two dozen muffins for breakfasts and put some in the freezer) and a batch of brownies (a small Mudcake from one half the recipe that used up stale marshmallows, and some plain brownies for the freezer because we don't NEED a lot of sweets).  I thought of  it as I wrote out two shopping lists, one meant for the pantry and one for the store today.  Bess has kept an eye on the pantry and is quick to say "You've one more of this and that's the last jar of that."

And I thought of it today as John and I did the unusual thing and went off shopping this Sabbath morning...I prayed out loud as we drove to the store.  "God you KNOW what we need and how badly we need it.  Help me to remember what I might have forgotten that is needed.  Help me to find good buys on every item on this list and show me which can wait for now."   EVERY item but one we purchased today was on sale, but no not every item on my list was purchased.  I thought long and hard about what was on it and decided that some things could wait, and a few would last us a bit longer than a week or two.   When we walked out of the market I could have wept for the sheer blessing of what we'd found and the prices we'd paid.  Bakery breads for $1 a loaf.  Chickens for $1.11 a pound that were good sized roasters.  Butter and eggs for no more than I'd have paid at Aldi had it been open for me to shop at. I shall be heartily glad to have our Aldi open once more after this remodel!   I do not boast when I say that all the way home John and I praised God for giving us such an auspicious day and time to shop.  And yet, in the back of my mind, I was mindful of what Bess had said two weeks ago...If I'd had more money to spend today it still didn't seem it would have been nearly enough.  No wants on the list today.  No splurges or 'oh let's stock up on that' items.  It was strictly most needed items.

Bess had been at work painting the inside of their house this morning but come home for lunch so she and Sam were here when we returned and their faces as they helped unload the groceries and they looked at the prices was something to see.  We said how blessed we'd felt as we came across those items and agreed that God was good.

And I guess while I'm talking foods anyway, I must say that my pantry has been a HUGE boon to us.  It's getting more and more slender and yet we can still say, "Oh well, we can always use such and such from the pantry and save that bit of money for use elsewhere."  "Well never mind the cost of produce today, there's canned fruit and a vegetable in the pantry and the boys like it just as well."  It's been an eye opener as well what few items we don't use, but keep saying we will if duress demands it.  Nothing like a good test run to see just what will last us six months with five of those months including extra mouths to be fed!

I have been reading once more.  I had begun about two weeks ago to force myself to read a few sentences in one of my unfinished bedside books, a biography of Elizabeth Goudge, Beyond the Snow, by Christine Rawlins.  It's not that it's such a tedious read that it's taken me so long to read it but just that I've had so little concentration and time to read.   Well, in reading I came to the WWII years and  the author began to describe a book I'd never seen or read.  I liked the few passages shared a great deal.

So I was looking to make a purchase for John on Amazon and I found the book, The Castle On the Hill,  which arrived last week and I started it.  It is everything I expect of Elizabeth Goudge's works and more.  It's been a good long while since I've picked up a book by her though I have a shelf filled with her works.  I'd forgotten that almost always one character in her book is wracked by anxiety.  I'd forgotten, too, how very brave she always makes those characters seem.  Because they don't just give in and quit living.  They try HARDER.  Yes, indeed, they do sometimes get 'sick' with anxiety to the point of taking to bed, or giving in to a particular vice that exacerbates their weakness,  but they get through the bad patch and get up and walk right along until the next bad patch.  I NEEDED this book just now to remind me that anxious as I may be at times, I'm coming through it.  I'm getting on better and better but I had to stop for a bit and gather myself together.

John and I went by Mama's old house this morning.  We reloaded the trash can and rolled it to roadside.  We loaded several bags of trash into our car and carted up to the dumpsters.  I showed John the work I'd done.  I'd been fretting over what to do with all the good useable things that are left.  Things that really should be donated but also frightened and yes, anxious, because Mama is not going to be happy with what has been done.  She's seldom happy with what I've done for her  and I know from personal experience that most people her age feel the need to hold tightly to what they possess...but in Mama's case it's far more than that.  She can't let go even of the things she can't use or doesn't want.  It's HERS with a permanency that is frightening and frustrating and in many ways it's not something I understand.  What's left is substantial enough to be of concern to me.  What to do with it all?

