When Summer Is Passing You By

Perhaps we feel the same?

That summer is book-ended by Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Just when I was getting into my summer groove of  mowing, weed pulling, gardening, and sweet morning walks.... well it's about to pass me by.

Could you tolerate a little of what my summer has and hasn't been?

The good, the bad and the slightly annoying?



New car:

My "new" car is actually twelve years old and just turned over 30,000 miles. It gets over 40 MPH and it's blue.

Those are the high points.

It's kinda like driving a motorcycle with a hood on it, with it's 3 cylinders of pure power, and tires that look like they belong on a bicycle.

One grandson calls it my "fun car."  The Fire Princess granddaughter was in the back seat with her brother this summer, when she yelled, "Grandma! Your car is making my hair hot!"

Yes darling red headed princess, it is making every-ones hair hot, since it doesn't have an air-conditioner.

Another little piece of trivia is that is happens to be a five speed, stick shift.

So not only is your hair hot, its an aerobic workout just going to town.

Mostly I drive it to work or for pet sitting.

In the morning it's lovely, with the window down and fresh morning air softly drifting in. By five o'clock it is suffocating. One 100 degree day, JQ called when I got off work to asked if I'd run a few errand for him.

No.

No I won't... unless I come home and get the car with air conditioning and come back.

Yes.

Yes, I realize that would defeat the purpose of saving on gas.

It's been a long hot summer of trying to figure out the best approach to maintaining a cool demeanor, on a 100 Degree day with 90 percent humidity in my little "fun car."

Everything is really out the window with that idea.

I can reach the passenger side window without stretching from the drivers side, so I usually roll the windows all the way down.

This functions to circulates the 100 degree air, to a blasting, moving, blowing, 100 degrees of heat, while pressing the miniature gas petal to the floor, trying to hit 55 miles an hour, up the hill, toward my home, with all my hair sucked over to one side of my head, flapping out the window, while everyone is passing and staring at you, because the speed limit is 65 MPH.

You get the picture.

The fact that I've only spent $25.00 on gas all summer, makes up for all the bad hair days.



Bunny Incident:

Yes there was the more than mildly disturbing bunny incident.

One mommy bunny made a nest in the spearmint patch, under the wire dome of a garden hose hanger, that has a smiling glass face that looks like the sun. I'm sure it seemed like the perfect idea at the time, but she overlooked the fact it was also the small fenced in area where our dogs run outside to take care of their business and check on the affairs of the neighborhood.

One awful day, the rescue dog (Brandy) must have heard them having a baby bunny convention under the herb plants and she wanted to play too. Before I knew what was happening bunnies were flying through the air and when one quit responding she would go look for another new friend.

I know from growing up on a farm that rabbits eat their young for less than this, and I get that, but now we had three orphan rabbits. And no one in the whole world, that I know, has time to feed bunnies with eye droppers, every few hours, for weeks on end, so that they can grow up and go out to eat your trees and gardens.

The ordeal has scared my summer.

I am no good at dealing with death. Not even the death of a bunny.


The house is a mess.

I had this simple idea to paint my office.

I read a few blogs, got some tips on how to freshen things up for just a little money and time.

It sounded so easy.

So I dove in first and called on my husband for backup later.

My office could make people think I'm a hoarder, and it is true, that I must be.

There was only a path, from my desk, to my favorite chair and back out again.

Have I ever mentioned that my husband is a neat freak?

Well that's easy for him, because anything that does not have a home is delivered to my office.

I was sure I wanted robin blue walls.

I read it on a blog and my friend Melissa said it too, "go buy a tester bottle of paint and paint an area or better yet a piece of wood, so you can move it around the room to see it in different lighting."

Nope.

I was confident of what I wanted. So I bought a gallon of paint and started in.

You all know what happened next.

I hated it.

Every time I walked into the room, I gasped.

In fact I just did again to think of it.

Well I bought a second gallon of "neutral" color called "Grey Leaf."

It was kind of like hitting the other ditch with color. It looked more like "white leaf."

Well there is a whole blog post here, but my office is painted, the carpet clean and every piece of furniture has a fresh coat of white, which helps the room look more grey.

Did you get that? Ya. My JQ wasn't thinking it was true either.

The real problem is, that exactly half of our home is now destroyed from everything we took out of that one room. I need to join a support group for people who collect paper, books and thumb drives.

The moral of this story is, buy the sample bottle of paint for $3.

Trust me on this.


Who is impersonating me?

I called a long time friend. She is older than me by quite a few years, but we were instant friends when she told me about how she loved to sneak down to the lake and go skinny dipping at night.

We would laugh and share secrets like school girls. She moved to be close to family last year and I have not been super faithful to call or e-mail.

Well, I called her and was shocked that she said I didn't sound like the Rhonda Quaney she knew.

