R & R Coming Up!

I keep letting work interfere with life. Too much work right now, and not nearly enough life! That ends mid-week when we hop on the silver bird and wing our way to Florida. Mitchell has a conference, but first four days with Elizabeth and her husband and then three days to rest in Orlando before the meeting begins.

Lord only knows if I am ready to go. This morning I finally started packing, but have

doing it in dribs and drabs, so... who knows what will end up in the bag! We are staying in two different condos, so will have laundry facilities (if not in the unit, at least near by) so I am planning to under-take and do laundry at least once. The conference ends with a fancy dinner and dance, so am also taking cocktail dress, new high heels and all the fixins.

Unfortunately, we'll have to get my dress and his suit pressed after stuffing them into the suitcases. Whatever happened to the good old days of taking a hanging bag on a flight? Oh, now I remember - terrorists.

The resolve to lose 10 pounds seems to have gone out the window. I'll worry about that when I get home.

That other little resolution - you remember, the one about writing weekly - well, it's gone out the window, too. Am hoping to see some gardens for my garden blog, and find some scintillating thoughts to share with you here.

Do what you can for Haitian relief. Goodness knows they need all we can do. Hang in there, winter has to end sometime!

A Fork in the Road

In the early '90s Greg Mortenson attempted to summit K-2 in Pakistan. His attempt failed, and on the way down the mountain he became lost and ended up in a Pakistani village where he stayed long enough to make friends, learn a bit about the culture and problems of the people, and eventually embark on a new career raising awareness of the need for education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and raising money to build schools there. He recounted the early story in "Three Cups of Tea" and has recently released a second book that tells about the school-building endeavors of the past 10 years. The new book is "Stones into Schools".

At a lecture last evening he told the audience that there are no words in the Balti mountain language for "success" or "failure". The closest equivalents are a word that means "reaching the end of the journey" for success, and "fork in the road" for failure.

If you look at Greg's own story it seems to fit those words. His original goal was to summit K-2, but a fork in the road brought him to this remote village where he began a very different journey in life. Over the years he has certainly reached the end of that first new journey - and many more.

Vice President Al Gore may well have felt that he reached a fork in the road at the end of the 2000 presidential election process, but he certainly found another route which has led him very successfully in another direction. Senator Clinton seems to be on a similar new journey. I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am guessing there are examples galore in that arena, too.

For those of us who are not famous, the examples may not be so public, but they exist. Most of us can think of a job we didn't get [or perhaps one we lost] that caused us to move on to something different. Nearly 20 years ago I was invited by my employer to find another job [I think we call that fired!] and I found something that paid half what I was making, but which has led to a career that I love with people who are top notch. I certainly have always thought of that experience as a failure, but looking at it in Balti, it truly was a fork in the road. When I retire in a few years, I will definitely feel that I have come to the end of a happy journey.

The current economic mess certainly feels like a lot of nationwide failure, but perhaps it

will cause our whole economy to take a different fork. They say we are spending less, saving more and paying off our credit cards now. That's certainly not new advice, but apparently we are now taking that fork instead of the "put it on the card" fork.

I like this positive way of looking at the seeming ups and downs of life. I believe that as a people Americans are hard on themselves and others when it comes to success and failure. We tend to measure success in monetary terms, and to regard failure as permanent. Perhaps we need to ease up and see both as steps along the way - forks in the road that lead to the ends of new journeys.

Reflect, Review or Resolve?

Hard to choose.

Reflect: Lots of folks today have commented on what a bad year 2009 was (wars, economy, general state of discord and division in the country) and I certainly agree with them. Watching the death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan rise weekly almost makes me want to quit watching the news - which I dearly love.

Watching friends struggle to find a job is heart breaking sometimes. One of my Wise Women is still unemployed 18 months after we were laid off in 2008. She has so many excellent skills and brings so much to an employer. Why do I have a job when she does not? It happens it's largely a matter of location, but that makes it no less frustrating.

And my goodness, when (and why) did we get so divided? And so negative? and so mean to each other? I know it has been happening for nearly 20 years, but it seems now that conservatives and liberals have gotten to the point that they can hardly say "hello" without fighting about something. I love a good discussion of political philosophy as much as the next one, but I wouldn't dream of entering into such a discussion today - certainly not with anyone whom I wish to keep as a friend. At the very time when we need to be united we are terribly divided.

Review: There were some good things this past year, tho. The stock market has risen 25% since January and many of us have recovered a good deal of those pesky 401(k) funds. I ain't Pollyanna and realize that not only did I lose a lot of money, but I also lost well over a year of growth. I am still way behind, but at least it's going in the right direction. This morning I read that those in the know predict an additional 10-12% growth in the stock market in 2010.

Economists tells us that things seem to be opening up a bit in the general economy and that some banks are lending a bit more. The very small company for which I work has had no difficulty getting credit. Two banks have asked us if they can't lend us more - so that's a small, but good, sign.

We changed direction (slightly) in the wars. Maybe that means that things are starting to improve there, too, and that the weekly death tolls will finally go down. Hard to tell.

