The Mountain Thymes

 I had two good nights sleep in a row.  How wonderful!! It's amazing how a full sleep allows me to cope with life as it is now, to cope with Cliff's ups and downs.   Cliff met with his friend, Dutch, for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and I headed to the park for my walk.  Many mornings I see the same walkers.   One elder couple walk their rescue greyhounds, number six and seven.  With her walker and a smile she guides one on the leash and her husband walks the other.  I speak with them often.  Then there is the couple who hits me in the heart every time I see them......husband strolling-hand-in-hand with his wife.  When my mother spent winters in Florida with us, she and I attended a small quaint church in Lake Helen where she used to make up stories about people in the pews.  Not knowing the reality of the elderly hand-in-hand couple at the park, I find myself imaging their aging life.  She seems to be dependent on his hand holding as ...

 Another foggy sunless morning.  This has been the strangest summer that we can remember since purchasing our home in 2007.  Throughout the summer there have only been a handful of visible sunrises.  Fog and heavy clouds greet me most mornings.  While Cliff is sleeping I sit on the porch, as early as 6:15, and listen to the distant whippoorwill, the moisture so heavy some mornings that it sound like rain on the leaves, and the waking Carolina wrens.  During this quiet time is how I learned that our wrens snore. Now that summer is winding down and dusk comes earlier, two to three Carolina wrens cuddle up for the night before 8 o'clock in this hanging plant.  At dark I bring in the seed feeder and a hummingbird feeder because raccoons or possums raid the feeders at dark. Each morning I return feeders to their hooks.  One morning I heard rhythmic squeaking so tiptoed gingerly near the plant to listen and decided to stay until I heard other wrens sing...

 Lauria sends us jigsaw puzzles, usually 750 pieces, but this time this one arrived.  A few years ago a friend sent me one of multi-colored, various shapes and sizes, ocean seashells. I wanted so badly to solve it but after trying man strategies, got frustrated and put the dang 1000 pieces back where it belonged......in the box!  So when I saw this very busy puzzle I set it on a table where it rested for a few weeks before mustering up the courage to open and spread the 1000 pieces onto three pre-cut cardboard slabs.   I was presently surprised when I discovered letters on the flip-side of the puzzle pieces.  We've never seen this in previous puzzles. After flipping all pieces to show letters, the shapes then were separated into to  nine sections, a through i.                                 ...