book learning- thankful

Currently, there are seven books all stacked up on the nightstand. Next to the nightstand is an old-fashioned wicker laundry basket filled with books. This basket is the overflow for the very full book shelf across the room. My ipod is full of audiobooks. I seldom check a book out from a library, I almost always buy them. I love to have our home full of books. We have them everywhere in the house I can find space for a shelf. Every few years I get rid of those I don't love to make room for new so that it doesn't get too out of control. I can't fall asleep with out reading a chapter or two, I simply refuse to fold laundry without a book to which I can listen. I often listen to books on my long runs and they make the time and the miles speed by. I read everything but I love fairy tales and biographies. And histories and science fiction and ghost stories and classics. Oh my. I love to fill my life with stories outside of my own, to compliment, to enrich, to imagine. And it's so easy for me. I've been reading since I was four and if I can't make it to any of the five bookstores within 3 miles of my home, someone will have any story I can dream of delivered to my house, probably with free shipping.  How very delightful.

P.S. Wanna know my favorite book today? The 2011 Heirloom Roses Catalog that arived in my mailbox just this afternoon. I die. Possibly a little obsessed but, oh, they are so beautiful and there are so very many! Must find more space for roses. Obviously, I don't have enough.

never get sick of these, too bad for you- thankful

I know. I just posted rose photos last week. But now it's thankful month and I can't, can't, can't leave them out. I love them. Love, love, love them. Every time I see one of my girls blooming my heart lifts and my soul soars. Something about them fills up my insides with bright, shiny goodness. I realize that I have an unusually passionate relationship with all of my flowers, but, oh, the roses. Happy, little sigh.

rosy colors of fall

I love October in Kansas, but probably not for tha same reasons most people are fond of the spookiest of months. Don't get me wrong. I adore the changing of the leaves and all that comes with it. It just doesn't really get going here untill well into the month. Much of my garden in still green and growing. Especially the roses. They seem to love the cooler temperatures and have one last, great blooming in October. They will bloom sporadically until the first hard frost (often not until December here), but this is their last really big hurrah for the season. As always, I am enchanted.

none of these were long enough for a real post so...

*It turns out that I am not good at voicemail anymore. I used to be, but now, am not. I check it like once a week. Maybe. Because I figure if it's really important you'll text me or email me or just come find me in person or something. Bad, bad, bad. I am trying to be better.

* Sort of hoping that the severe weather predicted this afternoon will come to pass. I don't (heaven forbid!) want a tornado to blow my house away or anything like that but I probably wouldn't mind  the loss of a few tree limbs. There is nothing like a really good spring storm in the midwest. Somehow all that chaos and lightning makes my soul feel soothed. Weird, I know.

* Have decided that bribing my kid to clean up his toys with the promise of a forbidden weekday movie is totally O.K. when said movie is of the National Geographic variety because it's educational and effective.
Plus, I love when he quotes random penguin stats to the nice little old ladies at church who think he's brilliant.

* Have found that now that the lamented decision I made last week is over, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Very relieved. This is a higher power telling me it's the right thing for sure, right?

*Plan on spending as many afternoons as possible this week tinkering around in my sewing room. I've been too busy and distracted lately and the number of hours I spend sewing ( and weirdly, running) seem to be directly tied to my overall sense of well-being.

* Also the roses have started blooming and every new bud that opens is absolutely thrilling. Am amazed by how quickly I have become obsessed with my little beauties. Just ordered three new heirloom english and their fall blooming will be spectacular. Thank goodness for big yards and husbands who are too busy and too indulgent to stop me from planting roses in every spare space I can find.



The End

Photo courtesy of me, thank you very much.

less equals more

I never learn. This I went out with my clippers to do a little spring pruning. Eleven big black garbage bags and three huge bundles later I finished for the day. Needless to say we had to go out to dinner. As always after a good pruning session, my arms look like I am an adolescent cutter. The new neighbor asked whether i enjoy the yard work or whether I consider it a necessary chore. I told him I didn't mind it but that I really did it because I liked what came later, the growing things. In retrospect I think I love the pruning part, the getting rid of the unnecessary, excess part. It's like purging only for the yard and I am all about purging lately. Less stuff=better stuff as demonstrated by my flowerbeds.

muse

My friend Julie has a brand, new shiny etsy shop. Look what she made for me.

It makes my heart super-happy. And warm and snuggly inside.

She also has lots and lots of lovely pieces.

Like these:

You should check out her shop here.

seasonally inappropriate

I've been dreaming of roses. Dreaming of my ever-growing rose garden covered in blooms. Giant, rainbow colored flowers everywhere. I've already picked out several new plants to order as soon as the ground is warm enough to plant them. I've been researching how to get my cuttings to take more effectively and even how to get seeds from the rose hips and start new plants that way. It's going to be a bit of a wait for roses, even the spring bloomers probably won't until April or so. Not sure how I got so obsessed by these thorny beasts but I can't get them out of my head, even in January. I wonder if I could get a mini cutting to bloom in my kitchen? I'm off to my rose books, there must be a way.

flowers who are confused- thankful

For the last several days there has been a peony sitting in a vase on the windowsill, just today she has finally faded. She was not aware that it is November. Her entire family of plants outside continue to bloom, even her purple cousins in the front yard. The roses recovered nicely from their early frosts and have buds preparing to open as I write. The marigolds are blissfully unaware of the fact that they probably should have given up the ghost a month ago, even the impatiens are still going strong in a few places. Bless them for not knowing that it is fall, time for them to drop their leaves and fall asleep for the winter. Bless them for making autumn even more beautiful than usual.

the end of the roses

Yesterday my roses were still blooming. Frankly, I was quite proud of that.Today they are shivering. This morning it was like 26 degrees outside. It was totally depressing. Lately I have read lots of blogs lamenting the end of summer. Not mine. I adore fall. The leaves all turn pretty colors and my cardigans and fall boots get to come out of storage. I love pumpkin patches, apple cider and Halloween. I cannot get enough candy corn or of the smell of leaves burning. My roses often bloom until Halloween here. I even enjoy the slight chill in the air. Emphasis on the slight. 26 degrees is not slight, plus it was dark and depressing. Winter and I do not have the same relationship as autumn and I. There is nothing redeeming about it but snowboarding and Christmas and only one of those happens in Kansas. By tomorrow the roses will be brown and crumbly, cold does not make them happy. They will not return until June, perhaps May if I work really hard. Lots and lots of rose food and fertilizer. I will console myself with the idea that next summer they will be bigger and more rosy than ever. Sigh. Stupid winter.

*No, this is not one of my actual roses. Mine still look alive. For another day or so.