Sunday, May 1, 2011

It's late Sunday afternoon here.  It was an unexpectedly lovely weekend.  The sun was out most of the time and the sound of lawnmowers and edgers and string trimmers was evident up and down our street.  Today, all of the front lawns look well manicured.  Even ours, which due to our lack of chemical assistance contains mostly weeds and crabgrass.  It's all green from the recent rains but it's not real grass.  We don't have a problem with that.  I happen to love dandelions and don't want Peter Kevin to pull them out. 

He leaves them alone but does dig up the onion grass which reminds me of Treasure Trolls.  Remember them?  They had the hair that stood straight up.  The onion grass stands straight up amid the other grass like substances.  It looks like we have a yard full of buried treasure trolls.

I spent yesterday doing laundry and cleaning the house and spinning.  I finished some roving that I got for Christmas.  It made a lovely skein of yarn.  I don't know how many yards I ended up with.  I'll run it through the yardage counter when I ball it up.  There is something hypnotizing about the spinning of the wheel.  I put some shiny train stickers on the side facing me so I get to watch the train run around and around as I spin.  A bit of whimsy.  Peter Kevin calls her Daisy Train. 

Today, I started to spin some more and finish up the striped socks for Elanor but I fell asleep in the chair.  It was wonderful to sit there.  The windows were open and I could smell freshly cut grass and the smell of the clothes in the dryer venting outside.  I love the smell of the laundry.  I think I slept for well over an hour. 

The memorial for Amanda was touching, lovely and memorable.  You know how large a multi purpose room is in an elementary school?  Well, the room in Mandy's school was full of chairs in rows and there wasn't an empty seat in the house.  In fact, we got there a little late and had to stand on the side.  There was a large crowd of folks wearing yellow shirts with bees on them.  They said
Be Motivated
Be Adventurous
Be Normal
Be Determined
Be Yourself. 

Evidently, Mandy had instituted the Bee program (which started with a small group of friends during a sleepover) and the school embraced it and every door and bulletin board has a Bee theme and a positive note.  What an impact she made.  It's made all the more amazing since she was so young.  What a lovely legacy she left.

We listened to the people with whom she spend most of her days tell their favorite Mandy stories.  There was laughter and tears, as it should be.  Pk and I and the girls and their young men all had dinner at our local diner where we could parse the event and share our own family stories.

Back to work tomorrow.  I'll have some catch up to do to make up for having time off last week but I can handle it.  I am starting to feel more like myself again and although I know there's more sadness on the horizon, I can handle it.

I hope you are all having a good weekend.  I'm letting Pk beat me in a word game (don't tell him, he thinks he's beating me fair and square) and it's my turn.  Actually, he plays strategically (how else do you get 30 points for putting one letter on the board?) and I play for good words.  I need to start paying more attention to where I'm putting my letters or I'll keep losing by a hundred points.  Not good for my ego.

7 comments:

amy said...

No nice perfect lawn here either! I care about having healthy children more than I care about having a perfect lawn (which is pretty much not at all!). I don't trust those lawn chemicals. Not to mention what they do to waterways when they inevitably run off into them.

Beautiful springlike weather here, too. It's funny how warm 62 degrees feels this time of year!

Louiz said...

We called those troll things gonks!

We've got colder weather on it's way here, from summer last week to spring this week.

Anonymous said...

Mandy's service sounds lovely, just as it should be. Its great to know she leaves such an important impact. I love that smell too, but right now I'm enjoying the smell of woodfire smoke on the cooling air more!

Saren Johnson said...

Our front yard is full of dandelions as well, but we're trying to work on it.

Amy Lane said...

I'm so sorry about your niece. I've just went and caught up on your last three blogs--you've had a rather melancholy spring, sweetheart. You have such a good, serene heart though, even your sadness is inspiring. (I get angry with too much sadness--I need to take Donna Lee lessons in how to deal.) Your pink shoes are adorable--and I do know how it feels to cave to pretty technology.

And I will forever cherish the image of buried trolls in our yard--because that's the sort of yard we have too!

Anonymous said...

oh the Bee program is a wonderful legacy!

roxie said...

I love that you fell asleep at your spinning.

Amanda's ceremony sounds healing. Hugs.

Happy Sunday!  I am sitting here working on my sweater made with the cashmere yarn my husband gave me for my birthday last year. I’m further...