Posts Categorized: Patience

Gardening

| Faithfulness, Goodness, Joy, Patience

It rained again. I’m not complaining. We’ve run the sprinkler system about four, maybe five times. All spring and summer and into the fall. Everything’s still growing well. I’m grateful, to be sure, but it seems like the mosquitoes will not give up. It’s fall. It’s chilly. They should be dead, I think.

(Hmmm. I looked it up. According to: https://www.cmmcp.org › mosquito-information: Mosquitoes function best at 80 degrees F, become lethargic at 60 degrees F, and cannot function below 50 degrees F.)

Okay, when I was outside today, the temperature was in the upper 70’s. So, seems like I should keep on squirting the bug spray on, probably for another month. At least.
I spent a while yesterday and then some, today, too, cleaning up the thyme garden.

I did wonder, when rain was falling, more days than not, if it would be too much water on the herbs. But, there wasn’t really anything I could do. The water always dried up, or soaked in, in a day or so. But, then, rain would fall again.

And now, I’m not sure that too much rain might have harmed the thyme, or maybe this is just what a thyme plant’s life cycle looks like. Possibly, they’ll just hunker down during the winter and bounce back to life next spring. Some of the plants completely died over the summer. Others are making a small comeback. I’ve replaced a couple. The three better-looking plants at the front are three different varieties that I found at the end of last fall. They’ve thrived through the winter, spring, and summer. The big green mass at the far right is Creeping Mother of Thyme. I’ve had it for years, and it has grown and spread and been dependable.

I’ll just have to wait and see what next spring brings.
I’ve grown different kinds of mint for quite a while. I don’t cook very much with them, I just like the way they look and smell. One hot, hot day, last summer, I came home from church, walked through the patio, and went in the house. I didn’t think about watering the patio plants. (And I always water the patio plants.) Then the next day, when I went back out, the lovely curled mint and chocolate mint plants were dead, dead, dead. As was the pineapple mint plant on the shelf beneath them. I was horrified and really sad. The curly and chocolate mints were new to me, and the pineapple mint was a plant I’d had for years. I poured water on the hard, dry dirt and grieved. Then, about two weeks later, TA-DAH!! Really! a couple of tiny leaves were coming up. When I bought and potted the plants, the chocolate mint was on one side and the curly mint was on the other. Apparently, they have different root systems. The curly mint is now all around the edges of the pot, and the chocolate mint is in the center. I don’t care; I’m just glad they showed up again.

And, the plant on the right, with the red flowers, is pineapple sage. I planted it here when we very first moved in this house, and I was working on making a garden. When you rub the leaves with your fingers, they will smell strongly of pineapple. It’s amazing.

I was going to take a bit of a break, and went to the patio to sit on the bench there. It’s where I’ve been sitting to read in the late afternoons. I lean back on the pillows, balance a glass of tea on the arm rest, and enjoy a book. When I went to rest for a moment this afternoon, I couldn’t. We’d had a short, but significant, rainfall, mid-morning. I touched a cushion. It seemed all right. I pressed down, and, no, it wasn’t all right. The sun had warmed, and dried, the cushion tops, but quite a bit of rainwater had settled in the bottom of the cushions, and also to the bench. So I ended up on the concrete steps.

 

And, when I was out in the garden, I had the same idea. I could sit down for a moment. Nope. These cushions were really wet. Top to bottom. And, there was water on the bench’s slats.

 

No rest for weary me. I didn’t want to traipse up the yard just to have a seat on the concrete steps. Not all that comfortable. So, I picked up the rake and went to gather up fallen leaves.

 

What beautiful tents, Jacob, oh, your homes, Israel!
Like valleys stretching out in the distance, like gardens planted by rivers,
Like sweet herbs planted by the gardener God, like red cedars by pools and springs,
Numbers 24: 5,6 (The Message Translation)

 

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. – May Sarton (2014). “At Seventy: A Journal”, p.53, Open Road Media
As long as I can put on my overalls and my Crocs . . .

A Movie to Remember

| Joy, Patience

Back in the Olden, Olden Days, when I was a teenager, in Waco, we had three television stations. At some point, we got a big, tall antenna at our house, and were able to get a couple of the Dallas stations, and it seemed great! But, nothing, at all, compared to these modern times, when scores and scores of television stations are available. Twenty-four/seven.

