Colorful Purses and Shoes

Around this same time last year I was explaining how I happened to have two new coffee/tea mugs. This year it is how I *happen* to have two new purses and two (a pair) new shoes.
Blame it on Black Friday. Or, more accurately perhaps, Cyber Monday.
There is no exchange of Christmas gifts around here anymore. We each, if we want something, buy it ourselves and at our age(s), there's not much we really want anymore.
But those darn Cyber Monday sellers really know how to get to you - especially, in my case, Kohls. They are too tempting with their Cyber WEEK offers of 20-30% off, free shipping, PLUS Kohls Cash. Yeah, there's probably something I need.
For most of the year I had been carrying the same purse I bought at a garage sale. Even though I had newer, nicer purses, I liked it because it was a bit smaller AND it had a 'pocket' just the right size to slip a book into - something I never leave home without because you never know when you might end up 1) waiting or 2) stranded and need a book to keep you from going cray cray.

So I had been on the lookout for a new purse for awhile - I'd even looked at Kohls last time we were in Des Moines. Nothing was just right. Oh, there were plenty of purses big enough to fit a book into, but I didn't want a big purse anymore. I carried big purses my whole life - you know, everything in there but the kitchen sink - no wonder my shoulder hurt all the time. I was so over big purses. The right purse to accommodate a book was more about the length of the purse than the overall size. None I saw were better than my garage sale purse - which was starting to look pretty well worn - not that anyone pays attention to an old woman and her old purse.

My first cyber order went off to Kohls - a new pair of my favorite jeans, a special holiday gift set of my favorite perfume (cheaper than buying just a bottle of perfume) and a new purse. I *saved* SO MUCH MONEY and I earned $30.00 in Kohls cash for a future purchase. (See how they keep you coming back?)

My package arrived. The purse was way too big. I used my Kohl's cash on another cyber order - two new Calphalon skillets and a sweater. My package arrived. I didn't like the sweater.
Anything ordered from Kohls online can be returned to a Kohls store so when hubby dearest was going to the big city for his semi-annual visit to Veterans Hospital, I decided to go along.

I knew there was going to be an adjustment to what I was returning for credit because I had used Kohls cash earned from the first order to purchase items in the second order. The customer service clerk said if I could find a purse for exactly the same dollar amount as the one I was returning it would be an even exchange, otherwise I would only get about $15.00 back - half of the amount I would pay for the purse after the sale price and discount.
I doubted I would find a purse 1) that I liked and 2) that was the exact $$ amount as the one being returned. But I went looking - and here is the amazing part - I found not only one purse, but two!!

The burgundy colored one is the exchange purse. See how well that book fits into the back pocket? And there on the shelf next to it was the exact same purse in that burnt-orange color I had been coveting since it became popular a year or two ago. And it was marked down, clearance (my best friend, 'Clarence'), to $13.80! Back to the returns desk for the even exchange on the $69.00 Vera Wang purse and purchase of the clearance one which ended up costing $6.18 after applying the Kohls cash* she gave me in addition to the credit on my account for the return of the sweater and the 30% discount being offered to Kohls customers that day. Total win! win!

The story about those flashy shoes is much shorter. Ever since daughter-in-law #1 gave me a used pair of ASICS gel Nimbus running shoes one of her co-workers was giving away, they have been my walking/gym shoes. But they were wearing out. I have been looking at/pricing a new pair, but they are expensive shoes. Enter daughter-in-law #2 and granddaughter who runs track/cross-country for her college. She gets ASICS for half price through the school. Due to a mis-order, her new shoes came wrong size, wrong color. Okay, they are my size, but definitely NOT my color, but for half price, I have my new walking shoes. Who cares what color they are? Which really is alright - just too flashy for my taste.

For someone *not* expecting any Christmas presents, I made out pretty well. Have I mentioned that I really like Kohls?


(* I never understood why the clerk gave me the $5.00 Kohls cash in addition to the credit for the return on the sweater, but, hey, it was good for use that day (usually when you earn Kohls cash it has to be used the following week) and who am I to look a gift horse purse in the mouth?)

The Days Dwindle Down

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few...

Another year almost over. Another year I have put off having knee surgery...one of these days...

