Blessings Counted, The Blessing of Organized

It took awhile, but now I am glad Mother Nature dropped in this unplanned Rose of Sharon

Whenever it rains, it doesn't matter how hard I'm working, it feels like vacation. 

With the first drops of the season giving the earth the first wet-kiss of the season, that last grasp of summer's hot breath last weekend is now a memory as distant as the moon. 

Yesterday was a blustery day to visit our accountant. A weather description that surely will bring laughter to relatives in northern latitudes. Half our circle of friends and family are already shoveling snow while I am putting finishing touches on an article about planting wildflowers. 

Thankfully,  business duties put me near Judy Duvall for a belated birthday  celebration. God graced this friend with this thousand mega watt smile and divinely husky voice. I am blessed that she is part of a group of girlfriends who put up with my journalist's quirks in attitude and behavior. I pray she has many more years filled with music, laughter and love. 

Drive-time home in the greater LA Area- one develops great sympathy for salmon swimming upstream. However, being fortunate enough to be caught in traffic when two of my favorite journalists, Jake Tapper and Hugh Hewitt  were chatting on current events- as a not fully-recovered political geek- I understand I have it better than the fish. 

Home. Every item filled with memories.  The changing of this season is swift. Time to open the fireplace flu, light a log and scented candle.  Unpack the electric blankets to warm the reclining chairs for a rare evening of just enjoying my husband's company. 

Near the fireplace is the rocking chair my wonderful sister-in-law Billie Plunk rocked her babies in. Like the Velveteen Rabbit of literature - it was loved so much that some of it plain wore out.  But the gorgeous lines of the chair- its solid construction- I was thrilled that she let me bring it home. Recover it. And dream of visits where I will read out loud to our darling granddaughter.  

Stock items are now easy to find.

Confession. The last couple years: life had gotten out of hand. This summer I hired myself to take back control. One closet. One drawer. One shelf. One shed at a time.  Physical organization= personal and professional empowerment. 

Yes- the top row of soups are alphabetized

 Just 12 " deep, the height and width of the freezer it sits next to in the garage, Gerry built this shelving unit just outside the door into the house. 

Above it are the over-flow of  kitchen gadgetry that made happy memories.  Upside- down acrylic frames serve as shallow shelves for cookie cutters, tools for frosting- things I often thought should be passed to Goodwill. But didn't. 

For that I am glad. For  I am finding in these years between beauty and the grave that memories aren't just about the past. Planning for future memories  is a great joy- if you can find what it is you need. 

Life is not Low Maintenance

Purchase info below

This purse loads with credit cards.

In today's political climate, it is probably a bit politically incorrect to wear very many places. Which makes it charming. I dream of a day when talking heads lighten up. Life is serious: but it deserves to be enjoyed, too.

Life is not low maintenance. Embrace it. Or clean it. The past couple days I have been wrestling with getting the patio back into the state of "country sophisticate" enjoyability. Heavy patio furniture lifting was followed by bronco-busting  in a commercial floor finisher. I wrapped up before big planes of glass became sideline casualties. The wet-look sealer makes the floor shine like in the White House.

In 2011, we will watch less TV. Who wants their headstone to read "She watched lots of TV"

Our "Run to the Borders" (bookstore) does not have to be saved for weekends. Neither do Italian dinners.

 Last night's menu:

•  Marinated artichoke hearts
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Pumpkin ravioli with browned butter sauce with crisped sage leaves
• Curled spaghetti lavishing under Oregon Sue's Marinara sauce
• Mini Meatballs and Italian sausage

Bet you are glad you didn't have to clean my kitchen. I am satisfied that the leftovers will warm well.

When we arrived at our local Border's, the evidence suggested the weekend was very busy

When you run into a section like this at a bookstore, do you straighten up?

 Being this was a date with my husband, I stopped short of alphabetizing by author. However horizontal and vertical and vertical planes were restored before I left the store with 2 new books.

