Sonnystone Acres

it’s a great weekend for a birthday party, whether you’re 1 or 3….moon & bear are hosting an event to celebrate the brilliant emma magnolia’s first year today, but i’m not there.  i was at a very festive get-together last night to party down with briley christina who turned 3 on friday. 

                             here’s the birthday girl, opening a present from  her aunt jo: paperdolls!  all the disney princesses are here and it includes a little “stage” for them. i couldn’t get the clothes to stay on, but that’s the beauty of just going on  home after a bowl of chili and 3 beers—her mother can deal with it!  she and her sisters have a great mom, my niece, la. it’s always fun to be with them.

                                                       love to all the birthday girls.   don’t forget, i’m next. 

i can’t honestly say that winter is my craziest time of year, though it’s easy to blame  the short (though lengthening) days, dry gray skin, or layers of bulky clothing adding 10 lbs to my appearance.  no, i can be crazy anytime, any season, even when i’m tan and cute-as-a-bug.  the perspective of the years has taught me that my sleep pattern is a prime indicator of changes in my neurotransmitter efficiency and periodically i have to “reset” my brain’s clock.  i wish i could just change the batteries and update the digits, but instead it’s a rather painful time of being awake, thinking, all night and sleeping fitfully at times considered inappropriate in polite society.  i’m in one of those spells right now.  i’ve been using sleepers to get me knocked out at a decent hour, but then oversleep the next morning.  i learned years ago that drinking only makes it worse and fixing 5-course meals at 3am doesn’t help.  one possible remedy is to take a week-end trip, but that’s kinda scary because sometimes i end up in a hotel room listening to casey snore while watching a tv that doesn’t have as many cable channels as home.  maybe a home project?  i have started the seeds and planted a terrarium.  how about some church work? full-up with kids and snarly adults, thank-you.  exercise?  sure, as soon as i finish this sudoku.  i guess i’ll just muddle through. 

 never been lonely, never been lied to

never had to scuffle in fear, nothing denied to

born at the instant the church bells chimed

the whole world whispering, “born at the right time”

you are such a blessing, emma magnolia mayne jose’.  grandma and grandpa love you.

i managed to catch the last quarter of the 5th & 6th grade basketball game tonight.  they’ve been in a tournament that started last night and i heard that last night’s game went into double overtime, resulting in their loss by 3 pts.  i don’t do well at those kinds of games because i hate to see anybody lose who works that hard, especially my kids.  tonights was nearly as exciting:  they won by a free throw with 8 secs to go.  i’ve been consistently leaving my camera at home and i’ve got to get it put back into my purse so you can see how much the kids have grown up. 

i wasn’t thinking that this afternoon when the whole cafeteria reeked of what smelled like cheap perfume.  glad nobody had an allergic reaction, i ignored it until i got a call from one of the parents complaining that her kid was permanently affected, pretending that she wanted to be sure he wasn’t the one who bombed us with the odor.  i did some detective work and it finally came out that my 2 favorite boys were responsible; because the mother complained, and the boy who owned the “body spray” complained that all his stuff had been used up, i’ll have to report them.  i really prefer to shame kids myself and this will honestly be the first time i have ever “told” on one of my kids.    

and they look so innocent on the basketball court. 

it was probably just coincidence that i had dropped the international call block from our telephone on sat. but i didn’t think so last night when i began to get those demon-dialer collect calls from the philipines again.  i took the phone off the hook after about 3 calls in 5 minutes and called the phone co. this am.  this time, however, the customer service representative at our local provider was ready for me and explained to me that i was a victim of hackers who wanted to go in through my voice mail to use my line for obscene amounts of international calls.  it’s those wiley filipinos again. she checked it out and my line had not actually been hacked into, so she fixed it up so they couldn’t and i wouldn’t be charged if they did.  this evening on the news the whole scam was a top story and i felt like not-such-a-stupido. 

there’s not much else going on.  we’re bracing for a snow this weekend—how’s winter down south, ya’ll?  so much for global warming. 

i’m impressed with the chemistry lesson and really did know that my english-teacher-niece is literate, so thanks for the reassurance. 

i picked up a free farmers almanac the other day and am very encouraged by the fact that we are adding a minute of daylight to each day.  this means we’ve already got an extra half-hour since m’s birthday (the shortest day of the year) and by my birthday we’ll have sunset at around 5:40pm–a full hour more than at christmas!  because of that latitude/longitude thing, sonnystone actually gets about 20 minutes more sun (when available) than nyc.  this tropical paradise i call sonnystone should be everybody’s vacation destination. 