It didn’t seem so awful to us, and, as a teenager, I wasn’t watching television ‘way into the night, on school nights, anyway. And, even on the weekend, there just wasn’t much to watch. And that was challenging, because when it came to baby-sitting on weekends, the little kids would go to bed reasonably early, and then, after the news, there might be old movies.

I haven’t done research on this, but I suspect that older women, like myself, have those memories of watching old movies. And, it seemed as though, when we were baby-sitting, and looking for a movie to watch, it often turned out to be one that we’d already seen.

Several years ago, Jeremy and I were traveling back home to Waco after being at a conference center in North Carolina for three weeks. We stopped for lunch, and, a large, cold, soft drink got spilled into my lap while we were eating. (No need to mention how that happened.) It wasn’t a disaster, and we traveled on. We’d planned to stop to spend the night somewhere in Mississippi, I think. As we started looking for a place to stay, we saw a hotel that boasted laundry rooms. Done. We got some fast food and checked in.

I’d packed up all my clothes and Jeremy’s clothes in suitcases that I hadn’t planned to bring into the hotel, just a small tote with overnight stuff. In our room, I changed into my nightgown and sent Jeremy with my cola clothing and some quarters to the laundry room just across from our room. Then, we began to settle in to have our dinner and watch some television. I ran through several channels and then stopped. I recognized the opening credits of a movie.

“Oh, Jeremy,” I said. “This is a great movie! And,” I went on,”it’s Auntie’s babysitting movie!”

And Jeremy said, “Huh?”

When we were teenagers, and would be babysitting, we’d watch old movies after the kids had gone to bed. And, so very often, it would be the same movie that we’d watched last time we babysat. (I’m not trying to explain how it happened, just that it did happen.) And, parents often came home before the movie was over, so it might take weeks or months before we’d actually seen the entire movie. At one house, we might see the end of the movie. At the next house, we might see the end of the evening news and then the beginning of the familiar movie. It might take many babysitting evenings before we’d seen all the parts of our movie.

My sister’s babysitting movie was Mister Roberts. And I didn’t even ask Jeremy if he was okay with watching this movie. I just said, “It’s a wonderful movie. You’ll like it.” And it seemed like he did. Really, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney, and Jack Lemon, who won an Academy Award for his part.

My sister’s best friend’s babysitting movie was Black Orpheus, set in Rio during Carnival. It’s a retelling of the story of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is visually very dark (as I remember it, because I also saw, at least parts, of the movie). And, the story’s pretty dark, too.

And, my babysitting movie . . .

I sat down this afternoon and looked at the TV listings. Hmmmm. Anything I’d like to see this evening? And, oh, yes, there it was, on the Turner Classic Movies site. An Affair to Remember. I cannot tell you how many parts of that movie I saw over the years of babysitting. Up until a few years ago, I had never seen the opening credits of the movie, and, at that time, I actually watched the entire movie, start to finish, right until . . . well, I won’t spoil anything. You might want to visit some old movie site, or go to your local library and see if they have a copy of the video. Or, maybe you’ll just reminisce about other touching experiences you had as a teenager.

 

Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you use nothing but stories when you speak to the people?” I use stories when I speak to them because when they look, they cannot see, and when they listen, they cannot hear or understand.

Matthew 13: 10, 13

 

Movies are fun and interesting and emotional, but I am grateful that, when I need encouragement or guidance or discernment, there’s a place I can go that’s a little more concrete than a movie theater.

The Havoc of February

| Goodness, Patience, Peace

Remember February? When I looked back at that post, the first sentence was “I don’t know what they’re gong to call what happened this week, but “It snowed,” isn’t going to be enough.”

Well, we’re calling it “February,” as in: “Remember February?” when we might be searching to buy heavier coats than we used to wear. Or: “Oh, yeah, February!”  when we’re thinking about beginning to stock up on non-perishables to store in cabinets and pantries. Or: “Hmmm. February. Should we go ahead and try to find some place to purchase some firewood?”

And some folks have spent the spring and summer restructuring yards and gardens, after perennial flowers, shrubs, and even full-grown trees perished in FEBRUARY!

