9/27: Small Contentments

We are moving out of the minutia-packed days of early school (sorry; my hair is being chewed by our old cat; she loves wet hair with chlorine in it and I just finished my swim. It's funny and quite distracting as she switches chewing with lovingly rubbing her head all over mine, purring) and into a more stable fall feeling. Whew! We're due for a wet, wet weekend due to Hurricane Ike, which, depending upon which weather service one believes, might make landfall in Bar Harbor; Younger Son and I just finished our morning of chores; Elder is in New Hampshire for an xc meet that he's not even running in, and BH cancelled his planning fishing trip, planned on visiting his dad, dad said no, so BH made happy plans to stay home, then Dad said please come. In other words: BH is being a good son. My hat is off to him, and. . .

to show my respect for his goodness as a son, Younger and I went to the dump for the family today. This trip led to little contentment #1: I drove the pickup flawlessly (more cat love on the hair; this is a riot. Younger just said, "I think chlorine gets cats high like catnip" and I am thinking I agree.), we got all the garbage, we didn't lose any lids or bags, and even though I had never done a dump run solo, I didn't do anything dumb. Twelve bucks for a month's worth of garbage; we used to pay $40 for the service. Yay!

AND (contentment #2) we got 4 bags of bulbs--two of daffs (my favorites), one of tulips and one of hyacinths--and after my swim I headed out to the newly flattened remnants of the fill/manure piles in the front yard and planted all four. It's earlyish, but Mom has taught me well: the time to do most garden things is WHEN YOU HAVE TIME. So my bulbs are in, due for a good soaking, and my tasks are done; we hope next spring we'll be honored and surprised by a gorgeous display of flowers right when we most need them--April and May.

I plan on a toasted cheese for lunch, then Younger and I will work on his flannel pj pants for a bit and then I plan to finish the random sock I started that turned into a sock for BH since there was enough yarn in one skein for his big foot--and I have two skeins! That's a contentment too, even though there's another one to do now. But small graces suffice these days: I'll also make some bread, thus filling our cups nearly up. The enormous sock is pictured below; the smile is that of a woman who can drive a standard pickup, make a dump run, swim for 40 mins, and plant 40 bulbs. Content, indeed!