family – The Hermits' Rest

Why Didn’t I Call off My Wedding?

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

Short version: after a series of ill-advised relationships I accepted the first proposal of marriage I received. I should have stopped the wedding, apologized, and concentrated on my studies. But no, I just went along with it, because I thought I was expected to.

Why did I get married to this boy (he was only 23 years old)?

He was beautiful, with black hair and huge, almond/shaped blue eyes.
He was fun to hang out with and liked to do things outdoors.
I loved his dear Cajun family very much and didn’t want to lose them.
I felt very unattractive, unlikeable, and like i was a disappointment to my family and colleagues.
He was great at sex—I confused sex with love during my late teens and 20s. Tsk tsk.
I was terrified of being left all alone, having lost my mother and my first love just a few years before—the abandonment issues I struggled with the first part of my life were the underlying reason I did that.

Why shouldn’t I have married that young man?

Desperation is not a reason to get married
Sadness over the loss of a relationship is not a great reason to form a legal bond
I didn’t realize he was looking for me to replace his mother, who in his mind had abandoned him when she divorced his dad. In reality both his parents were much happier with their second spouses. He did not see this.
He viewed me as a helpful cook, financial assistant, and sex partner until he could go into international finance in Europe, without me.
He kept giving me yeast infections and blamed me for it. Nope. He had a very entrenched yeast issue.
I needed therapy before I could be a good spouse.

What could have helped?

My family could have told me how much they disliked him. Only later did I learn they called him “the iguana” (not sure why, maybe his eyes looked lizardly?)
His damn family could have taken me aside and told me he was more messed up than I was about abandonment.
I could have found a good therapist. He could have, too.

Dad later informed me the fellow was an asshole. Thanks, Dad.

In any case, I came to my senses quickly. He got his MBA that I helped him get and I got a very inexpensive divorce, since we owned no property and were amicable. I drove him to his new job in Detroit and never heard from him again. He passed away from testicular cancer a few years ago. He had a happy later marriage, which was good.

Ow, let’s note that if I hadn’t made that mistake, I wouldn’t have gotten the job that led me to another job where I met my kids’ dad, who moved me to Texas then left me for someone pretty and athletic, which made me get the job where I met Lee. So, life has its way of teaching its lessons, and if you keep working on yourself, you might end up content after all.

If I hadn’t have gone through all that, I wouldn’t have my living weed-eater! Here, Apache helps with the Johnson grass problem.

Getting Back on Track

Today was beautiful, as days after a spring cool front tend to be. Every color was bright, the animals were happy, and the birds were out in full force! Thanks to migrating gulls and other visitors, we had 72 species at the Hermits’ Rest today! That’s the most since I have been tracking birds.

The weather was so nice that Vicki decided to ride her new horse, Malone, over for a visit. He’s a very attractive red dun with an expressive face, especially when he’s looking at Darryl, Jr., who is his first turkey experience.

Here he’s looking at Drew, who also interested him.

I got Apache all saddled and warmed up, and we set out to ride around the field. Apache was fine for about five minutes, then decided he was done.

Here’s Malone watching me warm up Apache. Only later I realized the poles are set wrong.

It was pretty frustrating to see him back in his old ways. I remembered how to deal with it, but after ten minutes or so, my right leg was getting tired of trying to get him to go forward rather than sideways. It didn’t help that Drew and the other horses were in a tizzy and running up and down the fence line. Soon Drew broke the fence completely. He wanted to join us.

I got Apache back to the starting area and proceeded to do more ground work with him, so he won’t think I will stop asking him to do things if he behaves badly enough. He did fine.

Malone didn’t really want to leave, so it was Vicki’s turn to deal with an opinionated horse. Once they got to the end of the driveway and around the corner, it got better.

Whew. I need to get over my horse (more like horse trainer) issues and ride more often or Apache will stay uncooperative. Kathleen and I are encouraging each other to not work so late and do more horse activities. She had Dusty all saddled up and working in the round pen this evening. He’s getting muscles and seems to be enjoying it.

He’s remembering the old days. Doesn’t he look good?

I did make my nails look festive and get caught up on my temperature blanket today, but I still have Master Naturalist stuff to do. I’m just giving myself permission to take it easy, however.

It may be starting all over again, but Apache and I will get back on track! Plus, the fence is repaired again, at least for a while.

