Surrounded by Treasures: this one's for Denise

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

this one's for Denise

...so blame her. :)

I know my poor sad blog is all lonely, but I just haven't had anything new to report.

I could relate the scintillating story of the Communications exam. THAT will have you on the edges of your seats. See, there was this exam that I had to take this week, so on Monday night when I went to take it, my thoughts went like this: Hmm, this material seems slightly familiar but not nearly as familiar as it should be considering that I've been studying like a maniac for days. Where are the questions about listening? Where are the questions about verbal and nonverbal communication? What is all this stuff about love relationships and intimacy? Am I maybe taking an exam in Human Development instead (because we ARE studying love relationships in HD), and oh crap I haven't studied really hard for that one yet? No, this IS for Communications. [still tooling along making my best guesses at the questions, by the way.] Maybe this is the wrong test. But that can't be, can it? I mean, no teacher would do that, would she? I could look in the book and see if this stuff is covered in the last third of the book, but that would be (I seriously thought this, just so you know how truly nerdy I am) looking at the book during an exam, which is FORBIDDEN. [Good thing the test was multiple choice.]

End result: Yes it was the wrong test. I got a 92, except the grading was all wonky (gave double credit for a couple of questions) and I think I really deserved an 82 or maybe a 77. Then I told the teacher it was the wrong test -- it even said Exam 3 on it instead of Exam 2, not that I noticed that going in -- and she put up the right test and ERASED MY 92. And here I'd thought I was going to be able to skate through the rest of the class and not worry about the next test.

See? Aren't you thrilled? Don't you want to send Denise a BIG THANK YOU NOTE for nudging me to post?

Um, what else. The dog. Chewed a hole. In my son's leather jacket. THAT was a banner day. The dog very nearly got banished to the outdoors for good, and if it weren't for the fact that we'd be kept awake for weeks training her not to bark all night like the neighbors' dogs do, I might have gone ahead and done it. The jacket was a hand-me-down and it'll fit him for about five more minutes, but still. Very Bad Dog.

I uprooted the poor, finished, frost-blasted plants in the garden yesterday. I heaped the cornstalks to burn (because of the nasty corn smut) and piled everything else up to make into mulch. Then today the Fire Safe Council people came to chip up one of our burn piles (our tax dollars at work in a way I can actually appreciate; it's cheaper than fighting fires) and while they were at it they ran my small-brushpile-sized heap of garden remains through their shredder and blew the shredded bits right back into the garden where I wanted it for mulch. AND I have a good-sized pile of wood chips for top-dressing-mulch-stuff to go on top of the newspapers that will go on top of the dirt and compost and worms that I hope might help make next year's garden more of a success than this year's was. We'll see.

T is taking next week off work. Tomorrow (Thursday) is the only day standing between us and TEN DAYS O' BLISS. Well, bliss and miscellaneous handyman types of jobs. He is also taking off a week in December. Yay for use-or-lose!

Random links: "All & Sundry" is a blog I have read for years, since we were both at Diaryland. She's gone on to be relatively famous in blogland (while I obviously have not, and for equally obvious reasons) and I still love to read just about every one of her posts. (This, by the way, is not mutual, and that's obviously fine, but I didn't want to make it sound like we were pinky-swear best friends when really she doesn't know me from Adam. Or Eve. Shut UP, Rachel.) Today's was something she'd posted elsewhere before, but it was new to me; it's a collection of her free-verse poetry about being a mom to a boy and it had me snorting with laughter, until it made me cry. You might like to laugh and cry too, especially if you've ever wiped poop off someone's scrotum or felt like your head-balloon was about to pop all over the interior of the car from the neverending screaming, so here's a link.

Also, a more recent blog-find -- I think I started reading it last spring -- is A Handmade Life, written by ANOTHER woman who doesn't know me from Adam or Eve but who is, whether she knows it or not, my gardening HERO. She and I have similar ideas about other Important Stuff as well, which is why I am totally stealing this poem that she posted recently (she didn't write it).

I Have Found Such Joy
I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.
~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ack! That makes me get an Anne-Shirleyish "queer ache" -- and if you don't know what that means, you have some reading to do.

And thatisall. Thank you, Denise. The world is a better place for this post, don't you think? Hee. Or not. :)
(But really seriously thank you for making me feel appreciated and missed. Hugs.)

Posted by Rachel on November 12, 2008 11:09 PM in the round of life

Comments

A whole blog post for me? Yay! But,you see, I don't deserve it, because it was your blog that authored the plea, not me. I never complain, but instead wait with patient understanding. ;-)

Your post made me laugh, and that always makes at least MY world a better place!

I can't believe you got a 92 on a test you didn't study for. WOW. And none of that 'I didn't really deserve it' business. That's plain impressive!

I have my own very bad dog, but I have to say I feel for your dog in this instance because leather is as irresistible to dogs as chocolate and books are to us. Just picture a luscious piece of chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting sitting there unsupervised next to a book-something englishy and classic-but clearly someone else's property and not your own. Think of how hard it would be for you to resist the temptation to devour them both, and you with soul and conscience! Your dog has neither. Actually, some might debate me on that, but I won't discuss it any further because I can't believe I'm still typing. I guess I'm giddy because you dedicated the post to me. And your picture is right there -----> smiling at me in an encouraging fashion! Okay. I'm going to stop now. Please don't let this comment discourage you from updating more frequently. :)
Hugs back atcha!

Posted by: Denise at November 13, 2008 08:28 PM

Thanks for the links, the poem, and the comforting knowledge that I'm not the only one who owns a dog that believes the skins of dead cows are so much canine cotton candy.

Posted by: Muley at November 18, 2008 02:28 PM

Have you read Jan Struther's Mrs. Miniver? For some reason that poem reminds me of it, and I think you'd like it very much. It's basically the story of a happy English family just before and during WWII, and it's got something of the flavors of Gaskell's Wives and Daughters (which I read at your recommendation, actually) and Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle.

And it's available free online.

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