Where I've been in the silence

Hi world,

If you wonder where I've been in the last little while of silence....most of it isn't glamorous or fun per se...most of it has been at work.   My job is either like drinking from a fire hydrant full blast, or it is twiddle the thumbs and ponder the number of holes in the ceiling tiles.    I'm in full swing, fire hydrant, full blast no nonsense.   I think the last month has been a minimum of 70 hours a week.   I've also been working on a charity golf tournament and auction to support Research for Down Syndrome.  

Then of course life, and home, and step-mom, and.....lol...yeah....you get the idea. 

However, a couple days ago while talking to a friend I laughingly made a snide comment about how I should blog about my rose garden education for people who have black thumbs like me and desperately need more information, or at least the knowledge that there are others out there in the universe like me....most of my friends and family can grow stuff in their sleep with one hand tied behind their backs.    'Just plant it' doesn't work for me, for gardening advice.   I do that, the plant dies, and it's sad.   So....I've learned a lot over the trial and error of the last two years...and I should blog it.    My friend laughed.   (She was one of those born with green digits, and the growing elixir in her veins instead of blood.  She, I think, is baffled by how complicated it is for me.   She thinks about the plant, and it shoots up.  So she does her best to assist, but honestly I think I am an oddity in her universe.) 

Well, lightning struck, and yesterday...after the migraine 'please shoot me, streaming tears of misery' had cleared...I started writing.    I contemplated putting it here, but it's very easy to create a separate site, and I was in a compartmentalization mode....only time will tell if that was smart...or not....

However, if you want to take a look at what I have written and support me....here is where you can find my new, specialized blog....link below....I titled it Rivelare's Garden since this, my main blog is Rivelare and well it's still me sharing and thinking and writing...only about flowers and such :). 

http://rivelaresgarden.blogspot.com/

Enjoy...and all the best to you all... :) Drop me a line.  Despite my busyness I can usually respond to emails as long as you give me a day or so of grace and don't care if I'm writing it at 2am.

Jurried Legos---A tribute and a thank you

Note: I've worked more than 70 hours last week and more than 16 today...grammar probably is non-existent or hodge-podged together.   Apropos given the subject of the blog.  Anyway read on if you dare.

So, late last night...or early this morning...depending on how you look at it.  I call it night since it was the time between sleeps...but the clock said it was morning...

Anyway...

So last night I had some chores and projects to do and I've been working iNsAnE hours of late so if I get anything done it means cutting up that precious sleep time.   Chores are part an parcel to having a nice place to live and having clean clothes to wear...so no biggie there, just dishes, laundry, sweep, mop, fold and sort.   Projects come as part and parcel to living in a home...this is my first (of my own beyond the time in which Mom took care of everything), so as my first home it has been a novel experience.

One of my "current" projects, "current" being an ever growing and frequently changing list, is to provide a sun shade of sorts to my own root roses.   To preface this for all the non-gardeners out there...there are basically two types of roses.  Type 1- grafted, meaning new little plant has been grown on top of something that is already hardy and can pretty much withstand a lot of 'novice' handling.  This type is most common as it requires less care, and can easilyl be distributed to the mass markets.   Type 2- own root, meaning all that it has came from it's very own wee wittle seed.  This type is less common because, well like any youngling it requires attention, care, pampering, spoiling, correcting, and can be moody, etc, etc.   However, the second type is worth the fight.  (As with most things in life, what you work for and put effort into is often more rewarding and worth it.)   I have invested, yes invested, in some own root roses since purchasing my new home.    Now a lot of places will say you can't buy an own root roses from Oregon and have it survive the shock of Texas...not true...you just have to be creative and pay attention.

My roses have loved their new home, and have even bloomed several times.   Now, they are still tiny roses, even on the big plants...well because they are only 3 months old.   But my 3 month old roses are enjoying the sun, the breeze, the cedar bark, the soil, the peat....but over the last week tempertures around here have started to rise and the beginning of the Texas bake has started.   I noticed a drop in number of rose buds and so knew something was up with my toddlers.    It didn't take me much time to figure out 'heck it's hot out here!!!'   (If I put misters inside my garage I could call it a sauna.)

So I began pondering the solutions.   I came up with something and last night I was putting it together.   I was feeling profoundly glad for two things:  One - my Brothers, who played with legos as kids, and so thus did I.   Two - my Mom, who is perhaps the best Artist at jurry-rigging stuff, and who coincidently taught me without teaching me (another skill I'm woefully in awe of), that sometimes becoming an inventor is fun and comes with a little bit of duck tape, creativity, and well...may or may not work but then you try something else...so jump in and have fun with it...

I was jumping in to my project...not the first time...not really knowing the complete "plan" per se as much as the problem exists, and with a little of this and a little of that I just might have something that works...but the only way is to try it and see.  

For example...a typical home improvement dudes conversation over the last little while as I have been on some quest to find some treasure.....

Hi mam, can I help you find something?
"Um, maybe, I don't know, maybe.
What are you looking for?
"I'm not sure, but I'll know it when I see it." 

