Confessions of a Grandma

Woohoo.  Monday morning there was a spot of sunshine.  I put on my Nikes right away and went out for my walk.  I headed south and the air was chilly but still pleasant.  I had worn a hat and mittens along with my winter jacket zipped up to the scarf around my neck.  After walking for about a mile and a half, I was warm enough to pull my mittens off and loosen up the scarf.  In a few minutes, I looped back in a northerly direction to return home.  The sun disappeared.  The wind started to blow.  It was a most uncomfortable trek back with my hat pulled down and the scarf and jacket collar pulled up, mittens back in place, pace definitely ramped up.  I felt tricked somehow. Then in the afternoon I did my volunteer gig at the library.  I was wearing a light sweater, but it wasn’t enough.  My hands were numb by the time I got home.  I made a quick supper of egg, cheese, and avocado sandwiches because I had to go back to the ...

The trees are mostly bare as I write this and we are expecting lots of wind from Frankenstorm Sandy over the next few days so I suspect they will be completely bare by the time I get around to posting this. however, there are a few individual trees around that are in full regalia.  There were three maple trees next to the Vermont Meat and Seafood Market where I shopped yesterday.  The were all a brilliant orangey red.  When I parked my car outside the store, I noticed that there were two Japanese tourists taking pictures.  She had a fancy (meaning very high-tech looking) camera and he had a movie camera.   She was slowly walking around one of the trees, snapping away all the while.  He as sitting on the ground tossing up handfuls of leaves and filming as the fluttered back down.  They were still there when I came out of the store, still clicking and filming. Sometimes it is really a good thing to have a reminder.  The awesome beauty is r...

The Vermont fall color on our road is definitely past peak, but I still like the metallic hues that linger the longest. For me, this is about as decorated for fall as a yard ought to be.  My yard is not even this seasonal this year. Although…I have given a nod to the season inside my house. That’s it.  The whole show. This picture represents only about one fifth of the Halloween décor in this particular yard.  I don’t know the home owners so I can’s say anything.  However, it was my house, I would be spending time putting siding over the tyvek wrapping instead of putting on all the holiday displays.  (All right, so I did say something.) I pass this barn often and I always notice the yellow cat painted in the window.  This time I snapped a picture of it. Later in my walk, three deer went racing across the road about fifty yards in front of me.  So fast!  There was no chance of getting a picture of them, but I realized why it is no...

It is autumn according to the calendar—even here in sunny/rainy Florida where the humidity reached 100% a couple of days ago and the “feels like” temperature was 100 today, until a cold front moved through and dropped it down to the 70’s. Now you may think that Florida is tropical, land of always summer.  But let me tell you that there are seasons here.  It is clearly fall and the deciduous trees know it.  It is time for their leaves to lose the green, turn color (weak yellow mottled with brown tho’ it may be) and fall to the ground.  I have proof: frangipani and: crape myrtle   I have been looking at so many pictures of the fall color in northern states and hearing so many questions about why we would miss the Vermont foliage season that I just had to show that leaves do change here too.  Okay, maybe the look is more diseased than brilliant color, but it is the same concept.  They turn and fall off.   When we come back for our...

We will be taking off for a month in Florida, leaving this coming Saturday.  This will be our first trip without having to pack every square inch of the car with clothes and other supplies.  I have started some garden clean up and I will work on that during the week.  It is kind of interesting that so much is still growing and blooming though.  We have not had a frost. The tomato plants want to reach to the roof. Peppers are still going strong. There are even blooms on the pepper plant.  Talk about optimism! All the annuals are looking pretty colorful amidst the faded perennials. The green shoots are grape hyacinths. Phlox the only perennial that has not completely given up, although the rudbeckia put up a valiant fight. I am quite sure there will be some serious weeding to do once we get to Venice as well.  Last winter we concentrated on getting the house furnished and decorated inside.  This year I want to spend more effort on the ou...

It is that time year once again—just keeps circling around, doesn’t it.  A tinge of fall is in the air. VT had a real summery kind of summer this year with plenty of sunshine and plenty of warm temperatures, even warm nights.  Inevitably, though, that has to change and this morning the thermometer read in the 40’s.  Since I was still running a slight fever yesterday (from that nasty stomach virus) I had been alternating heat waves with shivering episodes.  I was shivering when I got ready for bed so I was dressed warmly and I slept through the night—a blessing indeed. There are spots here and there of the trees in their changing process.  This tree is across the road from my house.  It used to be that I was thrown into a depressive episode at a sight like this in mid-August.  I actually like the fall, but that first hint of it would always feel like a knife impinging on my soul. Since retirement, this seasonal depression has not been so strong....

Do you have difficulty adjusting to the time change?  What is the purpose of this fiddling around with the clocks again?  They say it is a lost hour.  Well, it's a heck of a lot more lost time than that.  Every single *%#@ electronic appliance has a clock on it.  The car clock needs to be changed.  Then, of course, there are the actual clocks.  Every single one of these time pieces has a different method of modifying the time.  Some are pretty obvious, others require finding manuals and then locating the time setting procedure somewhere within.  No wonder I feel a bit wobbly and lost today. Fortunately for us, we are the organized types who know exactly where to find the owner's manuals to everything we have in the house.  Unfortunately for us, we will have to go abut setting clocks once again when we get back to Vermont. I am the queen of three ring binders and plastic page protectors.

