Try a Little TLC??

The Post Office has started selling Hallmark cards as a way to increase their revenue. Perhaps a better idea would be.... decent customer service.

For the past year, I have made several trips per week to the local post office. It's amazing how for the past 15 years I counted on the nice route carrier picking up our mail every afternoon, or on someone else carrying it to the nearest drop box! Now that I am the sole user of mailing services, that little job has fallen to me again.

I discovered in the first two weeks that I did not want to go to the window. I don't know if the clerks are "working to the rule" of if they are just incredibly slow, but the worst customer service in town is at the postal window. I have been in there on afternoons when there are more than 10 people standing in line and only one clerk - with no apparent plans for calling someone to the front to clear out the back up.

Many moons ago I switched to using the Automatic Postal Center machine. I can purchase stamps and mail large envelopes in literally seconds and be out of the post office, in less time than the clerk could wait on one person.

There is a down side to the machines if you just want a stamp. The machines only sell sheets of stamps and one must use a credit or debit card, but doing it yourself is definitely faster and you don't have to deal with a rude clerk. All of the PO's in our area have replaced their older style stamp machines with the APC's, so I may never again see a clerk.

Wonder if I can pay for my Hallmark card at the machine?

Two Hair Cuts until Christmas

As I scheduled my next hair cut last week, Nancy asked if I wanted to schedule the following one, too, "since my time will fill up fast before Christmas". A good idea I thought, so I did and then it occurred to me that what we were saying was that it's only two hair cuts until Christmas!

Where has this year gone? I know that time seems to move much faster when we are adults than when we were children, but does its pace continue to pick up forever, until we are just spinning thru the year? Does it eventually go so fast that we don't even notice what happens during the year? I hope not.

This past year has gone quickly - but I think for understandable reasons. The first and biggest is the new job, of course. Being the whale in the fish pond with jolly few fish, I have done a lot of things that would have been delegated to others when I worked in the larger pond (and was only a tuna). It's been fun to get to go out and be with the clients. I learned to take blood pressure and spent many days among the fire fighters in the spring. More recently I was part of a three-person team that bubbled in 78,461 little red circles on scan sheets for a three-week long medical screening marathon. Important to the final outcome, but soul numbing work. I was happy when those three weeks ended!

Then this weekend I attended an event guaranteed to bring home the fleeting nature of time: the college reunion. About two-thirds of my sorority sisters were there, representing the widest possible range of accomplishments and situations - two lawyers and the judge, the teacher, the real estate tycoon, the county administrator, the business owner, the business manager and five retirees. The well and the not-so-well; the slender and the not-so-slender; those who had only changed a little and those who had changed a lot - but none of that mattered.

From California, from Indiana, from New England and New Jersey, and from many places in Virginia we came to touch base with that which unites us. We ate together and then all trouped to the kitchen to help clean up and put away, just as we did together 40 years ago. We partied til the cows came home and danced to all our favorite music and then headed back to our homes and normal lives, but each enriched a bit by having spent time with those closest of friends who had known each other since we made that transition from girl to woman. It was a great reminder of how far we have come, but how much we are still the same ... as 40 years ago. It was a strong reminder that many days have passed and that there are fewer left to come.

I really don't want the rest of my life to be wished away filling in bubbles. I want to enjoy it. I want to savor the days. I want to find ways to look at the leaves as well as smelling the roses.... or more likely, the garden phlox.

I'm thinking some goals are in order:

1) Spend more time with Mitchell.
2) Spend more time on the porch - like eating lunch, or a late afternoon sip of something.
3) Stay in closer touch with friends.
4) Find a focus for this blog.

I still want to write, but am not sure that this daily memoir is what I want to do. Originally my thought was to comment on the world as I see it passing by "from my garden bench". That has not happened. Recently, it has become more of a diary, and less a commentary. I need help moving away from the confines of my life and toward the world outside of me. That may be why I haven't written anything in weeks. I'm bored with my own blog!

So, what I want for Christmas - which is only two haircuts away, after all - is a focus. Any ideas out there?

Fall Projects

It's funny that just two weeks ago I couldn't get any energy or enthusiasm about working in the garden. It was the end of the dog days and both the garden and I had a bad case of the blahs. It's amazing what two weeks of cooler weather can do! Now I have fall projects and am excited to get started!

One: To improve the xeri-garden I started this spring. I've already admitted to you that I didn't let the soil settle before I planted this garden, with the result that now it's settled several inches and I need to add more soil. This week I bought most of the components for Mitchell's square foot garden, so I bought double and will use many gallons of this mix to add to the xeri-garden. I have also done some thinking about plants and have purchased several to finish filling out the box. A recent heavy rain and wind smashed one of the agastache 'Ada' plants, so I also need to do some trimming to get it back into better shape to withstand the winter.

Two: Plant fall asters and other perennials. I picked up five cerise asters to put in the back garden for some additional fall color. There are already some white ones starting to bloom, and some lavender and pink coming along so these will help bridge the bloom gap before the chrysanthemums open.

Three: "Fix" the nandina hedge's "bed". This one takes some 'splaining. Our neighbors at the back are nice people, but their yard is a bit junky for our taste. Fortunately, they have a euonomis hedge about 30 feet long that provides a nice backdrop for my garden across about two-thirds of our lot. It is taller than it needs to be, but I keep our side sheared pretty well, and have used it in my color planning. The hybiscus look great against it all summer as the the fall mums. Two falls ago I took all the little volunteer nandinas we had and started a nandina hedge to fill in the remaining one-third of the lot line. Unfortunately, I laid out the bed by eye, but while sitting on the ground. I used plastic edging pieces to enclose it and when I finished I discovered that it is nearly an s-curve - not at all straight. It is makes life difficult when I am cutting the grass and basically looks stupid! So, my plan is to put in steel edging and square up the bed. Some of the nandinas are now waist-high, so by this time next fall I will actually have a decent hedge back there and I want it to look less amateur.

Four: Irrigation. This is a tough problem. We desperately need to run some sort of irrigation to several parts of the yard, especially those with a lot of shade. I would like to add to our shade gardens, but none of them gets sufficient water to grow the things I would like to add. In all of them the plants have to compete too much with the trees that are creating the shade and there is no natural source of water. Whatever we do will be a big project, so I hope to do a couple of stop-gap things for the winter and then plan out something more permanent. Fortunately, most irrigation systems today can be installed "by the homeowner" and no longer require hiring a lot of expensive work done. I may need to get a plumber to run another outside faucet, but I hope that is all.

I cannot tell a lie. I wrote this two weeks ago and intended to give you some photos, but have just not had the time or energy. Am posting so that I can move on!

Betsy's Garden - Revisited

Early this summer I took you to see Betsy's garden - a wonderful round veggie garden that's pretty much right in the middle of her front yard in a very yuppy west end neighborhood - one where I have not seen any other veggies growing and certainly not in the front yard. Thought you might like to see an update.

Here's what it looks like now. That's okra in the center which is filled with pretty yellow flowers as it continues to provide okra. [We have had two dinners from it this week! - yum!] All around the outside are pepper plants of all sorts - bells of several colors, jalapenos, and dozens that are completely unknown to me. There are some annual flowers mixed in, altho the veggies have pretty much taken over the flowers. In all it's just a riot of happy, healthy plants. Close up it looks like this:

I don't know if she plans to do it again next year, or if she is planning to put in more normal front yard landscaping, but it has been fun watching it grown this summer. Kudos to Betsy for trying something new!