Got shoes?

Yes, I do. Way too many.

I was taking boxes of shoes out of my closet last night, attempting to find my red heels to go with my black and red outfit for Halloween (I'm dressing up as a City-Devil... black dress, red shawl, red belt, red heels, red jewelry, and of course the obligatory red-sparkly devil-horns for my hair.)

In the search for my favorite red heels, which I found all the way in the back, there were also boxes of shoes that I haven't worn since we moved up here to the Hill Country in 2009. Silk shoes of all colors, with open toes and open backs, sparkling shoes with glitter, rhinestones, or bows.... and heels so high that I'd sink into the dirt out here after taking just a step or two off the paved paths.

Oh well. Time to bring a bag of shoes to the thrift store and donate them so they can have a new life outside of my closet. Into a big sack went a pair of red patent-leather heels, as well as a pair of black patent-leathers... I've found that patent-leather doesn't agree with the blasting heat in this state, and why they even sell patent-leather shoes this far south is just beyond me.

I also had two pairs of 'Nine West' silk heels, both in a multi-colored paisley pattern... very nice-looking with a pair of dark jeans and a smart blouse and jacket. They both had open toes... not a good match for the Hill Country because there are fire ants everywhere, even in the teeniest cracks of a concrete sidewalk and between paving stones. Wearing open-toed heels around fire ants is just inviting trouble, especially when one is allergic to the bites, which I am. Into the donation sack went the Nine Wests. Just about killed me to part with those, but I haven't worn them since we moved up here. I closed my eyes when I dropped them into the sack.

Also in the back of the closet were some cute little sandals with beading around the edges. What was I thinking? Actually, I bought those beaded sandals in Clear Lake, where everything is paved and there are indeed fire ants but 99% of the city population calls in a pest-control company every other month so the insects are kept somewhat under control. Out here in the Hills, it's a 'live and let live' attitude and if you're stupid enough to step in a fire ant mound, then you deserve what you get, City-Girl. Altogether now: Into the donation sack went the cute little sandals.

What's left in my closet?  My favorite pair of red high heels which I wear every Christmas and Valentine's Day, two pairs of boots, lots of Pikolino shoes with leather that's as soft as butter, and a dozen pairs of cute little flats that I seem to be living in these days... flats being much more practical for the Hill Country.

Oh well.  If heaven turns out to be one gigantic shoe store, then I'm going to be collecting lots of silk high heels and hope I don't have to worry about sinking into a cloud mass when I wear them. (Do these heels make my wings look fat?) However, I would much rather discover that heaven is an enormous bookstore... and then I'll be collecting books by the truck-load, and maybe then I'll have all the time I need for reading.

Enough already with this rain...

After three days of rain, pouring rain, soaking rain, horrible rain, I've just about had it. The pond is filled to the top and it looks beautiful again, so all the rain clouds can head on towards the east coast now. Add to that.... Savannah has changed her puppy mind about the rain--- she loves it now. So much so that she's playing in puddles and nearly dancing around in the wet grass every time I take her for a walk, drenching me in the process. Give me a blessed puppy break.

The temperatures dropped from the mid-80s to the low 60s. We've gone from sweater weather to coat weather in a matter of hours. Then add the rain into the mix, and I'm already tired of wearing a raincoat with a hood.  I've ordered a pink sweatshirt for Savannah and I'm beginning to think it should have been one of those bright yellow rain slickers that they have for dogs. I don't exactly know when all these clothes started being sold for puppies and dogs, but I guess they're selling because people like me are willing to buy them. It's the cute factor that does it every time.

We're supposed to have a cloudy day tomorrow with no rain. I can hardly wait. A bit (or a lot) of sun would be most welcomed, but at this rainy point, we'll take what we can get.

Today has been a strange day... lack of sleep for me, being that Savannah woke me up at 4:30 to go out (we're still on puppy time) and after walking in the rain (first having to change clothes before going out into the rain and then drying off Savannah afterwards) I wasn't too sleepy when we got back into the house. So I've been up since then, except for two half-hour naps in front of my laptop. I literally fell asleep sitting up. I woke up the first time when Sweet Pea got up on my lap and put his paws on my face... possibly, my cat thought I was dead.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. And it is not supposed to rain. Let's see if the weather wizards get this right.

Finally... rain!

Can't remember the last time it rained up here in the hills, but just the fact that our pond is dry means we haven't had any rain for at least two months. I looked at the bottom of that pond this morning as I drove towards town... looks like an armadillo has been scurrying through the mud looking for midnight snacks. And where did all the turtles go? That pond has dozens of turtles when it's filled, but they must start leaving when the water level begins to go down.

