Dry Spells

It stormed most of the weekend. It started early Saturday morning with a light mist. Then over the course of the next three days, we had everything - everything but sunshine that is. We had periods of mist followed by periods of heavy rain, the weather forecasters said it was coming down at the rate of an inch an hour. Five hailstorms passed over us between Sunday and Monday. We were pounded by lightening. Twenty houses surrounding us were struck by lightening. To make matters worse, it was constantly overcast and gray.

There were however, periods when the storms stopped. These dry spells contained high expectations. During one dry spell, I went out to work in the garden. There were puddles of standing water, no gardening occurred, but I did wonder about the corn on the Morrow farm. During another dry spell, I contemplated a bike ride. Just about that time, the rain started again. During another dry spell I went for a brisk walk that turned into an all out run when the hail started. So, while I had high expectations during some of these dry spells they never did materialized.

I am going through a dry spell with my writing. For whatever reason, I am having a hard time writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s my journals, my blog site, working on the scrapbooks, or even a historical project I am working on. Words are not flowing easy right now. But, I have high expectation just the opposite of this weekend. My expectations are that when this dry spell ends I will be saturated with great stories and ideas.

Playing in the Dirt

Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately I’ve been – well, I’ve been playing in the dirt. The rain has finally stopped and the winds have calmed down so I have been busy out in the yard and garden.

Cliff, and others who truly make their living from the land, might disagree but when you set in an office or meetings most the day there is something therapeutic, maybe even magical, about going home and working in the yard and the garden. Pulling weeds will never be one of my favorite past times but it does a great job of calming you down and helping you relax. But, my favorite form of playing in the dirt is the garden. Right now it is still full of weeds and yes, even last years plants which have died off. But, it is fun to rip them out, imagine what it will look like, and get it ready for another “crop”. That means you have to play in the dirt, get your hands dirty, and most likely relax a little.

How relaxing is it? For me quite a bit. There are two ways I can tell. First for the past few mornings after playing in the dirt, I can actually say the words ‘attorneys and accountants’ without prefixing them with an adjective. The second way, which I am seriously considering, is I want to build a sandbox in my office.

A Blast from the Past

It’s amazing the things that are coming back. Maybe they were never really gone just quietly hidden from view. Yesterday I was walking through the produce section of the store and there they were – boxes of them – the hula-hoop. It stopped me in my tracks.

These were definitely the upscale version of the hula-hoop. They are now in neon colors and have some pretty wild patterns. They were also available in three different sizes. I thought they were “one size fits all”.

While I owned several of them while growing up, I was never very good at it. I knew kids that could roll those things around their waist for hours. My personal best was measured in minutes – six minutes to be exact.

I’m not sure why they were in the produce section. I am not sure if they will catch on again. Three young kids were playing with them by trying to get them to roll down the aisle. Yeah, I’ll admit it, I seriously thought about giving them a hula hoop lesson right there in the store.

But, it got me to thinking. If the hula-hoop is coming back what about other things like bell-bottom pants and avocado green appliances?

You never know.