At our house, we came out pretty well.

The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

Back in May, I mentioned a tree that I’d had to treat because it had big, brown spots on the leaves. I spoke to a nursery employee who sold me these little iron pellets, and said sprinkle them around the tree, walking in a circle at the edge of the leaves’ distance from its trunk. Then, water it in. It’s working. The tree’s leaves are a beautiful yellow-green and don’t have spots any more. I think it’s a Pin Oak. It’s in the smaller area of the yard on the left-hand side of the driveway. In the larger part of the front yard, there’s a Red Oak.

 

Other nearby trees did not fare so well.

 “Rain and snow fall from the sky. But they don’t return without watering the earth
that produces seeds to plant and grain to eat.
That’s how it is with my words. They don’t return to me without doing everything I send them to do.”

Isaiah 55:10-11 (Contemporary English Version)

 

Still Summerish, but Fall’s on the Horizon

| Joy, Patience, Peace

So. September. The forecast for the month says only one day of 101° and, by the end of the month, highs in the 80’s. Sounds great! This fall could be one of the least hot. Hopefully. Back in early spring, we had the sprinkler system guy come out to check all the sprinkler heads. I think he replaced a couple of sprinkler heads, and he ran each of the stations for a few minutes. Everything was fine. Then, all the springtime rain, and the summer rain, meant that we didn’t run the sprinklers until last week. And, the cooler weather made doing yard work really pleasant.

I’ve seen some different attitude about overalls these days. For quite some time, all overalls, short or long, had tasteful (or not so tasteful) big rips in the legs, a sort of fashion statement, I guess. I did wear those overalls, but only in my yard. And mostly in the back yard.

 

In other outdoor news:

Last summer, I bought some Turk’s Cap plants: three pink ones and three red ones. They did all right, until February. Everything on that side of the house was really slow about rebounding, but everything did. I had planted the Turk’s Caps alternately, red, pink, red, pink, red pink. When they finally began to come up, ‘way into spring, they weren’t blooming, and I didn’t know who was who, and there were just three of them. When I visited the greenhouse where I’d purchased them, I asked if there was a way to know which were which, the owner said that the red ones had larger leaves and were sturdier, so probably, the red ones were coming up. As you can see, they have grown sturdy and strong, and there are lots of them. And they are all pink.

 

 

O children of Zion, be glad
    and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for he has given the early rain for your vindication,
    he has poured down for you abundant rain,
    the early and the later rain, as before.
The threshing floors shall be full of grain,
    the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

Joel 2:23-24 (New Revised Standard Version)

 

 

And there will be herbs for cooking, and flowers for fragrance, and ferns for beauty, and trees for shade.

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1a)

Time to Wake Up and Smell the, um, Lawnmowers

| Patience

We have mowers/edgers/grass-clippings-blower guys who come on Tuesday mornings. They take care of a few lawns on our street. And, then, another set of lawn guys come to a couple of other houses, on another day. For the most part, we are senior adult folks, and, if we didn’t have the lawn guys, our yards would look awful. Or, the senior adult folks would be keeling over onto their lawns on a regular basis.

Our guys charge $40.00 each Tuesday. Most Monday evenings, I write a check and put it in an envelope that I clip to the mailbox each Tuesday morning. Sometimes, I’m alerted to the roar of the lawn mower, edger, clipping blower, and I have to rush to put the envelope out on the mail box. Sometimes, I have to put on clothes to do that. I guess I could reach out, in my nightgown, and clip the envelope on, but it just seems more, um, seemly, to appear actually dressed. (Sometimes, I have to actually write that check, on Tuesday morning, after being reminded by hearing the roar of those machines.)

Last Monday evening, I carefully wrote the check and put it in the envelope. Then I set the envelope on the desk that is right there by the front door. So organized.  Then I went to bed. I’d been a little under the weather for the previous few days, and had been going to bed a little earlier than usual, which I did, last Monday night. I went to sleep pretty quickly and slept pretty soundly.

I woke up on Tuesday morning, feeling better and pretty well-rested. I thought: I need to go put the mowers’ check out. I looked at the clock. It was 8:30!! Yikes. Yikes. And more Yikes! The mowers come around 7:30 each Tuesday morning. Had I slept through the mowers? Maybe they hadn’t come yet. (Oh, please.)