What is it your are working on? 
"Well you see I have X, and the issue is Y, and I think if I can find something like this bendy shape, of this substance, and then a connect-er-y part, and I take it and twist it like so, and do this then I can make the X do Z and...."

Then the inevitable look accompanied by the scratch of the head as if to say: "this is why women shouldn't come in here....." upon which they will usually leave me alone.  Apparently the typical employee follows instructions out of some-assembly-required furniture and has not had brothers who played with legos nor an inventor for a mother and so thus does not know what to do with someone like me let alone if my "plan" will work or fall on my head.

Anyway, I smiled last night as I sat admidst, tacky glue, duck tape, cotton balls, dowels and the lid to a tub...and thought of you all fondly.   It would have been fun to jurry-rig with you, and you were with me in spirit.  At 1:30ish am the creation went up.   Thus my tribute to you!!!!  Consider yourself toasted.

Thanks Jodus & Dylan (my brothers), I had fun creating bricked worlds with you.   Thanks Mom for showing me that rarely do you stumble upon brilliance the first time, that the learning curve can be fun...and yes, that sometimes you just have to throw the hammer for things to work.    Who knew these crucial skills would be so valuable in life?!   I owe you all more than I ever imagined.  

P.S. my roses are happier today.  I have two of them budding and a bud now in bloom.

Inauspicious

It's funny...you think a million, a billion thoughts a day...and inauspiciously one of those thoughts pops into your head and it arrests you in a millionth of a second.  It's not just a run of the mill thought, it's a story, or a poem, and it starts unfolding like a spring bud to a new season.   You stand there, the only witness, and in part you feel amazed--this story, poem, or inspiration came to you...and in part relieved--it's been a long time, and excited--because despite the fact that this is your head, you are still an accessory to this idea, this unfolding, this existence that is complete without your input, as well as transfixed...and then lastly, instantaneously aware of all that stands between you and the transcription.   Every pen, paper, or computer now stand as beacons in your spacial awareness...you and this idea, the center point, while a ticking clock jumps in to the fray to start the clock on how fast you can move from this moment to the nearest writing device...be it pen, or lipstick, or keyboard.   You also have this paralysis that occurs..because you don't want to loose this gem within you before it's ready to let you run, or you risk it becoming so much dust, a flimsy could-have-been.   So you wait, held in custody to  an idea trying to bequeath itself upon you, which snuck up on you, waltzed up and said 'hello'.  You breath in...preparing to run, while trying to capture every crystalline facet of this invader...and haunting you with the dare to try and sketch it fast enough once you're seated so that if this inauspicious sentence that ran through your brain like just another person in the subway of your streaming thoughts turns out to be much much much more than you ever imagined.   And, yet, even if it's nothing more than ten lines, or even if it's eight million lines, it is enough just as it is...and in that moment you are richer than any king, or queen.  

Today it's a soft 68 degrees, or perhaps 72.  The cool spring air is gently wafting around me and through the wind chime, there are yellow butterflies dancing across the lawn looking for flowers or clover left uneaten by the bunnies from yesterday's foraging.   In the near distance, a dove coos.  The sun is slipping between gentle white clouds, and when the sun is not playing coy it causes the fountain to run a gentle trickle (the fountain is powered with a solar panel, so the split second of a shy sun has it silenced).  I'm sitting on a rocking chair in my backyard, with my laptop and more than a zillion things that need to be done...but for this moment, this instance of humble awe, and excitement that had to be acknowledged.   I had a unambiguous slip of a thought ease into my day, a story, and it's been sooooooo very long...and it's like someone surprised me with a present.  And you open the box...and there's more in it that you ever thought, and it is an incredible thing that I do not want to take for granted. 

I'm carving out some time to sketch this story down.   It still feels pretty weighty.  At first I thought it was a snippet. However, who knows it may be much, much, more... and I sigh in a mixture of contentment for the company the story brings, and in frustration...there aren't enough days like this one where I can write these days.   I have many stories held captive in my head, captive to demands I cannot ignore like paying the bills, and a job, and cleaning the house, and  watering the lawn, and a fence that is creaking a warning to me--that hey, shore me up or be prepared to replace me....and staying in contact with friends and family....and...and...and.....we all have these lists....lists that run our days...and yes, I want to break free, make a run for it...and go on a journey with the stories inside me, to feel them pour out of my fingertips into the keyboard, or onto a page with a "fun" pen....to drink in days like this where the breeze giggles, and the sun flirts, and the words run like water from a mountain lake down into a mountain river...and through the valley...

How precious are these moments.  How precious are these days.  How  precious is this life...and how utterly enthralling.  

Anyway....dear world...may your days be bright and beautiful and may you too be found by an inauspicious thought.  :)  And may you break free from the lists, and for a moment be free.

1-24-11

I've been told a picture is worth a thousand words...

here is just a hint,

and with me that's 26,000 words,

with more behind them

than I can fully express now...

 

              

      

Mr. & Mrs. Loudamy

...dreams come true...



"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."
C. S. Lewis

Colossians 3:12-14

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.  Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.