Keep Moving On

That’s what I tell myself when I get overwhelmed or frustrated. Just keep moving. Sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other seems hard. I have a notion that we all feel like it’s hard to keep moving sometimes. I’m glad I’m to the point where it’s not too often.

There are always thorns or other obstacles on our paths! These are thistles.

Today was one of those days. I was just wondering why I was making so much effort. Maybe I was just coming down from all that self-help book energy. I stood on the porch and looked out at the nice, full pond, took a few deep breaths, and decided I’d get back to moving forward…tomorrow.

Today I mostly crocheted, watched a variety of television shows, ranging from the rather crude Ted (Seth McFarland humor at its crudest) to art history and a documentary about lobsters. Meanwhile, Kathleen cooked a fine traditional Easter dinner, and I provided wine. I’m not much of a helper.

I’d have had more blogging time if we hadn’t reached the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The final episode was very long, since it had to neatly end many story lines and “regale” us with endless battle scenes. That may have been the next-to-last episode. I get bored watching tiny model ships pretend to explode and shoot rays of various colors. Actually I knit, crochet, or read during battle scenes of all kinds. I like character development.

No reason for this photo except I still can’t believe the false dandelions this year.

On that tangent, I’ll take my leave so I can drive back down to the Austin suburbs for a visit with the dentist. That’s just the start of a long couple of weeks!

Where Are You Going?

There’s an old sappy song going through my head right now.

Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two – turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young child going out of the door.

It came up when I was watching my friend Ellie, who’s going to have her second baby next month. I met her when she just started college, and now she’s got a career and beautiful family. I’m so happy to have watched her grow and mature over the years.

And to see Ellie and her husband, Jimmy, with their older daughter just warms my heart. They’ve done a great job raising a polite, intelligent, and charming little girl. I enjoyed spending time with her, drawing, problem solving her strange pen, and trying out the child’s binoculars I got her. The binoculars came with a whistle. She really liked the whistle.

Lord of the Rings themed decor. Baby Charles Christopher has a LOTR mural in his room.

Ruby can even read already! My heart burst from pent-up love, I guess. I don’t know how I’d cope if I had grandchildren and could see them all the time. To get to watch the child of your own children grow up is a real privilege. (I respect my children’s decision not to reproduce, so I’m glad to have bonus grandchildren.)

I want those hair things. I didn’t want to share Ruby’s face, but you can see her hair! That’s what mine looked like—same color and curls.

I also made a new friend and got two new friends on my Finch app. All in all, I had a good day, and didn’t mind one bit driving to Round Rock in the rain. Yes! We got 1.8”! The ponds filled. Joy!

Sure, I’ve Changed since Covid

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

Since I’m avoiding telling other people’s stories and not much is going on with me, I welcomed this question. It gave me a chance to evaluate what’s changed, my struggles to adapt, and the positive and negative results.

I found one sad, small wine cup today. Usually we have quite a few. Hope the prediction of rain soon is correct.

Positive: the people we were staying with and became our “pod” are still with us much of the time. We have gone through significant ups and downs, misunderstandings, illnesses, and job changes, but we now support each other and have learned to deal with each other’s idiosyncrasies. There are a lot of idiosyncrasies to go around, but the fact that we’ve made it through a series of pretty impressive challenges and remain supportive says a lot about me, Lee, Kathleen, and Chris. We’ve done a lot of growing and changing for the better.

Another positive that didn’t feel that way at the time is that I finally figured out how to lose my conception of what was happening in my life and keep living in the moment rather than dwelling on the losses. There was a period when I realized friendships and family relationships weren’t what I thought they were. That hurt. And thanks to Covid I lost my beautiful workspace I’d put so much effort into and didn’t get to fully enjoy living in Austin in my beautiful house. I had to leave by the time we were no longer masked and distant.

But I got through it all. It may not have been pretty, and my heart broke and rebroke, but I came out so much stronger and more resilient. I have a much more accurate perspective on the people around me, friends, colleagues, and society.

Covid truly taught me that attaining personal growth, gaining wisdom, and developing inner strength is a journey that does not end. I’m better prepared now, though.