I looked out at the yard. Oh, yes, they had come. And mowed. And I HAD INDEED SLEPT THROUGH THE MORNING’S MOWING!

Our bedroom is at the front of the house. Our bed is up against the wall at the front of the house. My head was about a foot away from the large, riding mower that was making back and forth mowing lines right there by my head. And I’d slept through it.

I guess I was more tired than I thought I was.

And, when I stepped out, later, to retrieve our mail, clipped to our mail box, was an invoice for the $40.00 payment for mowing. I wish they’d rung the doorbell. Only I’d probably have slept through it.

 

How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
    When will you rise from your sleep?
 A little sleep, a little slumber,
    a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
    and want, like an armed warrior.

Proverbs 6:9-11 (New Revised Standard Version)

 

I could probably wait until next Tuesday, and have an envelope waiting with this week’s and next week’s amount inside. However, I think I should maybe go ahead and send this past payment, just to show that I do care about paying my bills, and I do want to show my appreciation for the fact that they don’t sleep in when they have a job to do.


 

Apparently, I Can’t Be Alone with Myself

| Joy, Patience

I used to have music going in the house, years ago, as I did housework or sewed or cooked. Or, I could have music from a radio station on. Or, (do I have to explain this?) records or cassette tapes playing. At some point, I switched to audiobooks. If I was going to be travelling, and driving in my own car, by myself, I’d go to the library and get sets of cassette tapes of recorded books. I’d always take some music tapes, too, because I might get drowsy and need to put that music in so I could sing, loudly, in the car, to keep myself from falling asleep. (And I just can’t depend on stations providing music that I know the words to.) Maybe that’s how the seeds were sown that makes my ears and mind think that I need something filtering into my ears, much, some, or more of the time.

One of my primary activities these days is working in the yard. I listen to podcasts on my phone quite a bit. The problem with podcasts is that they range from 30 minutes to an hour, which means I have to stop, take off my dirty gardening gloves, dig my phone from my overalls pockets, and decide which podcast I’d like to hear next. And I’m usually searching for those that are lengthy, so I don’t have to stop so often.

 

 

 

This is a podcast I’ve been listening to for a while. Some episodes are longer. This one was pretty short. It’s really interesting, as people learn untold, hidden, deeply hidden facts and stories about their families, such as “I always wondered why everyone in my family was dark-haired, and I was blonde.” Some episodes are longer. This one was was pretty short.

 

 

 

I like to listen to audiobooks in the car, even if I’m not going to be driving for days and days. Sometimes it does take a few minutes of listening (or going back a bit) to recall what’s been happening in the story, especially if I haven’t been in the car for a couple of days. I’m just on disc 1 of this book. And, since I’m not listening continuously, I have to think hard to remember who is who. Who’s the old boyfriend? Who’s the new boyfriend? And who killed that other guy? And why did he kill the other guy? Or was it the girl? It can be a problem. And, on one or two occasions, I’ve actually checked out the print version of the book, to try to figure out what actually happened in the middle of the story.

There are some drawbacks.

 

 

One of my favorite ways to listen to a book is a Playaway. Books come in this orange container, and the Playaway contains an entire book. The library checks the Playaways to patrons, and we provide an AAA battery and earbuds. And, no matter how lengthy the book is, it’s entirely contained in that cassette-sized Playaway.

That means I can go outside for a whole day, and never have to stop listening.

The first Playaway I ever listened to was Twelve Years a Slave, (a true story). I’ve also listened to Like Water for Elephants and The Zookeepers Wife, (also a true story, and the whole time I was listening to that book, I’d never realized that it was a true story, until an epilogue contained the facts). Unfortunately, a limited number of Playaways have been produced. Or, maybe it’s just that our library has a limited number of them. I think they’re more expensive than the books themselves, and maybe the budget for them is limited. Too bad, they’re perfect for folks who don’t want to stop every hour or so to locate a new podcast.

