Labor Day Weekend leisure

Once the pressure is off to hurry-hurry and get to work, and if one has no other obligations for a particular Saturday morning, being able to slow down on a holiday weekend is super sweet.

I had my usual cup of coffee. The difference is that I sip instead of gulp. For a treat, I put whipped cream on it. Ahhh. I sink into a slower pace almost right away.

As most people do, I have all the usual chores to do on Saturday. I have laundry plus an extra load because I want to wash the bathroom rugs and the bedspread. I've got vacuuming and cleaning. I want to take apart my thermoses and deep clean the gaskets and plastic that tends to accumulate dirt underneath. (Hint: Immerse in white vinegar, this works great also for hand can openers.)

But for now, I'm writing and sipping and listening to a sermon. I walked around the yard at sunrise, something I enjoy. The yard is pretty, it's quiet, there's a pasture next door. I love seeing greenery and birds and scenery rather than houses or skyscrapers or traffic. I'm definitely a rural gal. Best of all for me would be to live oceanfront, but that is not in the cards for me. So I enjoy instead the undulating grasses rather than ocean waves.

I'll get dressed and have breakfast around 10:00-10:30, usually the limit of my patience with sitting and lounging. I've got sweet potatoes and russet potatoes in the crockpot. I bought some already cooked shrimp so that will be a nice lunch later, on rice noodles, I think.

Here are some of the pics I took this morning in the yard at first rays of light streaming over the yard and next door pasture:

I will write a blog at The End Time for today but my main goal is to read some novels. I have bought a Grisham, and I was thrilled. I thought I'd read all his books, some several times, but I found one I had not read. It is a book of his short stories called "Ford County" which is the fictional county he set many of his books in.

I also renewed my library card and got a Jenny Colgan book. I'd read one of hers this summer, "The Bookshop on the Corner". It was OK. A great first half was diminished by a hurried and scattered second half, but I was intrigued enough to try her again. Not to buy another book, though, so I renewed the Library card. I want to save my pennies for buying theological books.

I borrowed the book "The Cafe By The Sea" which has a sequel called "The Endless Beach". They sound nice, don't they? If The Cafe book is good I'll move on and get the Beach one. That's the great thing about libraries, no wasted money if the book doesn't work out.

I also borrowed a James Patterson, called "Worst Case." He is a crime writer and his stories move fast. That's a lot of reading, especially considering I am still onto Bill Bryson's "Summer of 1927" I'd started in June.

Despite Labor Day holiday weekend being an unofficial marker of fall, the actual weather outside this weekend will be hot. And humid. It won't last a lot longer, but for the next three days I'll be hunkered down inside enjoying the books and my cooking.

On the menu this weekend,

--Shrimp
--Salads (from ready-made kits)
--Orange and green pepper soup
--Refried beans dip with cheese and salsa...or burrito in a wrap
--Fruit: grapes, bananas, strawberries with cottage cheese or yogurt

I'm going a bit lighter this weekend because I don't want to cook lots of food when it's hot. Soon enough I'll be back to the lentils and beans and chilis and so on. The refrieds will come from a can.

Netflix has obtained a movie I've been wanting to see: "Same Kind of Different Than Me". It's supposed to be a Christian-based movie, and family friendly, So I'm excited. Also excited because Netflix has increasingly been disappointing in getting movies I want to see. At last, here is one I'll watch.

Looks to be a good weekend! I hope your holiday weekend, whether it's staycation, real vacation, or working weekend, is a good one too.

Labor Day: no laboring

All is quiet here in Comer. There are lots of people camping down at the state park, quietly snugged down and staying put. School across the street is closed. My neighbors seem to be gone somewhere.

Ahhh.

So what did I do this morning? I was a bundle of energy. I vacuumed every square inch of the place. I flipped two mattresses. I dusted, I moved furniture, and I did loads of laundry- including the top bedding.  At 11:30 I'm settling down to a brunch and cooling off after a shower.

I made an egg fresh from a neighbor's farm, with green peppers. Home fries, whole wheat toast, and a bowl of fruit consisting mostly of one huge peach and half a mango. Yum.

This weekend I've watched To Sir, With Love (again) and I'd found a sequel, named the same with the number 2 after it. The sequel was passable. A little preachy but overall watchable. It picks up with Sidney Poitier 30 years after the close of the first movie, retiring and being honored by his London School at a retirement luncheon. Lulu reprises her song. Everyone claps.

Poitier had been contacted by his old friend in Chicago who is a principal of an inner city school. (Daniel Travanti). Contracted to come teach for one year, Poitier has his own reasons for wanting to be in Chicago again. The story unfolds with his departure from London over to Chicago. Much as the first film did, the teacher Poitier gains the high school students' trust, deals with their upheaved home lives, school politics, and this time, a personal life.

Seeing the films got me interested in the background to the movie story. I had not known that To Sir With Love was based on a book written in autobiographical fashion by ER Braithwaite. In addition, ER Braithwaite has written many books subsequent to the success of his first book, dealing with the social work system, race issues, and apartheid in South Africa. Wikipedia says Braithwaite was a "Guyanese novelist, writer, teacher, and diplomat, best known for his stories of social conditions and racial discrimination against black people. He was born in Georgetown, Guyana."

I went to Amazon and bought To Sir With Love. I was also interested in two other Braithwaite books, Paid Servant and Honorary White but they are hard to find so I'll have to wait for another more opportune time to buy them where the price is a bit lower than 'collectable.'

I also wanted to see "Up The Down Staircase" but that movie is not on Hulu, Netflix, Youtube or Daily Motion, more's the pity. So I bought that book too, and using up my refund-coupon money, also got two Christian books: John MacArthur's "Follow Me" and a novel called "When Crickets Cry."

My other neighbor is cutting her grass, and I've always liked the sound of a lawnmower so that is a good kind of comforting sound going on right now. The bedding is ready to be shifted from the washer to the dryer so I'll go out to the garage and do that, watering my flowers along the way. This is a good holiday day, quiet and serene.

"How was your weekend?"

Part of the tree out my front door that I love so much is dead, but I love this weird wood at the end of the dead branch. The birds love it too. They sit there and sing. The markings look like hieroglyphics or carvings on a totem pole. At least in my imagination they do-

My side yard is just a wall of greenery this time of year. It shields the house from the sun. It provides shade, and a windbreak. it's pretty. And it is an all important sound buffer.

Because people wear me out. Noise, emotions, activity, colors on clothes ... it all gets overwhelming.

I wish I was brave enough to say this on Monday when people ask me the inevitable question.

They might get the wrong idea. I really like them, I do.

I spend time & energy  creating a solid buffer between work and home, though. I LOVE work. I LOVE home. The twain shall not meet.

It's a long weeeeeeekend!

It is glorious weather outside today. I awoke refreshed and ready for...something. I believe I will drive the rural parts of the county (it's all rural, but some is more rural than others) and seek photographic opportunities. There is one man who flabbergasts me and inspires me: Evan Leavitt. He is local (somewhere nearby) and occasionally snaps pictures in Madison County where I am. Look at these:




























I think these are gorgeous. It is fun to see how Evan composes his shots especially when I am familiar with the original scene, sometimes seeing them every day because I live here.

I haven't decided about whether to leap into HDR and Photomatix post-processing as Evan does, but the Threlkeld store photo, his vs mine, do show me I have a long way to go in learning how to compose a scene better.





























If you would like to see more of Evan's work it is here.

More of my work will be here later. Have a great weekend everyone!