Looking back with Lot's Wife

We accidentally drove to Levan Thursday.  I say accidentally because we didn't know it was there, but we wanted to go on the old highway that parallels I-15 going south.  And like Brigadoon, it rose from the asphalt. And like Brigadoon, there was no one there.   It was 4 in the afternoon and we drove around the whole town and finally saw one old man out on the front porch of a really huge house.  Possibly four of the surrounding houses would have fit into it.  He waved, so we knew he wasn't a prop. Then we found another grumpy old man fooling around in his yard in the time honored manner of grumpy old retired men fooling around everywhere in the garage or the yard.  He decidedly didn't wave.  Clearly the man with the big house was happier with things.   Finally we heard the laughter of children and followed it.  It was like a horror movie where you hear the merry trills of children playing and you search around the empty buildings i...

A Hobbit Reveals Herself It’s time for the plant catalogues to start coming in. It didn’t mean much a few years ago but now that gardening is officially a hobby (or in other words, Time Filler) I’m pouring over them like they were scriptures.  If I poured over scriptures like I should.   Which I don’t, but should, since the reality of their central theme is getting closer.   Mom and Dad in the early eighties living the life style that allowed them to wear dress ups.   Here are my hobbies:  cooking, reading, researching heath websites in order to extend my life, exercising sporadically (frankly the health research is taking up some of that time), playing the piano, trying to learn French, calling my kids and planning visits to them, visiting with friends, and last but not least, gardening.   Oh, and I run errands.   I love errands.  Errands can be checked off and stacked up as accomplishments.  But they’re usually not t...

This is what 20 Thanksgiving dinners will buy you: a wash and wear tablecloth with a wild print you could slaughter the turkey on with no change in the pattern; non-red candles that don't stain when they drip; and a bowl of mini-pumpkins you grew yourself because you saw them at 2 for $5 last year and vowed that would never happen to you again.  Experience counts!

We drag our fire pit out to the front porch and wait like spiders for small children to come to us.  At least, that's what it feels like at our house for Halloween.   This year Clay helped pick out our Halloween candy.  As many wives of retired husbands find, having dad come with to Walmart is an alien experience.  It's losing control, it's having someone pay attention to something you've had to do most of your life that everyone just assumed you would take care of.  The biggest compliment was from Billy at 15 or so: "Mom, I just noticed we never run out of toilet paper."  So sweet, so thoughtful.   Having a husband with opinions in a grocery store is like meeting someone from a foreign country and finding out you both have a few ideas in common.  Like chocolate being the only real candy choice.  I've always felt a little guilty about picking out only chocolate because it's not the cheapest.  I think I've probably felt g...

Phony Marge pretending to like me Happy Brit on the way to Sardinia.  I want to live in a British catalogue.   I don’t need to be tall and skinny. I don’t want to pay for the clothes—I have a pretty good idea of what they would look like on me.   But I want to be standing by a wet stone wall by a grey sea in my 100 percent lambs wool coat ($1810) or walking down a London street in front of a 600 year old building in my colorful dress looking like I’ve just popped out of my flat, going to Sardinia for the weekend.   (Not actually sure where Sardinia is.   Don’t want to spoil the illusion looking it up.) (Don’t ruin it for me.) I don’t want to live in the Land’s End catalogue.   Land’s End clothes are designed to show how responsible you are.   Holding a glass of wine at the family Christmas party.   Phony Aunt Marge who pretends to like you but is going to talk about your divorce the minute to turn your back . ...

    Just love these combs from France!  Magic from plastic. Some people love shoes, some Ray Bans, I love combs

I'm trying to organize my digital photos and I ran across a suggestion that I do it by theme instead of the chronological method I've been using! It's like finding out I really do look better in sweat pants and baggy t-shirts with dirty hair!   I download so seldom that when a file says "2012" I never know if that means the year I got around to loading it onto the computer or the year I took the picture.  It's like looking at all your fat pictures all at once.  The guilt is just too much to deal with.  And guilt is a powerful asset when you don't really want to do something.  Guilt makes me want to go see what we have taped on TV from last night.   So now, if everyone is eating chocolate from a basket, it goes in Easter.  If there's a tree in the background, it's Christmas.  And if we're wearing shorts, it's summer vacation.  Easy peasy.