There Is A Time

There was a time when the internet was new and exciting to me, now that I'm older it has become exactly what I choose to make of it. There is a conscious decision we have to make to avoid drama and trolls and anonymous adults behaving as if they're stuck in kindergarten. Sometimes watching people treat each other as badly as they do can be painful. Ignoring it becomes easier when there's something going on offline that passes for a real life.

Having a real life is harder when there are physical limits. The days when partying and dancing until dawn on a weekend night were a regular thing, have passed for me. That's a good thing. I'd need a month to recover from them if I did. It took me awhile to accept that life is a little bit slower when one is older. I used to regret those nights when I was stuck at home watching my very tired husband fall asleep on the couch almost immediately after supper. I thought we should be doing something or going somewhere, now I'm just grateful that he's here .

Now I don't have to be in a hurry. I can move slower and breathe in the scent of newly mown lawn. I can listen to the crickets or the breeze rustling the tree leaves. I can contemplate the changes of the seasons without the stress of wondering how I'm going to go here or there in winter. I can go where and when I choose to go without pressure of having to be someplace at a specific time.

It was when I began to take better care of me and stop to smell the roses that I realized this was my time. This was when I can explore new things, listen to genres of music that I don't ordinarily listen to. Which is how I found "There Is A Time".

I have faced the fact that this aging body of mine isn't quite as capable of doing all the things it used to do. I've torn a rotator cuff and will require therapy to strengthen it and to free the shoulder that is trying to freeze up. This too shall pass and I will learn how to pace myself to avoid it happening again in the future.

There is a time for quiet enjoyment of a good book, the purr of a contented cat and I am there.

Written With A Smile On my Face And Joy In My Heart

I started getting miserable with myself because I made a schedule last night and I might as well not have since I didn't stick to a bit of it. I was silently ranting at myself when I stopped to look out the open door at the chipmunk standing on the deck post chirping away. I told him to shut up which caused him to try flying when he obviously isn't capable. I thought at first that he'd hurt himself but he appears to be fine now, if the speed at which he ran away is any indication.

I didn't tell him to shut up to be mean. I was thinking about the location of the Precious Kitteh, killer of all things smaller than he is. Had Precious been any where around, Mr Chipmunk would have lost the ability to chirp loudly and incessantly. He would have been silenced and left on my deck as an offering the way every other such offering has been. Mice, moles, rats, voles and a squirrel have all found their final resting place on the wooden floor of my deck. Left there as breakfast for the humans who take care of him, I suppose. Unappreciated, by me anyway, payment for food and shelter. I'm quite sure he isn't paying for the vet trips and the shots to keep him free of the many ailments cats can catch.

I'd rather keep him in the house but am unable to until we can devise a way of allowing him freedom from the resident bully cat. I ignored his request to be let out for a bit the other day and was treated to the sounds of 2 cats having a set to with fur flying. Don't know who started it, but I have 2 alpha males and the only way to have peace is when Precious is sleeping. Precious comes in when he needs protecting from the elements, food, a soft place to sleep and cuddles. Outside he's a free spirit with a lust for adventure.

We had a little wind damage to the roof.last week. Husband sets up the ladder, climbs up to inspect and decide what he needed. Came down and into the house for something and when he went back out, Precious was on the roof. When my husband was done he decided he'd grab the kitty to bring him back down but he had to bring down the other things he took up there first. When he turned around to go back up, here came Precious down the ladder. Head first from rung to rung just like he did this every day of his life.

When I let him out I always tell him to behave himself and come home early. From what I can see, he always behaves himself according to his principles but he comes home when he's darn good and ready. Unless it's raining, or snowing or seriously hot or cold out there, he's in his element and I've learned to accept that there's not much I can do about that right now, and maybe not ever.

This reminds me I really, really need to clean the desk off and file the paperwork. There's not as much of it there today as there was when I took this picture. It would be easier to organize right now since there's less of it and Precious Kitteh is outside in the sun exploring his universe. At least he is until time for dinner. Mr Chipmunk lives to chirp another day and I'm blessed to have experienced a great day. Even if I didn't get much done.

Snipping Beans And Talking To My Cat

Lately all the drama online has made me want to dig a hole and climb into it. Between the shenanigans and idiots at my other blogsite and the politics of the day, I'm fed up and in some ways bored with it. It's gone on long before I drove onto the information superhighway and it will be still go on long after I'm nothing but ashes in a container somewhere. I'm trying not to be judgmental but can someone explain to me how, after 8 years of President Obama, people who love guns still have them despite their insistence that he's coming for their guns? All the facepalms, eye rolls and side eyes in the world won't begin to measure the depths of my disgust at the sheer unadulterated stupidity of that one. But that's none of my business.

I am so over sitting in front of my screen trying to find people of sense that I'm actually doing work like things to occupy myself. I actually have a half bushel of beans all snipped, blanched, packaged and in my freezer. One quarter, so far, of yellow wax beans and one quarter of the Italian Romano or Roma beans that I love. I have a half bushel of regular green beans on order and will be getting another round of the Roma and yellow wax to freeze. This bowl of yellow wax gave me 5 quarts of goodness and today's Roma beans another 5.

Once the middle of October rolls around I will have beans, squash, sweet potatoes, spinach, swiss chard, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, peppers, carrots and any other root veggies that I can find at the farm markets in my freezer. I've already done the strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. I'm going to add peaches, plums, grapes and applesauce. Home made applesauce which given the price of apples is going to break the bank because I want lots of it.

The decision to do this is due to the listeria scare that happened toward the end of the past winter. If I can do all this, why am I wasting time buying food from a factory farm that is susceptible to food borne bacteria? By the time that recall was over, almost every prepackaged frozen vegetable in my freezer had to be disposed of.

I probably could get a better price if I bought by the bushel, the problem with that is my body wouldn't be able to lift it into my vehicle and out of it to be carried into the house, Then I'd have to work harder to get it put up than I do just buying half a bushel at a time.

I like yellow squash and zucchini but that gets watery in the freezer so I'm just using the yellow squash. Will add butternut and acorn squash as the weather cools. I read that if you pierce butternut squash and bake it in the oven, all you have to do is cut it, scoop out the seeds and then it can be frozen. Same with acorn and buttercup squash although those have real hard shells so you cut and scoop before baking. The yield from these was 3 quarts so I need to buy more this weekend.

With everything I'm doing during the day now, I'm not being aggravated by the people who are choosing to be right instead of kind. I'm moving, building strength, sleeping like a baby nights and waking up excited to see what I'll find at the market or the farmstand today.

During the hours I'm working my supervisor lays on the floor just out of the way of my feet to watch what I'm doing and to listen to me talk or sing to the music I'm listening to. When I take a break he climbs into my lap and gives me lots of purrs and cat hairs. So far none of the hairs have made it into the produce. He doesn't seem to care that I don't sing very well. Work seems to fascinate him. He can lie down right beside it and watch. And play with whatever falls on the floor.