A negative is that I’m still not comfortable being in large groups where people might cough all over me. It doesn’t help that the only time I actually got the disease was after flying to a vacation. I have to fly again week after next. I have come to terms with the fact that there are germs out there. I do still have to live my life (and symptoms of the virus I got when I went to that event recently are finally almost gone).

Covid has kept me and Lee even more hermit-like, though I do a few things, still! And Lee goes grocery shopping where there are many people, something I avoid these days.

My favorite positive to come out of COVID is that I don’t have to commute to work and can stay here at the Hermits’ Rest or even work from campsites. At first I really missed being with coworkers, but now I’m so happy that I can be home where it’s less distracting (other than dogs) and work with so many people around the world. Thank goodness for online meetings! And when I quit, I can go hug a turkey, pet a horse, or go for a hike.

I think my life changed for the better, even considering the downsides. I’m sure a lot less anxious (as long as I do deep breathing during the news).

Happy April! Here’s 1/3 of the year’s temperature blanket, featuring the hottest March ever.

What’s Good?

It’s not totally rosy here at the land of hermits. But it’s never all bad. Today we focused on being a kind and supportive family. That’s good!

Other good stuff? I found more new wildflowers and many blossoms popping up. Such brave and hardy things they are.

And I got to wish my ever-youthful step-sister a happy birthday, only wishing I’d been there to share an old fashioned with her and her family.

Hmm…I must say this blanket project is pretty! That’s my final good thing.

Go hug your loved ones.

Hanging Out

My throat is still annoying and my nose is runny but I didn’t feel too awful today. I was able to go for a pretty good walk this morning and found some new wildflowers have popped up.

I also enjoyed lots of butterflies, even though our fields that are usually covered with a variety of flowers are heavy on the false dandelions.

I enjoyed spotting interesting things on the roadside other than trash that I picked up. There were some bursts of color and hidden beauty.

The horses are searching for green grass, bless their hearts. It’s way early for the soil to start cracking, but it is.

But HA! The skeet shooters didn’t stop the bluebonnets from blooming when they mowed the field. Yay!

Most of the day I relaxed and crocheted (a whole row of the wool blanket!) while chatting with Kathleen. We told stories, watched weird television shows, and spent time talking to the horses. Both our husbands were off working (Lee is in a writing groove upstairs and hasn’t been coming down much), so we filled the afternoon with conversation. It was a pleasant and stress-free interval of hanging out and recuperating! The big thrill was getting into her car and visiting the latest KCC Construction project and enjoying a Dairy Queen treat. That’s the best we could do for excitement, but it was good enough and kept our spirits up.

I’m sure these ladies were jealous of our fun.

My hope is that I’ve built enough strength to get my paid and volunteer work done next week and Kathleen has enough strength for all her doctor visits. It may be a challenging week.

Truly Enjoyable Day

Every so often you get to enjoy a whole day where there’s peace, beauty, fun, humor, and a little accomplishment thrown in. Today was such a day. Why was it so good?

Walking! I didn’t walk all that far today, but I enjoyed it. On my first walk I noticed all the grass and such is already crunchy and brown thanks to scant rain and that freeze a week ago. But there were white evening primroses, which are even more delicate than their normal pink friends.

These are just pale versions of pink evening primroses, not a different species.

Later in the afternoon I went out again with Kathleen, since walking is helping her recuperation. I showed her how big the puffball mushroom in the front field has gotten, and we found a thick patch of verbena next to the rye crop across the road. Apache would sure love that field.

Calves! There are many cow-calf pairs in the field behind us right now. The babies are getting more adventurous and frisky, which is always entertaining. I love the brave and curious ones who try to get the dogs to play. This one with the white spot had a lot of fun with Penney and let me talk to her a while.

Crafts! We watched some television this afternoon and evening, which gave me time to work on my patchwork blanket. I got through all but one square on the fourth row. It looks pretty cute. I have some ideas for it once I join all the squares.

Funny things! I have two funny things to share. First happened yesterday. I went to the birding hut to re-start Merlin after it had been running a while. I wanted to write down the new species in my notebook but I couldn’t open it. That was odd. I finally peeled the pages apart, and I really perturbed a bold jumping spider who had managed to build a web nest in the book in just over an hour! I encouraged her to relocate.

Second story was from today. When we went to feed the poultry, I once again found no eggs in the boxes. You could see someone had been sitting in them. But none were chosen for egg laying.

