Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

Reid, you mean the world to us!

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Happy Father's Day, Daddy!!

My dad on the left and my Granddad on the right

with fish caught at the Chesapeake Bay in 1969.

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At Dusk

Buddy and I are sitting on the new screen porch at dusk. It is almost silent. The fireflies are blinking all over. The tree frogs are just starting to sing their nightly song.

The greens of the trees and grasses are slowly turning to blackness. Through the trees, I can vaguely see the sinking sun turning the distant clouds to a beautiful pink. But no, I will not chase even that photo down tonight. Tonight, I'm searching for calm, quiet, and peace.

Down below me, there is a calla lily that my husband gave me two years ago. He brought it to my office not long after I got my job back. It was a deeper pink then, when it was smaller. It soon outgrew the pot, and I brought it home and planted it around the bird bath.

The white flowers seem to glow just before dark.

Sounds

I'm sitting at my window at the end of a long, hard payroll day. My world is filled with sounds today. I hear the train whistle blowing, over and over, which is a sound I love. Everywhere we have lived, except our newest house, we have always been able to hear the train whistle. Once we lived in an apartment which was directly in front of the tracks. When my son was a toddler, he would stand at the back screen door and watch it go by.

Sirens are blaring from the streets below my third floor window. Everyday, it is the police or fire trucks. Usually on a false alarm when they are near our building, just for precautions sake. Or possibly for a wreck on a nearby hyway.

The parking lot below is full of downtown workers leaving for home. They talk together as they walk fast across the lots to get to the parking decks. We have extra people out today, protesters. Think I'll walk out the back door when I leave.

The cleaning ladies outside my closed door. The clock on the wall... ticking my life away. The pounding voice of the life I want and can't have.

My own inner voice rushing me out the door to all the duties I must attend to at home.

All the memories that I carry with me and can't seem to put away or outrun.

My friend telling me just today I should "work to live, and not live to work". Yes, sometimes I leave it all at work, and have nothing left over to carry home, or to take care of myself with.

My son's voice ringing in my ears for all the things he wants, and the things we won't give him, or faciltate for him. All the ways he compares himself to all those around him, who he thinks has a better life.

The soft calls of nature beckoning me to come back as soon as I can. The sounds I need to hear; birds calling in the trees, the babbling of the creeks, the leaves under my shoes, the rushing of the waterfall.

And, of course, the now familiar sound of raindrops.

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Rainy Nights

This year has been suprisingly wet in North Carolina. We are used to suffering through drought after drought, but this year we are having a surplus of rain.

Until recently, a whole day of watching it rain would send me into a deep state of misery or depression. I would run through the house and open every window blind to try to get more light to come into the house, in vain, of course.

Now it rains almost every evening, and on some days it rains 2 or 3 times a day. The rain is becoming more of a companion now. Only once or twice lately have we had a sunny day, and I find myself thinking it is odd and actually looking for a rain shower. As it warms up into the 80s now, we are having thunder storms every night after dinner.

Luckily, we have not had any flooding where we live, but I do cross a river everyday to go to the city. It looks like a red raging river of liguid clay.

The flowers are really loving it, though!! It has been the greenist year I can remember.

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Dining Al Fresco

We dined al fresco at The Loop tonight after a hard day's work. My job is in payroll and can get very tedious. The work seems to never end, and it always has to be done "right now". We have over 2600 employees and that makes for lots of changes every two weeks. I love working for the city, but would prefer to move to another deparment that wouldn't be so time sensitive. When I first got on at the city, it was in another department, and I was the office manager for someone who needed one really badly. It was fun to set everything up and make a work flow from scratch.

My husband, on the other hand, works much harder than I do. I use my mind, and he uses his mind, and his hands, and his back. He remoldels houses, and sometimes does disaster recovery projects. This is basically a new industry that has sprung up in America over the past few years. Whole companies have been started to immediately come out to a house that has burned, or has had storm damage or water damage, and clean up or demolish it, and then rebuild.

So, after a long, hard day for both of us, it was nice to sit out on the porch and have soup, salads, and grilled sandwiches in the evening breeze.

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Lost, but not really!

My sweet dog, Buddy, was lost this whole weekend, but not really. In all of our preparations for graduation on Friday, I asked my son to take him to the pet resort for me. He had a while before getting dressed and leaving early for the school, and my husband and I were finishing up on installing the flooring and cleaning the baths. We had several sets of family members coming in from out-of-town.

Neil took Buddy and came home and said “Mom, they acted like they didn’t know he was coming, but they had room anyway”. Well, I had made the reservation the week before, so I called and talked with the manager to ask if everything was OK. She said yes, but misunderstood that I said Neil had already dropped him off. I thought I was clear, that is after all why I called in the first place.

So I go to pick him up on Sunday afternoon after all the family had gone their separate ways, and even my son Jonathan left town to go back home with my parents for a week. Everything was settled down and peaceful. Then I enter the pet resort and he said “I bet you’re here for Logan”. I said no, and could tell right away there was a problem.

Buddy was, thankfully, safe and sound, but had been dropped off at his vet instead of the pet boarding place. My son, Neil didn’t pay enough attention to what I said with everything going on. Of course, that is nothing new with 18 year olds especially on their graduation day. After telling him what had happened, his reaction was just “Well, didn’t it cost relatively the same?”

Sweet Buddy loves everyone and was perfectly happy at the Vet’s instead. I just hate the thought of him being in a cage instead of a run the whole weekend. Of course, he had no idea he was in the wrong place.

He is such a sweet, happy, go-lucky dog, he seems just fine.

Buddy is our only pet, and is a 4&1/2 year old mix between a cocker spaniel and a golden retriever. He is fairly small for those breeds and only weighs 32 lbs. He was born 4 days after my Granny died in 2004. We were not looking for a puppy when we saw him at our neighbors, but we were all very sad and lonely. We brought him home when he was about 6 weeks old. He stays indoors with us and usually sleeps under our bed.

In Transition

When I started this new blog a few weeks ago, I wanted to begin telling my story from the center of my heart, working outward. The last three weeks have been so challenging I’ve hardly had time to write.

My oldest son is graduating tomorrow from high school and we are giving him a party afterwards. Some of our family members are coming in to visit. My do-it-all husband has been working feverishly to finish up the addition to our house that he started over a year ago.

So everything is changing at our house, and sometimes change (even for the better) can be uncomfortable.

These roses are my neighbor, Loretta’s. They are so beautiful, and they remind me that things will be rosey again.
The weekends will go back to being a time of rest and relaxation in the mountains or along the creek banks.

And very soon we will be out paddling in our kayaks again or biking the nature trails near here. And I will be able to lay down my paint brush and pick up my camera again.

Happy Weekend!!

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Living The Dream!!!

Sweet Neil,

my first born,

my red head,

my fireball.

You reached your first major goal! You won the prize! You ran with honor! We are so proud of you!! Looking forward with anticipation to what you will become.

You are already soaring into this new world, full speed ahead. No one has more passion for their future than you do. We are amazed you have worked so hard. You are already

living the dream; soak it in and enjoy.

But remember, I love you for who you are!

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