Jesus, I’m not sure what to think of Your latest weather surprise, You sure took care of the leaves-on-the-lawn problem. Also, I no longer have to harvest tomatoes from the garden. Regardless of winter coats not yet drycleaned and where-on-earth-is-that-left-hand-glove angst, Your snow is lovely. OMG, it reminds me of Your love and forgiveness that can cover everything ugly and make it beautiful.
Jesus, thank You for a Ranger-roaring good time with my big brother, zooming around the Indiana hills like teenagers. For a brother-sister tour of his Eden-like garden. And OMG, thank You for his hospitable, patient wife who put up with a couple of adolescents in her home.
Jesus, I’m sure You take great delight in the animals You created. But though we live in town. many pawprints in our snowy yard indicate we are running a nature preserve. I understand they are foraging for food during these cold, wintry months. But OMG, come spring, when our garden sprouts and flowers bloom—and their food supply increases—could You please tell them that if they’re looking for the Golden Corral, they’re at the wrong address.
Images by Walter Antonio Boeger, Dmitry Abramov, and rabzil from Pixabay.
Father, Thank You for an abundant squash harvest I continue to slice, dice, sauté, steam, freeze, bake and pickle. Yet, I realize I’m not the only cook who’s dealt with one-item menus. During the biblical exodus, Israelite cooks probably made manna bread, manna pie, manna fritters, manna casseroles and manna sloppy joes as they wandered in the desert. OMG … will my squash barrage last for 40 years too?
Jesus, I’m grateful for the consistency of the Your laws that keep our planets, stars and galaxies running, a huge, well-oiled universe.
Image by gene1970 from Pixabay.
But, OMG, do You sometimes toss out small surprises — such as our blackberries outgrowing cherry tomatoes — to remind us You can?
Every year, my husband and I repeat: “We’re too busy. We’re too old.”
Still, we give our annual garden party.
Unlike the scenario in Ricky Nelson’s song, “Garden Party,” neither Mary Lou, Yoko Ono, nor her walrus show up. Just lots of uninvited guests.
Given our sophisticated attire, you’d think nobody would dare approach our garden without an engraved invitation. I wear an orange T-shirt accidentally bleached with the underwear wash load. Hubby sports his free T-shirt from our 1971 prom, plus trendy ripped jeans. Roomy 20-year-old shorts show off my black-knee look, enhanced by matching black nails. Emitting an elegant fragrance called “Compost,” Hubby and I have dressed in our casual best.
Unfortunately, thistles, with their prickly personalities, crash the party. I’ve nicknamed them “Klingon sticker weeds.” Like the legendary “Star Trek” foes, they aspire to conquer the universe, beginning with our garden.
Grass, which avoids our yard’s bald spots, flourishes alongside its evil ally. Morning glories that rebel against trellises swarm the cucumber patch.
For other boorish invaders, we’re not only their hosts. We’re their refreshments.
Millions of mosquitoes and chiggers view us as a free Golden Corral.
Still, Hubby and I stick to the program, playing garden games cherished for generations:
Only God, the perfect Host, has given the flawless garden party that might have lasted forever.
Hmm … wasn’t it another pair of humans who spoiled it?
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What makes a great garden party?
Should I bother with a spring to-do list?
This past winter, I could have scraped old wallpaper in three rooms. Instead, I read books. Enriching my mind inspires me so much more. Hubby’s enriched his mind too, finishing a thousand-page book on American history.
We’ve enriched our minds so much we’ve lost them — when recalling winter to-do lists. But a little repression never hurt anyone.
Besides, it’s spring. Why waste time indoors when we can stay outdoors?
Between snowstorms and tornadoes, I mean.
The only problem: our enriched minds cannot agree on priorities.
Items on his spring to-do list:
My list:
Do Hubby and I share any common items on our to-do lists? A few:
Maybe we should put these — and, of course, enriching our minds — at the top of our spring to-do lists.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s on your list?
I panicked when an entire summer passed, and I hadn’t fulfilled my dream of eating 100 sundaes at Ivanhoe’s, a local den of temptation. When I realized I hadn’t gotten up close and personal with every mosquito in Indiana. Just 97 percent of them.