Perhaps this oddity is a function of becoming a writer. I see a shelf  with contents overturned and I read it as an though an anthropologist surrounded by ancient rubble. The book collection is robbed of its dignity by nomadic people devoid of  the awe of appreciation.

Writers, photographer, editors- each book on the shelf are the children of every person involved in the production of a book. Corporations took a chance investing in their gestation. When the book is born, a retailer risks what happens when the stacks are explored.

Fact. The public rudely trashed the place. Shouldn't it be a civic duty to help correct? If we believe in personal responsibility- disheveled books ought to be treated like beach litter. Not just the obligation of staff.

Resolve to not  be a part of the problem. Make it a habit to be part of the solution. 

The purse is in stock at S. Barton's Fine Gifts. They are moving around the corner from 121 North Citrus Avenue, Covina, CA 91723-2002. Call (626) 332-0326 ‎ if you get there and they are gone.

Signs of Spring

Winter waves goodbye. Flowers are already in bloom. At our front door- the spicy scent of carnations rises up in greeting. Living here, where cymbidium orchids are kept outside to bloom year after year- to garden here is much like Pastor Cliff described it will be like in heaven. Enough work for everyone.

With 12 months of color displayed in our gardens, what sets spring apart is the seasonal rituals related to cleaning. Spring is the high season when us defiantly romantic juggle the homemaker's trinity of thrift, beauty and order. That, or end up deserving to be featured on an episode of Hoarders.

To be successful on a budget, the first thing is to pick where you can spend the least for the biggest impact. To be fully motivated, when everything is cleaned and put back, the result needs to be more than just cleaner. The place needs to be better.

This year, I picked the wall behind my bed for special attention. Earlier this week, the wall was the color of dried bones. The old picture matting and frame's years visually dragged down the room. Not now.

I will never part with the frame on the cross stitched homily. My father made it to house the cork board bulletin board for my childhood room. Dad was a very practical man- for him to spend time creating something so non-essential as an mahogany frame to pin school mementos to is a symbol of his love. Part of how he taught his daughter to cherish little triumphs by hanging ribbons and awards displayed there during the school years.

Back in the early 1980's, my eyesight and hands cooperated in crafting items for our home. A quarter of a century after the carved molding was stained and shellacked, the frame graduated to my married-woman bedroom.

Confession. Other than to install the mattress- the one my husband says he sleeps well in because it is so high off the ground it causes oxygen deprivation- the bed has not been moved since the year we decided we would decorate in the style of a bed and breakfast inn.

Removing the bedding and mattress to move the bed from the wall- this operation was to seek and destroy the dust bunnies underneath. It was pointless to individually them. If they left on there own, they could be known as the Thundering Herd.

At noon, the needlepoint, en frame, took a drive to Ken's Ace Hardware with me. Paint color expert Karen helped match one of the blues in the lettering to Benjamin Moore "Nantucket Fog". She sent me home with a quart of eggshell enamel to paint with and an 18" square paint chip to shop with.

A quick stop at Baxter's Frame Shop- Jill sorted through the matting samples to find a sumptuous crushed blue fabric for a new picture mat that showed off both the needlework and the new color of the wall.

If you don't think you can afford to renew a room this spring, maybe there is a tool you've forgotten. Coupons from the newspaper. This is today's actual savings at my local Albertson's.

The total time to make the room more welcoming was one day. The total expense was just the cost of one can of paint and one custom mat. The result result is rejuvenating.

Ken's Ace Hardware is on Diamond Bar Blvd., in the same shopping center as K-Mart.303 South Diamond Bar Boulevard Diamond Bar, CA 91765-1613 - (909) 861-5861

Baxter's Frame Work is at the corner of Diamond Bar and Grand, in the same shopping center as Albertson's

http://www.baxtersframeworks.com/

Blessings

Summitridge Park at dusk. The cares of the day sink behind the hills 0n the horizon. It is easy to contemplate the Glory of God, to count my blessings here.

To a family without a home, darkness falling is not so full of comfort.

