A Little Wild Never Hurt

I don’t get outside as much as I want right now. And when I do, I’m usually just lounging on our outdoor furniture and trying to relax. Lately I’ve taken to bringing my writing assignments, a notebook, and pen and hanging out there to do my work. I don’t want to trap Mags in the house, so I thought this would be perfect for us. I love to hear the music of the birds singing while I work and Mags is occupied trying to see how the ants work or digging a hole or picking flowers. It’s a win-win situation for us.

One of my favorite things to do is gardening. Flower and vegetable. Mostly flower, though, because Grump gets on my last nerve with "his" garden. At any rate, I love to watch my flowers bloom and my plants thrive. I like to be out among them and am hoping to someday have a show garden that’s a little on the wild side (nothing’s perfect in my life and no way do I want it to be).  I want bunches of wild flowers mingled with lilies and hostas. I want sunny plants and shady plants. I want my yard to be a flower garden.

Unfortunately it’s a little too wild now. The last couple of days, since I’ve been “recuperating”, I’ve been out there looking around and I’ve been stressed out by the state of the grounds (ha!). There are weeds taking over everything and I can’t really get out there to do anything about it. As understanding as I like to believe my husband is at this point, he does often grumble about the state of the beds and there is NO way I’m allowing him in them to weed them.

(The last time he did that, he eliminated a couple of my favorite plants and nearly killed my 40 year-old rose bush. Lesson learned.)

I’ve been considering showing Mags what I need done, but there’s no way she’s going to cooperate the second she sees a bug. She loves, loves, loves ants. Will watch them for hours, give them names and imagine what they do in their underground “towns”. But other type of typical garden bugs are not her thing. She freaks and that’s it for her. Pee Wee, obviously, is no help as she doesn’t live in this town anymore and I rarely see her (or KJ, which is a whole other whine). I try to convince myself that my garden is as God intended with it’s wildness and the birds and butterflies and bugs. Weeds are plants too, right? Then I imagine my yard looking like one of those gardens in Better Homes & Gardens and I get irritated. I want to get up and clean it all up, but know better. I tried that before and that didn’t work out well for me at all. I really do wish that someone would take the initiative and come over to help me. Which is even funnier, because I don’t like anyone “helping” with my things because they always seem to mess it up.

In a couple of weeks things will start calming down, I hope and I’ll be able to both do my writing and my yard work in the same day. I won’t keep stopping and looking around wishing I could get something done. I can write, weed, write, water, write, rake…etc. That is something that will make me perfectly happy, I think. And a goal I’ve just set for myself.

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Coming Back

I’m still very tired, even though I spent some time out of commission. I got some good rest and was on some excellent drugs, but now it’s back to real life. I’d only recently finally started trying some minor fat burners to lose some weight, but sadly I’m back to taking only what the doctor prescribes. I’m also doing some low-impact physical therapy that is supposed to help me get back into action. So, I’m definitely getting my exercise, though not exactly the kind that is fun and inspires me to keep at it.

On a lighter note, I’ve lost some weight in the last couple of weeks and managed to quit smoking. This is good news, yes? I have lost my golden brown hue that comes with being outdoors in the spring and early summer. I can’t get outside as much as I want and there’s probably no way I’m going to get into the lake again this summer. Grump and I aren’t planning any outdoor activities over the next few weeks (just to be on the safe side) and are just playing everything by ear. It’s amazing to me that he’s actually taking my physical condition into consideration right now as usually he just poo-poos me when I’m feeling down. I think, though, that he’s come to a serious realization about the brevity of life and he wants to appreciate that time with me. About time, yes? But a little stifling. Hopefully I’ll start getting a little color back and will be able to buy some new clothes to go along with my new look.

I’ve also taken up painting again. Mags and I are doing our own art using things found in our yard. She painted a huge sandstone rock that bordered one of my (weed infested) flower beds. It’s absolutely ugly, but I love it and had it varnished. Why not? She’s 5 and she was so intent on making that rock beautiful no matter what. It will be something I treasure forever, no doubt. Pee Wee was never very artistic as far as painting and drawing are concerned (she’s a musical child) so I’ve never had that kind of interaction to such extent that I had with Mags and her rock. And so I’ve decided to foster that in her. Big and Small Lots has some canvasses on sale (smaller ones) and I’m going to go buy a bunch of them so that Mags can create something and I can finally have some wall hangings. I’ll love it.

That’s not guaranteeing that Grump will love it. He doesn’t like anything with personality, but that’s  ok. It’s our house too and he’ll just have to learn to live with it. The last few weeks have shown me that I can’t let him control so much of my life anymore. That includes what kind of artwork hangs in my house (and all these years I’ve put up with his collection his favorite band’s memorabilia). Things are definitely going to change a lot more around here. Especially when I get back into the full swing of things, am feeling and looking better, and feel like fighting. It’ll be tons of fun, I’m sure. More art, music and fun will be had. I’ll be able to do my work at home without interruption and my husband will learn that our lives don’t revolve around him like he wants.

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Mini-Vaca

You know, sometimes I wish I could just book a room for one at the Sahara hotel and take a vacation all by myself. Today is that kind of day for me. There were thunderstorms most of the day and that means that Verizon can’t keep my Internet service on. And Grump is just, well, Grump. It seems that it’s all negativity all the time.

Today he’s angry because he feels he’ll be getting this city job, but he’ll miss out on the opportunity because his plant called him back. I made him go back because if he refuses then they’ll cut off his unemployment. But this city job is not going to materialize. In February they told him that a man was going to retire at the end of March. Apparently he still hasn’t retired, but will do so in August. Well, we can’t wait around hoping for some job that might not come available. We need his income and he’s angry about that. Yes, it sucks, but that’s life. The bills have to get paid.

And while I was trying to get away from his attitude and do some of my own work, the storm hit. Well, no internet or satellite for a while and that meant I was doing the moping. I went out onto the front porch to watch the winds and rain and pretend I was somewhere else. It didn’t work very well, but I was close. Grump didn’t come out to bother me and I could pretend I was somewhere getting pampered with one of those nature CDs instead of the actual rain. It was nice for a minute.

Then the rain stopped and like all vacations, it was time to come back to real life. Things have settled down a bit here and the winds have died down, while the humidity level has gone up, but I still want that mini-vacation. Just me. In a swank hotel, getting pampered.

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