John suggested this morning that we take it all and put it neatly into one room.  There will be a time, when Katie's things are removed and Mama will again have a key to the house.  And she might well be shocked to walk into empty rooms but that one room will be clearly full of things.  We both think she will be so overwhelmed with the stuff that she'll be quite satisfied to let it be, not sort through it to see what is missing.   Oh yes, I expect she will still be angry.  She will mention things she's not thought of in fifty years and ask if it is still there and I'll tell her honestly I don't know.

The amount of trash hauled out of that house has been daunting to me.  When I had to clear up Grandmama's house it was difficult enough.  Her house was fairly well kept and the things she had were orderly and in good condition.  But still, neat as she was, both on top of the surface and underneath, there was a household full of things to be dealt with.  But at Mama's it's been more...frightening...I guess is the very best word.  Because of the disorganization some things were ruined beyond use.  Some things she'd had for years but she no longer wanted them and so she'd just put them aside refusing to give them away or donate them.  It was the evidence of the excessive spending I found most disturbing I think.  The compulsive shopping I knew she did but which she'd hidden away.  If she wanted to cross stitch she didn't buy a pattern or three and finish them then buy another...she bought BINS full.  She didn't have one or two lipsticks or even the seven that I think are excessive.  She had hundreds of tubes.  That's what I've found so frightening.  It's evidence of an illness that I suspected existed but wasn't really fully aware of,  and now know as truth.

In a way, it's changed my attitude towards her.  I've realized that I am not the cause of her unhappiness or her anger or her hurts and her abuses.  I have often been the FOCUS of them....but it is NOT always myself who is responsible for her behavior towards me.  I always have thought, have felt, that it was a lack within me that failed constantly in being the daughter she wanted.  I realize now that it's not ME.  I could have been everything she ever said she'd wanted in a daughter: curly haired and slender as a rail and popular and perfectly mannered and perfectly perfect in every way possible and she still would have found fault with me because she was so faulty herself.  We may never have a healthy relationship...after 59 years I think it's fairly safe to say that we won't...but I can continue to strive to have one that is better if only in how I draw my boundary lines and correctly assess whether my own behavior is truly at fault.  I am human.  I can be short and snippy at times when I get tired and frustrated.  I can be out of sorts.  But a great deal of the time I come away from a day with Mama feeling drained.  I feel I am the most selfish, useless, worthless person on this earth.  That is the effect she has upon me.  It's not who I am.  It's never been who I am.

And that too brings us back full circle to a simple sentence John has been repeating to me over and over again for the past year or so.  Something he will just say out of the blue.  "You know you're  a good person.  You're NICE.  You're very helpful and kind."  At first when he started saying this I would roll my eyes, or grimace.  But one day last month, as we were driving home, he said it to me and tears rolled down my cheeks.  I HEARD him from the inside out that day.  "You are NOT what you've been told you were for all these years.  You are a different person.  You are someone worthy of being loved."

Well...there you are.  We started somewhere and ended up somewhere different didn't we?  Enough for today.

July 9, Monday.  A hard two days behind me.  Saturday afternoon the anxiety overtook me.  I was barely able to make it through the evening...Went to bed in tears and dragged about all day Sunday.  It wasn't until much later Sunday evening that I finally shook it off.

I want to rush through this season of being not sick but not well.  I've tried slowly decreasing medication but it's not worth a two day tailspin of anxiety that simply won't stop.

Maybe I'm not meant to be rushing through this season or any other in my life just now.   Maybe I am just where I am meant to be for good reason.

July 11, Wednesday.   I hate not knowing what day it is.  With John's schedule running in the way that it does one of us is bound, at some point in every day, to ask "What day is it?"   Last week's holiday mid-week (a normal day off for John this year) threw us off completely and I've no idea why.  We've spent all this week scrambling around in our own brains trying to remember just what day it is more often than usual.

As well, days tend to run together when it's a wash, rinse, repeat sort of life such as mine at the moment.  The little boys wake early each day, we count hours and sometimes minutes until end of day bedtime and fall into bed exhausted only to wake and repeat it all over again.   But we're cherishing these days, as exasperating as we find them, because they are dwindling days.  Truly.  Painting at the other house is nearly done.  The cabinets are ready to go into the upper parts of the kitchen.  New flooring is being bought this weekend and installation of that soon  begins.  I won't even whisper that I know the date they shall be moving because it's always and forever being pushed back but we're nearer seeing round this curve in the road than we were last week.

