Hello, everyone! Spring has arrived here in north Florida, a real feast for the eyes this year. We credit a few long, soaking rains for the abundance of color.
Magenta blooms from an azalea bush.
Close-up of a variegated pink azalea bloom.
Fat carpenter bee sucking nectar from a dark pink azalea flower.
White azalea flowers.
All together: magenta, pink, red, and white azalea flowers along our front yard.
Elsewhere in our gardens …
Bulbine with small yellow flowers and a bunch of buds.
Woodland pholx: a bushy plant with purple violet-like flowers.
Blue-eyed grass (grass with delicate blue flowers).
Pink sorrel, a type of groundcover with pink, violet-like flowers. Grows wild.
Columbine, a delicate plant with red flowers that hang like upside down tulips with yellow fronds.
Close-up of a native pink azalea, petals not yet fully open.
A bromeliad plant with several red and yellow buds poking upward.
A red buckeye bush (or tree, I hope) with small red flowers on top.
While color is bursting out all over in my little corner of the world, I’ve been busying myself with writing (more or less) and various handcrafts. I’ve knitted two pair of socks. One pair (not shown) is mostly purple. The pair below was not intended to be “mismatched.” I apparently drew from the wrong end of the yarn for one, but I really like how these turned out. I might do this kind of mistake on purpose next time.
A pair of feet clad in striped socks, colors ranging from yellow to green to red to purple.
I also sewed the bag in this photo, finally finding something to do with the fabric remnant I bought years ago. It’s called a 4-corner bag (designed by Cocoknits) and was super easy to make. I have a fetish for bags and am enjoying this one so much I might make more.
A bag made of light denim fabric with a muted flower pattern and leather straps.
Finally, we’ve done a grownup thing and bought new living room furniture. The cushions and springs of our old furniture were fairly shot after 15 years of wear and the upholstery fairly destroyed after 15 years of tear by our cats. Note: Do not buy tapestry-like upholstered furniture if you have cats.
View of a brown leather loveseat and a brown leather sofa in our living room.
Raji and Wendy were quite put out by the loss of their beloved oversized scratching posts. We eased their adjustment by installing window perches behind the loveseat. We also covered the loveseat with a little-used comforter to protect it from the sun and make it more comfortable for our cats should they desire to stretch out.
Raji (ginger cat) and Wendy (Tortieco) on their windowsill perches.
No one can say that we don’t try to do right by our kitties.
I hope all is well out there among my far-flung online community. My writing is going well enough for me. My writing course is taking a break (as scheduled) until April 1 when we’ll start Session Two with new prompts among other goodies. Life is going well for us.
We did the other grown-up thing with updating our Wills, Living Wills, and Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care. If I learned anything in the last couple of years, it’s that you don’t want to leave your loved ones guessing.
In the roughly two weeks I’ve been retired, I haven’t done a whole lot. I know some of you are probably rolling your eyes at that. I did say I would take a break, but even I didn’t take myself seriously. Nature did, though, so she put out the pollen–nice and thick–to get me to slow down.
My first few days and nights of freedom were surreal. I couldn’t sit still during the day, which was fine with my husband because that meant I was doing most of the cooking and cleaning; at night, I dreamt about work. Horrors. The nightmares dreams have pretty much stopped, thank goodness.
The pollen might have slowed me down, but I could still enjoy the scenery, even in my own front yard.
Azaleas in our front yard. The house on the left is ours.
Another view of the lovely azaleas.
Azaleas on the other side. Yup, that’s our ’94 Toyota pickup that we might never sell.
Close-up of azaleas next to truck.
Azaleas behind the truck.
Things weren’t too shabby elsewhere in the neighborhood.
A whole hedge of Chinese fringe flowers!
The pollen didn’t keep me from walking and taking photos. But then my body turned on me.
Last Monday we went for a bike ride, about 21 miles round-trip. Although I am a bit out of shape, I was surprised how sore my undercarriage (a euphemism I’m stealing from a British women’s cycling magazine) became. I thought I had plenty of padding going for me: cycling tights with a nice thick layer of chamois, my underpants, and a panty liner because, well, the restrooms are far between on the trail.
That was Monday. Then Wednesday night at 11 pm, just as I was settling into bed, I felt a burning sensation around my undercarriage and lower abdomen. Although it had been decades since I last experienced that sensation, I knew what it was immediately: the dreaded UTI.
