kellementology

life according to me

Category: Plans & Schemes

  • Garden Inspiration for Next Year

    I’ve got garden fatigue right now and it should be no surprise. Blaming August would also not be a surprise because it’s not my favorite month, so why not just pile on? Still, I can be constructive about it. Sitting inside on a hotter than I prefer day and thinking about what my garden has taught me this year and applying that to how I’ll revise plans for the next is a good use of my time while I’m avoiding the weeding.

    One of the things I do when I plan is to consider inspiration from others’ gardens whether in my town, or on my travels. I look for what I can replicate without feeling as if I must completely redesign my garden. My practicality keeps me from doing that as much as the cost, effort, and time it would take. Instead, when I see a garden I appreciate — especially a very large and formal garden, I focus on the details in small spaces instead of expiring of garden envy as I sigh heavily and take yet another photo of something I want to remember. Something I may be able to recreate. A friend accompanying me leans toward me and whispers, “They have paid gardeners, you know.” Somehow, it doesn’t quite help.

    My garden has decent bones that I make the best of. Right now, as I begin to decide what changes I’ll make, I recognize my mood has to do with the idea of “less is more” subtle adjustments. I want to make sure I can take care of everything and still have a life to enjoy. A neighbor called out to me one day when I looked up from whatever I was trimming, “You’re out here every day!” And he is absolutely right. I spend nearly all of May, June, and a good half of July in my yard fussing over every bit of it and never quite feeling satisfied. There is always something more to do. I think most gardeners feel that way. It’s a hobby, but it’s not. It’s more a passion.

    This season, my oldest son received an unexpected call on July 18 that resulted in his recent kidney transplant. I haven’t been doing much gardening outside of spot watering and fending off the attack of the Japanese beetles on my roses since then. My usual need to be physically busy when something stressful is going on has evaporated. Although he is doing well, I believe I’ve transferred the worry of his being on dialysis and waiting for a kidney to worrying about the viability of the new kidney. More on that later. For now, I’ll soothe my nerves with a pictorial revisit to a memorable garden I enjoyed a few years ago.

    Hollister House Garden is located in Connecticut about 50 miles southwest of Hartford. You can read about its history here. What appealed most to me about this garden is the obvious formal structure coexisting comfortably with its very appealing and somewhat wild and wandering plantings. I tend to be like this as a person so it’s no wonder I was drawn to it. Tell me where the lines are so I’m able to stay within them when I must, but let me step right over them or go around them when I’m inspired or feeling they’re too rigid. It’s an interesting contrast that not everyone appreciates.

    I tend to refer to my garden as controlled chaos. What my brain wants is for that controlled chaos to look like the garden at Hollister House minus the perfectly trimmed hedging and gorgeous water features because who can afford those? We made the visit late in May which is when my garden looks more controlled than chaotic. Daffodil blossoms are not quite filling in the empty spaces in the borders and shrubs and perennials are rapidly shaking off the vestiges of Winter. It’s a time of year that I can dupe myself into thinking, “I’ve got this” — until I don’t. Although I always find beauty in the wild personality of my garden, I’d like it to be less wild. Every year, I make more progress to that end. At least that’s what I tell myself until August arrives.

    What I’ve gleaned from the garden at Hollister House is that the structure is important. It helps contain the wild. My structure may not be as impressive or tidy (junipers rarely are) but it works well enough for me.

    It’s fine to let plants wander or sway into the path or onto the lawn. Let them be! The random buttercups and horsetails poking up among the hostas and lilies are fine.

    Wayward ferns or other volunteers growing through crevices in the granite steps and stones in the walls soften the hard edges.

    Put a few interesting containers in the mix here and there planted with seasonal bloomers just for the whimsy.

    Appreciate the space I have to plant lovely things and spend productive time in the sun after a long, cold winter. This is the easiest part!

    Are you a gardener? Do you like strict structure, wild cottage style borders, or a mix of both?

    Thanks always for reading!

  • Fridays and What Ifs

    I missed yesterday’s writing, but it should count that I spent a good amount of time discussing writing with a friend — someone who is also working on his first novel.  And the entire experience left me remembering how much I used to profess that thinking is the most important aspect of writing.  Of course, that doesn’t make much sense if I never actually sit down to write after that thought, so here I am.  Processing.  And I’ll do that through this weekend considering my novel, moving things around, adjusting bits of my character’s life — bits of ideas that only come with letting writing sit for a while.  Letting it sit for as long as I have is probably not a good thing, but that will change in a few days.

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  • DIY: Travel Planning

    In less than a week, we will be on a non-stop flight to London, then take a short flight to Paris. Yes, Paris.

    I’ve been many places before — many —  but think I’ve been saving France in general for when my husband and I could go alone.  We’ve enjoyed trips to England and Wales with our youngest, then another fabulous road trip there with his parents.  We’ve also traveled through Italy with one of my older sons, but we’ve never been with each other — alone.

