Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

First frost awakes a nesting urge To cast aside the summer’s leisure, Lay in storage all life’s pleasure Readying for winter’s dirge With mindset fixed so foolish, firm I miss the fiery hands that tease My mind, so resolute, to ease And memory store, against the term When winter’s chill tempts to forget That there exists but ice and gray Oh, to recall that crisp bouquet! Instead, awaiting spring’s coquette. November comes and spirit grieves For opportunity expired To warm my soul by tree-bough fire Recalling autumn leaves.

I'm going through old emails today, doing a little e-purging as part of my daily regimen in my new job:  throw away at least one folder of outdated material from the file cabinets in this office and remove from my email items connected to my old job.  I found this email I sent to my dad last year, just a week or so before his 90th birthday.  I had to write it early, because we were planning to surprise him on his 90th birthday by showing up, all six of his living children, to join him for his morning run that day.  If I hadn't sent him something about his birthday before then, he might have known that something was up, so I made sure I got this off to him early.  I should have posted it here then.  He doesn't read my blog, but if I'm going to post things about other people that I love, I should post this, too.  He's the reason I run.  He's one of the anchors of my faith.  I don't think he's perfect, but I would not ever wish to have had a d...

I hate to sweat. It's sticky and uncomfortable and usually means that I've exerted myself beyond natural levels. My face gets all red and my skin turns blotchy . . . it's not a pretty sight.  I don't glow.  I don't shimmer.  If I'm running hard or playing hard, I sweat like  . . . well, like something hot and slimy and sweaty.  Ugh.  It's not an under-arm kind of thing.  My elbow pits sweat.  My knee pits sweat ... actually my knees sweat, too, and it runs down my shins and soaks my socks. Ugh.  Most of all my back sweats, especially the small of my back, and it runs down my back and drenches the waistband of my pants or shorts, which is really unattractive if you're a teenage girl wearing white shorts, playing racquetball on a hot summer day on an outdoor court with a cute boy.  Having your rear end soaked with sweat is not appealing summer date attire. Sweating also means that I have to shower more often.  Exercising daily equ...

We took a bike ride tonight. It's been a very long time.  We put on our helmets and jackets and took the backroads to the outlet malls on the coast to look for some new running shoes.  It was a warm summer's day today, and I didn't think I'd like wearing the jacket, but it was fine. Not our photo, but GoogleImage found John's bike! My helmet is an interesting piece of equipment.  I'm grateful that it protects me from splatting bugs and tossed up bits of gravel.  We won't talk about the other things that it's designed to protect me from.  We don't talk about those at all; just about being safe, and wearing the right gear.  However, wearing the helmet makes scratching your nose a little tricky.  Let's just say I smacked my hand into the visor more than once tonight and leave it at that.  Itchy noses and stray bugs that make their way inside the helmet are no fun.  At.all. These are the shoes I bought. We found shoes -- two pair....

It's the story of my life:  I have the best intentions, and I start things pretty well.  Follow through is where I trip up.  I wrote this two weeks ago, and thought I had posted it, but never did.  Today I discovered it in my blog drafts.  It is late, but no less heart-felt. Today (April 27th) is my daughter-in-law's birthday, and I thought I'd take a minute to publicly sing a few bars of praise for this amazing young woman, and thank her for the things she's brought into my life.  We loved Sheena from the moment we met her.  We kind of wanted to knock some sense into John while he was trying to figure out what it meant to love someone enough to ask them to spend forever with him.  We're grateful that he set the bar so high, and she certainly cleared that bar with room to spare!  One of the first things John ever told me about the new girl he was seeing was, "She's the smartest girl I've ever met."  When we met her, we were also im...

Yesterday I reached for my purse, hanging on its peg in the kitchen.  I was looking for my "list book."  I make lists.  All the time.  It's the only way I can keep track of the things I need to do, the things I need to buy, the things I want to write about, the things I want to remember.  The official measure of a nanosecond is the length of time between when I think of something I need to write down and when that thought vanishes from my brain.  Sometimes, even having a list is not enough to save me from my own distractedness.  If I don't write it down this instant, it's often gone for good. So I reached for my purse as it hung there and began to rummage through it, hunting for the little spiral book I'm currently using until I've filled every blue-lined page with grocery items and projects and snippets of inspiration.  It's a kind of big purse, so I ended up sticking my face inside just a little bit to find the book where it lay in the very bo...

To Rite Aid, to Rite Aid To buy some new specs I left all my readers at home. What the heck? How many of these have I bought? And to spare! Every memory slip Means I've got a new pair! I wear them on leashes Slung over my head. I should give up And implant them instead! Yes, I've thought about contacts But just can't decide If up close is more crucial, Or seeing outside When I was a wee lass And spectacle free I wondered and puzzled On how it would be For things to look fuzzy Or shadowy, blurred It seemed so peculiar to me, And absurd Because everything then Was so vividly clear And I couldn't see there How it looked to be here. Would that vision and wisdom Were somehow connected To sharpen together As age interjected Oh, the follies and foibles I could've avoided If sight and acumen Could be co-exploited Instead, my reality Grows ever grimmer For wisdom glows brighter As vision wanes dimmer And now as I pay for them...