Google image I have had my battles with depression.  Seasonal Affective Disorder?  Yeah, I know all about that. I tried a number of times to get my health insurance company to pay for a February trip to the Caribbean, but I found out they are just not nearly as committed to prevention as they claim to be.  Can't they see a savings from not having to reimburse all those antidepressants? Short-sightedness...that's what is wrong with this country's health care system. My seasonal blips seem to be more about a period of change.  I get anxious when I feel that summer is going to give way to fall.  Then I adjust to fall but get anxious again when it is turning dark and wintry.  Of course I get the most down when it is time for winter to change to spring and it just isn't happening in the cycle of Vermont seasons.  It's the lack of change for the better that gets to me. This year has had my head spinning.  We made three trips to Florida....

Whew...a long trip home.  Under the most ideal of conditions, the trip between Venice and Jericho is every second of 24 hours.  We split up the trip over three days.  It is doable in two days, but then we find ourselves out of it for another two--so best to just take it a bit slower. When we find a place to spend the night, I run the bed bug routine.  Strip the sheets from the bed.  Inspect along the seams.  Wait for the whole body itch that starts in my head to subside.  It's pretty worrisome.  I have not ever found  bed bugs, but I have found places that are way too grimy.   At this point, though, we have made the trip enough so that we pretty much stay in the same places along the way and know the places to avoid.  And sometimes, "Under New Management" doesn't mean any improvements were made. The drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia was our best taste of fall this year.  It was clear and sunn...

Just a couple of weeks ago we sat on the deck and admired the green, green, green of summer in Vermont.  Alas, already it is changing.  Warm temperatures are still predicted for the weekend, but the signs are there.  Trees are starting to become tinged with yellow.  The setting sun has moved to the south and says its "good-night" much earlier.  There is a chill in the night air that just was not there a while ago.  The crickets are full on singing.  There is definitely a while to go before summer is over, but the signs of its fading are upon us. Autumn in Vermont is a beautiful season, but there is something about the transition period that has always left me feeling melancholy.  Here, winter settles in like ursine hibernation.  Spring slithers chameleon-like between winter and summer.   Summer arrives like one of those choreographed flash dances.  I guess it is the only season that gives warning.  That bothers me. Mo...

The neighbors' lovely woodland garden at rest for the winter.  This is what we call a sunny November day here in Vermont.   This is what remains of the gorgeous autumn color. The mountain is both cloud and snow covered. It's the time of year when we really notice the darkness.  The gardens are covered with their blankets of mulch, asleep for the winter.  The skies are mostly steely and grey.  There is a quietness all the more noticeable from the ruckus of the occasional flock of honking geese making their trip to their winter homes.  Perhaps when ours was a more agrarian society, it was easier to sense the rhythms of Nature and embrace this time of year as the time of much needed rest for both body and soul.  That is the way of Nature, after all, that all living things need a period of rest and renewal.  So I am not going to curse the darkness.  I am going to light a small candle for my intentions. leaf through a spiritual se...

We did the tourist thing the other day and drove some distance, yet these are pictures I snapped on my walk today. It was cool--although putting on my winter jacket may have been a bit of an over reaction.  It was sunny with fluffy white clouds -- a picture book illustration sky. I think that I have now canned the last of the tomatoes.  We had cheese and mushroom stuffed pasta shells for supper last night with no tomato sauce.  I was cleaning out my fridge -- assorted odds and ends of cheeses, a handful of mushrooms that didn't get used the other day.  Add a fresh baguette, a green salad, and a glass of red wine and we had ourselves a feast. That is really the problem with fall.  You start wanting rich and substantial meals from the oven.  That and the local fall produce--apples, pumpkins, squash--lend themselves way too easily to dessert applications. 

The sun is setting further to the south each night.  It has definitely lost intensity, and nights, especially, are cooler.  Darkness closes in much sooner than it did just a few weeks ago.  I dread turning the clocks back, but not the way I used to.  I don't have to venture out in early morning or late afternoon any more if I don't want to. It has been less than a month since we were at the beach in Rhode Island, where it seemed like summer would just last forever.  In the gardens, plants so recently lush and thriving are fading fast.  The work there now is cleaning up and bedding down for the cold months ahead. After five years of being retired, I suddenly find that I am not attuned to the school year.  The sight of the school bus dropping off the boy next door takes me by surprise.  It used to be that September was the real New Year.  Now autumn slips in a bit more gently. The scent of apples a tad past ripe gets me thinking...

Vermont summer is generally regarded to happen between Memorial Day and Labor Day, which makes this the last day of summer no matter what the calendar says.  And the weather today was certainly cooperating with that bit of folk wisdom.  Mike says it's as though someone just flips a switch.  I'm sure we will have more nice days, but after the record heat of the past week, it does seem fallish today. My hour of garden work turned into three hours of weeding, rearranging, and digging.  I have some plants to divide so I need to dig more garden space so I'll have a place to put them.  The thing of it was that I wasn't drenched and blinded by sweat mixed with sun block so I just didn't realize how long I was working out there.  Now I'll have to cut back on some other part of my day.  The library is closed today and I think the digging takes the exercise place of my usual Monday walk there.  Mike will just have to take on supper because ...

