8 Things About Me -- Meme

My Literary Mama friend Caroline tagged me for this meme.

First, I am to publish the rules:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Here goes

1. I'm addicted to the television show Lost -- though I may have to give it up for my own welfare. When one of the main characters (No spoilers here!) died at the end of this season, I just about went off the deep end of melancholy and morosity.

2. I know the Greek alphabet by heart -- when pledging a college sorority, I was required to learn it, and it has become one of those trivial things that just stuck. I also unwittingly memorized my first Spanish lesson, though some of it has faded over the years.

3. I detest peas, especially canned ones. My mom declares even as an infant, I would spit them out. Even though it is immature and impolite, I will pick them out of a casserole and leave them on my plate.

4. I also hate roller coasters -- never have liked them but rode them when I caved at peer pressure. However, now that I'm over 50, I will never ride one again, and there is NOTHING anyone can say that will compel me to change my mind.

5. The night sky -- moon, stars, and other celestial bodies -- fascinates me. I wish I had a telescope to better observe them. A serendipity of moving to our new home is that I have a clear view of the eastern horizon and can watch the moon rise in the frame of our office window.

6. One of my favorite childhood pastimes was playing school, and as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a teacher (or a beautician). By high school, I determined that was the grade level I was most suited for; the subject matter varied, depending on what my favorite teacher taught. Home economics, Spanish, history were some I considered before I found a perfect fit: English.

7. One of my favorite life memories is growing up on land that had once been my paternal grandparents' farm. We lived up the hill from Grandma Young, who had a great old farm house with two covered porches, a library, and a claw-footed bathtub. The pasture was my backyard, and there were so many things to explore: a dairy barn, horse barn, farrowing house, a pond and a creek. All of that is gone now; turned into a four-lane state highway, but still today, I often dream about Grandma's house and our old home.

8. Alas, the only bloggers I know are related to Literary Mama or were members of two online writing classes I recently participated in. From what I can tell, most have been tagged. None of my closest real-time friends have a blog, though a couple of people are in the thinking stage of beginning one. But here's who I tag:

3bridgeview
dreaming about water
readingwritingliving

Dancing with a Hibiscus

Every year I buy a potted hibiscus with the hope that, at the worst, I won't kill it, and at the least, I can keep the leaves green.

Two years I actually brought a plant inside at the end of summer. One of those looked beautiful but close examination revealed dozens of spider mites, so I took it outside and left it exposed to the elements of a midwestern winter. Another year the plant, bursting with green foliage and blooms, gradually dropped leaf by leaf until only one healthy-looking sprig remained. Still, I was optimistic until my son, home from college, asked, "Mom, how's your stick doing?"

This year's plant sat on my front porch for about 24 hours before the first yellow leaf appeared. Hoping for a different outcome, I searched online tips and found a user friendly site: Hidden Valley Hibiscus, which listed these possible reasons for yellow leaves:

--Too Much Water (I did water it thoroughly when I brought it home because somewhere else I had read hibiscus like moist soil.)
--Not Enough Water (I stopped watering it altogether.)
--Too Hot (It's a tropical plant for crying out loud!)
--Too Cold ( I brought it inside a couple of evenings when the temperature dropped to an unseasonable level.)
--Too Much Direct Sunlight (I placed it on our covered porch, where it received about three hours of morning sun.)
--Too Little Sunlight (My mother, whose hibiscus sits in full sun and received five days worth of rain without having on yellow leaf -- suggested I move it, so I put it on the front porch step. There it did reward me with three beautiful blossoms before the yellow leaves returned!)
--Insects, Particularly Spider Mites (Oh really!)
--Too Windy (Remember the porch is covered; the plant unexposed)
--Improper Nutrition or pH (I repotted it using Miracle Grow potting soil.)
--Pesticide Over Use (Of course, I followed the manufacturer's directions!)

The article ends with a cheery note: "Good luck with your growing and gardening and by all means have fun with it!"

Yeah, right!

Happy Birthday, America

Tonight celebratory booms and sizzles fill the air, while reds, whites and blues light the sky. Rain-soaked streets shimmer, and smoke drifts lazily across the landscape, reminding me of a theatrical depiction of a Civil War battle, though no Panavision or surround sound could match the experience of watching our neighborhood's fireworks display from the comfort of our front porch. But I move from porch to patio where the western sky puts on its own colorful show, streaking the horizon with pinks and purples. It's a lovely night, and I'm grateful to live in a country that affords me the freedoms America offers its citizens and grateful for a Creator whose creation is unparalleled, even tonight as we celebrate a birthday.

Being Home Alone

My "home alone" weekend ends tomorrow when my husband and his ball team return to Missouri.

What I accomplished:

• Cleaning up my Internet Favorites. Everything is now organized into folders and sub-folders. I never did find the link I made for a site that rated bathroom scales. I know I saved it twice in "shopping" and "health." Looking for it is what inspired me to work on this in the first place! But it is such a good feeling to be organized!
• Dead-heading my flowers before the rains cames.
• Washing one load of towels.
• Freshening the bathroom by removing the coat of hairspray on my side of the vanity.
• Grocery shopping.

What I did for myself:

• Got a haircut, which will hopefully cut down on the amount of hairspray I use!
• Read a book: I Capture the Castle -- recommended by Columnist Libby Gruner at Literary Mama
• Celebrated a friend's birthday with lunch and an afternoon of shopping.
• Lived in my pjamas.
• Visited my parents.
• Went to church.