I would like you to do yourself a favor. Click over to Inland Temporary Homes (ITH) http://www.ithomes.org/.

While national statistics show the average rate at which homeless families are able to transition successfully from shelter to permanent housing at a rate of 50-60%, ITH’s success rate consistently hovers at a near perfect 95%.

I would like to thank Gene Sasse for reminding me that we all have something to give. Even with the general state of journalism, a writer can write even when she has to guard her checkbook to stretch the balance between billable hours.

I'm not going to give you the exact place on the website Gene went live with for them earlier today to read how to give some time and get a free day at Disneyland. I want you to click through the site. Discover the instructions while you search through the Internet corridors where the tale is written. To find the secrets behind ITH's success in diverting families off the path that leads to being homeless.

There is nothing I could have been paid to do which would have brought the satisfaction of writing the text for their new web site. These sentences were a joy to write for CEO Leanne Drieberg and her crew

"Success isn’t something found at the end of a path. It is found along the journey. Every day. We succeed because our program teaches our clients to create their own opportunities with honor. To do what is expected for a more successful life."

Photo of mother with child by Gene Sasse. Used with permission.

Looking Up

How fortunate to have gardened in one place for twenty years.

To have our neighbor, Dennis McCreary, plant a tree which now provides shade for this Magnolia x soulangeana. It struggled so the first decade in full sun. Now see her in all her glory. Like a child who struggled through adversity in early years- but with love and care- reaches her potential.


Southern California's un-winter triggered this early bloom.
The pink tabebuia (below) is a treasure from the spring plant sale at the Los Angeles Arboretum. During her formative years, "Tabby" that had me worried because she didn't bloom the first year like her "little sister"- the yellow flowering version- did. But not giving up paid off. Dennis was the gentleman when I told him she needed more sun or would need to be cut down. He allowed the tree on his side of the property line to be sacrificed. "Tabby" doesn't usually bud out until Easter time. But with the unseasonably warm weather: the trees are a bit schizophrenic about what to do when.

This week my nose was down in the dirt. Scrambling in case spring's grand entrance continued its mad race to summer. Not just dealing with vegetation. Bricks needing to be reset after the gophers had so much fun tunneling in the soft sand. Emptying birdbaths for their annual scrubbing. Problem-solving electrical shorts and cleaning the pump filters. Laying out shredded redwood bark on the bare dirt to keep down the weeds and gussy up the flower beds.

Then the rain fell steady this afternoon. Time has stopped in the garden. I have my fingers crossed that the bloom won't be totally knocked down before there is a chance to capture how utterly gorgeous it is when the branches are filled with chorus lines of gold finches or the ever-present hummers.

Yes- things are looking up this spring. Two weeks ago, the Disneyland rose at right was a collection of barren sticks. Now it is in full leaf with buds beginning to break open.

Like gardens everywhere, this Eden needs water. Not just now. In the future. The Owens Valley supplies Metropolitan Water District, which supplies the other water agencies. This area also purchases water from Northern California and the Colorado River. Local aquifers are pumped, but this region's underground supply is frequently polluted and in need of cleaning up.

A reliable source informs that the cost of importing water is roughly $250 per acre foot. Desalinization is about $1500 to do saltwater. Sewage is easier and cheaper to clean with reverse osmosis. But there is an unconfirmed rumor that near Del Mar, one firm believes because electrical grid infrastructure is already in place, they can slash the cost of desalinization closer to $800/acre foot.

Our water needs should not just be born by those who live elsewhere. It would be helpful to have a local reservoir, where runoff could be efficiently and safely stored. It is time to look up from the crisis of the day and put together all the considerations that would need to happen for a reservoir to be wisely built . Near here. Such as the one found on the Hills for Everyone website on property owned by the City of Industry.

