Russian icon, a gift to me from my husband on our twenty-fifth anniversary, over the desk in the corner of our sunroom.
Sun's out today, finally. It's amazing how eternal two or three days of rain can seem (now imagine forty). As much as I like rain, I don't think I could live in Seattle, say --- though I would love to visit. In the meantime, it's nice to see sunshine.
Today is my Dad's birthday. He was born in 1930, which would have made him 93, which is incredible to contemplate. I'd like to think that he'd have been as vital at this age as my mother, whose 87th birthday is Saturday. But of course we'll never know. He was 75 in July of 2005, when out of the blue he had a heart attack, lingered two days, and died. The last time I saw him as himself --- as in not on life support --- was at the 3rd birthday of my son who will be 21 in July. The time does not seem to have passed until I consider all the evidence of its having done just that. The baby he doted on will be 20 in December. Our human lives, caught in time, which is anything but amber, have kept flowing on and on, while he stands outside somewhere in eternity. It is my greatest and most constant prayer that all of us will find each other again in the house of the Lord --- it's to this intention that I dedicate the fifth Joyful Mystery of the rosary, every time I pray it.
So he has, I hope and pray, eternal sunshine on his birthday, but it's nice that we're having some temporal sunshine, too.
On today's agenda:
*laundry
*dog-walking
*a Sun poetry meeting this afternoon
*a look-see at the poetry slushpile at Able Muse
Yesterday I built an edging for a new garden bed, by which I mean that I hauled whatever bricks, pavers, and other items (scraps of marble and granite my husband salvaged from some kitchen-counter place) across the yard to mark the boundary for this place where I'm growing zinnas, cosmos, and a lot of weeds (though I pulled some yesterday).
It looks like a mess right now, at least partly because the actual seedlings still look like weeds, especially from a distance. There are actual weeds present, too. And wild sweet-potato vine, which I hate with a pure, perfect, and righteous hatred. Despite the name, it's toxic, so it serves no purpose at all except to invade spaces and strangle good plants. It grows so fast you can just about see it growing. It also doesn't really respond to any attempt to kill it. You can pull it up, but there's always more. I did once, long ago, try Round-Up on it --- I had poison ivy to eradicate, is why I used Round-Up --- and the wild sweet-potato vine just laughed.
I'm also still trying to figure out the sun situation. The end of this bed near the gate gets a good amount. The zinnias and cosmos are shooting up. The far end winds up in shade for a larger part of the day, though it does get unfiltered sun for a few hours every morning. So I need to plant something there, but I'm not sure yet what will do well. Meanwhile, I'm already planning, next winter, just to lasagne that bed with cardboard and brown-paper Aldi bags to take down the weeds, then compost over it for spring planting. Nothing like being a year ahead of yourself in your own mind, but that's where your garden really flourishes. In the present, results are more variable.
In the kitchen garden, meanwhile, blackberries are ripening apace. They're not ripe yet, and I'll probably need to instruct the kids to go out and pick them while we're away, and eat them before the birds and squirrels do.
The early blueberries are also ripening:
Not that there are that many of them, but it's nice to see this bush as laden as it is. It's one I'd bought and planted years ago in a spot where it didn't do well, but since it's landed in its current place along the kitchen-garden fence, it has perked up dramatically. The others aren't bearing at all so far, and I wonder whether the ones I planted last year aren't going to need another year --- or whether they're just a later variety. I can't remember.
We have some grapes in development, too.
Tomatoes have some blooms and are looking good, though I need to trellis them a little better before they start to get top-heavy:
Got some banana peppers up and running:
These close shots never turn out clearly, but anyway. I'm still using last year's dried peppers, but I really look forward to fresh ones.
Here, I had sown oak-leaf lettuce, and it didn't come up, so I despaired of it and sowed some calendulas. Now I have oak-leaf lettuce and calendulas living in amity together for the time being:
I didn't plant nearly as many zinnas and cosmos actually in this garden this year, but I did sow bright-lights cosmos along the fence where the grapevine is, for some color and pollinator attraction. You can see the lemon thyme still blooming on this side of the stump, in the meantime, and the blue sage has bloomed, too. And there's clover still blooming in the lawn.
The shade garden by the back door looks very lush after all the rain we've had:
And the hostas are about to bloom. You really plant hostas for the foliage, not the flowers, but they are pretty when they're up, like a moon garden. For a long time I thought hostas were boring, but they're not, really, at all. They are, as my mother would say, very satisfactory.
