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In a lot of ways, it feels like things are starting to make sense for me.  And it a lot of other ways, it feels like things are as chaotic as always.  Everyone seems just a little frustrated, but I’m not sure most of them can articulate why.  I know I can’t.

I finished Okie Dokie last month, and I have done a couple of edits to it since.  I hope I’m at a point where I can leave it alone now.  My copies come in the mail Saturday, and I’ll really know then.  I’m both excited and terrified to have my writing available for others.  That was always the goal, but I’m just so nervous about these things.  I hope others can appreciate my point of view and I’m looking forward to getting feedback, even if that feedback is negative.  Constructive criticism is always welcome.  I actually just assume that if someone doesn’t like something I’ve written, then that is just a preference they have and does not reflect on my writing in any real way.  If the consensus is negative, then I’m just writing the wrong things for current audiences.  I will have to wait and see.  The really difficult thing will be critiques by those I admire or grammatical errors pointed out by those I don’t.

I’ve started working on my next book, which will be similar to Okie Dokie in that it will contain selections of poetry from the past twenty years, as well as a few new poems to pull the book together.  I’ll have one or two more like that before relegating unpublished poetry to a “remnants” book of some sort in the future.  I have some things I’ve written that I really love, but I’m not sure how to make them work in any of these projects.  I do want a story to emerge from the collection, even if only loosely.  Okie Dokie was about myself and about how I see the world around me.  The second book will be about family and the places from which they came.  The third book is about friendship and love.  If I need fourth or fifth, I’ll do another about myself and then a last one about family, as those are the two subjects I’ve written the most about.  I’m also not limiting my writing.  I have other things I want to write and those things will fall into the projects that make the most sense for them.

For October, I’m enjoying some spooky stories and songs throughout the month, and I am of course bothering family with those things.  I miss sharing things with people.  I find everyone becoming increasingly isolated, and not just in my own family.  I’ll post some of those things on here during the month.

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My week was pretty much defined by allergies, which is a little frustrating.  The pollen levels were very high, so I was trying to get through with puffy eyes and a scratchy throat all week.  I used to take a ton of allergy medicine to get through a day, and I guess it is a positive thing that I actually take none now.  This was probably the worst allergy week of the year, and honestly it wasn’t as bad as I’ve experienced in the past.  I’ve had allergies for a long time, but they seemed particularly pronounced when I moved to Oklahoma from Alaska.  I was spending my spring and summer months feeling just terrible, and taking a daily regimen of allergy pills, as I said.  The pills would make me very sleepy, as most medications do.  My allergies really changed for the better when I became vegan, which was curious to me at the time.  Apparently, the science looks like it backs that up.  Several studies suggest that those who eat a vegan diet are less likely to report having environmental allergies (as well as chemical, food, drug, and bee-sting).  I’ve heard anecdotally from other vegans that their allergy symptoms were also improved when they switch to a vegan diet.  It’s so interesting to explore the links between food and health.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that a vegan diet cured me of allergies — clearly not.  This has been a bit of a rough week; however, since they aren’t so bad I don’t have to deal with the side effects of allergy meds.

I’m pretty happy with my yard this week.  Unfortunately, due to the unusually wet August we had, I have black spot on many of the trees, and on one of my roses.  The problem is too widespread to completely correct, and I hope that everything is able to put on some stronger growth next year, as there are so many trees losing leaves.  The rose just needs to dry out, which will help.  Right now, about 20% of it is infected, but it’s a very tall climber and it isn’t possible for me to remove all of the infected canes.  I’m just going to treat it and hope for the best.  I’ll treat it next spring as well, and hopefully the problem will correct.  My Fourth of July rose had black spot earlier this year, and will some TLC it is now disease-free.  I think the Golden Shower rose is healthy enough that it will be okay, but it’ll be a bit ugly for the rest of this year.

The upcoming week looks like it’s going to be a wet one again!!  I’m amazed at the number of rainy days we’ve had.  I love those days, but it is so unusual and not great for my plants apparently.  It also really can help with my pollen allergies, but of course then the mold allergies increase with the moisture, so you never really totally win that fight.

