We are entering the downhill slide of another Norfolk Pine. I have always loved them, especially since my Chicago days. But they dry out and die, or they get sick and dry out and die. I stopped getting big ones because I felt guilty about buying one. At Christmas time, however, the grocery stores sell small ones with bows and stars on them for under $10 and they look really, really nice in the nursing home room.

I thought maybe this year’s candidate might beat the odds, but it is getting that stiff feeling on the ends of the branches. I’ll look up possible treatments on the Internet, but I don’t have much faith in my abilities. I don’t know, maybe if I water it with my tears, it will take heart and survive, if not thrive. That would make a good kid’s fairy tale, but I’m not betting the farm on it working. Although, it might be excellent pro-active therapy for me in stress containment.

Yes, that would be one-third of the life recipe provided by Jim Valvano in his last speech before his death:

If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

I wonder about the thinking, though. Does it have to be top-notch philosophical musings, or can mundane thoughts qualify in a pinch? Probably not; I’m thinking C.S. Lewis would suggest prayer.

No more Okie Dokie to mowing at LaGrange today; I had to man this fort this morning and by the time I got gas – in my car and in my containers, it would be mid-afternoon before I actually began chugging. That’s if I don’t have to jump start the mower – not exactly a major time consuming task, but a sighing and eye-rolling one that doesn’t do much for morale.

Today I am using the “everything into boxes to be sorted later” method of housekeeping. I definitely have too much stuff out. Or, looking at it another way, I have too much stuff out and no housekeeper to keep everything just so. Actually, I have so much stuff that even a good housekeeper could only do a so-so job. Me? You don’t want to think about it.

But, tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and when I think of mowing, I hear an Okie Dokie. I’ll get up there early, putter around while the dew dries and then plop on my hat, spray my repellant and become tractor person. I think I may mow creatively, rather than efficiently – maybe I’ll even write my name. Were I younger, I would get a part-time job and put all my money toward bushwhacker equipment like the show on television – and maybe a wood-chipper. Maybe big ole Wellington boots, too.

These are my daydreams????? Holy Moses!! What happened to my expensive SUV with a sunroof and a house on the Pacific Ocean with an infinity pool?

Yes, Rose just cozied up to me and sasid, “AmeliaJake, I really can’t see myself with a professional grade weed-eater . . .” Ah, Rose, always the one with good sense.