speaking of birthdays, we’ve got a few coming up:  briley jo, my grand-niece namesake has a birthday on the 26th;  emma’s #1 bday is on the 24th, natch.  anyway, it’s good to have celebrations mid-winter so we can warm up with loving friends and family. 

i’m keeping busy with the indoor plants and getting ready to start those seeds; visiting the library frequently; catching up with my sister after her 2-week absence; budgeting; checking out the latest pictures of emma; avoiding the mirror.   

i was fighting bitterness over the fact that either nobody reads my blog or nobody who can write reads my blog, when i caught wind of the latest nyc odiferocity.  as an almost-native-manhattanite i turned to the best source of news reporting in that area:  NY1.  i have to get my NY1 fix on the internets, but when i need it, it’s there (thank-you god).  unlike the previous smell of maple syrup, which actually sounded kind of sweet, this one was described as nasty, natural gassish and all the other news sources say it’s a mystery, but NY1 says it’s mercaptan, a chemical added to natural gas to make us able to smell it if it leaks.  you can bet that mayor mike has been walking around with a natural gas detector, eastside and westside, all around the town, and he assures us it’s not really gas, just smells like it.  what natural gas i’ve smelled doesn’t really stink like nasty, more like scary;  i consider sulfur (hardboiled eggs) a real stink.  or some farts, like after you’ve had ranchstyle doritos.  or puke, of course.  bad breath, maybe. 

if anybody out there can write, did you smell it?  what did it smell like?  were you revulsed?  put a little peppermint under your (and emma’s) nose to mask it if you need to, or take the airspray with you when you walk.  around here it would be backed-up sewers and we’d all feel a little nostalgic.   

they’re having a 24-hour rifleman marathon on the western channel, so i have retreated to my den to dodge wasps and play on the computer.  really, that show is one of the best ever, but since i’ve watched the last 4 hours i’ve had enough of goodness, tolerance, justice, etc. for a while.   which reminds me, my sister should be back from  her mission trip to myanmar soon.  i’ve missed her. 

i got my seed-starting stuff today and am ready to start some impatiens, morning glory, and moonflower vines.  i’ve learned my lesson about starting vegetables: i’m better off just buying the plants in the spring.  they’re more reliable. 

we’re going to have to cut down a 100-year-old tree and it makes me sick, not just because of the cost. it’s not my fault, though, that the driveway was put in right over the root system.  it’s a hazard to the house and there’s no way to save the tree.  the tree has kept the house cooler and i’ll have to deal with that; also it will open up a sunny area for gardening and i’m not sure what to plant there.  i plan on being gone when the tree is brought down—it’s a very tall tree and they’ll need a crane as well as a lot of skill to safely skirt the house during the process. 

i’ve been singing and dancing, as foretold; however, i’ve got this sad song running through my head and no matter how i try it returns:  

 there was something in the air that night,

 the stars were bright _______ 

they were shining there for you and me, and liberty __________ 

though we never thought that we could lose, there’s still no regrets. 

 if i had to do the same again, i would, my friend _______

……..somebody help me stop singing that song!!!

 (can you fill in the blanks? i know you can, moon, but is anyone else out there?  it’s a 3-syllable name) 

i started the new year with a nasty, fresh cold so i missed the annual trip to the louisville flea market with cuzns lana and charley.  i’m feeling better, though still full of snot, and went back to work tuesday afternoon with a month’s supply of goodies for the kids.  they wanted my cough drops–the monsters will eat you alive if you let them.  i’ve got the house back to its pre-christmas arrangement, cleaned and dusted.  i finally got all the baby spider plants in water and if all goes well i’ll have about 10 spider plants!  i’m getting ready to start some seeds and am obsessing over the burpee catalogue—an annual tradition that gets me through the winter nicely.  in general, i’ve got quite a lot of energy despite the sore throat and cough.  i miss my kids, like i always do after i’ve spent time with them.  sometimes i get a little flash of sadness when i think about time and how quickly and irrevocably it rolls on, taking with it babies and children and youth. then i come back to the present moment (be here now) and thank the lord for my life and its many blessings.  as usual, i have plans to improve myself this year, but not so much that you won’t recognize me.  i mostly want to enjoy each day, each person, each experience; smile till my cheeks hurt, laugh till my belly aches, sing till my throat dries, dance till my feet go numb.  i want to read more books, see more shows, visit some places i’ve never seen.  i want to learn something new every day, and remember all of the things i’ve forgotten.  i’m going to do all of these things.  just watch.