Stories and other stuff

What I wanted to do was to put on some comfy clothes and go eat ice cream with the folks from my church.  I like these folks and I enjoyed myself last year.  I wanted to go. But what I wanted to do was interrupted by what I needed to do.  Have I mentioned I can grow a weed like nobody's business?  Have I also mentioned that I have this garden? My house was a train wreck.  I have pets, so at any given time, my house is in any varying stage of clean.  It needed some attention and it got some.  The lawn is freshly shorn.  Now I'm watering it.  I weeded about fifty feet of carrots today, too.  The onions with the tops fallen over have been dug up and are on top of the ground.  I picked about a hundred feet of green beans.  I picked a peck of peppers.  OK, I'm sure eight anaheim chiles do not make a peck, but it sounded good. I weeded the beans as I went.  I don't mind the weeds as much as I do the grass.  The g...

I like the various stages of vegetable gardening. First you start out all excited in the planning stage.  You get busy prepping the plot.  It's fun because there are no weeds.  It's all brand new and then there's the anticipation of what you're going to plant and you imagine this huge bumper crop of vegetables.  You promise yourself you're really going to get after those weeds this year and it's gonna be grand.  In your mind, you can just taste the freshness of the things you'll plant and there's just nothing like noshing on a fresh vine ripened tomato. The planting is all done and you commence to watering.  You hope it won't get too hot, or too cold.  you hope for rain, but not too much.  You promise you're really going to fertilize this year, too.  And you do.  Twice. June comes and the peas you planted are doing OK.  You know though, that if this heat lasts your peas wont.  You pick, and pick.  You pick a five gal...

I spent a bit of time in the garden today, pulling and cutting down weeds.  I haven't done much up there in the last week or so and it was starting to show.  Today I made up for it. I'm pleased I did.  And, I had some unexpected help today, too.  June came over and we worked on the garden for a couple of hours together. We've planted and watered.  We've weeded, too.  And today, we started to reap the benefits of the hard work.  June took a couple of sacks of goodies from the garden.  She likes swiss chard, turnip greens, and spinach.  Not all together (at least I think not) but she harvested a couple of sacks of greens.  I accidentally dug up two red potatoes and gave them to her.  We dug up one of our yukon gold plants and she took a handful of potatoes to add to the two red ones.  She picked two nice sized anaheim chile peppers, too. My onions are deciding they want to be done much earlier than they should be.  I h...

Every now and again, I have to toss out a blog post or re-write it.  Today is hot and sticky and I just don't feel like tossing out the old one.  Too much effort.  So, instead I'll just rewrite the darn thing. I wanted to go to Jellystone today.  I didn't because I misread a text the wife sent me.  I'm kinda glad I didn't go this week, though, because if I hadn't gone to wal-mart the shiny thing on the counter wouldn't be getting hot. That's the long and short of it.  I was in a hurry and I misread the text that kept me at home instead of on the road.  No biggie. I did wind up letting her borrow Bucket.  I ain't happy about it but I can share.  It's like having joint custody of your kids, I suppose.  I even saw the mother-in-law person today.  She couldn't save me any money on my thingie because they don't get discounts on closeouts. Anyway, I am the proud owner of a Butterball electric turkey fryer.  I stopped at the W...

At eight this morning, I was on my way to Yellowstone.  Well, after coffee anyway.  I thought it would be a good weekend to run up.  I had a couple of extra dollars and three days off.  Overtime is looming next week which means twelve hour days for four days starting Monday.  No biggie.  I'm used to it and the money will certainly come in handy. At nine-thirty, I had other plans.  Probably a good thing.  I'm where I need to be and I'm getting some things done that need to be. I really love this house.  I told you the story of how the appraiser told me it sucks and maybe it does, but I'm comfortable here.  But there are things I can do to make it better and that's what I'm working on today.  I'm cutting down volunteer trees, mowing, picking things up.  Or I was, anyway.  I'm on a break because it's muggy out. Heat I can handle, but being a desert dweller, you throw in higher than normal humidity and it just sucks the ...

If you search the ol' archives, last year on July 15 you will see I posted a link to Psalm 51.  This year, I', going to copy, from the NIV version, Psalm 51 in its entirety in the hope that you, dear reader, will read it.  Nobody should ever have the hurtful memory on their birthday as someone I love very much does and on this day, every year, I will post this in acknowledgment before God and to y'all that the sorrow for causing that hurt lives on. I imagine it always will. Psalm 51: Psalm 51[a] For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. 1 Have mercy on me, O God,     according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion     blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity     and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions,     and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned ...

I had an interesting, but short conversation last night with one of the guys I worked with.  I didn't start the conversation but it's the first time I had to come face to face with what I see is the start of a rift between Mormons and Christians. I was very careful about what I said and me, being me, told him the story of how a good Christian woman in Colorado had the courage and conviction of her faith to rebuke me for something in the most loving way.  I told the man that it wasn't my intent to insult him or his religion or to hurt his feeling after that and went into my remarks. I told him that from my perspective, the reason Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christians is that, for us, the last page of Revelation is where Scripture ends.  I then just made it personal for me by telling him that as the way I see it, the Bible talks of false prophets and therein starts the divide.  His point though, and I agree, is that if we could just accept grace withou...

