The Problem with Mother's Day

Well, I guess it's pretty obvious, isn't it? Mom died. This time of year, every thing's, "Give your mother ..." And it's a beautiful day out there. Mom would've loved it.

*sniff*

I'm not alone. Years ago, I learned that a friend of mine had lost a baby at Christmastime. Every Christmas was just a little painful around the edges because of it. Holidays are funny - sometimes you celebrate them out of duty but once a person is attached to them they take on a different meaning and a special poignancy when that person's gone.

Mom didn't care much about her birthday, but she cared a lot about Mother's day and her wedding anniversary.

I have a lot to say. But somehow, I'm a little stuck on Mom, even though it's been over a month now. It's just a sore spot, you know?

Life goes on. Somehow that doesn't seem fair.

Alive So Far

Every year I try to save some plants over the winter. This year, I had three different varieties of hot pepper, a sprig of rosemary, a sprig of basil, several beets and a few eggplant. They suffered a nasty winter. First we had an infestation of little white flies, which were wiped out by a nasty infestation of spider mites. My order of lacewings went in too late, and I still haven't received them. Until I learned, in February, that you could control spider mites with isopropyl alcohol, I despaired that I would lose them all. I only managed to save one of the eggplant, and I lost several of the peppers, and I only managed to keep 2 beets out of 8 alive. But I seem to have saved more than half.

And I have an eggplant. Do I sound a little bit giddy? I can't declare it saved until after Memorial Day. Until then, it (and the peppers) shall be at risk of my not bringing them inside on nights that freeze. I'm trying to cut down on the buggies by moving these babies outside for a few days. We'll see how it goes.

And I have a venue and a date and a plan for Mom's memorial service. That was so hard to do. I had to take a day off from work just to find a place and make myself make the phone calls. It's much easier to go through Mom's clothes than it is to deal with this. Today I'll make the invitations. They have to go out early this week at the latest.

And I've started to knit Nothin' But a T-Shirt in Berroco Echo in the color identified on the web as "ranch hand."

I am betting that I will not have enough yarn. This "enough yarn" business makes me insane. This is one of the reasons I like to knit socks. I've got the amount of yarn nailed.

And I started my taxes.

I have so much to do and so little get-up-and-go. Except when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.