You may remember that last week Kathleen cleaned the henhouse. New pine shavings were put in the boxes and on the floor.

Before we went to the horses, I got a notion and had Kathleen wait while I checked something. Sure enough, there were four eggs in the old nest boxes we still have up for when we get new hens. I guess Cindy and Cathy don’t like the pine shavings. I’ll have to get them some straw. No photo because (gasp!) I left my phone in the house!

We prefer the little nest boxes, with no nesting material.

Well, okay, Cochins. Lay wherever you want to.

Blowing Away

The weather was pretty weird today. Low in the 50s, high in the 90s, and so much wind! If I ever complained about the wind before, I was being wimpy. This wind is not a gale but is pretty close. All our poor new porch plants are getting buffeted.

Of course we got all these new plants, only to realize that it is getting cold again tomorrow, maybe a freeze. I guess it all gets to come back in tomorrow. Sigh.

While the wind has been annoying, it’s otherwise been a beautiful weekend full of getting things done at home. Yesterday the chicken house got all cleaned out. That was about time! Kathleen had a fancy mask so she didn’t get sick like I did the time I did it by myself.

The turkeys were not happy with all that stuff going on. Darryl Junior was all puffed up and glowing in turkey colors.

Today I’d hoped to spend lots of time with the horses. They were so lovely out in the field this morning that I wanted to make them prettier.

It wasn’t so windy but still too windy to do the flower photography I’d hoped to do.

Kathleen and I did the best we could, but she wasn’t feeling well and I got overheated. So, Mabel got nothing and Apache just got a little currying. Spice really needed grooming and was so grateful for the attention that she kept nuzzling me. I even gave her a little workout that she seemed to enjoy. She’s a very good horse and so well trained. I’ve enjoyed having her with us.

I also managed to get Drew all shiny and pretty. He still has stains from rolling in poop, but he’s already starting to get shiny. He’s much whiter now, and even his mane is lighter. Now that we are working with him more, he’s behaving very well. I’m glad he’s still here.

Kathleen got Dusty looking most excellent, too. She’s giving him some new supplements that even have his hair shiny. And we think he’s putting weight back on. What a lucky old man he is.

You can see the wind blowing everyone’s tails in the photos.

Okay, back to the wind. We went to eat with friends tonight and noticed the sky was so weird. There was so much dust in the air that you couldn’t see the clouds or sun. It was eerie.

Photo out the car window doesn’t do it justice.

The wind gave me time to get some reading done as well as some nice family time. I hope there isn’t too much damage. Stuff is really blowing around and we saw pieces of metal lying around and downed tree limbs on our drive to and from the restaurant.

It was a good weekend, even if I didn’t do all I’d hoped to.

Enjoying Potential Dangers

Not much went on today, since it’s my busy work day and we had a reasonable amount of rain. Wish it were a bit more.

The colors are so vivid after the browns of winter.

There’s been a bit of danger this week. Harvey got bitten by a snake and swelled up. Then when he was all numb and swollen he managed to bite through his lip. As if having a bad liver, going deaf, and dealing with stroke after effects wasn’t enough! He is healing though.

And today when we were walking my horses (we alternate between Kathleen’s and mine, apparently), I was trying to convince Apache that cantering in mud isn’t smart, when Drew erupted and started jumping and acting afraid. Apparently it was his first snake encounter, because he was really scared. Kathleen did a great job holding on and settling him back down, but that was enough danger for us. You’d think Drew would have seen snakes in the pasture or pens before. I certainly have.

It was a beautiful day to make a hasty retreat (Kathleen IS in the photo, but the bulky gelding is blocking her).

Still, it is always good to see that we can help the horses out, and as a bonus Kathleen didn’t get bitten. Maybe the tide has turned and she’s not a magnet for venomous creatures anymore!

It was raining all around us, and thundering. More danger!

Need proof that we had enough rain to make mud? Look no further than Muddy Mabel. She was gleaming and clean yesterday.

I hope she rolls in some dewy grass tomorrow and cleans some of her mane.

Other excitement of the non dangerous type? Today was Lee’s birthday. We are the same age again, whew. I hate those 6 days when we’re a year apart. He got mini Bundt cakes and a banana pudding cake, which we all enjoyed. I still like lemon the best.

Well, off to see what happens tomorrow.