The one thing I dislike about the way my life goes sometimes is the utter lack of control I feel I have over some of the circumstances I find myself in.  Every now and again, it gets to me and I wanna start driving the car again.  I kind of talked about this on Monday, along with being alone, which I'm really not grooving to. I told y'all that God works in my life in some pretty unusual ways.  Here's today's story and what I got out of what happened. Last night after work, my car wouldn't start.  At one in the morning, there aren't a whole lot of options of who to call.  Probably, the one guy I could have called I no longer have his phone number and the next time I see him at work, I'll make sure to grab it.  He would have been up because he works in the same building I do and gets off work at about the same time I do.  Anyway, as it turns out, the very last car in the parking lot was parked next to me.  And these two guys that work in the han...

And who is Clyde anyway?  Only Clyde I ever heard of was Clyde "the glide" Drexler, and that was from back in the day. Anyway, what's the dealio with the weather?  I waited two days to water the garden after our rainstorm the other day.  And then I watered it yesterday.  I watered it again today, too because my potato plants are wanting to die.  I know that the signal for time to harvest, much like when the tops of your onion plants start to fall over.  I have a couple of those doing that right now, too, but the bulbs are nowhere near the size they should be for this to happen. In the last week, my Roma tomato plants are all about setting fruit and I mean in a hurry.  I went from no tomatoes to tons of tomatoes and I don't even remember seeing them set that many flowers.  I finished up the dripper project and they seem to be working well.  Each little tomato plant is being fed.  So is each little pepper plant.  That's just in th...

No, not that! My vacation.  Nine days off, but back to work today.  And, that's probably a good thing. I did a lot around here, but the last few days, not so much, except for the regular chores.  The garden is being watered now, but will need to be massively weeded again.  The good news is that things are growing well.  I'm actually going to harvest my first anaheim chile today.  Wish there were more, though.  It's kind of a waste to fire up the charcoal grill just to roast one pepper. The pepper plants are finally blooming with more blossoms, and that's a good thing.  Our beets and carrots didn't do so well this year and for the life of me I don't know why.  The seeds just didn't germinate like they should have.  I had visions of giving away and bottling all these beets but that's not going to happen either.  However, judging by the sheer number of green bean plants that are thriving, I expect we'll have plenty of those to sh...

I looked this morning to see how many people have read my post on loving our enemies.  In the last 7 days, it's been looked at 6 times.  I hope the folks that view that story get a little something out of it.  I wonder though, if the real object lesson is my life. Someday, I'll have to tell the real stores of the things I've been confronted with since then, but for now I'm going to stick to this story: There is a man I know who brings out the best, and sometimes the worst in people.  It's kind of a hard situation for us sometimes to know what to say or how to deal with this guy.  Prayer seemed to be a good answer.  I help this man from time to time because I have a truck and because he asks. It's not always a positive or pleasant experience, though.  But that, sometimes is on me just as much as it is the man in question. So, I tired prayer and the most unique thing happened.  Instead of bothering me about helping him when I get my truck back...

I didn't sleep very well last night.  I'll be glad when the fireworks are over with.  They make the dogs jumpy.  That started them earlier in the evening and when the wind kicked up overnight, they were very nervous. I finally went to sleep somewhere after two, I think.  Woke up at seven and surveyed the damage.  I had a pretty lazy day yesterday, with just running some errands and taking care of the pool, but today I have some work to do.  Besides a couple of loads of laundry, my back yard and patio are a mess from the windstorm. That's going to take a back seat to the farmer's market this morning, though.  I think I'm going to pick up some crusty bread and make something good for dinner.  And I would like to make some zucchini bread today, too, to put in the freezer. Who knows what the wind will blow in?  I already cleaned out the stuff in the pool.  The yard and patio will take some extra time and laundry's a cinch.  I supp...

God has hidden treasures for you in every mess He allows in your life. If you leave your "mess" prematurely you may not find the treasure                     Jeremiah 29:7 "Pray for the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile." I'm just sayin....

My neighborhood sounds like a war zone right now.  I'm trying to balance the understanding of celebrating our nation's birthday against the realization that it's extremely dry out there and one errant spark could send the whole neighborhood up in flames. This year, that's not much of an exaggeration.  If that mountainside catches fire and we get an east wind, bye-bye house.  Homeless folks have been known to camp up on the hillsides.  I'm just sayin' I'm a little concerned about fires this year.  Not worried, just concerned. Bucket, however, is less enthused about the fireworks.  He's hiding under the bed right now.  Granted, it's probably the coolest spot in the house, but when I let him out to pee just a few minutes ago, for the first time since winter, he wanted  to come back in.  Buck normally lives for outside.  Yesterday I took him and the beagle for a walk.  On the way back home from the park, I noticed Ogden's finest fir...

I met some guys from Columbus, Ohio a few years back and one of the things that always stuck with me from that was they frequently put an extra "s" on some words.  I use it from time to time when I'm trying to be funny.  It makes me laugh, anyway. I had to explain some technical glitches I've been experiencing for the last few days.  My telephone was needed elsewhere and I found out I kinda enjoy having a cell phone, among the many other blessings of life. I'm on staycation this week.  I'm happy to have the time off.  Lots going on, nothing I can do about it, and I'm just kinda keeping up with what I can and doing what I can do.  A lot of that involves just making food.  Sometimes food is the best thing you can do. OK, so enough about me.  I'm going to switch gears on y'all and if you're a conservative, you're the one I talking about. The older I get, the more shameful I find things that I used to hold dear.  And as I've watched...