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  • Planning for Paris

    Planning for Paris

     

    February is nearly half gone and I’m just now feeling as if there’s a new year ahead of me and things to plan for.  The holidays have long passed, the remnants of that nasty bout with bronchitis are finally gone, the Super Bowl — which always seems to allow some sort of hanging on to a reason to plan a party — is history, and finally, a lovely several days spent with an old friend who came to stay have also been crossed off my calendar.  Time flies.

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  • Four Days and Counting…

    Four Days and Counting…

     

    …until NaNoWriMo begins and although I feel my planning is not only coming along nicely, it’s fun.  That’s always a good sign, isn’t it?

    I have a loose schedule figured out for myself:

    Rise early (okay, so earlier than waiting until the MoH backs out of the driveway) at 7:00

    Coffee and yogurt while rereading previous day’s work.

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  • Getting Organized for NaNoWriMo

    Getting Organized for NaNoWriMo

    In the last few days that I’ve been adjusting to participating in NaNoWriMo, I’ve been planning.  Thinking and planning.  Thinking, and reading, listening, remembering, and planning.  What I’ve not been doing is planning a plot for my novel. Wait.

    My. Novel.

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  • Green Grass on the Other Side of Road Trips

    South on the 101

     

    The solstice is still two days away, yet it seems summer has been in full swing for weeks in spite of skies so thick with the seasonal grey we’re accustomed to it’s been misty from time to time.  We began celebrating college graduations and finished doctoral work mid-May, then educator friends’ wistful counting of days remaining until the school year ends mingled with cheers for three of our nieces and nephews recently graduated from high school.

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    Somewhere in the shuffle of events, the MoH and I made a quick road trip to San Francisco to collect the RT and his meager belongings.  His second semester in college was under his belt and planning for how we’d manage transporting the three of us and his stuff back home became a sort of puzzle considering we no longer had the space my old Acura afforded us.  Instead, a MINI would have to get the job done.  I thought about it long enough and decided it was possible as long as I could put the MoH and RT on a flight home and I could drive the belongings back to San Diego by myself.

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  • Waste of a morning in 20 easy steps

    Just a dose of my “business” life so far this morning — a not quite wordless Wednesday.

    An ad agency responded to my recent inquiry regarding use of their ads.  They’ve approved me, but I’ve been delaying taking next steps because it involves sitting at the Erstwhile Resident Teen’s dusty computer, signing in to my email there, printing  the agreement document, signing it, scanning it, and then attaching it to an email to send.  No, it’s not exactly rocket science, so outside of being tedious in a I’d-rather-do-anything-else-but-this kind of way, it’s a task easily accomplished, right?

    Um, no.

    1. Mobile Me says the PDF is too large.  Uh.  I’ve sent larger with no problema? Figures.
    2. I can’t figure out how to reduce the size of the PDF with STOOPID FREAKING LOUSY ROTTEN Microsoft Vista.  Crap. Crap. Crappidy Crap Crapster.  (You’re picturing Colin Firth in King’s Speech here, but without the far more colorful language).
    3.  So, I decide to use my Gmail account instead, thinking I’m pretty smart even though I’ve had to resort to this before out of desperation.  Please know the two computers are separated by a wall, so it’s always strange.  Ahem.
    4. Right smacking in the middle of writing the email, the wireless keyboard stops working.  No warning.  No blinky lights, or warning messages.  Just.  Out.
    5. I try to reconnect.
    6. I check the status of the keyboard and am not happy to see it’s listed as working just fine.
    7.  I load new batteries.
    8.  I reload new batteries because I can’t see and am not sure they’re loaded properly.
    9. I restart the computer.
    10. TWICE.
    11. Shaking the keyboard has no effect on its function.
    12. I try the “Connect” button on the back of the keyboard, but nada.
    13. Please know that smacking the keyboard with the palms of both hands simultaneously also does not work.
    14. To spare the neighbors and my blood pressure, I take a few trips up and down the stairs emptying trash, doing laundry, entertaining our high-maintenance furry teen-aged feline “daughter” with her string, assorted balls, her catnip baby, and also brush her a few times which makes her extremely happy.
    15.  I shine the floors upstairs with a cleaner that makes them look worse than when I began.
    16. I get another cleaner and give the hairy eyeball treatment to the dusty PC which sits staring blankly on the desk.
    17. I notice how hot it is today already (86 degrees!) and think WTH.  Where was Mr. Sunshine this past summer, hmmm?
    18. I finally give in and decide I’ll either steal the Erstwhile Resident Teen’s printer and install it on my Mac or try to reinstall the one I have attached to my Mac (which stopped working smack in the middle of the Erstwhile Resident Teen’s graduation project over a year ago so only a total idiot would do that, right?)
    19. I look in the mirror to confirm that I meet the qualifications at this point.
    20. Sadly, I glance at the clock and realize I’ve been dicking around with this sh*t for an hour and a half and have accomplished NOTHING.  But the cat’s happy.

    You’re laughing, right?

    Right?

    I look at it this way.  Wednesday is the day I have been promising myself to write about something other than food, so I’m thinking this is a swell topic to write about.