THE spring plant sale at the Arboretum is now known as the LA Garden Show. This year's event is May 1-3. Link to info at http://www.arboretum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=description&select=5&event=LA%20Garden%20Show&StoryID=7c18cc7d-ec54-4cf3-bce4-3b637dd89597&catagory=calendar&CFID=1237960&CFTOKEN=64271052

The pink tabebuia is aka 'Pink Trumpet Tree' - probably t. heterophylla because it is tall and slender. but it could be T. impetiginosa as that is more frequently carried at the arboretum plant sale.

What Rains May Come

What rains may come, we are ready. My husband cleared the gutters- last week the Santa Ana Winds filled them with leaves and ashes. The gray and brown scrap





now tops the heap of
approved waste in the compost bin. There it will all age into the rich crumbly brown compost. Nature will reincarnate it into the ultimate in good nutrition for the garden.

We tested the drains: the water flows quickly. The bird feeders are filled.
Now it is dark: we can rest. The fireplace is lit. Before I pull up the blanket to read I will say a prayer that where the hillsides are bare. the rain will be light. Let mudslide season not follow the rainy season this year. Some people have lost more than enough.

It was just last week, the ten mile wall of flame made a midnight march Diamond Bar. But in my garden, the hummingbirds darted between flower and feeders, like they were sipping from different tables at a wine tasting. The Monarch butterflies floated about underneath the only patch of blue sky in southern California. The roses blushed with blooms. It was so surreal. Was I living in a Salvador Dali painting? No. This is paradise: ultimate beauty on this earth is not synonymous with perfection.

Saturday, soot straddled the stratosphere.

Sunday, the inversion layer shoved the grimy remainders of the hillside’s burnt offering down upon us. A dingy gray coating was smeared upon everything outside. It darkened the normally bright California colors in the image of something out of Charles Dicken’s London. A time when the great city was clothed in drab mourning colors by the dirty coal-fired furnaces in the Industrial Revolution of Victorian England.

The gathering clouds were so heavy with moisture they could not lift their heads up: fog shrouded everything in its chilly embrace. Time to start the clean up.
As I scrubbed and polished and cleaned every flat surfaces on the patio, my thoughts turned to the late Cindy Derr.
Cindy lived a block away. On a particular late autumn day, when our children were students at Chaparral Middle School, I had driven 45 minutes on backroads to my brother and sister-in-laws' home in Riverside, avoiding swaths of fires which were sweeping through fields along the regular route earlier that day.

The boys and I walked into the TV on. OMG- it was our neighborhood- It looked like the TV crew was filming from our front yard. The hillside- Cindy’s house- other homes- were on fire.

But for the Grace of God go I*. Had the wind swept through our little canyon from the other direction, my house would have fallen victim, not hers. Not the other - I think it was- 5 homes.

Kelley-Clarke, Inc, with an office just over the ridge, rushed to the Diamond Bar Jaycees, a generous care package for Cindy and her neighbors. The homeowners all toiled the better part of the next year, piecing their homes, and lives back together. As best they could. Cindy's son saw his pet iguana after the fire. Cindy said it gave him nightmares for a very long time.

After the fire, Cindy wanted everything clean. Which to Cindy meant white. Not eggshell. Not ivory. Purest white was washed over every surface. White walls. White tile. White flooring. The pureness of perfect light reflected back to her eyes meant her home was cured of smoke and soot. It was her comfort.

We lost Cindy much too young. Ovarian Cancer. The second child her parents had to bury. How sad. I don’t think it matters how old your children are if you must bury them. It is the cruelest crime against a parent.

Cindy is in one paradise. I live in this other. In Cindy’s paradise, I like to think she is looking down on us, wearing white and smiling. Knowing, this time of hardship will pass.

Photos of burned areas by Yorba Linda resident Jody Schmalz.

Photo of line of fire by Alta Loma based photographer, Gene Sasse.

The rose is an AARS winner- 'Disneyland'- a floribunda

*John Bradford, Born 1510, Died 1555 at Newgate Prison, London. Reformer and martyr. Famously uttered the phrase while imprisoned in the Tower of London as he watched a criminal on his way to be hanged for crimes.