Love it or hate it, at least the Congress seems poised to do something about health care. It seems to me that anything is better than nothing. That, too, remains to be seen.

A bunch of good movies have just come out. We hope to see "It's Complicated" this weekend. Meryl, Alex and Steve - what more could anyone want. And, did you notice that it's about older folks? Despite it's bad reviews I want to see "Nine", and what woman over the age of 8 doesn't want to see George Clooney's "Up in the Air"? I hope it doesn't hit too close to home.

Resolve: Like every woman over the age of 8, I want to lose weight. I've lost the same 25 pounds at least three times, and need to lose it (and perhaps some more) again. But dieting doesn't seem to help. I think I will start with journaling and try to watch my serving sizes. Somehow that seems like a plan I could live with. I have cut out the after dinner snack, so that's a step in the right direction.

Like most women "of a certain age" I don't get enough exercise, altho I have been working hard on that for the past two or three years. I took up tennis seriously nearly 10 years ago and most of last year I played at least twice a week. Have slacked off a bit since Thanksgiving - partly due to my busy schedule and partly to tendinitis in my right shoulder. I need to get back with my foursome and start playing regularly next week.

Just over a year ago I discovered Jazzercize. I saw it as a good cardio workout, but discovered that we work on flexibility, balance and weight lifting, too, so it's a great all around workout for me. Over time I have rediscovered my core, regained a lot of lost balance, and generally started to tone up. If I could lose that 25 pounds, I think I would find a pretty good core lurking under that layer of... fat! Last year I went 114 times. My goal for 2010 is 150 classes. I think that's absolutely doable.

This year I want to work on making sure I have a positive outlook. I realized to my horror this year that a family member I love is one of the most negative people I know. It's painful to be around her and I don't want to end up like that. So, I want to start now looking at (and for) the good in people and situations. I want to be sure that when I am a little old lady my nieces and nephew look forward to being with me!

And, I want to work on my writing. Am not sure how to do it, but I have already sought help. I have recently added a lot of blogs to my reading list and have found some excellent writers. One (pinkfairygran.blogspot.com) mentioned some writing magazines on her blog today, as well as writing exercises. I have contacted her for more information. She mentioned taking a day a week and doing writing assignments. I like that idea, but am so often devoid of ideas. If I can find a way to get assignments.... And, I have bought a book for writing down ideas as Charlene (balancebeam.blogspot.com) recommended. It's still empty, but I am hopeful!

As for this blog, I have decided to write it again. I know. I just went on hiatus six weeks ago, but found I miss it. I am committing to one post a week, and will attempt to not make it a stream-of-consciousness review of my week!

Happy New Year to one and all!

Water, water everywhere!

The poor garden! It's standing in snow and water - again... still. To recap, we returned from a Thanksgiving trip to find the back yard and garden waterlogged - literally so wet that I could not cut the grass. We got significant additional rain that week and the next, and now we have gotten more than 12 inches of snow. I've been in the garden exactly twice since before Thanksgiving - once to check on the fish nearly three weeks ago and again on Christmas Day in search for rosemary! I made a quick check on the fish then, too. They seem to be fine.

Now the concern is root rot.

Whereas, plants look terrible when they dry out, the reality is that they sacrifice their leaves to save their core. So, when you water them they perk up quickly and go back to looking great.

Too much water is a whole different issue. Plants need oxygen, too. When their roots stand in water, they cannot pull any oxygen out of the soil and they can die quickly - a house plant in just a day or two. Our soil is full of clay - and what are pots made of? and what do they hold? One of our first experiences with this yard was a tree that Mitchell watered and watered and watered as it looked worse and worse and worse. When we finally gave up and dug it up, it was standing in a clay bowl of water and had died of root rot. We have spent the past nine years amending the soil, adding humus and gypsum and generally trying to change to composition and it has worked well.

But I am not at all sure that all our best efforts have been enough for this. The magnolia we planted 18 months ago is literally standing in water this morning. Its hole is filled with a special gravel-like substance that is supposed to help, but is it enough?

The xeri-garden is still covered in snow. I know it hates that! I did put nearly 10 inches of gravel and sand in the bottom of that bed and it is built into a slope so that water can drain off and down the hill, but will it work fast enough? Only time will tell.

There are good things to focus on, tho. I won't have to worry about watering for the next month or two. Often that is a hassle in the winter when it's cold and I have to carry water back and forth. We are really replenishing the underground water supply, so the trees and grass will be healthier this summer. We didn't lose a lot of shrubbery in the snow. I was able to get out and uncover a lot of smaller things the first day. We have a lot of breakage in the nandinas, but they can be cut back hard in February and will fill out again quickly. And, it will be in the 50's again today so most of the rest of the snow should met, freeing us from an icy deck. And, I nearly forgot, I still have not had to cut the grass in the back yard!

So all we can do now is wait. Things will either recover or not. And that's the way it is in the garden. We do the best we can, when we can and trust Mother Nature to look after the rest.