John and I took off yesterday to run errands.  Silly as it sounds, I got a little irritated with Bess when she wished us 'Have fun!' on our way out of the door.  It doesn't feel like fun to always be hurrying away from home, doing necessary household errands and hurrying back again lest we hold up someone else's schedule.  There is no real reason to have to hurry but we do.  We do because we are always aware that there is work to be done at home.  A meal to be gotten, pets that need to be cared for at the other house and across the field (where the excess roosters now crow away) and the usual household needs here that are not getting met.  It's always a rush because John has just two days off to do everything that must be done and it matters not on the day he gets off work if he slept only two hours in the 24 hour shift,  there's the lawn to be cut and minor repairs to be made and household helps needed, and so we push all errands over into the next day and we run around with a list to do as much as we can until we feel we must rush home again.

And if it's not errands for this household, it's been damned hard work sorting out Mama's house mess.  We reached the point over the week's end this week where every time John had a day off we went over to load trash into the car and haul to the dumpsters.

Today is another hurry sort of day.  It might all look like fun to Bess to get out of the house apparently alone without children , but today I am off to tend to Mama's needs.  I'll stop at her house first to gather a chair and planter for her patio, then hurry over to her place to see what she needs done this week.  I'm assured it will be grocery shopping and a run to the farm stand and lunch out at the very least.   Then run back to her old house and begin to load up the next lot of trash though heaven knows I'm so close to the end of this I can almost see fully around that curve, as well.  Then home to finish up supper and put it on the table and then we shall be done.  Nope, none of it is fun and it's a minor irritation.

In the past, Bess has cooked meals about half the time, but of late the tight finances leave her bumfuzzled over the best way to stretch a meal, so all the meals are mine to prepare.  I'm not complaining.  I know too well how much she enjoys making a meal and serving it.  She's a good cook.  But this area of stretching things out is my especial area of expertise. She stands by and watches and learns and has, so far, enjoyed seeing how it's done.

Monday her mom came to visit and I stayed in the kitchen working away.  I loathe hanging over visitors who come to see someone other than me.  It seems a shame to stay around and sort of steal the thunder when Gammy has so little time with the boys and I have them often enough to complain over it! lol    I took a pound of ground beef and browned it and made half into spaghetti sauce and about half into taco meat.  I cooked a cup of lentils.  I chopped vegetables and put various combinations together for meals.  I wrote out a menu for the week.  Except for the lentils and hamburger, all the foods used for this week's meals consisted of some leftover bits and pieces that I'd combined for meals.

We had Spaghetti and Salad on Monday night.  The salad was really just something to fill the rest of the plates because the sauce was loaded with vegetables: zucchini, mushrooms, onions, carrots, tomatoes and just a bit of meat.  I made lentil tacos for us adults and a small amount of taco meat for Josh.  I prepped foods for Beef Strogranoff (leftover steak that had been cooked and set aside and frozen prior to serving another meal many weeks ago).  I have a huge amount of  the roasted chicken breast meat left from our Sunday roast chicken that will make shredded BBQ chicken sandwiches tonight.

Happily the lentil tacos were a big hit with the family and even Josh ate a few which his Mama had me slip into his soft taco.  "Hey!  There's beans in here!"  he exclaimed when he was eating his second one and we all said "But you like it!  That's your second one!" which made him shrug but I noticed he didn't eat more than a bite or two more.

Isaac is no food critic.  So far we've discovered he's not fond of green bell peppers and he tends to turn from any food that is green but everything else is game.  He happily plowed his way through the last of the ripe tomatoes for last night's tacos after reaching repeatedly for the bowl several times over.

Very mild anxiety yesterday.  I think the feeling of having to hurry all the time is a part of it, too...I keep picking up on little things and realizing that I'm anxious and getting a better understanding of all that contributes.  As we were headed out yesterday, John turned and said "I thought we'd do things in this order..." and listed off the errands and where we'd go.  I nodded.  I'd had no anxiety about that part of the errands. It wasn't the order in which we'd do them but just the idea of having to hurry along.