I’ve been editing and rewriting, trying to put together collections of poetry for the books I have planned.  I’m really happy with the direction I’m going with them at the moment, and some of my rewrites make me very happy.  I think I am much more honest with myself now than I was in my twenties.  Maybe that is just an obvious statement.  I have such a lot of poetry from that decade of my life that is really great and requires no work to be exactly what I wanted it to be, and then there are others that almost certainly didn’t work at the time.  If I could have seen that then, or if I had been willing to say that to myself at the time, those poems could have been greatly improved and would not need my rewrites so many years later.  It’s been interesting to see my style over periods of time.  I tend to write in two or three different styles, and I can go months or years focused on just one of them.  At the moment, the poems seem to be naturally dividing themselves into four themes, which will be the books.  The fourth category is one that isn’t fully realized, so that one will need more time to fully develop, but the other three I do really understand well.

I need a schedule!  I am so bad about following a set schedule, but when I don’t have one I tend to forget certain tasks, or get into situations where I am spending far too much time on one thing and not enough on another thing.  So, for the millionth time, I am working on making myself a schedule.  I have too many different things to accomplish to just play it by ear at this point, and I need to make sure nobody feels like things are being neglected.  Some things are, but more importantly there are times when it probably feels like I am not focused on tasks around the property that need to be done, when in reality I am aware of them and not making any show of it.  Sometimes people need to see your work to believe you are doing it.  I hope that goes well.  I really want to get these books done and I think this helps with that goal, while ensuring that everything is still running smoothly.

The “update” category blog posts seem to be posting a day later than they should.  I’m trying to resolve this, but I’m not entirely sure what the problem is.  It’s almost certainly something I am doing wrong.  Bleh.

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This has been a wonderful week.  Once again, Justin and Conner were impressive workers and we made some excellent progress with the yard.  We did get a little rain this week, but nothing like we had been getting.  This next week looks warm and dry, which is both good and bad.  I also won’t be at all surprised if there is unexpected rain.  Why not!?

I’ve started to assemble things with the goal of creating a book of my poetry.  It’s really crazy that I have never done that, but it’s going to happen this year.  I’m trying to decide if I want to do short books focused on a theme, or if I should just chuck everything in together and have a slightly longer book.  I can see the value in both.

Senator John McCain died.  Whatever one thinks of his politics, I think we can agree that he deserves our respect as a veteran and POW.  I also really do believe he always fought for what he thought was right.  I didn’t always agree with what he thought was right, but what I’ve seen in the past decade has been the rise of Republican obstructionism, senators and congressmen who are no longer striving to move us forward as a country.  Instead, they try to gum up the machine, fight to keep people down, and cheat to retain power.  They are unAmerican.  I’m reminded of McCain’s town hall during which a woman asked about Obama, disparaging him.  McCain, being a fundamentally good person, defended his colleague.  It was about advancing their ideas, not about tearing one another down.  That election would include some less honorable moments, and arguably was the unintentionally handing of the Republican party that John McCain was a member of to the Tea Party obstructionists like his running mate.  He had a long career and was a well-loved patriot; my thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.

This has been the third week in a row when I lacked focus on the blog, but I’ve got plenty to write about.  I just need to get with it!

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You’d have a hard time finding someone who loves rain more than I do.  It relaxes me and even the slightest drizzle will cause me to throw open my windows in the hopes that I will hear the patter of raindrops.  It’s one of the things that makes me act crazy, but something I’m not apologizing for.  I love thunderstorms, light showers, sudden downpours.

I remember when I was a kid it rained on my birthday a couple of times.  By the beginning of August in Oklahoma, things can start to look pretty bleak.  Grasses start turning brown from lack of rain, and gardens become increasingly difficult to keep alive (in my experience anyway).  It’s been months since the storms of April and May, and it really feels unbearably hot and dry.  So, on those occasions when it rained on August 5, I remember being excited to have a break from the heat.

We had a fairly hot June this year, and while I hoped for below average temperatures for the rest of the summer, I didn’t have any hope of that happening.  I have been pleasantly surprised.  It’s been very warm at times, but the blistering heat has really stayed away this year.  At the end of July, it started to rain even.  That was so nice.

