...Growing old together

makes me kind of sad Mike and I won't...

Ps: My nephew Colin is in the yellow jersey!

Spring Fever...

Ok, I know I must be feeling better...cuz I'm listening to music again! Spring...renewal...dancing round the living room alone? Well, not quite there yet but I am going to see Steve Forbert tomorrow at Jammin' Java and I am well, excited!

Steve Forbert.com

My front yard is full of violets--not really a yard, too shady to grow grass, so I have put down slate stone and transplanted violets from a neighbors yard and kyped moss from anothers and well it looks kinda nice, green--cool-- and mossy!



And I have a new friend...someone in a caregiving field, like me; who has suffered the death of a spouse, like me; who writes prose and poetry and knows about dreams never realized, like me. Somehow that feels like Spring...a kind of rebirth, just by saying Hello...

Spring Flowers, be gone April Showers...

I tell people that I don't have a green thumb and that I can't even grow stuff that grows next to a freeway! So, I resort to plastic, silk and otherwise artificial forms of greenery. Inside the house, it's mostly because the cats would eat, spill, destroy anything alive. Outside, well, I nurture my cats well, but just don't have the time to nuture plant life.

So, I may be the only person you know who has plastic herbs in her strawberry pot, and fake Aloe Vera in her bathroom, and very realistic Chickens & Hens in her living room, and realistic flowers in her kitchen windowsill. Before this sounds so trashy, or "plastic doilie-like", I do get high end fakery, and here's some proof...







Ps: I do have a few living plants outside...Rosemary, bush roses, mint and catnip, but they are very low maintenance, hence they survive me ignoring them. They haven't come to life quite yet, so the last 3 photos are of honest-to-goodness real, springtime daffodils, grape hyacinth and forsythia in other peoples gardens!











Ps: I am not a gardener, but have many gardening bloggie friends...you will enjoy this site, A Blog of Note!
Mr Brown Thumb

Moving Forward...

Kate, over at Blogging is my Only Vice had two posts on her blog today that got me thinking and then writing. The first one was an old journal post from 2002, shortly after her husband died. Their life together was rough, but not without it's good times. I can tell from her words, that we all must go through that period after losing someone.


We gather, change, hope and as I often say, slog on. I was very touched by her final words "I like to post these old thoughts for those that might be lacking in hope".

I guess I have thought I was doing ok, because I didn't feel hopelessness...but I will have to say, I am lacking in hope...That being said, today I did make some headway in digging into the disarray in the basement, but only because I was forced to. I had some painting going on upstairs and was more or less prisoner in the basement...so i sort of got my ass kicked into doing something (and I'm happy to say, it wasn't just sitting in front of the computer this time). Then I bbq'd a steak, had all the sour cream and bearnaise sauce I wanted, along with a nice Portuguese Red wine (my folks lived in Portugal for many years, so Portuguese wines are very sentimental to me somehow).

I sat out on my deck (nice, as it's before the skeeters come out in droves), at my new little tiled cafe table I found on sale a few weeks ago (and the guy at the register said "Oh, I wanted to get that...it so said "Summer!"...that's what I thought.


Those moments are bittersweet for me...I thought of the conversation Mike and I might be having. And I thought of a conversation me and some dreamed of new love in my life might have sometime in the future. But I did sigh a lot and just decided to enjoy the food and the wine and the view and leave it at that.

The other post on Kate's blog made me smile. That was a "lively' video performed by Christopher Walken! I just had to laugh, because, for one thing...he sort of reminds me of Mike. To which Mike always used to reply "I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass one day!" That was me, saying "I'm not really attracted to you" when we first started dating.



Christopher Walken is like that to me, sort of too craggy, a little intimidating, not soft like I used to like my men. And when I saw him dancing...I just had to grin, as he has some of the same moves as M did...all the while me saying "Why can't you Cha Cha" instead of taking up the whole dance floor...

So, with Spring here, my motivation having kicked in.. I recently read on someones blog, how clutter really affects us emotionally and I have finally had enough of feeling that way! I hope to make April a good, full, fruitful month...that's how I feel this Sunday anyway.

Ps: We have babies (kittens) due on April 15th...new life and love will abound!