Flowers, Herbs and Stuff

I've been out watering the flowers and herbs. They all look good considering the heat they have endured. If not for all the watering most of them would be dead. Some of the herbs are going to seed, which makes them look scraggly, but is necessary if I want them to come back next spring. A few things will have to spend the winter in the house, I hope I'm up to that task. They will get lights and bows for Christmas, looking very festive. Maybe the Christmas cactus will bloom. Why did Christmas come to mind!!

A storm is brewing, more later. I love a storm!!

No Sleep

No sleep for me tonight, even with medicine. It's after 1 in the morning and my eyes just won't close.

I stay awake a lot, stay awake when I need sleep so badly.

Often I stay awake because I fight sleep, even when I want to go to sleep. Maybe I don't like my dreams. What are they trying to tell me? Sometimes I think the dreams are telling me to do things I know I should do and other times they are telling me to do things I am certain I want to ignore. Rarely can I remember enough of a dream to write anything. I guess I should just jot down the fragments and wait to see if they will come together and tell me a whole dream.

The best sleep I ever get is napping just after I get out of bed in the morning.

Morning

After a really long time, I'm back to this journal. The blog seems too much trouble this morning. It is much cooler outside so cooler in the house as well. I have plants that must go in the ground and a broken tomato plant that needs to be sadly discarded.

I loved last night's storm. I was in Owensboro on my was to Lowe's. All manner of debris was blowing over the parking lot, filling my eyes and nose full of dust and no telling what. I just got a few sprinkles before I got in the building. Every time the doors opened (which was every time a person walked near them) the wind blew light bulbs off the shelf where they met with quite a shock when they hit the floor. Store flyers were actually flying. The storm raged on outside as I ambled around. I love the sound of a storm, the way it makes the hair raise on the back of my neck. I'm not afraid of storms, in fact I love them. But there it a tiny element of the unknown. I imagined what it would be like if the building collapsed although I knew it wouldn't. I thought I would be among the plants if it happened, if the roof and walls suddenly fell toward me. Or in the chandeliers, their bulbs all dark with no electricity to give them light. If my shopping basket wasn't full of plants I could turn my basket upside down and get under it. It might protect me, it might not. I'll never know.

Eating

I want to eat all the time, even when I'm not hungry. Kristin, Elizabeth, & Leah are here, all asleep in the living room. Later I'll take them upstairs to sleep.

I need to sleep. Leah will be chipper when she wakes and she will also want me to be chipper.

Staying busy with the girls help me keep my anxiety in check and keep me out of the bed.

Olivia & John Michael will be here Friday. Leah and Olivia will have fun playing.

I'm reading THE HISTORY OF LOVE by Nicole Krauss.  "...I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off."

 

Susan

It's just after midnight. Susan's birthday is just passed. Most of her birthdays were spent in this house. I didn't see her on this birthday but my heart was with her. I made her sad on some of them but mostly happy. The sad times I regret, the happy times I treasure. A mother shouldn't make a child sad, or leave their side. I wish I could replace the lost times but it can't be. It makes the present more urgent. Saturday I'll have both my children and all of my grandchildren in the house. The house doesn't age when at least one of them is here. When they all leave it settles back into real time. It's timeless in these early morning hours, John Michael is asleep in Susan's old room and I'm awake in his.

sick

http://www.lnstar.com/mall/literature/rls/LandofCounterpane.htm   I've been sick in bed all day and night. I coughed most of last night and a lot of today. I've been trying to think of this poem and it finally came to me and I found it right off through google. I have it downstairs or up here maybe. But I seem to have lost contact with the world outside this room, even this bed. Now I can take the computer to bed as well as books. And of course at least one cat in bed with me most of the time. I could live like this for days. Somebody would finally bring me something to eat. When I was little and sick in bed, Mama or Daddy would read to me, actually I was read to every day and night. I don't remember a life without stories. Tonight I'm not sure if I'm living in a story or this is real life. The book I read today has corrupted my brain. Somehow I like it corrupted, closed in this little room. Yet the world at my computer screen. During the daylight hours I could see the birds and squirrels eating. I guess the squirrels sleep in the red building. I see them go in there, they know the food is there when I don't keep it replenished in the feeders. I've left all the wrappings there, woodpecker snack, berry punch suet, black oil sunflower seeds. If I don't gather them for the trash it will be record of what they ate this winter. Or spring winds will scatter them all over the yard. Bits and pieces will catch in the weeds in the herb beds. I haven't touched them for two years. So the herbs and wild flowers are under there if I want to find them. But then I would have to leave this room. From here I can pretend to see the herbs and never know the difference. Does it really matter?

no children

There are no children in the house tonight, which makes me sad. It's too quiet. I like their noises and movement. They will all be here Saturday. I always say I'm going to make pictures and rarely do. I'll make a specail effort this weekend.

It's cold and rainy. It matches my mood. Coughing my head off.

I'm reading The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of books. I didn't read them from the beginning but decided to read them after a recommendation from Jeanie. She was right, as always. Now I can't read them fast enough.