Snow has been falling gently all day. It hasn't amounted to much on the ground, but it has kept us inside and concentrating on the packing that needs to get done before we leave for warmer, sunnier climes. Winter weather was actually late in arriving this year and we got none of the big storm that went up the coast last weekend. We probably won't be so winter weary when we leave. Tomorrow may warm up a bit--get all the way into the 20's--so it might be a good chance to get out for a quick ski. Fresh air and exercise would be a good antidote for the Christmas cookie and candy bloat that has taken hold. It would be nice to sit in the car for the long ride coming up and actually be able to keep my pants buttoned up. Let's just say this has not been a good week for that diet I never started anyway. "Good thing New Year's Resolutions are coming up," (she said once again demonstrating her inner dieter's incredible talent for self-delusional fantasy ).

Cold, cold, cold today! And busy, busy--traffic every where. Don't people have JOBS they should be doing in the middle of the day in the middle of the week?? Really, those holiday shoppers so interfere with my stress-free shopping on a weekday. Have they no respect for the retired? I mean I rarely venture into the shops on the weekends, holding up lines while I begin to count out my change, rummaging my wallet out of my bag just after the entire order is totalled up. If that's going to annoy you on a weekday, stay home! Wrapping is mostly done. Martha Stewart would blanch and faint, or at least pucker her lips in a righteous moue, I'm sure. I put gifts in white boxes, tied a ribbon around the box and pasted on the cut out fronts of old Christmas cards with "to" and "from" written on. It's not that I was too cheap to buy wrapping paper and gift tags; I was going for environmentally friendly. Yeah, that's it--environmentally friendly, cutting...

I read a letter to the editor yesterday by a guy who was outraged when he hears store clerks and bank tellers wish shoppers, "Happy Holidays." I witnessed a man returning a box of cards his wife had purchased at the stationery shop because they referred to "Holidays." Apparently, there is some movement to boycott Old Navy and Gap stores because their TV ads mention Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and solstice. Christmas is being squeezed out. Personally, I don't react to greetings of "Happy Holidays" in a negative way. It seems to me that people were wishing each other "Happy Holidays" long before any concept of political correctness. When I was growing up I had never heard of solstice or Kwanzaa and had only the vaguest awareness of Hanukkah. "Happy Holidays!" was meant to cover Christmas through New Year's Day. If anything, I guess it was more efficient than saying (or writing), "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." You save four...

Winter hasn't forgotten us after all. We have had dustings of snow for the past two days, and for tonight the prediction is for a snow, ice, rain, high winds, and other general weather related mayhem. All it took, apparently, was for me to start planning the Christmas get-together for my family. Now I can worry that the weather will ruin the day. Just like with Mike's family Thanksgiving get-together, there is reason for a certain amount of sadness this season. My sister's husband will be starting chemo for the return of his cancer. Nieces and nephews have scattered across the country and one brother is is North Carolina from November through May now, so we won't be seeing him and his wife for the holidays. One nephew has just left for Indiana with the Vermont National Guard, possibly on the way to Afghanistan. I don't think I am the kind of person who resists any kind of change, but not all changes are easy to accept. My own grandmother used to say, quite f...

PhotoXpress The unseasonably warm weather has continued right into the beginning of December. Today was actually record-breaking warm with temperatures into the 50's. Yesterday we drove down to deliver the Advent banners to the grand children. I got a bit of grand children fix and Mike went to visit a couple of his friends from the motorcycle world so it was pleasant all the way around. Today, I dragged out some Christmas decorations. I have cut way back--no longer decking out every room in the house--but it is nice to have the candle lights in the front windows and some wreaths hanging at the door. Since we head out for Florida right after Christmas, I now thing about the "putting away"as much as the preparations. In fact, I would be happy with just a table top tree, one that I could plant in the back, but Mike still likes the big tree in the living room. We live near a huge tree farm (or two), so it is kind of an easy purchase. We'll probably go cut a fr...

I have completed--in time!!--the Advent Calendars for Kristen and Dane. I started this last year. Well, no. Actually, I had given Kristen an Advent Calendar a couple of years ago--one of those with a chocolate treat behind each door--but their dog, Chopper, ate the whole thing by the second day of December. (Chocolate, foil wrap, paper calendar, the WHOLE thing) Last year I made two banners with pockets and button hangers and ribbon ties and tucked or fastened twenty-four little gifts for both the kids. I was thinking it would teach counting skills and patience as well as ease some of the "I can't wait" tension. It was pretty successful, I think. I also think that Amy and Marty (my daughter and her husband ) got as much of a kick out of it as the kids did. Anyway, it was fun to do, and they looked forward to going downstairs each morning and finding the date so they could get that day's treat. I refilled them this year. Crayons, pencils, notepads, toy dinosaurs or fun...