In fact she suspiciously asked me questions to determine if I was really Rhonda Quaney.

I apologized to her for not being a better friend, but assured her that I cared for her still, and that only I would probably lay claim to be Rhonda Quaney.

Then she said, "...if you are really Rhonda Quaney, what is your phone number?" When I told her she hung up on me.

I must have failed the test.

I'm sad that my friend is not doing well and possibly flattered to think, that she would imagine that someone out there would want to impersonate me.

Either way, go right now and call your friends whom you have not talked to in some time.

It's important.


The Toe:

It's just dumb, but I'll tell you anyway.

All summer I have had this toe issue.

It has dealt me fits, for the last few years.

My mind contend that since I had cancer treatments it has been an issue.

This may or may not have any validity, but it's my story.

I suppose it could just be like everything else in life, ....things get weird.

So, I knew the thing hurt, but it got to the point that even a sheet touching it at night would make me sit straight up in bed.

I could only wear flip flops.

It worked better when walking the beach, than attending weddings, church, and or a nice restaurant.

It also seemed like everyone and the dogs wanted to step on only that toe.

One day, one of my granddaughter stepped on it three times.

Twice, I kind of saw it coming so I could brace myself.

But the third time she caught me off guard and when she made contact, I involuntarily flung her off my foot, which made her fly through the air.

My prayer is that she won't be scared emotionally for life from it.

The next day I made an appointment to see a foot surgeon.

He looked at me and said, "this is as bad as I've seen."

It took a surgery procedure and two more months for it to heal.

I'm glad it happened in the summer, as winters here would make wearing flip flops a little more challenging.

You just don't think something so small, can be such a big deal. It was like living the Bible lesson about how every single person is an important part of the whole Body. Read about it here?

Am I using my talents, time and treasure to serve.

No one in the whole world can do what you or I were designed to do.

I've learned this all summer: Even toes are important.

Being Helpful:

Too often,  I feel like the Lord is telling me to do something, that I don't want to do.

It happened a lot this summer.

One example of this was on another 100 degree at high noon.

I saw the young man and his blue bicycle.

He was bent over with his head hanging between his arms which were resting on the bicycle seat like he was trying to catch his breath. I reasoned that I was in the wrong lane to pull over.

Well I ended up finally making a u-turn and went back to find him just where I had first seen him.

I pulled into a place where I could get out of the traffic and get his attention to ask if I could help.

He was less than receptive, but handed me his bike.

To make this story short, he let me load his bike, take him to his home and unload his bike and we parted with a weak nod of the head and wave of  the hand.

As I drove away, I thought this: Really?

But as I drove home, I knew that Jesus had asked me to go back and help him.
I know that the guy had disabilities and was at the point of heat exhaustion.

It was a test really.

A test to see if I will just help those that aren't able to reciprocate, or communicate gratefulness.

It was a test to see if I would just do do this for Jesus, when no one will see or know or thank you?

I want to respond to His inaudible, audible voice.

I want my answer to be yes. I will do whatever Lord.



Time for friends:


You'll understand after one of my previous lessons, that I need to be more intentional about friends.

So, without much planning, I invited a few ladies via text message, secretly hoping everyone would say they were busy.

Remember above, "the house is a mess?"

Well the garden is also in full swing.

That is a nice term, to cover the reality of my kitchen having mounds of tomatoes, a cloud of fruit flies, the stringent smell of vinegar, off-set by the light, fresh scent of dill.

The dogs are in full shed. I'm not sure why they need to shed in preparation for winter, but it is currently happening in our home.

And every time I open the door to let the dogs out to check for bunnies, large spiders waltz in, as if to say, "why thank you for opening the door for me."

I tried not to fuss over the detail, but when the guests arrived I just put it all out there.

To start with I told them that the brownies I made were dry.

Then I asked them please... only open drawers or closet doors at your own risk and keep your feet up on your chair, because I just killed a centipede before you arrived.

Also, I did apologize that I didn't warn them not to wear black, since the dog hair shows up best on that..

We ended up having a lovely time and they all wanted to do this again soon, only another lady suggested it could be at her house next time.

It is probably safer.


In Summary:

This summer I discovered coconut milk which makes amazing healthy ice cream desserts in a blender, but nothing replaces a good old fashioned hot dog on the grill.
I loved picking choke cherries and then making choke cherry jelly for the first time ever.
I made it to the lake (which I live right next to) twice, found that they have make-up in a bottle for legs, sat in the hot tub and watched shooting stars, read one book, drank cold coffee, took lots of pictures, slept in a few times until 7:00 a.m and watched my grand children grow up too much.

It went by too fast.

So as the blazing hot summer sun sets in your life, would you tell me?

What has been some of the highlights?