I let myself relax and we talked.  As we were on our way from one errand to another we stopped at a red light next to a church.  The carillon began to play.  I let down my window, a soft breeze blew through the car.  I said to John, "For this five seconds let's pretend we're down at the Catholic church at Ormond By The Sea listening to the noontime bells."  He laughed but we were surprised to find ourselves sitting next to a second church at the next light also playing the bells.

We headed in to get our haircuts, and I began to feel anxiety building.  I prayed as I went in because I don't want to have a full blown episode in public.  Although we'd been told at online check in that our wait would be 25 minutes, it wasn't.  We found the waiting area completely empty.  I was called to the chair right away.  As I sat, I closed my eyes and listened to the music playing.  I don't know what the song was, but I heard, "God take this burden from me.  Lift it from my soul.  God let me lean on you..." and so on.  The song pretty much was the prayer I'd been praying.  I felt myself relax.  The moment of anxiety passed.

As I stood up to leave, the girl who'd cut my hair said, "Someone must have changed the station because that sure isn't the sort of music we usually have playing!"  I couldn't help but smile.   I told John about it as we left.  He doesn't pay attention overmuch to the music playing in places like that.  He's too busy chatting.  I said, "You know, when the song started and I heard those first words I thought, "That song is for me.  It's my prayer."   It's nice to feel now and then that I am in the right place at the right moment and I am being watched over.

Later as we walked through the grocery store I thought long and hard about the grocery list in my purse and the number of items that we were adding to the buggy...We'd just shopped on Saturday and here we were on Tuesday filling another buggy.  I can't remember just what I said but I added, "I know I shouldn't say that.  It's awfully mean of me..."  and I said something again later and followed it saying the same thing.

John asked me on the way home, "Why do you do that?  Why do you keep saying you're mean?  You're not a mean person."  I began to weep.  Enough with the tears lately, honestly, but cry I did.  Because the voice in my head that I hear is a mean girl voice.   Actually it's not a mean girl.  I know exactly whose voice it is I hear but I hear these mean phrases constantly telling me that I am not genuine, that I am selfish, that I am mean and hateful and ...It goes on and on, you know.

I told him, "I really want to hear myself say more often what you say to me.  That I am a good person, a nice person, giving and helpful and kind....but it's the other voice that keeps speaking up..."  One more thing to work upon.  One more thing to let go.

Now I've a few things to attend to before I go further into this day of so called 'fun', so I shall end here.  Praying the anxiety holds itself at bay today...

Friday, July 13:  We have never believed a Friday 13th to be an unlucky day in our household.  I think because Granny was born on Friday the 13th and we all considered her such a blessed part of our lives.  How we do go on saying we miss her but we'd none of us wish her here...

I made it through the visit with Mama.  It was long and it got tedious and my frustrations that particular day, aside from making a gigantic effort to be cheerful because she' complained long and hard over my lack of gaiety prior visit, was roadwork which necessitated rethinking routes to and from her house back to mine.

I stopped off at her house on my way that morning, picking up the planter pots and chair and she told me she wanted a second chair as well, that I hadn't brought along, sigh, because I couldn't picture her patio size clearly in my mind.  I also cleared that laundry room shelf of cleaning supplies, the pantry shelves of cleaning supplies.  And that's one more load of trash to be tended to and one more task off the list of things to be done.

When I came home I found Bess outdoors painting my shed, a job we'd agreed on for a cash amount so they could earn morning towards flooring...and I wearily came indoors because I knew that she would be in no mood to tend to the two boys.   The house was a small disaster area.  The boys mercifully were quiet in their room, apparently napping.  I was able to lie down for ten full minutes before the necessity of tending to them occurred.   Then it was a hurry up and rush about task to clear up the house, load the dirty dishes, change diaper, see that Josh got dressed once more (he insists upon undressing for naps) and making supper.

I didn't have any major anxiety ongoing thank God.  I had a tiny niggling in the back of my mind, a slight panic feeling that I quelled but at 7pm when all parents were at home, I excused myself and came to my room and there I stayed until the next morning.