But now, October is history?
A growing list of non-accomplishments assail me at 2 a.m. Having dreamed that Mr. Clean®, the Ty·D·Bol Man and my mother banished me to the Grungy Galaxy, I realize I haven’t completed even last spring’s gotta-do household list. I haven’t washed windows, whereas Mom never permitted one streak on hers. I haven’t eliminated chaos from closets or grime from the garage.
Nor have I winterized yard and garden. Hubby has mulched our leaves so far, but I haven’t shoveled compost, trimmed blackberry bushes or planted more daffodils. My bulbs and bushes still crave smelly fertilizers.
I’ve failed to keep my mums alive until Thanksgiving. Who designated them the official fall flower, anyway? Mums are scientifically timed to expire when they touch my porch, a ruse to force me to buy more.
We haven’t yet stored our lawn furniture, but rust and the distressed look are in. That works. My furniture is distressed because it belongs to me.
By now, greedy chocolate-peanut butter addicts have gobbled up 50-percent-off Reese’s pumpkins which, by divine right, should be all mine! Mine, I tell you!
Despite that sad situation, I haven’t accomplished the preholiday weight loss that I, in a fit of insanity induced by doctor’s scales, pledged months ago.
As if all that woulda-coulda-shoulda trauma isn’t sufficient, November 1 triggers nationwide panic.
In women, I mean. Men generally suffer panic attacks only if dinner’s late.
I refer to pre-Christmas angst. Rumblings begin with family councils pondering who can celebrate when and where if Andy’s team doesn’t make finals, gas prices drop and nobody dies. Maybe our family can combine Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday.
In November, catalogs pile up in mailboxes. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Tacky Tuesday ads stuff email and ping like popcorn on computer screens.
I begin the annual search for on-sale presents I bought in January 2023 and hid in safe places.
I won’t rediscover them until hiding sales gifts from January 2024 in safe places.
It’s November.
No, no, no amount of denial will change that.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How does November affect you?
Recently, my pastor, instead of dismissing the congregation after the benediction, seated us.
How could he? Everyone had closed their Bibles and grabbed their purses.
“We have a problem,” Pastor said.
A million-dollar error in our building project? Heresy in the articles of faith? The closing of Cracker Barrel?
He said, “We don’t know when summer’s over.”
For weeks, the church staff has trumpeted program changes in bulletin, website and email. Though Pastor performed the parental equivalent of holding our faces in his hands and articulating new schedules s-l-o-w-l-y, we’ve asked spouses. “Um, what time does church start?
Past decades, summer exited after Labor Day. As for equinoxes — spring never arrived in March, so why bow to September’s equinox for summer’s departure?
Opening school early has shaken our culture. Back-to-school sales start before the previous school year ends. Indiana’s General Assembly passed school-excuse legislation so county fair winners could participate in the state fair.
Once upon a time, children sent to bed during broad daylight assumed they’d committed major sin, or their parents suffered from psychosis. Now, kids consider such craziness normal. Soon, they’ll consider cleaning their rooms as natural as microwaving pizza bites. No wonder everyone worries about this generation.
This summer’s weather has reinforced bewilderment. Droughts during June fried Midwestern fields and gardens. Unheard-of July rains rescued us and produced bizarre green August lawns.
Early last week, night temperatures fell into the 40s. Before Labor Day, they soared into the 90s.
Should we rev up the air conditioner or the furnace this morning? How about this afternoon? This minute?
Covering all seasonal bases, we snuggle under blankets every night. Turn on air conditioning, start ceiling fans and open windows. No wonder we’re befuddled. We alternate hot chocolate and snow cones.
Besides all this, baseball, basketball, tennis, golf and football blare from screens. Aaaaugh!
Let’s switch from Daylight Savings Time now, instead of November — absorb maximum confusion like a sucker punch and be done with it!
Or next year, we could once again mark Labor Day as summer’s end. But 100-degree heat waves might bake us for two more months.
We’d be more confused than ever.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you handle summer’s supposed end?
And so it begins: the summertime cucumber flood. The tomato avalanche. The squash tsunami. And, OMG, we give thanks!