We are supposed to have very heavy rains this entire weekend, but I will believe that when it happens. As I type now, our cloudy day has turned sunny and the sky's blue tint is definitely up there now. No more rain since this morning... so much for the 'heavy downpours' that the weather wizards on TV predicted for us.

Today was the first day that I had to walk Savannah in the rain. I'm sure this puppy must have seen rain before, in her previous life in Houston, but today was her first Hill Country rain. She didn't much like it, but also didn't give me a hard time about walking in it. I quickly realized that the small hand-towel that I was using for her paws was very inadequate for the rest of her large self. I went looking in the thrift store today for a good but inexpensive bath-sized towel for her. Now she's got one nearly as big as a beach towel, so that should be fine for her as she grows.

One more week till the Halloween party... I've been putting together party favors-- Halloween bags filled with chocolates and tied with ribbon. Just a little something for everyone as they leave that night. I just realized that the night of the party is when Daylight Savings Time begins... not my favorite thing, to be changing the time... I'd much rather it stay lighter outside in the evenings and be dark in the early mornings.

The busy time of the year is nearly here now... right after I take down the Halloween decorations, the Christmas things will be coming out of the storage closet. Always so much to do, with every room being decorated, but when it's done, it's done, and I can just relax and enjoy it all.  And this will be Savannah's first Christmas... she needs a stocking!

Got pecans?

It's that time of the year again... the branches of the pecan trees are bending with the weight of the thick green pods which are filled with brown-shelled pecans... all ready for picking. And how do we know when picking time is at its zenith? When the huge black crows fly into those trees, scream out a cawing sound that translates into "Get your fresh pecans here!" and then my husband goes out into the yard with an air-horn to chase away the crows. That's when I remind him that living out here in no-man's-land means you have to share some of your pecans with huge birds that disrupt the silence of the countryside. (Actually, that blasted air-horn does an even better job of disrupting the silence.)

Every morning before it gets too hot on that side of the property I go out there with a sack and fill it up with pecans. I now have five sacks in the fridge, each filled with pecans that need to be shelled. With both jobs (the picking and the shelling) I wear those thin throw-away latex gloves. The thick pods will make the tips of your fingers lime-green, and the shells will turn your fingertips a sickly shade of brown. Neither color is much of a match with magenta nail polish.

I use the pecans in everything... in salads and cakes, on top of fish, in breakfast cereal... anything that could possibly use a bit of crunch gets a splash of chopped pecans. A couple of years ago, I sent my cousin some of our pecans... "From our own trees! I picked them myself! They're delicious!"  I think I was more excited than she was. I know she was thinking that she could easily drive herself to the supermarket, buy a bag of pecan halves that have been perfectly shelled without her having to use those horrible latex gloves... and her manicure wouldn't be damaged a bit in the purchase of those store-bought pecans.... and a pecan is a pecan is a pecan.

Talk about bursting a country bubble....

Another handyman put to rest....

... and still another one put to rest before he even got to the front door.

Our (sometimes) illustrious handyman R has made his last mistake here. Scratch the fact that he told me he would stop by here one afternoon two weeks ago to change a flat tire for me.... he never showed up and didn't call me to tell me he wasn't coming. And the next time he came to the house to work, he didn't even mention that flat-tire day and neither did I.  On that day, however, I did tell my husband that I hoped R had brought his lunch and iced tea because I was no longer going to make sure that he had food and cold drinks to get him through the day.

This weekend, R was supposed to be here on Saturday to work with my husband on a project that they started two weeks ago.  R never showed up, and never called to say he wasn't going to show up. We are now well-acquainted with R's work ethics (or lack thereof) by now so my husband just started the job and finished the job by himself. By the middle of Saturday afternoon, we were both joking that maybe R was on his way, which that guy would tell us all the time. Only problem with that was the translation to "on my way" meant that you wouldn't see him for at least two hours. And R lives right in town, not on the other side of Houston.

So that brings us to today.... and the young man at the new neighbor's house across the road was supposed to do some chores for my husband today.  Let's do this all together now:  "He didn't show up and didn't call to tell us he wasn't going to show up."