And the rain just kept coming.  It’s August 19 now.  The last rain we had was yesterday.  That was the last of almost 20 days of the rain I love.  Some days it would just rain a little in the middle of the day, and other days would see a large storm come through during the night.  Ultimately, I’d take that over no rain any day.  But I’m glad to have a break from it just now.  The plants need time to dry out, get some sun, etc.  We’ve got more rain in the forecast for next week.

This week was brilliant in some ways, but very sad in others.  Opie & Laura announced they are having a baby.  It was nice to have some good news, but I am having trouble with the knowing that Mom would want to have seen these two start their family.  And they are going to be great parents.  Opie had a few issues, and ten years ago I would have been worried about him becoming a father.  He’s really proven himself to be a wonderful person, and has a fantastic future ahead of him.  I’m so proud to have people like him in my family.

Brent turned 40.  I don’t think I will handle it well when I turn 40 next year, but it isn’t because I’m afraid to be in my 40s.  It brings up so many issues.  I don’t know how Brent dealt with it, but he does usually deal with things well.  I wish we would have had a party for him, but I’ve had some trouble keeping up with things like that.

I’m looking forward to a great week.  I’m starting to think it’s okay to do things… that seems vague, but I’ll elaborate in the future.

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Happy Birthday To Me!  Today is my 39th birthday, and while it has been a mostly peaceful day, I have found myself avoiding a lot of memories and feelings that are just under the surface.  I just wasn’t in a place to deal.

I spent the first half of the day listening to episodes of the podcast Frangela: The Final Word.  TOO FUNNY!  I love these two, and have for a long time on The Stephanie Miller Show.  I don’t know why it took me so long to get into their podcast.  I’m glad I did though.  After a bit of that, I took a nice nap on the front porch, where I discovered one of the kittens had returned.  I don’t have faith in the survival of the others, but his return offered at least a glimmer of hope.  My nap was followed by going up to spend time with my dad, brother, nephew, and roommate.  Justin made vegan chicken burgers and fries and the rest of us gave Conner a hard time.  I know he was getting frustrated, but it was kinda fun anyway.

The gathering was fairly brief, a little chaotic, but okay.  I do find myself needing to manage my expectations of others in these situations.  I have a tendency to want people to put their own issues away for a few hours, and at least give the appearance that they care to spend time with me.  But they don’t.  I should know better.  I don’t mean to sound accusatory at all; they are just living their lives as normal.  It’s me who is expecting too much.

I’ve had a wonderfully productive week.  I got the shelving assembled and put in that goes along the east wall of my bedroom.  I’m putting things together slowly with it in; I don’t want it to just feel like a pile of stuff, so I’m going through things and purging a little as I go… very little.  I did identify some books on ikebana that I intend to find a new home for… if I don’t change my mind.  Those books are so thin that it will hardly make a difference in the end!  I finally put some books on the shelves in the living room as well; I’ve had three shelves empty for the past year or so, which is silly really since I had books in boxes waiting to be put out.

Justin helped me put in a row of junipers that will hopefully mature into a nice hedge to break up the front yard, and we also put in another chaste tree up at the house.  Things seem to be coming together slowly in the yards.  I need to spend some time cleaning up the flowerbeds at the house;  they are covered in weeds, need mulch, and the plants could be pruned.

Plants showed up!  I’m not sure why they were sent so early, but part of the order that was supposed to arrive in November showed up in the mail.  It isn’t a good time for planting.  I might look at how to hold them until fall; they are bare root plants.  If I can’t easily wait, I’ll need to get those in the ground or at least in planters in the next couple of days.  I’m not sure how well things will do if they are planted in August, but it does look like we will have a rather mild week and that will help.

The orange rose, which had put on very pink blooms before, has changed and the newer blooms are much more orange.  Maybe it needs to mature before the roses will be their true color, and maybe they will be pale.  Either way, I’m really liking the look of these and I’m glad I put them near the porch.  In time they will be tall enough to tie to the side of the porch and they can be enjoyed like the ‘Fourth of July’ or ‘Golden Showers’ roses are.

So this next week’s plans are all about figuring out those plants that arrived early.  I do need to mow and get started on the flowerbeds as well, but I will also spend some time uploading more blog posts.  It’s nice to be ahead of the game.  I usually stay three or four weeks ahead, but I’m only a few days ahead at the moment and need to manage things better to make sure the blog is always active.  On that note, I’m looking for feedback on what is working and what isn’t.  Leave me comments on this post or on any post you want so I know what people are thinking.

