And away we go…

It is family reunion time again! This year, we are on the West Coast, the coast of my birth. And I am having panic attacks!!!

I love my family more than anything else in the world. My mom started these every-three-year reunions back when my daughter was 3 and my son 9 months…our West Coast based family had slowly but surely dispersed throughout the country, going off to college and then jobs and then marriage. Now the babies of our first reunions are grown up and mostly gone and the reunions continue.

So, if I love my family so much, why am I having panic attacks? Well, a little bit of it is that I will miss my dog. Boo and I are pretty much constant companions…well, except when hub and Boo go out on the boat, fishing or just cruising. If he was small enough to fit under my seat, he would be coming with me. But he’s not and I’m just not willing to put him in the belly of the plane for a one week trip. So, I guess I am officially one of those people who love their pets almost as much as their kids.

Another bit of it is that family reunions are a lot of work. Not the cooking, cleaning, who’s sleeping where part of it…more the “how long can we all be together before old feelings poke their little heads in and things get tense so let’s all play nice” kind of work…since we only have this one little window of time to store up hugs and laughs and memories and love, who wants to spend any of it “feeling”…but there is no getting past the feeling…it is what it is.

And then there is that hideously, hatefully, silly vain me that doesn’t want anyone to see that I am older now, plumper, with wrinkled, age-spotted, droopy body parts that barely fit into a bathing suit any more…we will be surrounded by the active, athletic, enthusiastic, gorgeous YOUNGSTERS who used to be US!!!! At least those in my generation and above are pretty much in the same boat…

All that said, I wouldn’t trade a moment of time spent with my mom and other dad, sisters and cousins and nieces and nephews…so, off we go! See you on the flip side!

I lost my keys…

Yes, I lost my keys. I went to the post office yesterday, went to dig out my key ring with the post office box key on it and it wasn’t there.

Now, I’m a key-phobe…I am terrified of losing my keys, being locked out of my house, not being able to access my car, losing a HUGE piece of my life. As a result, I ALWAYS know where my keys are. If they aren’t in my purse, I can at least usually track them back to the last bag of groceries I brought into the kitchen or in the back pocket of the pants I was wearing.

So I wasn’t panicked when I couldn’t find the keys…I just borrowed my husband’s post office box key and knew I would find them when I got home. All the way home, I searched the floor and under the seat of the car…nothing.  When I got home, I emptied my purse onto the couch…nothing. Over the following 24 hours, we searched the house, the yard, under the bed…there are only so many places to look when one lives in a two room house and only goes out every few days or so (and out is often the post office and/or the little market up the road). I was distraught. As my husband was leaving town, I borrowed his car key, house key and post office key to get by. And I fretted and fretted and fretted (I do that really well, fretting)…

Of course, the mystery of the missing keys just fed into my sometimes pathological fear of Alzheimer’s and/or dementia. I don’t EVER want to be trapped in my body without my mind. And my little episodes of forgetfulness have increased since…well, I guess since the onset of menopause a gazillion years ago. So many of my friends complain about the same thing, so I have to think that this is somehow a hormonal reaction rather than something more sinister. I always tell them it is because we have so much wisdom jammed in, something has to leak out in order for there to be room for new wisdom!

And the good news comes as a result of living in a tiny little town…I left my keys at the post office the day before I discovered them lost and the postmaster put them in my post office box! PHEW!!!!!

Hmmmm…wish this made me worry less about the state of my brain, but at least I have my keys!

Say hello to my new blog…

I LOVE to share photos of my little corner of the world, my little heaven. It is something I started on Facebook a long, long time ago and people seem to enjoy it.

Also, I live in a state known as “Vacationland”, where LOTS of folks have spent idyllic summer vacations. I like the idea of summer folks sharing with me how beautiful the midcoast of Maine is year around.

So, I started a new blog which is ONLY photos…I share photos of each day of the year that I am here (obviously I am sometimes off visiting my adorable grandbaby or my beloved grown-up children away from my heaven). It is a brand new blog, so please play along with me. I invite you to subscribe if you would like to enjoy the daily photos…

StarStrukByMidcoastMaine.wordpress.com

Leaving you with a peek at part of this morning’s post…

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Sunday morning hodge podge…

I just noticed that I haven’t blogged since May 31, and here it is June 9! Oh, my…

When last we “spoke”, I felt compelled to share a wonderful day in photos. Since then, we have had lots of planting days, with a few days of mama nature taking care of my watering.  The veggies and annuals are all in…I have a final few perennials to pop into the ground today and then I will be done until it is time for the second sowing of things. Well, now that I think about it, that’s not quite true…I’m expecting a yard of garden soil tomorrow so I can fill my 2 x 8 raised bed and then plant our asparagus! Excited to get that in.

We have a digital picture frame in our bedroom that contains every photo I have of my favorite granddaughter (ummm…ONLY granddaughter)…shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I spend a lot of time in or on my bed…it is comfy, I have a little nest for my computer on my lap, and it is where I often blog and share photos…more importantly, it is where I always have the baby with me…we live far away and I’ve only visited in person twice. However, my daughter and son-in-law are INCREDIBLY generous when it comes to sharing with me, supplying me with endless photos and frequent hangouts, so I never feel deprived. Love me some baby girl.

