Big, big thunderstorm last night! It seemed to go on for hours. Cracks of lightning, the sky lit up, thunder, torrential rain. This morning everything in the garden is water-logged and sort of smashed down. I know this because I had to go out to remind Henry that the big garden bed was not for him. That scamp!
During the storm, I had my iPhone out and was checking The Weather Channel. There was a warning saying “Lightning Strikes in your area. 0 miles WSW.” In other words, right here. When I tapped the warning, a map came up and I could see all the lightning strikes happening around us and it was actually sort of terrifying! It felt like we were sitting ducks! Maybe it’s better not to know that sort of thing.
Impatiens are my favorite plant for our shady porch and there are pots and pots of them. Normally, I overwinter several of them, but I only overwintered one plant this past winter.
Yesterday, the first flower opened up on that overwintered plant. Hurrah!
We chat with Little Z most every night, but now we have introduced FaceTime to the mix. I had a long FaceTime chat with Z the other day where we talked and laughed and he asked to see ‘my things’ and I played a little of the piano for him. He immediately requested another chat, which took place yesterday evening. I love seeing his adorable little face on the screen. I do my best to make him laugh and give him kisses and Uncle Don, who was in the middle of cooking dinner, also made an appearance that sent Z off into gales of laughter. (We’re actors, after all, and are really good with funny faces and voices.) Added bonus: I get to see my dear sister. I had a nice long chat (a traditional phone call) with her yesterday afternoon, as well.
Yarrow in the big garden bed. I have two yarrows this year.
I’ve started John Connolly’s newest book (I’m a big fan) titled, A Time of Torment. It won’t be published until the beginning of August, but I have an eGalley. You know that feeling when you open the newest book by a favorite author and you read the first page or two and then you sigh with happiness because you know you’re in good hands? That’s what I felt yesterday.
I’ll feel the same way when Daniel Silva’s newest comes out next month and Louise Penny publishes her newest at the end of August. By the way, in case you missed it, I reviewed a book by a new-to-me author yesterday as part of Soho Crime’s 25th Anniversary Read-Along. It’s Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann. I really liked it and plan to read the other books in this series. Book review here.
We received the official news yesterday that Anastasia will open on Broadway on April 24, 2017 at the Broadhurst Theater. Even better, the actors playing the four leading characters have been signed. I love that – they are talented actors who captivated audiences and deserve to be a part of the Broadway production. Bravo!
Wonderful piece of writing on LitHub: On the Invisibility of Middle-Aged Women.
Happy Wednesday.
We also had thunder, lightning, and rain, rain, rain! Our deck is now carpeted in wisteria petals. Thankfully there are still many left hanging. The forest is grateful for the drenching and we are grateful that the power stayed on for the entire storm. What fun for little Z to have a funny Auntie and Uncle…and also Facetime! It works for us, too, as that’s how we keep up with our son. Wonderful invention!
Yes, our power stayed on, too. Thank goodness!
Oh, and excellent essay on middle-aged women, too. Been there quite often myself. I applaud you for asserting your presence here, on your blog.
Ah, thank you, Shanna. I’m doing my best NOT to be invisible!
Well we had a huge thunderstorm down here in FtWorth last night as well. I finally got to watch the video of the big reveal. I am so happy that all your hard work made him happy and excited. Both of you are so talented. It was so nice to hear your voice, Don’s too but I have seen Don in a few things on PBS and one movie that I recognized him immediately and had my husband blow up the credits so we could read them and it said that’s my friend’s husband! so we went back and watched Don’s part again. your garden is so lovely. it makes me want more plants but this heat really makes it hard for me to do more than I do right now.
The reveal was great, Deanna. Everything I’d hoped for!
Ahhhh, we had rain as well, but no thunder and lightening. It was over by the time I went to bed. Loved the link on middle-aged women. So true! And fun to have Face Time with Little Buddy. That must be such a howl!!
It’s very true – we become invisible! FactTime with Little Z makes my heart sing!
Im not a big fan of thunder at all. I have to cover up all the windows terrible but true. Here in San Francisco the weather is so off, this morning I woke up to fog and cold wind like a winter morning.. My garden is just not working well. Don’t know whats going on. We’ve been experincing wind and wind sun came out last few days but it is cold and windy. Well I hope things are good for you today, with love Janice
Same to you, Janice. Have a good day!