For the next 6 hours, I had to pee about every 15 minutes. After the first hour, blood started to appear in my urine. I sat on the toilet with my iPad, reading up on UTIs and bladder infections and kidney infections. With the blood, I figured I had a bladder infection and I was in trouble.
You see, I was scheduled for a COVID-19 vaccination that Friday. The Johnson & Johnson one-shot. No way was I going to miss that! I was devastated, worried that if I called my doctor about an infection, they would delay the vaccination, but also worried that if I didn’t do anything, the infection would only get worse.
I exhausted myself and shortly before 5 am, I fell asleep. The cats woke me up at 7:30 because, you know, they don’t care that I was up all night. They were up all night, too, so it was nothing to them. After their feeding, I went back to bed. When I got up again, it was the strangest thing: my symptoms were gone.
So I kept my mouth shut and on Friday got my vaccination. I was still tired but it usually takes me a couple of days to recover from insomnia. By Saturday, I was getting suspicious. That burning sensation never completely disappeared and now I was bloated. Oh, how much I hate being bloated! It brings back all those awful memories of that time of the month and how miserable I would be.
I looked it up. Yup, bloating is a symptom of UTIs. And, by the way, bicycling can also cause UTIs. It’s the friction and pressure down there and, in my particular case, the fact that I was sitting on too many layers. Apparently, it would be better to go commando with nothing coming between me and my chamois.
So off I went to the doctor, peed in a cup, and got a prescription for antibiotics because yes, indeedy, I had plenty of white blood cells and even a bit of blood floating around in my urine.
Now I’m still tired but I’m improving. My husband has been the best, chauffeuring me to the doctor’s office (twice), the pharmacy, the grocery store and the bookstore (okay, that last one was an indulgence). I told him how I couldn’t have done all this without him, and he said, “Of course not. You’re sick.”
Wow. The irony. First two weeks of freedom and I get hay fever and a bladder infection. Still beats working, though!
I hope you all are safe, healthy and happy. If you haven’t been vaccinated yet, I hope you will be soon.
Raji and Junior checking out the squirrels in our backyard.
My husband doesn’t like my math. He’s argued that, with respect to a countdown, this should be week 1, not week 0. But it is the week in which I become untethered, set adrift. To me, it’s a 0.
In a perfect world, it would be a relaxing week, the last three-and-a-half days of employment spent tidying up my desk (or my desktop as it is), having casual chats with coworkers over Microsoft Teams, skipping down memory lane during a phone call or two. But we all know it’s not a perfect world.
I will spend most of my remaining days in meetings, either assisting in kickstarting new assignments or transitioning old assignments to new people. I will likely put in a bit more than my regular hours, but will stop on Thursday shortly after my surprise retirement party.
By the way, if you want to surprise someone with a retirement party, do not display “Marie’s Retirement Party” on your Outlook calendar, especially since Marie is often responsible for setting up meetings and, thus, is likely to see it.
About noon, I will shutdown my laptop, gather it and all its necessary peripherals and make the commute that I haven’t had to make in almost a year.
With any luck, the only person I will see at the office will be D. to whom I’ll hand over the state government property and engage in a brief exit interview. Then, weather permitting, I plan to take a walk around the ponds and see if there is any trash to pick up.
After that, who knows?
Well, I do know that I’ll be studying iPhone photography again, tending to my plants, and taking walks in my neighborhood and beyond. For now, there’s plenty catching my eye around my hood, starting with my front yard which hasn’t been mowed in months. (Greg wants to sweep for insects before he mows.)
Some might call this delicate flower a weed but I call it … a delicate flower.
Our azaleas are starting to bloom but in fits and starts. We’ve never taken the time to shape our azalea bushes as some do. They’re a bit scraggly right now but only for now.
A nearby neighbor’s Dogwood is in partial bloom. Years ago I was driving along a road lined with Dogwoods in full flower, all snowy white and surreal. This Dogwood has a ways to go, but it’s early yet.
Now, if anyone knows what the bush below is, please tell me in the comments! I think it’s gorgeous but I don’t know what it is.
I suppose since it’s on the street side of the fence, I could steal a snip and take it to my local nursery for ID. But I’d rather not. Usually there’s two yappy dogs in that yard. They put up a ruckus even when I’m way over on the other side of the street. I hate to think what noise they’d make if they saw me so close to their fence.
The next few days will be an emotional roller-coaster. We weren’t able to hire a replacement for me so I’ll be feeling some guilt at leaving my staff with no buffer between them and “the boss.” I know that guilt will leave me as soon as I leave the office building for the last time, but I have to get there first.