David Perdue maintains a lively website on all things Dickens at http://charlesdickenspage.com/index.html. Fleet Street Photograph is from the archive.

This marble Greek statue signed ANTIOCHOS is a first century BC copy of Phidias' fifth-century original that stood on the Acropolis. Photogrpaph by Paris, France based photographer Marie-Lan Nguyen.

The Seraphim Angel is part of collection manufactured by Roman, Inc. and can be ordered through //http://www.seraphimuniverse.com/home

All photographs are used with permission. If there is no credit listed, it is from my private collection.

Post Fire in the Garden

Outside it doesn't seem as though two weeks ago the air was thick as smoke and California was in many parts a refugee camp. Tonight it is crystal clear, the indigo night sky studded with stars.

For those of us lucky enough to have been spared fire damage it is time to go out and clean the garden.

Think of the leaves on plants as their filter. That is why it is so it is important to keep the leaves clean. This means in the typical 20 gallon hose end sprayer add 1 cup of baby shampoo and 1 cup antiseptic mouthwash and then fill with water. Then wash away! Preferably in the morning, when the leaves will have a chance to dry before the sun goes down. I like to do this chore just before Thanksgiving, because then everything is clean before the Christmas lights go up.

If you have old mulch that hasn't worked itself in to the soil, rake any build up away from plants. Don't let it build up to the point that it becomes a nesting place for rats.

If you have diseased rose leaves- rust, blackspot or other disfigurement- pull off and throw away.

Cleaning with Baby Shampoo

All five senses engage the part of our brain in charge of memory. The loud stereo of the neighbor’s high schooler can trigger thoughts of what you were listening to when you were the one being asked to “turn it down”. The sight of the first boyfriend’s picture in an old yearbook can make you ask, “What was I thinking?” The taste of lemon meringue pie recalls summer picnics when the whole extended family came over for Sunday supper after church. The feel of a handshake from a business associate can remind you how much you trust- or not- that person.
Still, as strong as these senses elevate memories, is there any more powerful emotional trigger than smell? Do you ever wonder why? I can only guess that it is because scents are ephemeral. Smell is the only sense that we can adjust to and shortly forget its presence. We notice scents for just a short while, quickly adjust and soon take the gift our breath bestowed on us for granted. And then good or bad, only if a particular scent is reintroduced will we associate a particular memory with it. Being the most elusive of the five senses to quantify, scent is not the most accurate indicator of an experience. But what it lacks in accuracy, it makes up in power.
The scent of a baby, clean from the bath, conjures memories innocent and pure. I found this short poem by Maureen Hawkins that sums up the experience of motherhood

Before you were conceived, I wanted you.
Before you were born, I loved you.
Before you were here an hour, I would die for you.
This is the miracle of life.

Okay. I’m not particularly brave, but I am filled with curiosity. If I were a cat, I would have died a long time ago. I loved being a mother to active little boys. I had to find out, what would happen if I were to scrub the tile floors with the suds of baby shampoo. I wanted to know, what I would feel even before I got up from my hands and knees. Would it be any different from the usual cleaning routine?
“No More Tears” cleaned fine. Old Johnson and Johnson was strong enough to clean the floor and replenish my spirit. My eyes attentive to specks needing to be removed, my right hand drawing concentric circles with a slightly dripping sponge dipping in and out of a blue bucket, my mind was taken back to some of the things little boys could manage to cover themselves in. Decades ago this same scent had been there as my sons were cleaned of caked-on mud, smeared on grass stains and spots of what might have been tar. I remembered days when they filled the spa with bubble bath, to my kissing the hurt of scrapes away and packing lunch pails for first days of school.
Such a simple touch. Baby shampoo may cost less to use than what I used before, but with it a chore transformed in to a ritual. What was a mundane chore is now a ritual rich with daydreams. I smell “no tears” formula and it isn’t long before my tear ducts have traces of happy memories forming along the rims.