 

 

 

 

And, of course, I still read actual paper pages of real books.Here are the books (I think all of them) that I’m reading right now. I’m behind on reading the fiction Pulitzers. For a few years, I was diligent about it. I even read The Road.  Some were more interesting than others. Some were much less interesting. Re: The Road. I have a couple more to read to be caught up. This present stack of books is larger than it should be because I got a Bas Bleu catalog. They have gift items and lots of books. I read through the whole catalog and made a list of books that I thought might be interesting. Then, I checked the library to see if any of those books were there. Three of them were available, and I put them on hold and now they’re at my house. And, none of them were audiobooks, so, I’m going to have to sit down and actually hold them in my hands and read them.

Not that that’s so horrible.

 

 

This is a new book in my library. A church friend mentioned it on Facebook, and I thought it sounded interesting, so I went to my first go-to place for locating interesting books: the library. And, of course, they had it. I checked it out and read several pages, and it very much seemed like a book I wanted to own. I bought copies for me and my sister, and now I’ve thought of a few other folks that might like it, too.

The blurb on the front of the book says: “If you, like me, long for a devotional that is sharpening, witty, and downright real, well then, you must simply read this book.”

 

 

If you stop learning, you will forget what you already know.

Proverbs 27:19

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Unsafe at Any Speed”

| Patience, Self-Control

Ralph Nader, a political activist in the mid-sixties, wrote the book Unsafe at Any Speed, which describes the dangers in several cars at the time. I’ve come to believe that I might be unsafe at any speed. Recently, a couple of items have suddenly appeared in front of me while I was driving.

Peter was visiting us last week, and Monday, I drove him back home. It’s a straight shot from Waco to Fort Worth, and there wasn’t very much traffic, either way. On the way home, I stopped at West, where there’s a big bank of gas pumps, and a large place to shop for souvenirs, drinks, and famous Czech kolaches. I bought David a brisket kolache for dinner and some tea to drink, got back in the car, and drove on home.

The traffic was pretty light. At some point, as I was driving 70 or so mph, down I35, the car in front of me changed lanes, and, as I traveled in that lane, I saw what seemed like . . . a shadow? On the road? And, no. It wasn’t a shadow. It was, I’m pretty sure, a piece of a tire. And I ran over it.

There was an impressive THUMP underneath the car, and, in the rear view mirror, I could see what seemed like tire pieces scattering around on the road behind me.

Oh, Dear. I very carefully watched the dials on the dashboard, looking for evidence of what might have happened. The gas needle stayed in place. No lights came on. Maybe everything was all right.

As I drove into Waco, the car seemed to run normally. When I got home, David was there, and I pulled into the garage and went to explain what happened and asked him to look under the car and try to determine if he could see any damage. No liquids were dripping down on the garage floor. I’d driven several miles without any emergency lights coming on. No shaking, no rattling, things seemed normal. So, we just assumed that whatever noise I’d heard hadn’t done any damage to the car.

He checked again the next morning, and didn’t see any leaking or dripping.

A little later, I was on my way to run some errands. (Peter had left his piano music book here and would like to have it, and Jeremy needed a certified birth certificate. So, to the health department and the post office.) I backed out of the garage and pulled out of the driveway. And . . . SCRAPE! Scrape? I parked the car and got out to look. Ooohhh. That big noise that I thought was under the car? It was the big piece of tire slamming into the front of the car.

And it looks like this:

 

 

 

Later in the day (still Tuesday), I was driving down a four-lane street, on my way to the post office, and, in front of me, there was a heavily-loaded pickup truck that seemed to be part of a moving-day trip. A large blanket, or maybe, a tarp, sailed off the top of the truck’s load. I changed lanes to avoid the tarp, which landed in the lane behind the truck. Then, a block or so later, some pieces of light-weight furniture (?), maybe, dropped right off the truck, into my lane, right in front of me. REALLY!! REALLY!! I was able to come to a stop, right behind the debris. And I sat there. Cars came up behind me. I didn’t get out. I just sat there, shrieking in my head. WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ME AND MY CAR AND ROAD DEBRIS! The pickup truck slowly backed up, complicated by the cars trying to get around me. The people in the truck smiled at me and got out and retrieved their stuff, and I just nodded and waited.

It looked like this:

 

 

So far this week, on Wednesday and Thursday, I’ve not had any road disasters. We did however, have to make a trip to the the collision place to get an estimate. Let’s don’t talk about that right now.