I told my husband to let this one go... just let him go on his merry 20-something way. He's young, he's a student, he probably can't do half of the things here that my husband would want him to do anyway, and if someone doesn't show up on the first day then they're more than likely not going to show up on the fifth or sixth day either. Plus, he's a neighbor... we know where he lives, he knows where we live, and if he changed his mind about working here, so be it. Just chalk it up and let it go.

Time to start looking for yet another handyman. I've lost count of how many we have been through over the years and I don't even want to take the time to figure out the number because it will just get me nuts.

4:00 in the morning...

I have just had breakfast.... small banana sliced up with some blueberries and topped with a little bit of yogurt. This breakfast bulletin is brought to you by Savannah's Morning Madness Inc.

I've been awake off and on for the past couple of hours. Between the train whistle coming from the next town, and the howling of the coyotes, and the dogs on the other side of the hills barking in response, and then our own Savannah barking in response to both the coyotes and the other dogs, it has been a rough night. (That is a horribly crafted sentence, but I'm too tired to care at the moment.)

Actually, I am no longer tired. I am wide awake. Hence, the breakfast.

I thought these country trains that slide through small towns in the middle of the night were supposed to be quiet... no speeding, no loud whistles, nothing that would disturb the sleeping habits of small-town residents. Do those rules not apply out here in this country bubble? That train has been going along every night in the middle of the night for over two weeks now, and not only do we hear it, but Savannah hears it as well and she does what puppies do.... she wakes up, she barks, and she thinks it's time for a new day to begin.

And on this particular morning, nothing I did stopped Savannah from barking at that blasted train or those howling coyotes. So I gave in, got up, took her outside in the grass for a minute so she wouldn't have an accident, and even now as I type, yet another train is going by, complete with whistle. Savannah just growled at the noise.... not a full-blown bark, probably because I'm down here instead of upstairs in bed where I should be.

Oh well.... Savannah is still a puppy. This too shall pass.

A late start on Christmas...

... and I can hear you laughing now.  I just started wrapping Christmas gifts this morning, which is about a month behind schedule for me. I shop all year long for Christmas and birthday gifts, and then keep them tagged and waiting in a closet until it's time for wrapping and mailing. With Christmas gifts, I usually start wrapping in late August, and before our Halloween party comes around, my Christmas gifts are boxed and ready to mail out during Thanksgiving week, way before the Christmas Rush at the post office is even a gleam in the post-master's eye.  In late August of this year, however, my mind and my heart was still back in England... and Christmas gifts and wrapping just didn't come to mind until I saw the Christmas decor going up in the little shops in town. Seems that now the retailers put out Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas things together so the three holidays are melded into a three-month long celebration.

I've found that once the Halloween decorations come down and the Christmas decorations go up during the first week of November, the rest of that month and all of December just disappears in a heart-beat. And I like to enjoy the month of December and read my Christmas books, plus we always have a Christmas party... who has time for wrapping and boxing and mailing with all of that going on?

This Christmas should be interesting with Savannah here... a new puppy who has never seen a Christmas tree or any other sort of holiday decoration, for that matter.  My husband went to the store today and bought two extra stuffed monkey toys for her... a duplicate of her favorite blue monkey, and one in brown. I'll probably wrap up the blue one for her and put it under the tree for Christmas. By that time, the current blue monkey will probably be too nasty to even toss in the washing machine.  I'm hoping that Savannah will unwrap her gift the way our dog Gracie used to.  And I'm hoping that Savannah will be as good with the Christmas decorations as she has been with the Halloween decorations. I think she's afraid of the Halloween tree in the living room... maybe too much black and purple in and on that tree for her liking?

My reading time has been cut short because of all the time with and attention to Savannah. Walking and playing and teaching her to sit and stay, and then the constant mopping up of the kitchen floor around her water bowl. I've never seen a dog plunge half of its head into a bowl in order to take a drink of water. The result of that method is a small tsunami along that part of the kitchen floor surrounding her bowl.

We've met the new people who moved in across the road... they have a young man living there who is the best friend of their son... he asked the ladies at last week's Waldorf Wednesday Tea if anyone needed help around the house or yard. We thought we were hearing things and I guess we appeared too anxious because I think he immediately regretted his offer. (None of us around here has had such great luck with handymen of any kind or any age.)  My husband has met this young man and has already scheduled a day for him to come here and do some yard work.

With all the ridiculous experiences we've had with such people, I'm not holding out any shred of hope this time.... but we'll see. How bad can it possibly be? We know right where he lives if he doesn't show up. He does seem very nice, though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this arrangement works out well for us and for all the other neighbors on our road. As always, hope floats.