Artists Featured This Week

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The week started out very hot.  I actually lost a rose bush to the heat; it had been struggling to grow anyway, so I’m not terribly surprised.  I was still not feeling great part of the week, so it felt a little like I was getting back to life in slow motion.  I did manage to get the lawn mowed, which was more exciting than it should have been, and cut down one small tree.  Other than that, my only real efforts in my garden were pruning and deadheading.  Oh, and lamenting the loss of that rose.  I was looking forward to that one, but the heat was even stressing some of the crapemyrtles, and they can handle heat pretty well.  We had a storm come through last night and that pretty much took the worst of the heat with it.  We can enjoy a couple of cooler days now.  I have not seen most of the youngest kittens for a couple of days, which is a worry.  Sometimes they do disappear for a few, but I’m worried that they didn’t make it.  The property is so large and wooded, and the cats all spend time exploring, that I might never really know what happened unless they show back up on the porch.

Dad’s birthday was Friday and we all had dinner made by Conner, which was nice.  We also had a variety of cakes, including one failure by me and Justin.  I don’t know why it just wasn’t working, but my third attempt was good.  It actually stayed at home because it was too hot to take.  At least I know I can make a cake, even if it took me three tries!

Featured Artists this week:

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Well folks, I had high hopes for FLAMINGO WEEK.  Sadly, I was sick for much of it, and the beginning of the week involved an unexpected trip to Edmond and then a day of getting a new tire.  So, I just got a little behind what I had meant to accomplish, including blog posts I had wanted to do… this is why I try to get them done in advance.  That is fine though.  It was more a day of flamingo art than anything, and my Tumblr enjoyed a strong infusion of flamingo images for the week.

Since I’ve been under the weather, I have intentionally done nothing all week.  I have a habit of doing too much and prolonging my illnesses, and I didn’t want to do that this time.  So, I slept and drank fluids.  And sulked a little.  But the worst of it came and went quickly, and I’m really excited to get moving on a few projects I’ve been working toward.

I have some collages I have been working on, which I hope I can make more progress on soon.  I also have been working on a new series for this blog, and I certainly hope people like it.  I should have that going in the next day or two.

Dad’s birthday is Friday, and I’m not sure what exactly to do for him.  I had intended to order a gift, but failed to do that!  I’ll figure it out.  Maybe he’d like to go out to eat someplace.  I just don’t know.

I have several things to work on this week.  It was over 100º this week, so the 90º feel like a break.  I need to finish up planning for my Sunshine Garden (which I will do a post on with details soon), and continue picking up debris in the driveway.  I’m not up to the collapsed burn barrel, which is just a mess to try and clean up.  Once I get past that mess, then I am into large items to deal with.  Most of those things are now trash, but some of the things are worth saving and I need to figure out where to put those things.

 

Here are a few things that ended up on my Tumblr this week

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I do not know where this week has gone!  I got more cleanup of my yard done, but this is a lot of land here and I really need everyone pitching in to make sure things can get done.  I probably should’ve taken pictures to show my progress, but I’m feeling really positive about it.

I feel like my “Sunshine Garden,” as I’ve taken to calling it, is coming together nicely.  It’s going to be a little bit conceptual, but the plants I’ve picked out are nice.  I need to plant the junipers this week & then probably mark out the areas for trees arriving this fall.  Smaller plants will be in next Spring, but I am working toward getting that area the way I have it in my head.

Saturday was Justin’s birthday.  It was a quiet and uneventful day at his request, although he did end up mowing in the evening.  Justin is a good friend and I know everyone takes him for granted.  I’m blessed to have such a nice person in my life.  (These photos are from 2 years ago)

Avery spent part of the week out here, which was nice.  She’s so easy-natured and doesn’t get bent out of shape about things.

I’ve got so many things to get done; the yardwork seems endless, but this upcoming week is going to be pretty hot, so I’ll be only working outside until about 10 everyday.  That should give me time to work on some of the other things I’ve got going on — art and whatnot.

