daily life – Page 99 – The Hermits' Rest

Is Everything Dead Yet?

This time of year, it’s usually looking pretty bleak out here in central Texas. By now, the grass is usually very brown and crunchy, and there are good-sized cracks in the soil. But this year it’s rained a lot more than usual, so how’s it doing?

Checking out the territory. Some green, some not.

It hasn’t rained in a couple of weeks, and that’s about all it takes to turn things back to their typical summer state. Sure enough, the grass is crunchy and the cracks are out. But the tanks (ponds) have lots more water in them than usual and the creek has plenty of water in it.

The Vrazels have made another bunch of hay out of our front pasture, which is also unusual. They are out there baling it right now, making round bales. The dogs enjoyed having a couple of days to look for vermin in the piles of grass as it was drying out. Both Vlassic and Penney like to pounce.

Return of the 80s

While Anita and I were cleaning out boxes last night, I stumbled upon where I hid some treasures, including teen diaries, weird poems a friend wrote me, and the BEST were these photos from around 1983, which seem to have been singled out for some reason. We got quite a kick out of the fashion statements in the photos, so I thought I’d share a few.

80s perm and 80s soccer team! I still remember some of the players’ names. I think this is what I look like to myself, when I picture myself in my mind.

By the way, I have cropped a few of them, because I didn’t want to put photos of my boyfriend at the time up in public without his permission. He’s a nice guy (and brilliant) and I like him, so he is not cropped from spite!

I had a lot of fun identifying where the photos were taken. I assume if I get it wrong, my brother or sister will let me know.

Let’s Garden! The Heat Index Is Only 105!

Hey, I’m only in Austin three evenings a week, so I don’t have a lot of chances to do outdoor activities. Monday it rained. Yesterday I had a phone meeting, so we had time to go buy some plants afterwards but not to do anything with them.

Beautiful blooming oregano plant, new cushions, and my smelly gardenia.

So today, even though it’s 95 degrees out, we repotted and rearranged everything. I was really happy to find huge oregano plant that I can put in the frighteningly sunny part of the deck.

I also put a couple plants that are less perky back there, and added happy sun-loving healthy plants to make it look better.

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The Storm Passes

Last night we had quite a strong storm pass over the Bobcat Lair, our Austin house. Just as we were emerging from our dungeon…I mean, office, to go pick up some plants, the sky let loose.

The edge of this little storm front stayed over our house a long time.

That was okay with me, since I was dealing with that panic attack/anxiety thing last night. I went into self-care mode and concentrated on my own needs.

I burned candles, smelled appropriate aromatherapy oils and blends, watched HGTV, and finally sat in my room and meditated for a half hour.

See, there’s a reason my notebook says “omm” and I have a little crystal ball on my desk. You never know when the need to empty one’s mind will come up.

The best thing about the storm was that we ate dinner early and went to bed early, thereby enabling me to get enough sleep. I’ve noticed that my antsy days tend to be when I haven’t slept enough, which is usually Mondays (I have to get up early to drive to Austin).

A few minutes after the first picture. Eventually, storm clouds will pass.

Today I’m still feeling sensitive to “stuff” around me, but I’ve been able to get much work done, even a meeting with the boss of my boss’s boss. I am back to myself!

You’re TOO Sensitive

My gosh, have I heard that little put-down way too many times in my life. It mostly came from my father. Sometimes it came from my mother or my brother or my sister, or especially my grandmother. Whoever said it got me even more huffy. Soon I’d cry and ALSO be a crybaby.

Being sensitive was a part of my nature. I couldn’t exactly become someone else just so they could insult me with great impunity and not feel bad about it.

I’m bringing that up now, because I’ve finally developed the skill of not taking other people’s insults, snipes, and passive aggressive digs to heart. So that’s good. Yep.

I guess lightning this red candle will help?

But. I’m still sensitive. This linguist can handle words better, but I’m annoyingly sensitive to the moods, affect, and unspoken signals of others. Sometimes it’s general malaise, like after an election. Other times someone in my close circle sends out signals of distress or negativity and it gets me.

