If we were having coffee: Kindness edition

A shady place to sit near the vegetable garden.

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight:  always try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

~ Sir James Matthew Barrie, The Little White Bird

If we were having coffee, I would tell you it is, as always, fantastic to see you.  Come on in.  We’ll grab our beverages and go out to the porch where you can sit in the rocking chair, if you like.  I call it the Granny Chair, and it’s very comfortable.  There are plenty of things to drink around here.  Coffee, tea, water, or more potent potables such as wine and beer.  Help yourself to whatever you’d like.

How are you?  What have you been up to this past week?  Did you travel anywhere or see anything worth a mention?  Did you read any good books or see any good films?  Did you go on any hikes, walks, or bike rides?  Did you celebrate anything or reach any major milestones?  (I already know at least one of you did.  Congrats, Dawn!)

Unfurling.

Nothing new from me on the book or movie front.  M’s fairly new Blu-ray player decided it wouldn’t play the latest movie we have to watch (the last in “The Hobbit” series).  It needs a software upgrade, and that’s difficult to do with our satellite internet connection (it keeps timing out).  M has some ideas on how to get around it, so we should have it fixed soon.  In the meantime, we’re doing other things to entertain ourselves in the evenings.  Mostly reading.  I’m still reading The Casual Vacancy which I see has been made into a mini-series by HBO.  I’ll have to remember to look for that on Netflix.  I should finish the book this weekend (it is 512 pages, a fairly lengthy book).  I am enjoying the book especially now that the story line has picked up.  One of the things I’m finding interesting is the way we get to know, through others, a major character who dies at the very beginning of the book.

Lifted towards the light.

I am also reading two other books, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which I am reading by way of emails from DailyLit.  I don’t know how it is I never read the book.  I just discovered DailyLit, and if this works out well, I will continue, through them, to fill in more of the books I should have read when I was a child and/or in school.  They have a lot of books to chose from so I’m not sure which direction I’ll go, but I’m thinking Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.  I read Jude the Obscure years ago, and it was such a depressing book that I swore off Hardy, but maybe it’s time to revisit him.

The truck bed that used to be in the scrounger’s garden, emptied of trash and snakes, and relocated.  Sometimes we use it to haul things around by hooking it up to the garden tractor.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that pool is open and we can go for a swim.  The water is warm enough that you won’t be shocked by the temperature, and cool enough that it will be refreshing.  It has been hot here this week, and I am pretty sure we are well into summer weather now.  The weather folks always put these little cool-downs in the ten day forecast, but they’re full of bunk.  I think they do it just to keep us hopeful.  Once we get to June, or this close to June, cool-downs are not likely.  We might get some breezier, drier weather, but I doubt we’ll see highs lower than 80 until the fall unless we get some full days of rain.

Near the playhouse.

Speaking of rain, we could use some.  Want to do a rain dance with me?  There has been rain, in the form of pop-up storms, to the north, south, and west of us, but none of it makes it here.  The garden needs a good soaking, as does the rest of the land around us.  Even the trees are starting to look droopy.

Trees gossiping with the wind and each other.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that part of my interesting week involved being called out, in a way, in the comments section of one of my blog posts.  I deserved it.  I was gossiping and being unkind and negative.  I want to thank my anonymous commenter, if you’re reading, for showing me the error of my ways, and for giving me something to think about.  I was given a chance over Memorial Day weekend to mend things a little, and were it not for your comment, I might have continued to be one-sided about the situation.  Thank you.

I try not to be unkind in words, thoughts, or deeds, but I slip every now and again.  I think I will add “may I be kind” to my morning mantra.

Leaning.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that the guest bathroom has been gutted except for the shower stall.  M has been busy patching walls and painting.  I would have helped with the painting, but it’s a small room.  We would have been falling over each other.  The next step is to install the new flooring.  M opened up the carton containing the new toilet today and found there are parts missing.  We’ll have to wait for the company to send us the parts before we can install it.  The cabinets, mirror, and vanity will go in once the flooring is finished.

Purple glow.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I wrote a long rant yesterday (and titled it “Friday Flare-up” as if I planned to make it a regular feature).  I had seen a story on the local news about teachers in a nearby county who haven’t had a pay raise since 2009.  A woman who doesn’t appear to care about the education of our young was interviewed, and she carried on about how teachers don’t deserve a pay raise.  I disagree vehemently and think teachers deserve a lot more than they are getting these days.  I don’t understand why politicians and some folks are vilifying teachers.  The teachers I know work very hard, even in their off hours.  As far as I’m concerned, they deserve better treatment and better pay.  Their mission in life is, in my opinion, much more important than, say, the administrators and managers who get the big bucks for doing nothing more than creating busy work to justify their jobs and make it impossible to evaluate their usefulness.

Mini-rant over.  Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to read the long version?  It felt good to sit down and write it yesterday even if I didn’t publish it.  I don’t use that option as often as I should.  Writing can be very therapeutic.  I don’t have to post it or show it to anyone for it to help me explore and air my anger, frustration, and sadness.  I suppose this was not a good way to follow up the idea of being kinder, but I believe teachers are getting short shrift lately, and would love to see our society (here in the U.S., at least) value them more than we do.

Three spinsters.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I was feeling a little sad this week.  M was on an overnight business trip, and I was home alone.  I could have gone with him, but elected to stay thinking I might get some work done around here (and I did).  What made me sad, besides missing him (of course), was that I was reminded of how I used to call my mother when M was away on a trip.  We’d have long conversations, often about nothing in particular, but sometimes the important stuff would gently slide in, opening itself up for discussion.  I do miss being able to do that so instead of picking up the phone, I had an in-the-heart talk with her.  I believe she hears those kind of talks, and sometimes it seems as though she sends back a little message to let me know she’s there.

Someone needs to get out there and trim the grass in front of the lagoon.

If we were having coffee, I would apologize for talking your ear off and taking up so much of your time.  I have about five hundred other things I could share with you, but it’s probably time for you to go.  Thank you so much for visiting with me again for a little weekend chat.  Sunset might be worth braving the heat and the bugs.  I think I’ll go down to the Point.  If you care to join me, sunset is at 8:18 PM, and I’ll be there about ten or fifteen minutes early.

Seedy.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

It’s a jungle out there.

This post is in response to Part Time Monster’s #WeekendCoffeeShare.  Grab a cuppa of whatever your preference is and join us.  I’d love to hear all about what you were up to this week.