Art featured this week

 

I’ve continued being obsessed with gardening.  I’ve been watching a lot of several YouTube channels on gardening.  While I never see anything exactly like what I would like to do, it is so nice to see so many ideas and tips from people who have been doing this for a long time.

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We had a hot week, which is pretty typical.  I wish I’d gotten more accomplished, but everything was feeling difficult.  So many of my days anymore are like that.

It seems like gardening is the way I’m dealing with things.  I’ve mentioned it, but it just keeps coming up.  I’m surprised, but maybe shouldn’t be really.  It was my grandpa’s death that first got me interested in growing plants.  I became briefly obsessed with houseplants.  I was living in an apartment at the time, so I couldn’t go crazy with plants of my own, but that turned into an attempt at a vegetable garden the following Spring and planting some roses for Mom in the summer.  But that was a terrible summer for growing anything and it was really discouraging.  I decided not to try again.  When Dale Combs, the man who I was named after, passed away, I was drawn to go sit and think beneath some beautiful big trees and to spend time in a wooded park.  It felt natural to be surrounded by nature.  Mary Combs passed in 2017, and once again I felt drawn to nature and natural things.  It was Winter, but I wanted to be outside.

If spent my Summer so far wanting to be outside as much as possible.  I have been incredibly worried about what I should be doing, about my health, and about my future.  Some days I feel like I’m going to explode, but being in my yard seems to be helping.  I’ve babied my roses, planned for new beds, created a new bed, and generally enjoyed being in my garden.  I even enjoy it when it’s too hot.  It just feels right, and I guess that’s okay.  I don’t want to spin out of control too much, but I do want to just keep getting things done.  It just feels right.

I’m sadder now than I ever have been, but I’m feeling tired of being tired.  I’m tired of crying and tired of sleeping.  I feel sadder than I ever imagined a person could feel, and I also feel calmer than I would have expected.  I just want to sit quietly in a beautiful garden and not stress out about things.  Of course, I have to create the garden I want, but it just feels right, and I’m going to try to let myself be.

One of the things I’m doing later this year is to get a bunch of people a flowering tree to plant in Mom’s memory.  I got my trees ordered this week, and they will arrive around Thanksgiving.  It’ll be a nice time to plant.  I hope that goes down well for everyone.

I don’t know what will happen next week.  I feel lost today, but I hope each day surprises me by being better than I expected.

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This is been an interesting week.  I’ve been able to think about what it means to be proud, as LGBT Pride Month draws to a close.  What is it about being a gay person that is worthy of pride.  So many non-LGBT folks misunderstand the whole issue.  Pride is not just about loving who you are.  That is certainly important, and factors greatly into the concept of gay pride.  The other element is loving who you are in spite of the oppression of society at large.  It’s about saying that being authentic is more important than letting society’s negative messages dictate the aspects of one’s life.  Straight people don’t have to think about it in the same terms.  And now I’ve opened up a can or worms.