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Ghosts from the Past (good ones)

I’m not sure why this is the case, but when I was younger, I never looked back. When I left a place or an institution, I was really bad at maintaining ties. For example, I didn’t remain in touch with any friends from high school (other than my boyfriend, since he was with me in college and most of grad school) until the last few years. Facebook helped with that. And while I do have a couple of grad school friends, such as my favorite fellow student (that’s Steve H) and favorite professor (that’s Georgia M), I’ve lost touch with most people other than a random hello.

I lived here for four years, Murphree Hall. The room with the balcony was really cool. The Rathskeller was right across the road. Handy.

What about my four years of growth and learning at the University of Florida (where I never managed to see any of my high school friends who were there at the same time)? I have one, count ’em one, friend from my undergrad years. That’s Liz from Japanese class. Someone has to share those Swann-sensei memories with me.

That was true until this week, when I finally got back in touch with the only undergrad teacher I’d considered a friend. I’d thought about him often, through the years, and always had held him up as an example of how you really get educated in important things like social skills and political dialogue (that was drinking extremely cheap beer at the Rathskeller every week for three or four years). But, I hadn’t been in touch with him for a very long time, though I’d looked off and on.

Life Is Complicated: Fiber Arts Department

I can see why so many people I know are staying away from online communities, even though they provide such great ways to stay in touch, make new friends, and feel less isolated. It just seems IMPOSSIBLE to create a community where people treat each other with respect and dignity. Name calling and blaming seem to be the rule rather than the exception in today’s society in this country.

Case in point

I’m a member of a fiber arts community called Ravelry, which was founded in 2007. Back when I spent much of my time knitting, teaching knitting, and designing patterns, this was like a second home to me. I’m sure many of you readers feel the same, since I have so many knitting friends (before Ravelry we had some wonderful email lists, and some grumpy ones).

I’ve been very proud of the founders and their team, who have truly created a wonderful resource for fiber artists, and have continued to add features and branch out. It’s like Facebook, but with a focus…and generally with more kindness.

Something’s Happening Here

Back in mid-April, I participated in the exciting Landscape Committee of my Homeowner Association, where we helped decide on some improvements to the rather unattractive plantings near the Bobcat Lair house. Then nothing happened. For weeks.

A memory of the view outside the neighbor house where the meeting was.

Last week we got a note from The Portal (that’s the communications hub of the HOA that people either love or hate) saying that something had happened to the landscaper, but the project would happen soon.

It’s happening!

When I went out for my morning Vlassic walk yesterday, some orange lines had appeared on the ugliest of the beds, the one right next to my house with the underground utility and phone line boxes on it. Ooh!

I thought there were only two, but no, there are three ugly boxes next to my house. I think they are going to build a little enclosure for them.

Begging for Funds Outdoors

Oh, it was nowhere near as bad as I’m making it sound! I woke up yesterday rather early, because we were expecting a man to come work on our Hermits’ Rest gate, which had gotten fried in last week’s lightning storm.

As I was sitting there, I realized there was a market day over at the fancy baseball fields in Cameron, which are officially called the Yards of Cameron. Wow, I said, I bet that would be a nice place to publicize our new nonprofit, Milam Touch of Love (MTOL). I wish we’d planned to do that. Wait, I can just go do it!

Jean guards our brochures. Plus, free ad for Pamela.

I messaged the rest of the Board, and at least two of them said they’d come, too. Jean had the brilliant idea of seeing if our mutual friend, Pamela, would let us sit beside her booth and solicit memberships and donations, and generally let people know we exist. Pamela said yes, so Jean grabbed some chairs and we headed over, wearing our official shirts.

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Fun with Scraping Things

Well, that doesn’t tell you much about what I did last night, does it? I’ll explain. Everyone who’s ever driven between Cameron and Temple will have noticed a couple of very cute shops in Rogers, Texas. One of them, the Vis-a-Vis Galleria drew me and my sister in a few weeks ago. I discovered that, not only do they have fun clothing and a really tasteful collection of consignment items, they do classes on decorating furniture.

I managed to rub all the transfer off and it stuck to the wood. Also pictured: wine.

So, I signed up for a class, just to have some fun on a random weekend. I’d hoped to get someone to go with me, but I was fine with going alone. Since I’ve been channeling my dad, I’ve gotten better about being friendly with everyone I run into. It turns out that everyone has an interesting story, somewhere in there!