My staff are a tight team, dedicated, creative, and industrious. They will be fine. And I will miss them. These last few months as their section administrator was the first time in a very long time that I felt part of something, that I felt I was really making a difference, maybe not so much in the world of public health, but at least in the work lives of these truly wonderful people.
So I do feel some sadness at leaving and a part of me is wishing I wouldn’t leave, that I could stay and shepherd them a while longer. But I’d be breaking my commitment to my husband if I did that. What makes me truly sad is the knowledge that no matter how much my staff feel they need me (maybe not me personally, but the constancy, the continuity of my presence), I just don’t have the mental and emotional will to carry these responsibilities much longer. I’m not a weak person. I’ve proven that.
I just don’t like my job. It’s nothing personal, nothing to do with my staff as I obviously think the world of them. It hit home a few days ago when I was revising the job announcement for my position. I realized that I never would have applied for such a job and yet here I was, doing exactly what I had intended not to do.
And then there’s my husband who’s willing to live as simply as we need to in order for me to retire. Gotta love that guy. And this guy:
That’s right, folks! Time for a Raji update. As you can see, he’s become rather relaxed around us. He drives our other cats crazy during feeding time because he paces and rubs against each of them! He has no fear. Whenever Maxine or Wendy slap at him, he looks at them like, “What? Don’t you find me cute and adorable?”
Raji and Junior are now pals, chasing each other up and down the hallways. At some point over the past week, Junior’s bullying turned into playing. I believe Raji has helped Junior to discover his inner kitten.
My dear friends, thank you for reading. Thank you for still visiting me although I haven’t been visiting you. I might be soon set adrift (in a good way) from my job, but you all keep me moored. Love you to the moon and back. Stay safe, well, and embrace happiness.
I’ve been leading a non-writing life lately … well, if you don’t count writing letters (of the snail mail variety). Although I’ve been writing in my head a lot. Somehow I don’t manage to put those thoughts down on paper. No, what usually gets down on paper is my endless to-do lists for both work and home. Over the last few weeks, aside from writing lists and letters, I’ve done a few other things, things that compelled me to be in the “here and now.”
Knitting
I’ve been knitting up a storm, folks. Not for me, mind you. No, I’ve got plenty of shawls, scarves and hats for this relatively warm climate. I’ve been on a mission knitting for others. My most favorite knitting is serendipitous: I see a pattern and yarn combination and a friend or family member pops into my head. So I knit.
A shawl for a friend.
This shawl requires two different colors of yarn, but in the pattern, the colors are both solid. I had originally intended to knit a different shawl but the pattern and I weren’t getting along so I reverted to this one. It is one of my favorite shawl patterns, but the yarns deviated from what the pattern requires. So I was a bit of a nervous Nellie while knitting, worried that it wouldn’t look very nice at the end.
Ha!
Detail of shawl.
What’s not to love about this detail?! It was a real pleasure to knit and even more fun when I gave it to my friend. Nope, she had no idea.
Next up was a scarf for a family member. He is a relatively new family member, older than me and related by blood, but we’ve only just “discovered” each other recently. Yup, I took a DNA test and got more than I was hoping more. His birthday was recently. Usually I don’t knit for birthdays because, well, I don’t want to set expectations (i.e., no, D, you are not going to get a knitted scarf every birthday). But, again, serendipity. I wanted to do SOMETHING. I had the yarn (alpaca blend) and a favorite scarf pattern. So I went to it.
The long view.
Believe or not (and I know some of you non-knitters won’t believe it), this is a very easy pattern. It knits up quickly and is a real pleasure. I love seeing the pattern unfold.
Cables.
More cables!
Cables are fun to knit! I learned to knit cables decades ago. I used to be so intimidated by them but they are ridiculously easy to knit. The cool thing is knitting cables makes you feel like you’re actually building something :)
Hiking
Another living in the moment experience was going on a hike with my husband to Shepherd Spring. It’s a flat hike (no hills to stretch our calves), but lovely. It was quite pleasant until we got to the Cathedral of Palms when we were dive-bombed by mosquitoes. Usually this is a place where we would want to linger, but, since I have a blood type that mosquitoes can’t resist, I picked up my pace and nearly left my husband behind.
It was a lovely afternoon. A much-needed immersion in nature. There are a lot of things I don’t like about living in Florida. I can count on one hand the things I do like. Shepard Spring is one of them. Please enjoy the slideshow.
Marie at 1 Write Way 