Ugh, The Muggies Have Arrived

It rained this morning, thundered a little too, which meant that I had to go to the Y earlier than I'd planned so I could walk on a treadmill for a mile instead of around the block.  It's not as pleasant to walk on the treadmill as it is to walk around the neighborhood in the early morning.  I had my session with T-the-trainer at 9:30 today instead of 10:30 because there was a trainer meeting.  I didn't mind; we did some carry-heavy-things exercises, pushups-on-a-railing (which I did too easily the first circuit so he asked me to slow down to a count of 3 each way), and slowly-extend-your-arms-while-holding-a-big-rubber-band-with-a-handle exercises  Writing it like that it doesn't sound like much but by the end of the half hour I'm sweating like crazy, winded, and a little quivery in the muscles.  In short, it feels good--to stop.  While I'm doing it, too, but mostly when I stop.


See how tall the weeds are getting on the hill in back?  Well, it only rained until about 9 o'clock this morning so I figured that by 1 o'clock or so it'd be dry enough to mow just that part of the yard.  Nope.  The weeds were mow-able, however the soil was slick and gooshy, not a medium that's good for traction.  I managed one pass pretty much in control but then coming back was impossible, plus the clippings were so thick under the mower deck that the blade wouldn't turn to restart the darned thing.  I managed to get it going and back into the garage (after I hosed off all of the grass stuck under the housing because it rots and stinks up the joint).  I guess I'll wait a few weeks until the grass is thicker and I won't water every day so that the soil dries out some.  Grass growing is a pain.



This baby bunny has appeared this week.  It sits there on the edge of the patio frozen in place.  I don't know what it sees or thinks it sees but I think that any passing hawk would swoop down if it does that for long.  It's cute but not very bright.

I knitted on the redo of the Welcome Beanie for the knitting guild's charity needs.  I don't knit fast enough or steadily enough to make a big contribution to the cause but then I have too many interests and hobbies to focus on just one thing.  I'm multi-faceted, yeah, that's it.  I think that last week I bought the wrong navy knit fabric to make leggings so I went to JoAnn after the Y today to see if they had anything right-er.  Well they had this stuff which is a lot stretchier than what I got last week.  When the clerk unrolled it from the bolt there were two one-yard pieces which, luckily, I can cut one leg out of each piece.  Whew.  I even had a coupon.  I need to stop going to that store.  Really.

18 July--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

April

As winter faded and spring approached, I listened for the sunrise call of the cardinal and savored the frenetic antics of the chickadees at the feeder in the honeysuckle outside my kitchen window.

            When I sat on the porch at sunset, the translucent green of the new leaves of the crocuses tucked next to the foundation assured me that spring, and warmth, were definitely on the way.  I could finally go back out onto the porch without needing to wear every piece of wool clothing in my closet.  Rare was the evening when snow flurries swirled as I sipped my drink and enjoyed nature awakening around me.  I loved the sweet earthy smell of the breeze this time of year.  All the farmers in the area were tilling their fields, getting ready to plant as soon as the sun dried the winter-soaked ground.  The amorous bellow of bulls, coy flirtatious cows returning their calls; the bleating of newborn calves, raising their heads to the sunshine and looking a little drunk on their first few nibbles of the grass sprouts.  Maybe there’s a little tonic in those shoots that gave them spring fever too.   

 “Rain makes my flowers grow.”  I repeated it like a mantra as I looked out the window at sheets of rain lashing the glass for the third day in a row.  It was too wet to sit on the porch to watch the sunset in the evenings.

Not that I could see the sun, even though it was nine a.m.  Hadn’t seen it for days.  And I knew I’d have to order a load of gravel delivered to fill in the holes in the lane that appeared each spring; gravel trucks and spring-cleaning would have to wait, I wanted to paint.

            Thinking that every painting didn’t have to be a cheerful one, I rounded up all my paint tubes and started mixing, trying to find a shade of gray that matched the day’s mood.  After I covered a sheet of paper with samples, I found that mixing ultramarine blue with raw sienna, burnt sienna, and burnt umber in turn gave me a range of three gloomy grays that would do just fine.  I decided to paint the view from my kitchen window that had so depressed me earlier.

Lightly sketching the window frame and honeysuckle, I laid over a wash of faint blue that I hoped would hint at sunny days to come.  A dark navy gray filled in the sky and I painted the honeysuckle leaves beaten down by the heavy drops a dark, almost black, green.  The movement of the storm across the sky almost defeated me until I remembered June at the craft store using a barbered fan brush to paint falling rain.  To give the clouds depth, a piece of tissue wadded up and lightly dabbed over the wet paint made satisfactory looking cloud piles in the sky.  I decided to inject a small note of hope into the painting by suggesting a thinning and lightening of the cloud cover in the upper right corner of the paper.  How to paint the raindrops blurring the window defeated me, even after checking every watercolor book in my growing library.  But before I depressed myself into a coma of self-pity with all the dark grays and black greens on my paper, I painted a small, bright bouquet of daffodils and crocuses in a vase on the table in the foreground.

I stepped back and looked at my morning’s work.  Not my best effort.  But it had been an interesting exercise and led me to consider showing it to Jake and asking how to improve it.  And that thought alone made me realize that I was indeed beginning to think of myself as a real artist.

            I cleaned my brushes, tidied my studio, and decided to make a pot of soup to lift my flagging spirits and quiet my stomach.

            Scouring the refrigerator for ingredients, I piled vegetables on the counter.  The riot of forms and colors; red tomatoes, orange carrots sporting ferny tops, white and green scallions, a handful of creamy yellow wax beans, and earthy brown potatoes gave me an idea.  Instead of a paring knife I picked up a pencil and pad and sketched a still life.  Back in the studio, I made my soup in paint.  Warm walnut cupboards framed the jewel tones of the simple food.  A slash of white and the hint of a silver glimmer suggested the stove at one edge, but the food was the star, ripe and lush and nearly tumbling off the paper.  By the time I’d painted three rough sketches, rearranging each time to feature a different vegetable, the carrots were droopy and my fingers were aching.  I no longer cared about the dreary weather and the ruts in the lane.  But my growling stomach wouldn’t be denied any longer and I contented myself with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and glass of milk.  I just couldn’t bring myself to make soup with my patient watercolor subjects.

I am happy to say that my new pill seems to be doing its job.  It's still making me drowsy but I don't really mind a short afternoon nap.  I purely hate feeling sad and depressed (it feels like a character flaw) so I'm extra glad to be feeling better.
--Barbara