Growing pains...

Classes started yesterday and we have our first department meeting of the year at lunch today.

It has begun...but what that it is I'm not exactly sure.

It feels like the beginning of a transition. A whole mix of emotions; wanting to be here while also wanting, desperately at times, to be elsewhere. Wanting to keep things they way they've been while yearning, and needing, to do something new.

It's a funny thing being 57. I feel young enough to start a whole new chapter, but I'm also keenly aware that this chapter is most certainly in the last half of the book.

The heroine might do well to seriously consider just exactly what it is she wants to do when she grows up. Before it's too late. Before her choices become limited. Before she loses the courage to become the best and brightest version of herself.

And so it goes...

Back at work today after my two month summer break.

Trying to be adult about it.

Trying to be professional.

Trying to try...

It ain't easy. At all.

When I'm Queen...#3

...Everyone in my kingdom will know that if you have shutters on your home they should either really work (much preferred) or, at the very least, they should look like they would work for heaven's sake!

The Window Shutter Formula: The width of each shutter should equal 1/2 the width of the window opening.

The queen shutters when she sees those teensy skinny plastic things framing too big windows.

She shutters...get it?

When I'm Queen...#2

And you know those cutsie white screen doors with the scallops around the screen and the faux wood crossbars below???

Banned. Gonzo. Vamooshed from the kingdom!

When I'm Queen....#1

When I'm Queen, all houses built after I'm crowned will have hidden garages. They will be either on the side or the back of the house.

Regardless of where they are, but especially if they are in the front, garages will be painted the same color as the siding of the house. If the house is brick, or stone, or timber, the color of the garage will be selected to make the garage disappear as much as possible. The garage will NEVER be painted the trim color. To wit: A garage is not trim. It is a huge gapping hole covered by an equally huge door.

Anyone who feels the urge to paint their garage the color of the house trim and/or apply any sort of decoration to it (like huge black diamonds on a white garage door) will be banned from the kingdom immediately.

Got it?

Good. I feel much better now.

Welcome little one!

I'm now a Great- aunt! This is Bennett Michael Huddle, the newest member of our family! Are we lucky or what?!?!?!

Oh for heaven's sake...

I planted nasturtium seeds in all my urns where I also have white petunias and creeping jenny growing beautifully and abundantly. The nasturtiums took their ever lovin' time sprouting, but have finally produced their first orange blossoms. Not quite what I had envisioned, however. There is exactly one blossom per urn. One teensy-weensy orange flower. So that makes a total of 5 nasturtiums with nary a sign of any more to come.

It looks ridiculous.

It's not at all the gleeful tumbles of playful yellow and orange flowers falling all over themselves and the edges of the urns that I had envisioned when I carefully placed the hard, round little seeds in the soil. I was so hopeful. Soooo hopeful!

Poop.

The Quints, as I've taken to calling them, seem to delight in my dismay; mocking me while they happily flaunt their discounting of my Highly Refined Landscaping Design Aesthetic. And they know what a sucker I am. They know how optimistic I am and that I'll let them stay in the hope that my vision will eventually be realized.

I think I'm doomed.

Damned orange little twits...