If I think about the year's highlights, the first thing that comes to mind was our second annual Christmas in July. Held on one of the hottest days of the summer, it was a huge success and so much fun.
Celebrating Christmas in the summer has taken all the usual depression of the season away from me. No mad shopping, no bad weather ruining plans, no scrambling trying to decide a day and time that will work best for the kids, grandkids, in-laws, etc, etc. It is such a relief not to dread the holidays. 

Another of the year's highlights was the high school graduation of my youngest grandchild. The event was saddened by the death of his other grandmother. We all knew how much she hoped to be there.
Next week this young man (19 years old, yesterday) leaves for his basic training in the military. I have mixed emotions about that. I have to trust all will be well. His decision to enlist is the same as my oldest grandson's was in 1999. He ended up going to Iraq. I fear Devin will also see duty in a situation of war.

There were no trips for us this year, but if the winter is bad enough, we have Arizona on our radar. Between my brother-in-law, a good friend and a niece, we could easily spend a week or two in warmer climes. Well, the niece lives in Flagstaff, so that could be more like staying in Iowa.

A road trip in 2017 would be nice, but the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is the birth of my second great-granddaughter in March. Can't wait to meet this little one. Babies bring so much joy.

As the days dwindle down, so do the years. I don't have a lot of hope left for the way the world is going, so having the majority of my life behind me is a good thing. I will continue to get lost in books, enjoy the birds, clouds, sunsets out my window...... and these few precious days, I'll spend with you.

Deep In December

Try to remember the kind of September 
When life was slow and oh, so mellow

Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow

Deep in December it's nice to remember
Although you know the snow will follow

Deep in December it's nice to remember
Without a hurt, the heart is hollow

Deep in December it's nice to remember
The fire of September that made you mellow

Deep in December our hearts should remember
Then follow ....follow.....

Deep in December - the full Cold Moon 2016

(Try To Remember [music by Harvey Schmidt, lyrics by Tom Jones] is from the musical comedy, The Fantasticks. It was first released by Jerry Orbach in 1960.)

Just One More Reason (MTY, LTT)

I'm always looking out my magic window, as hubby dearest calls it, scouting for wildlife, interesting clouds, pretty sunsets. The camera is at hand if there is anything interesting....

.... this morning it was four deer on the hillside across the pond.  One was so nearly camouflaged that I almost didn't see it until the zoom lens pulled all of them closer.

Then I noticed what I assumed was the heron until I also zoomed in on it and saw this lone Canadian goose. When it was still there in the same position an hour later, I got worried. Why hadn't it moved? Was it caught in a muskrat trap? Was it injured? I kept watching...it didn't move.

Finally I pointed it out to Bud and shared my concerns with him. "It's been there more than an hour. It must be caught, hurt, etc." He replied just as I expected: "I'll go down and see." (He knows I would go myself if 1) it weren't so darned cold out and 2) I was able.) I did say I'd better go with him because 1) geese can flog you and 2) you might fall in the pond. But he assured me he would be fine.

He barely got close before the goose started honking and moved out onto the open water. Watching from the window, I was relieved for goose and man.

What had kept the goose in the same spot for such a long time? I'll never know.

But I do know, not that there was any doubt, my hubby dearest would do anything for me.

Just one more reason I love him more than yesterday, less than tomorrow.

The Weight That Keeps You From Me

The heron comes to the pond almost daily. I suppose it will until the water freezes. I went in search of a poem to go with the picture I took this morning.

And found this evocative one by Polly Brown, a Massachusetts poet.

     Blue Heron Stone

"Because I could not bring back
     the blue heron
who watched us,
     out of the river's shadows,
          and then flew heavily away --

because I could not keep
     her yellow metal eye
          to remind me of fierceness --
I kept this stone. *

Blue-gray, like the heron,
     layered by millions of years in the sea
          and rounded
     by thousands of years in the river,

it is the circling clouds of a storm;
     it is all weathers, all calm, 

          all the weight that keeps you from me
and holds us to the earth."

* One of the small stones I still can't resist bringing home from our travels.

A December Day

"That's no December Sky!
Surely 'tis June
Holds now her state on high
Queen of the noon.