 

Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.
There is a time for birth and death,
    planting and reaping, for killing and healing,
    destroying and building, for crying and laughing,
    weeping and dancing

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 (Contemporary English Version)

 

So, I’ve done the destroying and weeping, and now I’m ready for the healing and laughing.

Nicaragua

| Faithfulness, Kindness, Patience

The Nicaraguan school looks much like any other school.

At the International Christian School in Managua, Nicaragua, where my niece, Natalie, teaches, about 65% of the students are natural Nicaraguan, 25% are North American, and 10% are Asian. Many of the students are children of missionaries, and some have parents who have businesses there. The student body is made up of 3-year-olds through 12th graders.

 

Natalie with some of the graduating sixth graders

 

Natalie teaches Sixth graders, and Social Studies to both Fifth and Sixth graders. The Fifth grade teacher teaches Science to both Fifth and Sixth graders.

 

 

 

Many students in Nicaragua go to school from Pre-K through 6th grade. Graduating from 6th grade is a significant accomplishment for Nicaraguan students. They are given a diploma from the school and from the government. For many in the traditional Nicaraguan educational system, that is the end of their formal education. Others may go on for further classes.

 

 

 

Natalie lives in a house with 2 other teachers. They rent the house, and that’s where they have lived in previous school years. The compound also has another small house where an additional teacher lives. They share a car for traveling the five-minute drive to the school, going to church, and trips to the grocery store. Or, there might be a trip to a Pacific beach.

 

 

 

When I asked Natalie how much longer she plans to teach in Nicaragua, she said, “It’s a year by year decision.”  She’ll be leaving next week for the new year of teaching.

 

 

When I ask why she so much enjoys doing this work, she says:

I enjoy getting to work with this community of believers. Our school serves many missionary families who are serving the country of Nicaragua. Some are training and mentoring local pastors, some own businesses that employ and train Nicaraguans, and others work with ministries that serve Nicaraguans living in poverty or those with special needs. In addition to teaching the children of missionaries, I also teach Nicaraguan students whose families are influential in the community. Their parents may be pastors or business owners who are in a position of influence. It is our prayer that by helping raise up these students to love and serve Christ, they will be future leaders in creating positive change in their communities and the country of Nicaragua.

 

Natalie’s favorite Bible verse:

 

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 16:11 (New International Version)

 

 

Apparently, That Nicer Weather Is Over, and Summer’s Really Happening

| Patience

After David watched the television news and weather last night, he said the weather forecaster said, “It’s over, guys. Summer’s here.”

It’s been so nice. For weeks. Here it is the end of July and we’ve not had any scorching temperatures. There’s been rainfall several times. EACH WEEK!! Several weeks ago, we had the sprinkler guy come out and check all the sprinkler heads. Everything was fine, and we ran the sprinklers a couple of times (when we’d not had rain). That was back in May. Since then, God’s been doing all the sprinkling. Apparently, that’s coming to a screaming, screeching halt. Summer has arrived.

According to the weather outlook on my phone, we’re looking at temperatures of 97 to 99 all next week. And there’s a little sun icon by almost every date. Next Wednesday has a little cloud over the sun, but it’s a little white cloud, not a little storm cloud.

I’ve been enjoying being outside for so many weeks. I have, however, been constantly spraying myself with bug spray. I’ve bought several cans of bug spray, just to make sure I don’t run out. We’ve had mosquitoes for quite a while, and I’ve had a few bites, but not many. They’re mostly out at the back of the yard, but not exclusively there. They fly right on up to the patio, and even if I’m just taking the trash to the bins, I still stop and spray. I hate to itch, and I know I’m not supposed to scratch. I have some itch cream, but it doesn’t always relieve the itching, especially if I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself scratching away.

I looked up some mosquito facts, such as at what temperature do mosquitoes not bite.

From insectcop.net

Mosquitoes are generally most active above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and prefer humid climates. However, they become less active when conditions become too hot and dry, and many species become completely inactive or will die below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Seriously, I’m not really OUTSIDE very much when it’s 50!

Mosquitoes are one of the world’s most widespread pests, and can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Iceland is also a mosquito-free zone.

