To Buy or Not to Buy?

When I went to the market on Friday to check on the price of lettuce (at $2.99 a head? I don’t think so) and buy a few other items, I noticed this huge, rather spectacular fruit nestled there next to the grapes, pears, and kiwis.

 It had a rather spectacular price too, $29.99. $30 for a fruit!!??

My birthday was Saturday. One of the women at church always says "well, it's the xxx anniversary of my 39th birthday..." so I spent some time trying to figure out how many anniversaries of my 39th birthday this was. I finally e-mailed my pastor, who has taught mathematics at the college level, and she was kind enough to explain how to figure it. I believe this makes the 32nd anniversary of my 39th birthday. Either way, I may be an old woman chronologically but I feel very young inside.

I got telephone calls from both of my younger brothers and my sister. The older of the two brothers moved to northern Idaho about a month ago, and he was very excited. "It’s snowing!!!” He has never lived where there is “real winter.” They are in for some interesting experiences. I doubt he will be as excited about the snow come January.

I opened birthday cards and found a generous gift card from my younger brother and his wife. Now I am debating how to spend it.

I could have an adventure and spend it on that fruit. It was still there when I went to the market today. My cousin’s oldest daughter, who lives in Hawaii, sent me Internet links on how to open the fruit and ideas for preparing it.

Or I could put it toward some “Sunday go-to-meetin’ shoes,” which I need. Birkenstocks work okay for some things, but not always too well when trying to “dress up” a bit. There is a large shoe store 25 miles down the road that I am sure will have something that I like. I just have to decide whether I want to risk going in the store.

Or I could get a pedicure. Two of the women in the aerobics class have had pedicures and were raving about how wonderful it is to get your feet and lower legs massaged and pampered. I was encouraged to do that. It sounds good, but I am not sure I can bring myself to let someone look at my awful toenails. Yes, I have the horrible toenail fungus on a couple of my toes. “Oh, they don’t care. They see all kinds of feet…”

Decisions, decisions.

Fruit? 

Shoes? 

Pedicure?

I think the shoes have it.

The Mars Connection

I had errands to run in town this morning so it was very convenient to drive to the park and walk on the walking trail. They have planted a number of fall foliage maple trees that are starting to turn scarle,t so it is quite lovely. It did my heart good to see two young moms with their children in strollers making the circuit. One of my earliest memories is being taken on a walk around the block with my mother pushing the stroller with my baby brother.

But, that has nothing to do with Mars.

All of our computers are hooked up to uninterrupted power supply (UPS)  devices to protect us from damage to computers from "brown-outs" and surges and loss of data from sudden power failures. These have saved our bacon many times.

Periodically there will be voltage irregularities on the lines, usually not enough to flicker the lights or cause things to shut off but enough dips in the voltage that cause the UPS units to click on and off. The last time we had a problem with this, we called the power company and they came out, but couldn't find anything causing it. The crew thought perhaps it was the electrical panel in the house.

It happened again yesterday. There is UPS unit at my computer and another one on the other side of the partition that separates my work space from the bedroom. We watch television off the internet using a computer that is hooked up to our wide-screen TV (not a monster one but a nice sized one).

So off and on nearly the entire day…. click click….. click click… Very annoying.

We finished watching our Monday night program (Yorkshire Vet on Acorn TV), at about 7:45ish, and I thought I would step outside to see if I could see Mars.

So I did. We usually can’t see much going on in the sky at night because there are so many trees around the house, but there was a perfect gap in the trees so I could see Mars from the porch. So I went in and told Richard, “You gotta come out and see Mars.” Normally he won't come out to look at "dos in the sky" but he did this he did come out.

He took a look and said he needed to go back in and get different glasses. I glanced around to see if anything else was visible, and I noted this "flashing." At first I thought it was a UFO (I really did -- I have always wanted to see UFO), and then wondered whether it might be a clump of fireflies in the tree, but then I saw that it was actually coming from the power line on the pole.

Went in and told him he needed to see something. He looked and was very alarmed and immediately called the power company. He told the person he talked to that the connection from the transformer to the power line was arcing. This was about 8:00. 

They came with two trucks at about 9:00. One man went up in his amazing bucket and fixed it and both were gone by 9:20.

If I had not gone out to look at Mars, we never would have seen the arcing, because it wasn't visible in the daylight. Who knows what might have happened. The line could have burned through... and in the meantime Richard would have spent a lot of time reconfiguring the electrical panel that wouldn’t have solved the problem.

So we are very happy and sort of amazed at that interesting coincidence and how it all worked out. The power company is great. Can't say enough good things about them.

Little Girls Growing Up

When I learned I was pregnant, I hoped the baby would be a boy. Not because I didn’t want a girl but because I was afraid I would not be a very good mother for a female child. I couldn’t see myself trying to fix her hair so it looked pretty, or dressing her so she looked cute, or doing some of the things I knew mothers were supposed to do as part of raising their girls.

Looking back now, I realize I almost certainly would have been a good mother to a girl, but as it happened, we had a boy. And as life happened, I never had a daughter, or a daughter-in-law, or a granddaughter.

So, I watched with interest the daughters of friends as they grew up and got married and had children of their own.

I especially enjoyed watching from a distance as my brother's daughter (in the front) and my sister's two daughters...

grew up....

and got married, and now my brother's (that's him in the background, being silly) daughter...

has a daughter of her own.

I sort of thought I was done watching girls grow up, until our neighbors moved next door with their 3 children – a son and 2 daughters – in January 2012.

The kids were “little” and now 8 years later, they aren’t.

The last week of September was “Daughter’s Day” on Facebook, and our neighbor posted this picture of her oldest daughter, Hannah, which took my breath away.

A day or two after this picture appeared, Richard was up at our mailbox and noticed one of the girls riding one of the family's dirt bikes. 

Same girl. The girl obviously has other interests.

And then there’s the youngest daughter, Faith, who also dances in the ballet...

and makes wonderful sweet rolls (which they gave us for Christmas), and now I realize was at least partially responsible for the sounds of “World War III” that erupted from their place a few days ago.

She too obviously has other interests.

Happy October!

 It’s time I think to relax in my recliner and read a favorite novel. 

Says Anne Shirley to Marilla Cuthbert...

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November."

The book blends so well with the wonderful series that was aired on PBS, with the characters perfectly cast.

I can hardly read the book without seeing the wonderful cast of characters in my mind’s eye.

October days can be truly glorious here in the Missouri Ozarks. The sun is not so high in the sky, so the light has a different quality. Fall seems to sneak up on us here at first, but now the trees are starting to turn colors. It may not be quite as colorful as it might because of the drought which has caused some trees to drop their leaves early, but still pretty enough.

October days can also be sort of chilly and soggy and a tad unpleasant – today started off like that, but then the sun came out and all was right with the world.

Yes indeed. I agree with Anne. It would truly be terrible!