Saturday Slight

My friend Nancy may not know that I worked REALLY hard to keep my eyes open while she was telling a story toward the end of our Friday-night dinner gathering last night.

She may have tuned in on my efforts; I hope not. 

Suddenly, however, after a day of feeling surprisingly good in the jet-lag department, my mind and body decided to enthusiastically embrace desire for sleep---right there at the restaurant table. 

It was ALL I could do to keep those eyes open. 

When Bill and I climbed into the car, I told him I wouldn't last long once I hit the bed.

Possibly five whole seconds had passed before I drifted into a deep slumber uninterrupted for more than six hours. 

Ahh, how good it feels this morning to be better prepared with some quality sleep for getting on with re-entry into my routine world!

It's a beautiful Saturday morning with coatings of frost on car windows and hints all around the yard that there's an abundance of winterizing work to be done. 

Lots of dead plants from the unusually cold weather during the time we were gone mean lots of work with the cart and pruning shears. 

A substantial bed of fallen leaves means several hours of lawnmower work, trimming the grass and picking up those leaves with the bags. 

My apple tree has already been "pruned" of its lower layer of apples.  Looks like the deer have had a great time while we were gone. 

So, I'll take the ladder out there and give them some competition.  My horses love those apples, and since Bill picked up our pork yesterday, I'll be preparing more applesauce to go with it. 

Nothing better with pork chops or ham with a side of cold applesauce for dipping each bite.

Besides the outdoor work, we have two weeks' worth of papers and mail to comb through, and I'm slowly coming to life on the commitments coming up which have been put in the back drawer of my mind during our absence. 

Seems like there's always something coming up here.  With that in mind, I must say that two weeks away from all those responsibilities turned out to be very therapeutic.

I'm ready to take them on now with a sense of new beginnings. 

Yesterday's first day home was pretty adrenalin-filled right down to that last minute of dinner-time story swapping. 

In the morning I drove over to my sisters' to see Barbara's new baby and his mom. 

Vinnie is quite the Brad-Pitt-style horse hunk, to say the least.  The pair seems to have made a nice adjustments to their new digs. 

I also tended to some items in town and did some catching up with family members and friends. 

So, today and all its projects await.  I'm anxious to get on with it, especially taking time to enjoy the fall color show.

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Today I've included a link to my friend Connie's most recent blog post. 

Her words pretty much reflect my thoughts on "the elephant in the American room" which keeps up the erratic and insane "bull in the china closet" assault on our American democracy. 

It's time for some sense of consistent, thoughtful governing to revive itself in this nation before what we've always relied upon and believed about this country becomes painfully and dangerously "so yesterday."

Connie sums up my own thoughts beautifully in a reasonable, articulate and logical approach.  

More voices like hers need to speak out and send a strong message of accountability for the people we elect and pay to govern. 

The circus-like reality show of the past three years is becoming a sick, sick, sick rerun.  

Time to cancel the charade.  

It's past time to get back to some semblance of the America that cares about its people---all of them---not just those who show up for mean-spirited, juvenile rallies where an emotionally disturbed attack dog goes after innocent people simply to stroke his sick ego. 

We are better than that, I hope.  

I can attest from my recent experience in Ireland that, contrary to what Trump tells his rabid followers, we are losing our respect in the world.  

Thank you, Connie for your words. 

 https://retiredmtnlady.blogspot.com/