Mosquitoes are most active in temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. They are also more comfortable in humid climates. I prefer that mosquitoes NOT be particularly comfortable. Under these conditions, mosquitoes are more likely to bite, feed and breed. They are also more likely to transmit diseases in a hot, humid climate. Studies have shown that malaria and zika are both more likely to be transmitted at temperatures of around 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

What temperature is too hot for mosquitoes? Mosquitoes may thrive in warmer climates, but it can get too hot and dry for mosquitoes. Direct sunlight can dehydrate these insects, which is why many species are most active at dusk and dawn. If the temperature climbs too high, mosquitoes will become less active. Yes, that’s when I’m also less active, too.

Meanwhile, my sister and niece are coming to visit soon. We haven’t seen each other, face-to-face, in many, many months.  We’ll do some catching up, and they’ll probably want to visit with friends. And, I think they’re going to want to go to the Magnolia complex. We should get there early, before that much warmer (really, hotter) weather makes the afternoon too uncomfortable. Of course, if we’re going to be shopping (and I’m pretty sure there will be shopping), then we’ll be inside air-conditioned spaces. Then, we’ll have to walk back to, and get inside of, the scorching hot car. It’ll probably be worth it.

 

 

For as long as Earth lasts, planting and harvest, cold and heat, Summer and winter, day and night will never stop.
Genesis 8:22 (The Message)

 

 

And families will enjoy being together, especially if they remember to bring the bug spray.

Some Refurbishing

| Patience, Peace

We’re going to have some company in a couple of weeks, and I need to do some cleaning up around here. We’re not going to paint or replace the flooring, or anything like that, but some areas of the house need some attention. Some more than others.

The space that is my office is easy to overlook. When I’m on the computer (reading something, writing something, watching something), the part of the room where people sleep and relax (single bed with a trundle underneath) is behind me. So, yes, of course, I see that part every time I walk into the room; however, I’m all too ready to drop books, knitting, magazines, and so on, on the bed. Things pile up back there. (Also, there’s a treadmill in the room. Yes. Really. And I do walk on it every day, so it doesn’t usually have things piled on it.)

There’s another bedroom, which is sort of a guest room. It’s also where the sewing machine is. I don’t sew very much, but, sometimes I’m repairing an article of clothing or sewing a gift. Also, the ironing board is stored there, hanging on a hook on the door, but it’s often set up in that room, where I might be pressing some wrinkled article of clothing. But, guests are coming, so I’ve had to be better organized about clearing off the beds and removing the clutter.

Here’s what the day bed looks like on a good day. It’s more of the look of the room when I know that company is coming, and I have to clear off the bed. It’s also where Peter and I sit when we’re ready to watch an episode of The Great British Baking Show. Or Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Often, Peter will barricade himself behind the pile of pillows while he watches all that baking going on.

The bed has looked like this since 2001. We bought it when Kevin and April were getting married. Kevin’s bedroom at our house was pretty small, and this was the solution for two sleepers in that cramped space. I made the blue cover, brown dust ruffle, and pillow covers.

I looked at it recently and thought, Maybe it’s time for a change.

 

That quilt’s been lying at the end of the bed for a few years. The blue comforter is pretty heavy, but, the person who’s sleeping on the trundle bed, at the floor level, might need some heavier bedding. That’s what the quilt’s been for. So, now, I’m going to have to rustle up some additional covering(s) for the lower level sleeper. I have more quilts. And blankets.

I like this new look in the room. Sometimes, even as small a change as a different bed cover and pillow covers can make a new resolution to keep things neater and better organized. This is where I typically dump library books that I’ve checked out. Hmmm. Where did I put those library books?

 

 

Even as I’m writing all this, I realize that I have all these books that I’ve not looked at for years. Some of them are treasured books that I sometimes revisit. Some of them are books that I used in class when I taught at our community college, years ago, which I am unlikely to ever want or need to keep. What if I cleaned out the unloved, unneeded books and made a place to keep library books that I’ve checked out.

And done

Then he said to the crowd, “Don’t be greedy! Owning a lot of things won’t make your life safe.”

Luke 12:15 (Contemporary English Version)
I’m trying.
 And, seriously, when I looked up “refurbish” at Dictionary.com, I got: “verb (used with object) to furbish again; renovate; brighten: to refurbish the lobby,” which means they’d like me to look up “furbish” also.