Thank you for sharing the very interesting essay by Dorthe Nors. I find invisibility is true even for middle aged women with children. The millennial generation is quite dependent on their mothers for advice about every little thing and I thought I was teaching them to be independent. No helicopter mothering for me! Sometimes it seems as if my only value is as a child care provider despite still being self employed. It is a pleasure to watch my grand children but having to do it every day is a bit of a chore. I just keep telling myself it’s better than not having my children talk to me!!
No thunder here and while it sounded like it was pouring the rain guage should .5 inch. Still too dry. Enjoy the sunny day!
The invisibility seems to be true for any woman over a certain age, children or not, single or married. I’ve certainly experienced it.
when it rains during the night and the sun comes out in the morning I am always happy and say I don’t need to water the garden today. One less chore! I am off to read the article now, sounds interesting.
I thought the same thing today! No watering. Huzzah!
I am so glad that you are cultivating a really close relationship with your little “Z”. Aunts and uncles have such a special place in a child’s life. Enjoy! By the way, I often sit with my iPhone tuned into the Weather Channel during our wild and crazy storms too. I agree, sometimes it’s better not to know ;-)
Big Texas Hugs,
Susan and Bentley
We’re doing our best. I’ve always lived far away from my nieces and nephews and it makes ‘closeness’ much more difficult. Then there are the five children of my estranged sister who have been told lies about us, and so we have been cut out of their lives. We mourn the loss of those kids.
We really want to be a part of Z’s life and are thrilled to be close to him.
I face time with our granddaughter and daughter in the D.C. Area every single day. It keeps us close and I love it. Our son in Japan face times with us at least once a week. Because of the time difference, weekends are usually the only time we’re all awake at the same time and not at work. I am SO grateful for it because without it, I wouldn’t be able to see my children’s faces and watch my granddaughter run and play. I can read books to her and eat breakfast with her. Not as good as in person, but the next best thing. I’m glad you were safe through the storm. Sometimes we’re better off not knowing what is happening out there.
Blessings,
Betsy
It’s really great. I’m so glad we’ve started FaceTime with Z. Seeing his face just makes my day!
While I love a good thunderstorm….lightning frightens me. Glad you got some rain though…hope it helps! FaceTime is a wonderful product of technology…we just chatted the other day with our oldest son, who now lives in London. How wonderful that you chat with Little Z almost every day! Interesting article on invisibility….very thought provoking! Enjoy your day! ;)
We are disappointed when, for whatever reason, we can’t talk with him. He makes our day, Donna!
Oh, I bet…he sounds like such a delight! ;)
xo
So many of us seem to have those same thoughts after a rain ~ “don’t have to water today!!”
I have been working outside most of the morning. It is a lovely day in the upper 70’s and NO humidity. Heavenly!! Hope you are enjoying your day as well! These days are diamonds!
It is humid here today, Chris! Darn it! But we managed to grab a trail walk before it got too uncomfortable out there.
I appreciate the way FaceTime, iChat, Skype, etc are a good tool to allow people to keep in touch in real time and to see each other in real time.
I do, too. I like FaceTime because it’s a bit more portable than Skype – at least for us!
Since I’ve been a kid, I’ve LOVED thunderstorms but in the past few years I’ve also read some scary and sobering information about them. Things that would have terrified me a bit if I’d known them as a child. Here’s a link to the only other blogger I read religiously who just happened to do a “lightning safety” post. Talk about timely – this is info EVERYONE should know:
http://cathy-morningmusings.blogspot.com/2016/06/lightning-safety-week-june-19-june-25.html
Thanks, Janet! I already knew about those warnings. Our house was hit by lightning a few years back – I wrote about it here on the blog. I’m not sure if I remember it accurately, but our phone was destroyed and the television went out (it was revived eventually) – we’ve also had to replace the security company touch pad before because of it. Remember – we’ve had two separate utility poles go down in the past year and one of them was hit by lightning and the transformer caught on fire. We stay in and lay low.
I loved the article on the invisibility of older women. I knew from the time I was quite young that I would enjoy my old age. I remember telling my OB-GYN as much while I was getting out of the stirrups. He laughed and said he had never heard that before. I knew that being invisible would give me a pass on anything I wanted to do. I went down the slide at the waterpark when I was in my early 50s and no one even look up. Of course my skirted bathing suit set the tone of “I’m old.” I will be 68 this year and am very happy. Old age is everything I have ever hoped for.
What a great attitude you have, Tana! Good for you!