Oppression.  It’s hard to explain this concept to those who don’t have to deal with it.  I did not choose to be gay.  It hardly bothers me, but it wasn’t like I was offered options when I was born.  I am what I have always been.  That said, the fact that I am gay factors into so many of the decisions I’ve had to make in my life.  Things have changed in recent years, but I still couldn’t just plan a vacation to anywhere on earth I wanted to go.  I’d need to research and find out how hostile a country is to the LGBT community before doing so, otherwise I could find myself in a situation.  I have to consider carefully which jobs to apply for, as it is still legal in most places (Oklahoma included) to fire a person for being gay.  I have kept my distance from the church I grew up in, and where I would still attend.  I don’t want to make other people uncomfortable, and they would.  When I read a magazine or watch TV commercials, the message is always that straight people can show their affection in public and gay people cannot.  Well, 99.9% of the time, and even then only in places that are safe for the message.  If it ever came up, I currently have the right to marry the person I love, but that is a very new thing.  And it’s another place where people misunderstand how rights work.  I don’t understand what people mean when they say that gay people being given the same right to marry as straight people is giving us “more rights.”  It’s really just the same, and the idea that I always had the right to marry as long as I married a woman is dismissive and ridiculous.   I would love to raise children, but it can be hard to find a place to adopt children as a gay person.  Some ignorant people think it matters, or that gay people cannot have the values necessary to raise children.  That’s just misinformation used to prevent children in need from receiving the homes they need.  And now we are starting to see government-sanctioned discrimination, specifically those who offer goods or services to the public being allowed to exclude gay people for simply being gay.  There are multiple issues I have with this whole thing.  First, if you offer things to the public, you don’t get the right to pick and choose your customer.  These people denying cakes to gay couples aren’t likely asking their other customers questions to determine if their beliefs line up.  And that makes the whole thing arbitrary.  If a company want to only bake cakes for Baptist weddings, or for Catholic weddings, that would be a business model that allowed for an exclusive clientele and would not be discriminatory.  My other big issue with these “religious freedom” people is that refusing to do business with gay people actually negates their argument.  Jesus did not say to love your neighbor, except that one over there.  He did not say be in the world, not of the world, unless you see a gay guy and then don’t even be in the world.  If you are saying that serving those you don’t understand goes against your beliefs, then I don’t understand what beliefs you are even trying to defend.  It’s not Christianity.  It seems that there is a new ‘Murica religion, based on the idea that if you are not white, straight, and wrapped in an American flag, you are the enemy.  It’s a cult, not a religion.  Straight people don’t have to deal with things like this, specifically straight white people.  And when I hear people talk about “Straight Pride Month” or things of that nature I get frustrated.  Every month is “Straight Pride Month,” and y’all don’t have to fight for dignity.

And so it is sometimes hard to keep my head up as a gay person.  The world sometimes comes for us, and being proud is about saying “not today Satan.”  It’s about showing that what other people think of us is not our problem, and it is about expressing our true selves.  Because if we stop fighting and stop showing that we exist, we will be slowly asked to get back into the box and hidden away again.  Things have been getting better for a while now, and I hope that these recent slips backward are just a blip, but we have a long way to go.

In other news, I got the new part of the flowerbed mulched.  It’s looking good.  I will eventually need to add edging of some sort.  I don’t really know what I want there.  The crapemyrltes I planted have started showing new growth, and the roses are continuing to do well.. mostly.  The JFK & Copper roses did not make it this year, and I’ll just take that as an opportunity for new roses next Spring.  I’d love to find a Herbert Hoover or a Mark Twain, or maybe even a Mme. Alfred Carrière climbing rose.  I did get a couple of arborvitae, which I had intend to not plant until fall, but they were a good price and I don’t mind keeping a close eye on a couple for the summer.

I’ve started feeling more like getting back to the business of living my life.  It’s remained a challenge for me, but I’m trying.  Just staring off into the distance doesn’t solve anything.

 

Artists I Featured This Week: Konstantin Somov, Sergey Sovkov, & Ismael Álvarez

Other People I Featured This Week:

Tumblr Posts This Week:

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It’s been a stormy weekend, which I love.  The rest of the week felt  a little chaotic, but life in general seems a little chaotic right now.  I did start working on an art project, which I hadn’t done in a very long time!  I’m excited about it, but more I’m excited to just get a few things done finally.

I’ve been working on my Thoughts On Humans series, and I’m enjoying writing it.  I do worry that I babble a lot and say very little, but I’m hoping that I get better at making coherent thoughts as I do it more.  I’m also trying to figure out how to get the word out that I’m active again.  I love having people who are reading and commenting, but I had been inactive for so many years that I need to rebuild that group.  I don’t want to annoy folks for sure, but I do want to figure out how to get the word out.

This world seems to be falling apart.  I try to keep my politics to myself, but I cannot fail to comment on the imprisonment of children whose parents are seeking asylum.  I don’t know why anti-immigrant sentiment has gotten so bad, but it is unAmerican to not allow in those in need of help or in search of new opportunities.  There is never a time when someone needs to be repressed.  When we lift people up, we all rise and this world becomes a better place.  There is a persistent narrative being pushed that immigrants are coming to take our jobs and commit crimes against us.  That is blatant racism in my opinion.  There aren’t droves of people just waiting to come destroy us.  We are a melting pot, a mix of native, immigrant, and forcibly relocated people.  We are a country without a single culture or color, a land where the rest of the world should be able to look and see endless diversity.  Tribalism and racism dressed up as nationalism is unacceptable.  It’s also antithetical to the values so commonly invoked: American, Christian, human.  Hate cannot be defeated with hate, and so the way forward is difficult.  Those of us who believe that loving our neighbor is a core piece of our morality will have to work hard to combat the hate with love.

