My husband is addicted to puns. In all fairness, I have to say that I love them too, but we like different types of puns. He is likely to go for the quick and dirty, the most obvious, hit them over the head, BAD sort of puns, while I tend to like the long involved stories that need to be read or at least told by a master story teller.
My mother has been living with us for the last fifteen years, and this week, I discovered that DH has swayed her over to the dark side.
We were driving home from an errand, and we saw a sea gull perched upon a light standard. It was so perfectly situated that it looked like it was a statue. As we drove by, Mother turned to me and said “I can’t decide if that was a boy or a gull.”
Ba-dump bump!
What did I do to deserve this??

We live in an interesting area west of Chicago. Fifteen years ago, we built a house at the end of what was a row of “farmettes.” As nearly as I can tell, that means long, deep lots that may have been used to keep horses or farm animals, or perhaps to have small veggie farms. Our land had been purchased in the 1930S by a couple who started a nursery. The remains of the nursery can be seen in the grove behind our house, and the evergreens on our lawn.

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NO, not the little bugs that drive you wild when you’re sailing, or gardening. I’ve been thinking about how much of the time I do work that has little to show for it.
Tuesday, was one of the rare days when I didn’t have to leave the house. I spent the first hour cleaning the kitchen, and the rest of the day I alternated between moving loads of laundry through the washer and drier and cleaning up stacks of work in the office. My niece and her boys joined us for our weekly dinner, and when they left, I went back to work in the office. At 2:00 in the morning, I finally crashed for the night, after creating the envelopes for the invitations to my Mother’s open house.
Everything I did NEEDED to be done. I didn’t get everything done that needed to be done. And except for the fact that we had clean clothes, and you could see the counters in the kitchen…..there was no evidence of the long day I had put in.
It’s difficult to have a life where there is so little to show for your efforts. I used to be able to proudly point to children who were becoming musicians as a sign of my efforts. And, at one time in my life, I churned out quilts.
It’s said that if you want something done, you should ask a busy person. They seem to be able to squeeze in one more thing. Maybe I need to force the issue and add one more thing to my week, and then one more, and one more after that, until I can list my accomplishments.
Or, perhaps, I need to find a way to be satisfied with the work I do. After all, caring for your mother is an honorable job. Keeping your husband out of jail, by filing federal quarterly reports is a commendable job.
Still….I’d like to be a little less “faceless.”

Yes, we voted. Dear Husband went during the work day, and I drove over to the polling place with my Mother. Like Wichi Dude, I probably should have posted this on Tuesday, but it was on my list of “……when I get back to the computer” subjects.
Mother was rather funny about the subject. There was NO thought of not voting, but she announced on Monday that we would have to go EARLY because she had to get back to see Johnny Depp on the Oprah show.
She was rather ticked when I announced that to the members of the exercise class. Tonight, she said that she didn’t understand why people thought that someone who is 88 (or almost 88), shouldn’t be interested in the opposite sex. I told her that I didn’t understand it either. I was right there with her, watching Johnny Depp!
So….we’ve voted. Not everyone we voted for made it into office. You win some years…..and you loose some years.

MAXIMA mea culpa!
The wondrous woman who hosts my blog was born on Halloween. I know that fact. I’ve known it for ages. Somehow, when October 31st came around this year, I forgot to send her my best wishes.
How embarrassing! Mortifying! How RUDE of me!
Okay….enough breast beating.
T…..I love you, girl, and I’m dreadfully sorry about missing your birthday. I hope you painted the town red, ate all the chocolate you wanted, and danced the night away!
Happy Birthday, hon!

Last night as our quilting bee was coming to a close, I asked the members if they had all voted. I received a resounding “YES!” I should have known these ladies would have been johnny-on-the-spot to see to their obligation as a citizen.
What interested me was that they are all rabidly Democratic! Wait…I don’t mean that in a bad way. When I graduated from school, I was a Democrat, and over the years, as a businesswoman, I have gradually become a little more conservative. You could describe me as a person who votes the man, or the issue, NOT the party.
So, I was amazed to find that these women were all aggressively Democratic. They span years from 40 to 66 and are all college educated. The older ones remember what it was like to live through Viet Nam, and one of them marched against the war in Washington. Another is a walking textbook of statistics on Dubya’s first four years, and the youngest member lost sleep election night, hoping that Kerry would make it.
My mother, who is a Republican, announced this week that she had, for the first time in her life, voted for a Democrat. I assumed she meant Kerry, but it’s possible that she was speaking of Barak Obama, who has been elected as one of our Senators. I wish she had been present as we discussed politics last night, because it would have been enlightening to learn how she looks at the world. While she has never missed the chance to vote, I have never heard her make a political statement.
I’ve known my quilting friends for YEARS…..more than twenty years, for most of them, and I never knew how they felt about politics. I’m really glad I asked!

