Low-Resistance or Weak-Will

I'm guilty of one or the other.  This morning I went over to play with small people for a couple hours, then mailed a package, then went to the garden center where I bought a whole crapload more plants than I intended to.  Oh, I have pots and planters for each and every one, I just thought I'd pace my plant buying so that I'd get one batch planted before going to get another one.  That didn't happen.  *shrugs*  Oh well.  So tomorrow and Monday I'll be the one outside playing in the dirt.



Then I went to the clearance shoe store across the street and for a moment thought I had lucked out and the Klogs I looked at and tried on on Thursday were sold.  Not so fast.  Instead of being on the back-room-clearance shelves they were on the front-of-the-store shelves with all of the sizes and styles arrayed for tempting weak-willed people.  I tried them on.  I walked a couple laps around the store trying to convince myself that I didn't need them, that they weren't comfortable, that I could leave them in the store and not regret it.  It didn't work.  They live here now.


Here's a view of last night's hemming adventure.  The color isn't right, the dress was a cross between navy and midnight blue but in the end there was only about 18" of the hem that I didn't have to redo.  She tried it on this morning and was satisfied with it.  Whew.





The bleeding hearts buds are starting to open.  They're so pretty and come back in a big way every year.  I love perennials.




25 May--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

The watercolor class intrigued me.  Friends often complimented me on the colors I used in the house, so I thought I might like painting on paper or canvas instead of plaster walls.  Even as I thought about signing up for the class I imagined I heard the voice of one of my old aunts who had never had a positive word to say about anything or anyone.  Great-aunt Mame had always been ready with a negative opinion in life and she had taken up residence in my head after she died.  I had such a clear picture of her sitting in the corner of the parlor at Grandma’s, her embroidery or crocheted lace resting on her lap.  She always wore what I thought of as the old ladies’ uniform: a long black or dark gray skirt, a long-sleeved white blouse with a high collar, thick elastic stockings, and sensible shoes.  I remember deciding when I was about nine that I would never become an old prune like her.  Hers was the inner voice that always tried to talk me out of trying new things, but suddenly I was tired of living my life by what other people, even long-dead great-aunts, said.  Before I lost my resolve, I called the number in the ad and signed up.  The woman on the phone was friendly and helpful.  She suggested I come in before the first night to pick up the supplies list and, of course, purchase them right there.  Paid-up students got a ten percent materials discount, the clerk told me, so that didn’t sound too expensive.

I grabbed a pencil and wrote “7 PM Watercolor” on Tuesday, September 10 on the big calendar from the feed store.  For as long as I could remember there had been a Steve’s Feeds Co. calendar in that spot.  Only the style of tractor featured each month had changed as the years passed.

I read the rest of the paper, finished the crossword puzzle and it was still not yet ten a.m.  I took a quick shower, not that I was in a hurry, but years of getting three boys off to school while getting ready for work myself had conditioned me to take “speed showers,” as my family dubbed them.

That's it for me.  I'm sleepy even though I had a couch nap this afternoon.  Maybe I'll sleep in again tomorrow.  Then it'll be outside to plant.  Woohoo!
--Barbara