    I’ll do that before I install the printer.

    God I can’t stand crawling under desks.

  • Notebooks and silk undies

    One week to go before our trip to the UK, and I’m busy printing things for the MoH’s notebook.  Because he’s not involved in the planning, he’s often out of the loop outside of our discussions about a trip, when I can’t keep one more detail in my head and have to unload.  Bear in mind we have about eight books on travel marked, tagged, and dogeared I’ve been using for the past many months to get ready, but he likes his notebook.

    In the long run, he’s not as technology oriented as I am, unless it has something to do with fantasy leagues for sports he enjoys, so the links and maps I’ve created probably won’t be used all that much.  In this day and age, if you have a laptop, then all the reading can be done like that instead of on paper which can’t come close to providing the same amount of information.  Do you get to use the Internet on flights now?

    Hmmm…

    I need an iPad.

    Seriously.

    You agree, right?

    It just might be a last minute shopping item along with the silk underwear someone told me I’d need to pack because it’s so cold in the Cotswolds at this time of year.  Silk undies?  It would make sense to explain that I’m more of a flannel person, and that the thought of trying to keep warm in something like that is interesting.

    Really?

    I’ll think about it.

  • Thinking at 4am

    Lizzie woke me up at about 4am today purring so loudly at the end of our bed, I decided to collect the sleek, lanky kitty that she’s become, ball her up against my chest and tip toe downstairs in the dark to start a pot of coffee.  I can’t think of a better way to start a weekend after a hectic week than to add a few more very quiet hours to it on the front end.

    So here I sit.  It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

    It’s taken me almost five months to adjust to going back to something I thought I’d never do again — something that, at one point in time, caused me physical discomfort whenever I saw something that reminded me of the experience I’d had.  That fear was so palpable, it has caused me and my family quite a bit of angst as I’ve worked through it over the summer, each day having to revisit it and wonder why it is we allow ourselves to get to that point with anything.

    I’ve gone from intense anxiety, to choosing flight over fight, strange sensations of loss and grieving that were the most confounding of all I’ve experienced, anger so sharp I wanted to throw things and strike out, reluctant giving in, and finally, acceptance.  It’s been quite the ride, and I’m not sure exactly what sustains me right now, but am thankful that I’m no longer terrified.  In the long run, I made a promise, and I believe that is what is keeping me on track.  I’ve chosen to throw in the towel a few times in my life in circumstances when many people would have stayed.  I’ve rationalized it because I tell myself I’m worth it and that I shouldn’t have to do anything I am intensely opposed to.

    And then the mental litany of comparisons begins:  men and women are fighting in foreign countries and have had to leave their families behind; children are born into poverty and dependent on adults who shouldn’t have children because they can’t take care of themselves; lovely people discover they have incurable diseases and make the most of their lives in spite of that…

    Who am I to say that I don’t appreciate what I have when I compare myself to them?

    But I’m learning that it’s okay.  I’m learning that I can be very thankful for what I have and that I can want more — that my wanting isn’t connected to tangible objects (regardless of how pleasant some of them are) like a new car or a piece of beautiful furniture.  It’s more connected to who I believe I am, and what I want to become.

    I crave it.  It’s there just beyond my reach and has been for such a long time.  It’s infuriating that others making choices for themselves give the impression that it’s so easy and I plod along wondering and questioning, requiring a complete standstill to even begin to see a fuzzy version of who I imagine is me out there in the distance.

    This all sounds corny, doesn’t it?

    Not too long ago,  woman I barely knew died.  Although she wasn’t well and hadn’t been in a long time, she had a resilient spirit and her big personality conveyed something otherwise about her intent to live even knowing that her life could end at any moment.  And that’s what happened.

    I’m sure that experience has bolstered me to some extent.  I’ve found myself saying that if she could live the life she did considering all of her medical problems, then I should be able to get out of bed, get dressed, and use the knowledge and experience I spent 25 years developing.  I can be purposeful about it.  Pleasant.  Constructive.  Respectful.

    And I can promise myself there will be an end to it because I truly believe that my life depends on it.

    On the last day I saw the woman I mentioned, she thanked me and we embraced.  Although she was struggling to even be there because she had just spent a difficult week in the hospital, her gaze was unwavering as she told me she was leaving and I knew she was going to die.  Standing in front of her I realized she had finally given in and was leaving something behind that was very important to her while I — the recipient of what she was leaving– had given in and accepted that I would not be able to leave.  It was my birthday.

    So here I am.  Relatively adjusted and thinking about the second half of my life.  The half that will grow while I’m finishing what I promised to do.  In the meantime, I’ll read and think about what James Hollis, Ph.D. has to say about it all — that I “will still need to pass through all the trials of life, that [I] am surrounded by distractions, and that [I am] undermined by fear and by powerfully repetitious history” but that like the knights who searched for the medieval Grail, “[my] journey is [my] journey, not someone else’s.”

    And he expects me to respect myself.

    So that’s the hard part.