Only the tree-tops bare
Crowning the hill,
Clear-cut in perfect air,
Warn us that still

Winter, the aged chief,
Mighty in power,
Exiles the tender leaf, 
Exiles the flower."
       (Robert Fuller Murray 1863-1894 - A December Day)

Today is my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Howard's wedding anniversary. They were married 80 years ago, Wednesday, December 2, 1936. Was that day as temperate as is this December day? (Sunny; almost 40° at noon.) My teen-aged, future mother had not yet begun her later habit of recording the daily highs, lows, precipitation and clouds or sun in her diaries. She only recorded "Got meat ready to cold pack this a.m. Evelyn & Howard were Married today also Marvin and Helen."

Our Autumn this year was long and warmer than usual. That 'aged chief' did not exile the tender leaves and flowers until late November.

Even today there are a few purple blooms on the hyssop.

The lavender is still thriving and look what has come up near it - dill plants! My dill always self-sows from dropped seeds in the spring, but in December?!

Likewise the lambs ears and coral bells are still growing. Maybe all the fallen leaves help insulate them.

It was a good growing season for the hen and chicks. This pot is FULL and the ones in the strawberry jar also did well. There's never been a problem wintering over these succulents, though the cold weather usually kills a few.

The lovely 'Royale Peachy Keen' verbena flowers are done for this year but there is still some green showing on the plants. Oh how I hope I can find this verbena again next year. Love their gorgeous color and ease of care. The dusty miller looks like it is still alive and really looks just right for winter with its snowflake appearance.

The water in the bird bath hasn't frozen. I'd best get it emptied before the forecast change in weather is upon us.

"That's no December Sky!"

November Book List

Eleven books read this month (one not pictured); all very good. The first one is rated the lowest - 3.5. The Beekeeper's Daughter is the first book I've read by Santa Montefiore. I really liked the settings - 1933 England and 1973 Nantucket - but the premise was a little far-fetched. That the daughter would meet and fall in love with the son of the nobleman her mother had been in love with forty years earlier in England. But the writing and story telling are very good.

Ann Patchett's Run about the Mayor of Boston and his wife who adopt two little African American boys was an interesting read. The wife dies and the father raises the boys alone. Unbeknownst to him the boys' mother and younger sister keep track of them as they grow up and enter into their adult lives in an unusual way. The story line points out the differences in the lives of those raised in privilege and those raised without. Rated 4.0

Jane Hamilton is a very good writer. I loved The Excellent Lombards about a family trying to hold on to their Wisconsin farm and orchard and idyllic way of life while all around them farms are being replaced by housing developments. I rated this a 4.0 also, while a previous reader rated it 0! I wonder why?

I really regret not reading P.D. James while she was still alive and writing. The library disposed of her books just when I discovered her excellent mysteries. A Certain Justice is one of her Inspector Dalgliesh novels. It is hard to beat Baroness James' crime novels. Rated this one 4.0

Jojo Moyes is another new to me author. I read After You (not pictured) first but should have read Me Before You first as After You is the follow up to what happens in Me Before You which is where we meet Will, a quadriplegic, and Lou, the young woman hired to help care for him. Both these books were enlightening. What constitutes family? How do we heal after loss? What can going on look like? Both 4.0's

Oh Tess Gerritsen. What am I going to do now that I've read my way through all your published books?* The Silent Girl and Die Again are both Rizzoli & Isles books. All Gerritsen's books are so finely crafted. Rated both 4.0.

Playing With Fire is one of Gerritsen's stand alone novels. A violinist finds an old piece of music in an antique store in Italy. Strange things happen when she plays the piece. She decides she has to track down the family of the composer so returns to Venice where a long kept secret exposes her to danger. Rated this one 4.5.

Commonwealth is Ann Patchett's newest novel. It covers five decades, the divorces and remarriages of two families and how their six children are affected. Opening at a christening party in 1960, the scene is set for what comes after. We get to know all of the children, but the story is mostly about the little girl who was christened in the opening chapter. Rated 4.0

Jennifer Chiaverini writes some interesting historical fiction. Fates and Traitors is a novel of John Wilkes Booth told through the eyes of four women who loved him. The author does a lot of research and I've always said that historical fiction is the easiest way to learn about the past - as long as one remembers that it is fiction and as such the author has embellished the facts. I found this book most interesting and enjoyed learning about the famous Booth family of actors. Rated 4.0.

*It looks like Tess Gerritsen will have a new Rizzoli and Isles out next August. Maybe I can find some more P.D. James books until then.