Tired, despite an early to bed syndrome the night before but no anxiety yesterday.   And none today either though I am dreading my weekend ahead.   I shall be alone with the boys on Saturday.   John will be helping Sam install upper cabinets in the kitchen.  Bess is to be off house hunting with her mother who is moving nearer by.  I'll be alone with the boys, likely from sunup until bedtime.   An on Sunday I will go to church with John but then begin a long drive to Kingsland where I am to care for three more grandchildren while their mom is in the hospital and Daddy attends classes for four days.
Right in the middle of John's 5 days off, so we will miss three whole days together.  Right in the middle of too damned much already on my plate.  So yes, I am tired.  And the bright side at the moment is that there's no anxiety because I insist on resting when I'm tired.  I am taking time out of each day to be alone.  I shall have plenty of time alone driving on Sunday.  JD will be home each day at 1pm and I will exit the role of caregiver for a few hours and rest each day.  I have to take care of me.

And why, why, why, is my head whispering to me "Humph...Selfish lot aren't you?"  As it does when I allow Bess to tend to the boys these days when she's here in the house and not off working up at the other house.   As it does when I am a little worried about my lowered account balance for the pay period and ask that Sam bring home a couple of gallons of milk for the boys.   As it is when I worry that the electric bill, which is already higher than it's been in years will be higher still next month and I slip into an empty room to shut off a light or oscillating fan left on and fret over the additional water running for mysterious extra loads of laundry.

Yesterday was an especially difficult day in the worry department.  Not one, but two, slipcovers bit the dust.  Torn to the point that only discarding them would do.   I am down, in the last five months, two chairs, three slipcovers, a stained carpet and a stained rug and a badly stained throw pillow.  I have had one table stripped to nothing and another so badly scratched and worn that I wonder if there's any way to redo it.  That's to add to the cluttered rooms, the torn books, the sheets that have mysteriously developed little holes, the strips of broken molding that insist on breaking in new places once repaired...I feel as worn as my home.   And how to replace it all, or recover, redo and when and with what?  I've decided it's no different than it's ever been.  Yes, a higher mortality rate of late but all but the carpet wasn't new anyway, it was all well cared for, but old...except that one chair that was new but secondhand new.

And yet it hurts to see my house so and to hear my head speak.  I weary of it all.  I want my quiet peaceful life back. I want time to tend to projects and I want all the things this season doesn't allow.
That's what I want but it's not the season God has placed me in.  So most of all, I want to just do the best I can and get THROUGH.

What I've been reading lately:  Just finished Elizabeth Goudge, The Castle On the Hill and have been reading daily in the book of Romans and in Deuteronomy in my Bible.  I'm currently following along daily with Sarah ban Breathnach's  Simple Abundance which I haven't read in about 25 years.  I remember it was a pivotal book then...I'm enjoying it but it's like an old boyfriend you rediscover and you're kinda glad that he's an old boyfriend and not your current guy, lol.   I'm also enjoying Emilie Loring's Lighted Windows.  I've been reading her books sequentially this year and this was next on the line up.  I remembered this book from my teen years and the description of a lovely dining room done in apple green with a corner cabinet in each corner of the room so that it appeared to be octagonal...All these many years later, I've renewed my acquaintance with this writer because of her descriptive powers.

What I've been listening to lately:  All from YouTube, so I'm not linking but you can look any of these up if you're interested.   The Composer Delilus mentioned by Miss Goudge in her book.  Seriously good composer.  So grateful for the opportunity to increase my knowledge of these underappreciated composers that were popular for a season.

Also Roseanne Cash' Live from Zone C series on YouTube which was recorded in her living room with her guitarist husband.  I was blown away by her as a songwriter years ago though I cared little for her teen image in the 1990's.  I like her a lot more in 2018.  Her voice is better than ever and her songwriting as good as ever.  Still a favorite of mine is "Blue Moon Heartache" which twists my heart as much as it did 30 years ago.

And Rachel Khoo's series of cooking videos.  I loved her Little Paris Kitchen and I enjoy her newer videos, too.

And finally Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman", various versions and covers by other artists because it's such a lovely haunting song and something in those lyrics bespeaks the season I'm in.  Longing to be elsewhere but doing what must be done.