The storm we were expecting never arrived…naughty little Henry..lol..It’s so nice that you can chat with Little Z that way..I’m sure it is such fun for him too..That article is so true for me too…I have said often lately that I feel like I am disappearing…My boyfriend of 20 years got himself a girlfriend 20 years younger than me…can you imagine how that feels my friend?..You know the saying “foolish old man”..that applies very well to him…Wonderful news about Anastasia…
Foolish old man, indeed! I’m so sorry, Nancy. What a stupid move on his part – and his loss, as well. Stay strong, my friend. It’s his foolishness, not yours.
I’m super-frustrated trying to type this on an unfamiliar keyboard and catching up to my online life; home desk computer (only thing I use) has been in and out of the shop, costly repairs, get it home, it won’t boot, ugh/grrrrr – just gonna have to buy a new computer as far as I can see. So, trying to catch up to your posts; I so appreciate that you post every day and I try hard to acknowledge your efforts. You and I have discussed before, the blogs whose owners have indeed seemed to have lost their mojo…disappeared off the face of the earth, recycling old content, ads/ads/ads and no new content, posting inconsistently with weeks if not months
in between; as I believe you’d said, no doubt diluted with facebook, instagram and all the rest. That’s why I’m so grateful to YOU for your excellent blog, always full of good and heartfelt and timely content with lovely photos thrown in; thanks so much again for your attention to your blog. I love the variety; and, before I forget, congrats on the advancement of Anastasia to Broadway.
I had so much fun FINALLY getting the opportunity just now to put sound to your video on Don’s receipt of The Studio. It’s such a fab work of art; the fab 4 on the wall somehow just pulls all the color together in the space; like Don, although I love soft colors, I also go wild with full color and can particularly be drawn to burnt and bright oranges, dark pinks, purples and lime and turquoise just as much as the soft pinks, soft buttercups and soft blues of ‘vintage’ and ‘cottage’ decor (faded beachy, etc.). The Studio is alive with color! Love it.
As we go through SO MUCH of my parents’ belongings this past couple of weeks, seeing a lot of the stuff of my childhood, I am well aware that what I grew up with is indeed today’s vintage find for a younger person. We uncovered an old coffee cart and I recall with vivid memory getting my dad a cup of coffee on a summer night (in those days, Mom and Dad drank coffee from the moment they woke up til the moment they went to bed at night) and accidentally dropping the full and hot-hot coffee cup on my bare legs, from that very cart; must have been 1963 or so. Can’t part with Mom’s old electric skillet…very popular from that era…and here is her old pressure cooker from the early 50s. The local women’s shelter and homeless shelter got 16 boxes of charitable donations from us on Monday and hardly any of it was clothes. I can see now that it would have really slowed me down to try to tag everything and put it out in a yard sale although the extra money would have been nice (for me!). Seems wrong somehow to sell my folks’ things, though; better to donate freely and let somebody else profit by use or sale
(maybe good karma). Anyway, I’m sure gals and guys in their 20s and 30s will have fun with some of the old things, like a cool coffee grinder Mom had, although I kept the tabletop meat grinder (even though I no longer eat meat); it had been my grandmother’s from the 1920s. You know what was SO remarkable with these many household items from the 1930s-1970s? Almost everything was made, and made well, in the U.S.A. A few things from Japan, but nothing made in China.
Also loved your photo of the bunny in the yard. And your impatiens are gorgeous. Envy your rain! We are blistering hot here; days and days and days of 90 degrees (f); mucky, muggy and humid haze to where we can’t even see our mountains or out to sea. The bugs have started to pop out bad-bad-BAD and this is Southern California where bugs are supposed to be less of an issue. We have a team of workers coming in tomorrow to weed and trim back our hillside; busy days for us til my hubs returns to the workplace after the 4th.
When I write it as 90 degrees (f) I hope you know that it does not mean the ‘f’ word – it’s my way of saying Fahrenheit which is a word I can never seem to spell right.
xo
You’ve been doing a lot of sorting and donating, Vicki! Good for you, though I know that it’s bittersweet. Hang in there!
We’ve had some of those thunderstorms here and I just pray I don’t get hit! LOL!! We need the rain though. I think face time with Z is probably pretty awesome. I know from times with my Grands what fun those kiddos are. I saw Tiger today and he was like, Grandma are you feeling better?? I said yes! He then told me all about his swimming lessons with demonstrations. You gotta love the energy kiddos have. Exciting news about Anastasia!!
hugs,
Linda
There’s nothing like a kid filled with excitement and joy to put a smile on your face, Linda!
Claudia, I love seeing all the wonderful flower around your yard. So nice to read about little Z. I loved that you and Don make him laugh. Blessings , xoxo, Susie
He’s such a great kid and we adore him, Susie.