A few humans I wrote about this week:

Featured Art This Week:  

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It’s been another week when I’ve felt like I am moving slowly and the rest of the world is rushing around me.  I find myself increasingly thinking to myself that I want to show Mom a video or picture or craft project.  It’s frustrating.

I planted 3 crapemyrtles.  I’m really working toward my gardening plan that I’ve been working on since last year.  Tomorrow is two weeks since I planted all the roses out here.  9 of 11 have growth on them already and the two that don’t look alive still, one more than the other.  I did also plant 6 rosa rugosas, but those don’t have growth on them.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed and not putting too much pressure on it all.  I also found some Virginia Creeper growing up the back of the house, which is great.  I want it there so I hope it makes it.  Oh, the lawn mower finally was returned after being repaired.  So, I mowed.  It had been so long that the lawn is having a hard time recovering, but it will in time.  Hopefully we can get some rain soon.  That will help.

I’ve been much more interested in being alone this week.  I think everyone has really.  That said, things seem less… desperate?  I don’t know how to articulate, but I know there are many people who instantly know what I’m talking about.

Art Featured This Week:

 

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

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I still feel like I’m in slow motion; the world is rushing around me.  I’m feeling more at peace, but I’m definitely still frustrated and confused.  I suspect I will feel like this for a long time.

Mom and I had ordered a whole bunch of roses to plant around her house and mine.  With the help of Conner and Justin, I got all of those planted.  We planted 17 total new roses.  I’m also attempting to propagate from one of my existing climbing roses, which is going well so far.  The roses were planted on Monday, and one has new leaves already.  I’ve also got honeysuckle started, but only one of six plants is showing new growth so far.  I’ll keep being patient with them.  Here are some of the roses I planted.  I also planted 6 Rosa Rugosas & 1 Lady Banks Climbing Rose, not pictured.  (Rose Bushes Pictured:  Copper, JFK, Pink Fairy Cushion, Oranges N Lemons; Climbing Roses Pictured: Lemon Butter, Zephirine Drouhin, White Dawn, Orange Velvet)

I’ve also got things around the house planned for times when it is too hot.  I’m trying to fill my time up with projects, and that seems to be helping a little bit at least.

The porch cats now have 5 kittens.  Last year only 1 kitten survived (of 2), so they are already having a more successful year.  Most of the time I wish they’d all just disappear, but I do like when their are kittens to play with.  That almost makes all these cats worth having!

I got started on thank you cards.  It’s a job; a much bigger job than I expected.  I’m not falling apart writing them, and that makes me feel a little better about things.

Next week I’m hoping to finish up the thank you cards and get a few more things planted.  I’m also hoping the lawn mower returns home; it’s been in the shop for 3 weeks now.  I have grass turning into a forest out there!

Artists featured on the site this week:

The Oklahoma Family Tumblr is going well.  People, mostly family, seem to be enjoying the photos!

 

 

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This has been a trying week.  I’ve really felt like I’ve been stuck in slow motion while everything speeds by around me.  I’m tired; I’ve spent the majority of time in bed this week.  I’m not ready for real life, but it keeps popping up because it doesn’t seem to care if I’m ready or not.  Mom wanted me to be successful.  I think she believed I could be even more than I did, so when I have been awake this week I’ve been charging ahead with my blog and social media.  I have a lot of plans for the blog, for my work, and for my home.  I don’t want to stop planning my life, even if I do find everything rather pointless right now.

I hope this upcoming week is a little better.  I have some projects that should prove therapeutic, and should I get to them I will discuss it in next week’s review.  I’m trying to not put too much pressure on myself, so I easily could have another week of sleeping.  This is hard.  It’s actually much harder than I expected, and I expected it to be rough.  I need time.  I need a lot of time, and I hope I don’t bore anyone by taking my time.

Posts this week:

This week saw the revival of the Oklahoma Family Tumblr started by Brent 5 years ago.  Check it out!

Check out my Instagram posts as well.