Sunday, July 12, 2009

Looking Out My Back Door



This spring I decided to kill lots of the grass in my backyard so I could plant more flowers and veggies and herbs. I hate mowing the grass, so it seemed like a good thing to do - less grass, more goodies.



So, between my house and garage is largely plants. The mass of green in the middle is pumpkin vines. The flowers are to the left, the herbs to the right, and tomatoes all across the back and behind the herbs.



I've never grown pumpkins before - they are prolific!



I'm hoping more viney things grow up on the fence yet.



For the first time ever I have enough flowers to pick to bring in and have fresh flowers inside all the time. I've been taking some to the office every week to brighten it up in there.



Sharon gave me those salmon colored zinnas, but I grew almost all of these flowers from seed. I'm quite proud of myself for that. I love the verbena and zinnas for cut flowers. The salvia doesn't work well, unfortunately. It wilts almost immediately. But it looks nice in the garden.

I love the hodge-podge, everything growing in a pile, look.
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Epiphanies Come At the Oddest Times



I have had a very relaxed day, which I needed. It seems the last 6-8 weeks I've not had any time when I wasn't rushed for one reason or another. I even took a nap today - something almost unheard of for me. Maybe once a year I take a nap.

One of the things I did accomplish today was putting together more of the kitchen from washing everything in the cabinets and drawers. I had a little epiphany while I was putting the silverware away. One of the reasons I don't find time for housework sorts of things is that I don't think of them as very productive. They are never done. You just have to keep doing them over and over and over again. The same things. To no end.

I've always wondered what the deal is with me and housework because, frankly, I don't mind the actual work at all. That's not the problem. Actually, I kind of enjoy some parts of it - it has a beginning, middle and end, and you can see progress. But I mind the time it takes. That seems to be a theme for my life - I don't mind the work, but I mind the time.

Why is that? Well, I think of time as very, very precious. A truly vanishing commodity as each moment lived is a moment less we have to experience.

I'm almost always doing something - generally something productive - at least in my sense of what's productive. But, I never just sit around and "relax." I'm not even sure what that means. To me it sounds like another word for doing nothing, which means you would be producing nothing.

I do understand the idea of having to have time to think. But when I'm doing that I generally have a pen and paper at hand so I can write down ideas that pop up. Or I do that when I'm driving. I'm also fortunate that the way my brain works I can have a whole track devoted to thinking about various things while I'm doing something else.

There are things I love to do that I simply don't allow myself a lot of time for. I love to take long baths, but never do unless I have something to read or write that I can do while in there soaking. I love to bake, but rarely do unless I'm having guests. Maybe now that I have coworkers again I can take baked goods into the office.



At the same time, I love it when my house is tidy - I just don't love it enough to spend the time to make it that way. Once a year at Christmas I have things pretty clean. Of course, the time I spend doing Christmas is something many people would consider not very productive. But it feeds my soul, and that is a necessity.
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Subscribe for free to Patsy's Ponderings in email or your choice of a reader.

Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, cooking and more. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and other social media sites of your choosing.

All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.