Living Alone and Loving It

 

Mercy Me!

I opened my eyes this morning and through a blur I tried to focus on the digital clock nearby. Surely that couldn't be right but it was! 

It was 10 o'clock. 

Living alone is something some people hate, others relish it and you might say that I am one of the relishers. I've never minded being alone. There are times when I'd much rather have my own company than that of some people I know. And, goodness knows, I've spent many, many years giving to others,  being there for them and now I guess you might say that I am selfish. I 'relish' those times when I can do pretty much darn well what I please. It's freeing. it's exhilarating. 

So, how does a person live alone and enjoy it! 

1. You can do whatever you like. You are the boss, the CEO of your kingdom.

2. You don't have to do dishes every day. The sink holds quite a collection until you run out of clean silverware.

3. You can eat whatever you want, when you want. Or not. 

4. Bedtime doesn't have to be when someone else says they are sleepy. Heck, you can go to bed at six if you want to, or stay up all night long. Have an all night party, one invited.

5. If you don't want to get dressed, you can wear your jammies all day

6. You can watch whatever you wish on tv. I wouldn't suggest scary  movies... remember you are alone, the boogie man might get you.

7. If you want a pet, fine. If you want 10 pets that's alright but just be sure they don't wander over to the neighbors house. They might not be into pets like you are.

8. Who said you have to make your bed every morning?  It's a waste of time.. you are just going to crawl back under those covers in another few hours anyway. Use that time to do something fun.

9. There's no one who disagrees with your decisions, your politics, your religion. So, no arguments.

10. Enjoy YOUR life. You deserve it. 

Michael Stacked a Peck of Peppers

 It's Friday Favorite Foto Day!!

Today I chose a picture that is interesting in the fact that it doesn't look real. Like, I mean, how do you stack peppers. Peter Piper picked peppers but I don't believe I ever heard of him stacking them. 

But, leave it to my son who is quite the gardener. He takes after his Daddy who loved to plant and harvest. I don't know which was best at it but I sort of would lean in Michael's direction, not his Dads. 

Michael has been square-foot gardening for some years now and every year has quite a bounty to feast from. Here he is with his sister, Shirley, inspecting his veggies. 

I was visiting and he'd gone out to gather the peppers,

 

he came back on the patio and proceeded to stack three on the patio table. 

I love the different reds and greens in his display. 

Fall, a time of Joy

 Fall, to me, is a time of joy mixed with a tinge of sadness. I think the sadness comes because of the passage of time. To me that is important for I am on the downhill slide of life and I guess I want to hang onto it for as long as I can.

But...that time of joy. The heat dissipating, the changing colors, things and people in a flurry preparing for a winter which lies ahead. That all is a cause of joy. And, the birds that fly overhead in search of a warmer winter, the butterflies that take a long sip of nectar from flowers now in their passing days. It seems to be a time of preparation and also a time for reflection. I gather my 'nuggets' and store them away. those nuts of happy memories so that I might drag them out and live them again on a cold snowy day. 

Each day is filled with new discoveries and yesterday I witnessed something I had not seen on my balcony before. A Cloudless Sulphur butterfly happily sipping nectar from the last of the lantana blossoms. I got so close and watched it in awe. That memory was one of those nuggets that I definitely will pull out when I am wrapped in a warm blanket watching the winter encase us all. 

Some Missions Accomplished

 I finally found my storage box with my Fall decorations in it!! 

I don't have much. It doesn't take much these days to keep me happy. I don't need every inch of my apartment cluttered with stuff... anyway, I did a couple things. 

This is my table decoration. Yes, I know .... it's not time for the pilgrims yet but she is holding a pumpkin so I guess that counts, right? 

I made this little fall arrangement and set it atop my jewelry cabinet

There's a couple of things sitting here and there but I didn't take pictures of them. 

And, on to other stuff

I stayed awake a lot last night. I am not like most authors who plan out their books, have a notebook filled with ideas of how it will go, know the plot from beginning to end. Most of my chapters are thought out in the middle of the night, one by one. I let my inner voice take me on this writing journey. 

Well, last night I started thinking about the next chapter and hours later I had every chapter written in my head . 

I like the direction it is taking and I am quite excited to move along and get it done. But, I am not telling... not one hint. Sorry, you'll have to wait 'til it's published. 

We got little effects from the Hurricane whatever his name was that hit the coast. By the time it got to us it was just rain and not a great deal of that either. Sure feel for those closer to the coast, though. My son in north alabama wasn't hit bad either. 

I made some new snacks for my football watching on Saturday. It was Pepper Jelly Pinwheels. 

The tortillas worked fine and BTW I used 2 instead of one and it worked great. But, I wonder how they would be using crescent rolls instead of the tortillas. 

Guess that's all for this Monday Morning. Hope you have a wonderful week. 

'Tis Apple Picking Time

 Recently I was bemoaning the fact that I felt a need to perk my blog up a bit. So, I have decided to make Favorite Friday Fotos. Today happens to be Friday so I am off and running with my new idea. I wonder how long this one will last. I do tend to try new things way too much. At least, that's what my daughter says. 

                      This is my favorite photo of that day!

In October 2011, after my husband had passed away in January of that year me, Shirley, her hubby John, her daughter Brittany and Brittany's little one, Dylan drove over to the Charlottesville area of Virginia to explore Carter's Mountain. 

It was a great trip but I was so sad at the number of apples that had fallen off the trees and were just lying there rotting. I wanted to pick them up (bees and all) and bring them home to save what I could.

 They have yummy apple cider doughnuts!! 

and tons of apples to buy

And, the wee one had fun discovering his first patch of pumpkins. 

Memories Remembered

 Lovely weather!! Cool, sunny and I could live in this kind of weather forever!! 

Yesterday I conducted the second session of a Recalling Your Memories workshop here at the Commons. It's just so darn important to record what happened in your life so that your grandchildren, great-grands and so on will know where they came from and who they have as ancestors. It doesn't matter how... handwritten in a notebook, in a computer file, Recorded with your cellphone.... JUST MAKE SURE YOU DO IT. 

We actually are having fun listening to each other's childhood antics as each one reads their notebook entries. And, believe you me, there's some doozies. 

One read about a plane ride when she was young where the plane's landing gear did not deploy so they did a belly landing and had to scoot down those long slides out of the plane.

Another told of seeing a snake crawl into a hole in her flower garden so she got her husband's pistol and shot several shots into the hole hoping to kill the thing. (that was my story)

Another told of relocating a groundhog out of their yard to have it return and they did it again, same results. Guess it liked their yard. It was coming back long after they sold their house.

And, so on.....

I have a large theme binder full of pages of my and my husband's life from birth to now. I wrote down everything I could and he could remember. Our children will have a ball with that. 

My Shirley came today so we could go to lunch and she noticed some OLD letters lying on my dresser. Had a fit over them and I told her I had a whole stack of letters that me and her Dad exchanged from back in the '40s and 50s. They are all tied with a blue ribbon. She made a suggestion that I should have thought of years ago... they need to be in archival preservation.

So, I just ordered the supplies to do just that. That makes me feel good. I am doing something to preserve our past. If you think I want to be forgotten a year or two after I'm gone forget it!!  I've got proof all over the place of all the things that made me what I am today. The rest is up to those I leave behind!