I posted tonight, but MT must not love me.
Yes….I’ve been away longer than usual. I’ve been saving up things to share with you while I’ve been chained to my office desk. Hopefully, I’ll get the time in the next few days to write a bit more.
We are already into November and I’ve barely scratched the surface of my Fall gardening. The Herb Garden is just about ready for winter, but it’s the only garden that has received any attention.
If you have iris, now is the time to add a gentle fertilizer. Go buy a bag a alfalfa pellets, the kind of thing you might feed bunnies. Sprinkle them around your pods of iris, and let them deteriorate over the winter. They’ll feed the iris and you’ll have the most spectacular blooms you’ve ever seen.
I need to cut back peonies this weekend, and the plants in the container gardens. The pots need to be emptied and cleaned for storage in the garage over the winter. I want to insulate two roses and a pot of herbs that I’m going to try to store in the garage, too.
Saturday, we plan to attend a wedding reception late in the afternoon, and then go on to dinner with the kids, to celebrate Dear Husband’s birthday. We’re a little late with that celebration, but this was the first time we could gather. Sunday, one of my nieces is coming for a visit in the afternoon. So, I should be able to do some gardening during the mornings.
So…while my mind dwells on gardens and celebrations, the filing calls me. I’ll be back soon.

Dear Redeaglespirit1,
You’re SO RIGHT!!! For a long time I’ve fussed about not being able to blog every day. I bought a small tape recorder so that I could tape ideas when I was somewhere I couldn’t write them down. I thought that if the ideas were available, I would be able to post at least something small every day.
Welll…it looks like that’s just not my style. Usually I make the time to post on the weekends, but one of my stepsons was working on our computers this weekend, and then I was away on Sunday, and by the time late Sunday evening rolled around, it just wasn’t going to happen. Actually, I would have been happy to go to bed without dinner on Sunday, I was so worn out from spending the day with my sister.
So, here it is, Monday, past my bedtime, and I finally made the time to blog. I must be in good company, if you went a week without posting. *S* I know you all understand about the rest of our lives occasionally getting in the way. This week I have to start putting the gardens to bed for the winter, so I expect to be away again. Btw….go visit Bogie….and see all the stuff SHE has to do to get ready for winter! Maybe you could laugh at her pun about putting the gardens to bed. (I ignored her.)
I’ll save up a week of comments and be back. I want to tell you about “Lucifer’s Hammer” and pumpkin carving, and scarecrows, and Halloween. And I know that other things will come to me over the weekend.
Have a great week!

Yeah….I bet you thought I was going to talk about my exercise class. Heck, NO!
On Sunday, I got waaaay too much exercise visiting the Antiques Market with my oldest sister. She was here about 6:45 in the morning. I’m guessing, because I was still getting ready at that point. I came running out of the bedroom at 7:00 to find her chatting with Mother, waiting on me. Luckily, she wasn’t bothered by the short wait.
She drove, and we took off for the Market. We made such good time that we were there about 15 minutes early, but they let us in anyway. It was nippy to start. I bought hot apple cider for both of us to sip, and gave her my gloves to use until the sun warmed up a bit. The day turned out to be glorious, and we shopped so well and long that we had to make two trips back to the car to leave packages and layers of clothing that were no longer needed.
I bought TWO quilts. One will be a gift, and the other is for me. I found a depression era quilt that is a variation of the Boston Commons. I have to look up the variation name. This one is square rather than rectangular, and other than a little sun fading in the corner, it’s in good shape.
I found a medium sized wooden bowl that appealed to me. I found sets of crochetted and embroidered pillowcases to give as gifts, and to use on my own bed. I found a bone china cup and saucer, and tea napkins to give as a Christmas present, and a delicate cup and saucer for myself.
Mostly, I just enjoyed spending the day with my sister. We’re both busy women, and it’s not easy to make the time to go off and do things together. Luckily for me, she doesn’t take being busy as an adequate excuse for not doing fun things, so when I mentioned the Market’s last session for the year, she wrote it into her calendar.
What pleases me the most is that we are going to be together again this coming weekend, along with my youngest sister. It should be a great weekend! I plan to window shop, to point out all the great places to eat, and fight to get a word in edgewise!
And THIS time…..I plan to take my Ibuprophen with me! *G*

Tomorrow, October 26th, is Dear Husband’s birthday. I won’t go shouting out his age, but I can tell you than neither of us are spring chickens any more. (Now, THERE’S and idea for a blog. What the heck is a “spring chicken?”)
My niece and her boys come to dinner on Tuesdays, and then we play UNO and have dessert. Tomorrow, dessert will be one of Dear Husband’s beloved pies. He doesn’t care for cake, so we traditionally do birthday pie. His pie of choice would be lemon meringue or coconut cream or banana cream. My niece is providing the dessert, so she will choose the kind of pie.
Some time in the next week to ten days, we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate, but Tuesday, we’ll celebrate with family. UNO anyone??