from the mixed up files...

Did you ever read that book as a kid? From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil Frankweiler? I've always loved the title (as I recall, the book's good too). Now, I wonder why it sprung to mind this morning, as I considered the day before me! A day that is one big heap of mixed up everything. No logic, no symmetry, no great order to it. A leap here, a dart there, a wiggle elsewhere. 

Some days are like that!

It was a very decent beginning. Another one of those very warm days, but shades of autumn are showing up everywhere. I look out my balcony, across at the corn field, and I think -- it really is October.

Breakfast, with Natalie's sunflowers and joyful classical music.

And then it's onto my disorganized day of confusing errands and annoying appointments, capped with a visit to the farmhouse and an afternoon with just Snowdrop, since Sparrow is still gathering his strength at home after whatever bug he had yesterday.

I mean, how pleasant would you find the carting of yet another Amazon return to the UPS? Followed by a long wait at Walgreens (because my Medicare number wasn't working for them), for a pre-booked flu shot? Worse -- after that, I went for an interview with an insurance rep to discuss long term care insurance plans. (You see? I'm really attending to my senior needs!) I don't want to discourage all you prudent ones who have such plans. They may be fabulous. They may save you a lot if you become incapacitated. But basically, for people my age, the overhead is large and the payback is small. You're better off saving your money and crossing your fingers on stock market returns. So, a wasted two hours there.

 

(At the farmette: just about all the blooms now are from the flowers planted in the pots and tubs...)

 

At the farmhouse, I have to smile at the "improvements" Ed made with my leftover pieces. Yes, the art table is in the former kid room now. As are the plants. A toy truck is digging up the Christmas cactus and I see some toy planes have crashed into it...

 

Ed also brought in the black chair from the sheep shed -- purchased nearly twenty years ago to entice me then to spend more time in the sheep shed. Once again, it's positioned so as to make me more comfortable during a farmette visit, only we've graduated now to the farmhouse -- significantly more appealing than the sheep shed.

 Unfortunately, Friendly the cat claimed it immediately for himself.

So long as I am out here, so close to nature, I suggest a walk. Or better yet -- a bike/hike. We pedal over to the Nature Conservancy lands -- maybe a couple of miles up the road from us. 

From there, we take the path up past the grazing cattle to the woodsy area that abuts the sprawling wetlands that eventually feed Lake Waubesa.

This isn't a demanding hike. More of a quiet one, to get myself aligned with that part of the world that I cut off so suddenly.

And then it's time for me to go back to my new neighborhood. With a stop at the grocery store, where I pick up a few necessities, and, too, a few items off of Ed's grocery list which I swear, he's never otherwise going to fill. He can get them from the Edge tomorrow. Is that a weird way to grocery shop or what?! 

 

I pick up the girl at school and bring her to the Edge. 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

She is tired. The kids are often tired on Fridays. It's as if the week's early wake up hours and long days catch up with them right about now. No problem: at the Edge, we read. And today she gives a loving few minutes to her small mice collection.

And she asks -- if you do Gaga summer camp (for the older grandkids) next summer, can it be at the farmhouse? There are no toys there anymore, I tell her (the toy excavator by the Christmas cactus notwithstanding). But maybe it can be close to the farmhouse... Or here. 

Next summer seems so far away.

with love...