What I learned:

• A whole week is a long time to be alone!
• Living alone can be pretty boring and lonely after a while. I was be glad to see my husband!
• I need to do more for my widowed or divorced friends who are always home alone.

Home Alone

My husband has taken his baseball team to Florida for a week! Our granddaughter's birthday is next week, so when he was making the reservations back in March, I opted not to go with him as I wanted to be available for any family celebration.

However, it has now ended up that no one is traveling to Kentucky for a party; instead we will celebrate when my son's family visits later in July, so. . .

I'm home alone.

I love my husband, and I love my son's family, but I do love being home alone. The house is quiet, and I can have a bowl of cereal for supper if I want. (Not that my husband complains about any meal I fix or if we eat out five nights in a row -- I truly have a gem of a husband.)

I hope the team, the coaches, and the parents that joined them have a wonderful time -- I hope they win all their games and have fun at MGM Park and at get nice tans at Daytona Beach. I pray they will return home safely next Monday.

Until then, I'm going to grab a book and settle in for a nice evening of reading.

Good Books

It has been several months since I have read a really good book! The kind of book that makes me want to read quickly because I can't stand the suspense, yet the kind that makes me slow down because I'm not going to want the book to end.

When I retired, I compiled all the book lists I had stuffed in a folder into one long list. My goal was to read all of the books, or at least give each one a try. I soon discovered that is a futile endeavor because I keep adding new titles to my list. I now have three typed pages of three columns each typed in a 6 point font.

This problem is only becoming "worse"now that the Literary Reflections Department at Literary Mama has expanded with two new features: "Essential Reading" and "Now Reading." What a delightful dilemma!

This month's Essential Reading focuses on fathers. "Now Reading" will be posted soon.

Hope you will take a look!

Happy Birthday, Son

Thirty one years ago today I was in labor at Research Hospital delivering my oldest son.

Just the day before I had had my last office visit with my OB/GYN Joe Williams. His parting words to me had been : "If I don't see you before, be at the hospital at 7 a.m., and we will induce labor."

Following the appointment, I was at lunch with my mom and aunt when it hit me that this time tomorrow I would be in pain. A wave of nausea washed over me, and when I expressed my thoughts, my mom asked, "Why? You've known all along you are going to have this baby at some point."

"I know, but now I know the appointed time of the labor, the appointed time of the pain, and the anticipation is a bit scary." (That all seems so silly now!)

The rest of the day was uneventful, and at 5:30 the next morning, I was up showering and packing my suitcase. I don't know why I had to be up so early -- except I'm sure I showered, fixed my hair, and maybe put on makeup, if that was allowed. (In those days, I'd never leave the house looking unpresentable.) Anyway, to muffle any noise, I had shut the door to the bathroom.

We were staying at my parents' house, as we lived an hour away from Kansas City, and my mom, who was getting ready for work, (She was supervisor of the recovery room at the same hospital.) told me our dog Smokie was poking his nose into the crack of light under the door as if he knew something noteworthy was going on.

By 7:30, I was in the labor room where my water was broken, and I was hooked up to all the monitors, waiting for contractions to begin. Eventually someone came in and poked me for an IV drip. I hate needles and immediately tensed until I was as flat and straight as a plank. "Relax, relax," the nurse kept repeating.

At some point, a group of student nurses came into the room to observe, and when their supervisor asked me if they could observe me all day, I said, "Sure, that's fine."

As the contractions strengthened, a nurse administered a shot of Demerol, which I thought was not working because I could still feel the pain. I pressed the call button and told the voice on the other side that I could still feel the pain and thought I needed another shot. I could tell she suppressed a laugh as she explained, "The medicine won't stop the pain; it just takes the edge off." I could just hear her telling her colleagues about my first-time-mom naivete!

The labor continued, slowly but surely, and my husband, who was going to school that was an hour's commute each way, dozed in the chair and then went to lunch with my mom. Along the way, my mother-in-law arrived and was sitting in the waiting room, where my husband delivered updates of my progress. Every hour or so, my mom checked in to note my progress.

Preparing to wheel me to the delivery room, a kind nurse was rubbing my back as the contractions strengthened. It helped take the edge off the pain. After a few minutes, she asked Jim to take over while she took care of some other duties. Jim said yes and gave me a couple of strokes then stopped. I whipped my head around and snapped, "Don't stop!"

To which he replied, "I think having babies makes you cranky." (GRRRRRR!)

The atmosphere of the delivery room was electric -- as though we were waiting for a noted celebrity to make his entrance. Student nurses lingered in at the edges of the crowd, like wallflowers awaiting their turn to fully participate. Nurses came and went through the swinging doors, reminding me of a serving staff moving from kitchen to ballroom. The doctor rushed in and took his assigned seat, finally saying that blessed word: "Push!"

And then -- there he was the star of the afternoon -- our son, our first born, who was received with a round of applause and (on my part) a grateful sigh of relief! As the nurses were cleaning him, I watched him craning his neck, inspecting the room, marveling at the crowd. (Okay, maybe not that -- but he did look awfully intelligent!)

In the meantime, one of the nurses went to the waiting room, where by now, my mom had joined my mother-in-law, and said, "Dixie, Dr. Williams wants to see you."

As my mom stood, my mother-in-law remarked, "She's not going any where without me." So, there they were, peeking through the doors, so they could see their first grandchild.

Later when he was bundled, and I was wrapped in a wonderfully warm blanket, I stared into his eyes, marveling at the awesome miracle he was (and is) and the awesome responsibility that was now mine.

I love you, Son! Happy Birthday!