When I moved up here to my heaven, I left behind a lot of friends in a lot of places. Yesterday I had the chance to catch up with four dear friends in Portland…we brunched, we walked, we shopped, we sat on benches, we had snacks and libations onboard a vessel and then we left each other for our respective long drives home. It was wonderful! Aren’t friends refilling/refueling/refreshing? Can’t wait to try it again with other friends!

I get in food ruts. I am currently in a HUGE food rut. For breakfast, lunch or dinner these days, you might see on my plate a tomato, salt, pepper and mayo sandwich on good bread OR chicken and avocado with salt, pepper and mayo on good bread…as a matter of fact, I am going to use the last of the chicken I roasted a few days ago and the last half of an avocado for my breakfast in a few. I wonder what my next food rut will be?

I’m in love with spring…

Today is a day that should not end without somehow being documented…so document I will.

Today got off to a milky start…

And then came the flowers, weeks behind last year, if I remember correctly…

And then there was this…oh, my…here comes summer!

It has been a while…

I haven’t blogged in a long time…no good reason, just kind of overwhelmed with life.

May I just say that depression sucks? I am a lifelong sufferer. Since medication entered my life, in my thirties, I have felt better…most of the time. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a “magic” pill that works all the time. I did well on one medication for years, and then it stopped working. That pattern has continued for each med I have tried. After a few years on my latest med, I am finding myself sliding slowly but surely into the murkiness. So, as soon as I can gather myself, I will go back to the doctor and try once again to find something that will allow me to return to my preferred cheery and optimistic state.

In the meantime, I try to focus on things that I love and that brighten my world. One new thing that has enriched my life is a mobile app called Happier. It encourages me to post quick, but meaningful things that make me happy, through words and/or photos. Even as I was weeping over the devastation and lives lost (especially those of the children) in Moore, Oklahoma yesterday, I was able to reach deep and share. Thank you to the folks who created this application…it makes me very happy!

Speaking of things that make me happy…

And then there are…

Lots of reasons to be happy!

Oh, happy days…

It’s May…it’s May…the lusty month of May…

I don’t know if I am feeling it more because this May has brought beautiful weather, daffodils and the smell of new mown lawns earlier than usual or if it is just the aftereffects of a long, snowy winter, but I’m feeling quite giddy…

My wonderful husband has been working on opening up a woodsy area into a fairy garden for me, a horseshoe pit for him and raised garden beds for us…buzzing down trees and shrubs, clearing brush and letting the sunshine in! My fairy garden gets little sun, so I get to look for shade plants.

After some minor tweaking and fiddling, our cool new/old Raleigh RetroGlides are on the road…and we are in love! Boo LOVES to run with us up and down the 1/2 miles driveway and we are really psyched to feel the warming breezes on our faces.

I have started moving some of my many geranium plants outside during daylight hours so that they might harden up a bit and be planted in barrels around the deck. I planted tomato seeds in a hanging pot arrangement; they haven’t sprouted, so I think I may need to replant, and it is still quite early for tomatoes, but at least my hands are in dirt!

We have a few buds bursting into flower on our new apricot tree…first blooms of the season in our new little orchard (apples, pears, an apricot and a nectarine)…oh, and the newest additions to the orchard are the blueberries, blackberries and grapes.

Birds are back to our feeder…nuthatches, finches and chickadees, with the occasional sparrow cleaning up spills…also back to our feeder is the occasional squirrel, helping provide amusement for Boo and the cats. We have been slow adding back feeders this year, as we don’t want to attract rats (as happened at the end of the season last year…UGH…not much difference in looks between rats and squirrels, but I’ll take squirrels any day!).

And, finally, the lobster pots are back out in full force, with many-colored buoys bobbing merrily…we have managed to identify a few of the boats which fish in our neighborhood…they don’t see me, but I see them!

Just because…

Just because I thrust a raspberry prickle into the tip of my f-y finger a couple of days ago and can’t get it out so have to wait until it gets a little infected so it will let me get it out…

Just because this week has been full of hunting and gathering and planning with not much time to sit and ponder…

Just because it is spring and time to start working on all the projects we dreamed up over the snowy winter…

Just because I have added reading back into my life and that requires time and that time has to come from somewhere and for me it is coming from my thinking time…

Just because…it took almost no effort to share these photos that show what greeted me when I got out of bed this morning…taken over the space of an hour…

Ain’t mama nature something wonderful?

An antidote to stress…

I have been struggling mightily the last couple of weeks, wanting to blog, but feeling as if I didn’t have anything important to say…a lot of people have blogged a lot of profound things. I was one of those who watched TV just about every minute…I didn’t go anywhere and I watched…and even though some time has now passed and things have quieted down, I still watch.

I’m lucky, though…I have this to help take my mind off things, even if only for a few minutes at a time…please feel free to breathe in some peace, soak up some serenity and pass it along…

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Spring is springing…

We went for a driveway walk this morning and here are some things we spotted:

Rhododendron buds

Last patch of snow

First squirrel of the season

Turkey track?

“Bunny” in the woods

And, at the end of the walk…