I've washed my hair this morning and am waiting for it to dry, though I'll have to walk the dog soon, and it's clouded over again, so maybe I'd have had wet hair in any case. And I have gotten dressed.
Wearing (trying to obscure my whole wet head behind my phone):
Camellia, who I think will be this month's most-wears winner with 5 wears --- though depending on what I decide to put on tomorrow, she could be tied with either Fiona, Maggie T, or Willow. I guess it's no surprise that shades of blue have carried the day in May.
I so often don't bother with a belt, but I really like Camellia belted, especially when I'm also wearing a cardigan, like this thrifted green cotton one. The waist definition is nice, and the tan cork belt here provides a little contrast with the deep, saturated tones of both the cardigan and the dress. As always, I'm trying to wear my whole closet, which includes whatever cardigans are appropriate for the weather. So many things will get a long rest over the summer, but as long as I can add layers, I will, just to be sure that I am getting the most out of what I have.
Now that I've amassed pretty much everything I need for our Norway trip, my plan is to put a purchasing pause in place, for clothing, at least until the fall. Now, I might see some sweater or something in Norway that calls my name, and I'd buy it as a souvenir, but I really need to be done with general clothing acquisition for a while, like maybe until my birthday comes around again. I've done a lot of buying lately that I otherwise wouldn't have done until the fall, filling in some next-winter gaps, because I'm going to need those things for the trip. It'll be fairly pleasant, I think, going up the coast, though chillier along those fjords than it would be along the south coast, but we'll be coming back down from Trondheim through the mountainous interior, where it will be a good bit colder. I figure it's true what they say: there's no bad weather, just bad clothing.
So I'm glad I have warm leggings and tights (though I didn't buy any new tights) in merino blends. I'm glad I have a rota of dresses that I can wear with layers, including layering them over each other. I'm glad I have a wool-blend pullover and an all-wool cardigan to wear. I'm glad I have an insulating waterproof shell layer to wear over other layers, to keep out wind and rain. I'm glad I have good shoes and boots. I'll be glad again next winter that I have these things --- this past winter, I was glad to have the warm clothes I did have, which made it possible and even easy for me to get out with the dog in all weathers. I haven't been tracking my hours outside, but I do spend a lot of hours outside, and want to spend as many hours as possible outside. Having appropriate clothing for the weather is key to pursuing this objective. I've always hated being cold, but the clothing I've acquired over the last couple of years has helped me not to be cold.
That state of affairs will be integral to my enjoying this trip we're about to take. I really don't want to go all that way to be miserable, or to not want to get out of the car. I know my husband: he is the person who pulls over without warning because he's seen a trailhead and says, "Let's do this." I do not want to be the person whining that I didn't dress warmly enough because I didn't know we were going to hike. If thirty-three years of marriage have taught me anything, it's that whatever I think we're not going to do is probably exactly what we are going to do, and that I should plan for any and all eventualities, including things that don't even seem like eventualities.
But today I'm home by myself, which means that to a certain extent I do know what's going to happen. And I'm dressed for it, by golly.
UPDATE:
My last pair of Poshmarked leggings came today. I knew they had merino in the knit --- turns out they're 100% merino. And I got them for $33.
They were listed as black. I think they're actually sort of --- brown?
I mean, vaguely. And not that it matters. For this price, I am wearing them. From a distance they do look indeterminate, and they'll go with everything I own, and they'll be warm. I'm actually continuing to wear them right now, to limber them up a little. The medium is a tad snug, but again, for the price, I am not complaining. I debated about buying these, but now I'm glad I did. I will wear the heck of of them. They'll look appropriately Nordic where we're going (unless that just marks me out as an American, but if it does, I don't care), and they'll be perfect all through the winter here, too.
Oh, also, the little doted-on art girly gets home tonight from various adventures. We so can't wait to see her.
And in other news, the Montana firefighter son, who hasn't lived here since 2020, just received a summons for jury duty. Fortunately he's not yet out of cell-phone reach today, so I was able to DocHub him the form to sign and send back to me, with a photo of his driver's license, so I can drop it all in the mail. Yes, yes, he could do it himself, but he's out in the woods somewhere in Idaho right now, and I really don't want there to be a warrant out for his arrest in Lincoln County, North Carolina, to be made good on when he arrives home for Christmas. Anyway, technology is a beautiful thing. This story would otherwise be a sad one of executive-dysfunction implosion all around. He and I together would write that tragic tale, but I'm grateful that it doesn't have to be that way.