lazy, dizzy day

Sunbeam-laden breeze moves white on window to bring me the thick heady scent of a hot Botswanan afternoon. The fan above my head turns lazily, rotation after rotation. I track the blades with my eyes, squeezing them shut when I get too dizzy. Parts of my room are fluttering in all this breeze – the mosquito net, hanging limp above my bed, my gray-blue silk housecoat with lace-trimmed edges, a little gathering of guinea fowl feathers, presented in a discarded jar.

Outside my window, birds flutter too. They hop from branch to branch in the shade, occasionally dipping down to sip a drink from the dog’s water bowl, or to snatch a bug that exposed itself too much.

It’s a lazy day, and were it not for the list of things to do as long as my arm, I would just as soon lay here, making myself dizzy under the ceiling fan. 

You know those colds that make your head feel like your brains are made off cotton, like your nose has grown twice the size and as red as Rudolph's, like there is a ringing bell between your ears? Ugh...

What makes it worse is that I am to be writing a script for an evangelistic film we are putting together. I'm having trouble stringing more than two rational sentences together at a time.

Others are saying I will feel better any day now, yet I keep thinking about all that I'm supposed to be doing and all that needs to be ready for next week. Special services tomorrow, visitors for lunch, paperwork to get together, another long trip to Gabs for immigration, visits to be made and Bible studies to grade... and that pesky script which should have been done days ago.

Maybe all the worrying about these things is just making me worse. Maybe I'll drink a cup of tea, take my handful of vitamins, and just go to bed. Now that sounds like a worthy goal...

My Strongest Sense

My fingertips smell like oranges, which of course reminds me of Christmas. I can’t really explain why exactly, except that we almost always got a box of clementines for Christmas every year, which we would eat like candy. And since they weren’t actually candy, Mom let us eat as many as we wanted and would usually go buy us another box or two when we all remembered how much we loved them.

So now my fingertips smell like oranges and my memory fills in the rest of the scent of Christmas – fresh pine needles stuck in our old brown carpet, fresh-baked yeast rolls and a roasting turkey.

I can still feel the scratch of my old fleecy pajamas (scratchy fleece… remember that? Way back before fleece became so cloudlike and soft?) and if I close my eyes, I can picture my 11-year old self with pink-rimmed glasses and bangs hanging in my eyes, and straight blond hair down to my waist. Sleeping in my newly redecorated ‘grown up’ room, my bed firmly anchored in the center of the room where I could slyly watch every person who came up and down the stairs or in and out of the bathroom. Down at the bottom of the stairs burned our wood stove and the rhythmic hum of the fan blowing the heat into the rest of the house lulled me to sleep on many a winter night. Outside, I would tiptoe through the snow right before bed, not wanting to break the spell of the quiet. Inside, all three brothers laughed and joked and we were only a family of six.

Those days seem so far away in so many ways, and yet all it takes is the whiff of orange on my fingertips and I am instantly there.

Of Course

For weeks, I've had some herbs that I've been tending planted in pots. There was cilantro, parsley, lavender, rosemary, and mint. These were lined up on the stoop, and although they suffered a bit when I went to South Africa, they revived within a couple days with the help of some fresh water.

Thinking the dog was used to them enough (she apparently has a vendetta against plants), we prepared a bed to plant them. Mom transferred them the other evening, adding a dill and thyme that I bought. We wanted these things to spread out and fill in, so that we could pick them whenever needed.

Wouldn't you know, that very night, the dog DESTROYED that bed. Dug up the whole bed, chewed the lavender and rosemary back to their roots, and I still haven't found the dill.

Of course.

What I'm Reading

Two books I recently enjoyed as a free download from Amazon! Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can read these books on your computer if you download the free Kindle app. Check them out!


Letters of a Woman Homesteader


From a publisher's note:
"The writer of the following letters is a young woman who lost her husband in a railroad accident and went to Denver to seek support for herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine. Turning her hand to the nearest work, she went out by the day to work as a housecleaner and laundress. Later, seeking to better herself, she accepted employment as a housekeeper for a well-to-do Scottish cattleman, Mr. Stewart, who had taken up a quarter-section in Wyoming. The letters, written through several years to a former employer in Denver, tell of her new life in the new country. They are genuine letters, and are printed as written, except for occasional omissions and alterations of names." 


Elinore Pruitt Stewart was a good writer, and I loved her descriptions of homesteading life in Wyoming and stories of the interesting people that she met. 




Love Among the Chickens


I was recently introduced to the writings of P.G. Wodehouse from a blog recommendation. I enjoyed his Jeeves books, but Love Among the Chickens is my favorite of his works that I have read thus far. 


Jerry is an author who finds himself in a slump and needs to get away from big city life. Through the hair-brained scheme of a friend, he finds himself helping to run a chicken farm in the country, falling in love with a beautiful girl, and generally causing quite a stir in the neighborhood. I laughed out loud in many places in this book!

I suppose it might be bad that so much of my mood of the day is dependent on the weather. I try to be cheerful, to look at each situation in the best light, but sometimes I just get tired of all the heat and the sun and the dust and the dry. To wake up one day to gray skies and cool breeze gives my spirits a lift and sets me up for a productive day. I know that many of my readers are in despair of ever losing their winter skies, and are more than ready for sunshine and green grass. Yet here I am after months of summer, more than ready for a cool day where I can comfortably wear a hoodie and socks. Bring it on, I say! :)

Thinking about today...

"Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened." -C.H.Spurgeon

in conjunction with...

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1:3-5