This Perfectly Imperfect Life

'Love's Magic' hybrid tea rose in my garden today. Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

I wanted to do this as a Monday Musings post, a follow-up to last weeks, (click here for that post) but weather (3 rounds of nasty storms), time and my iv session were against me on Monday and yesterday I wasn't up to anything more than dozing off, reading & watching The Shipping News while camped out on the couch, snuggled under a blanket on a rare Autumn-like day in June. On Friday, during lunch with Mom after her speech therapy appointment, the topic of my father came up and she clarified (corrected) some history for me which I am very glad for because it gave me clarity & closure to some of what I mentioned in last week's Monday Musings post.  Sure, it also peeved me off and left me reeling but at the same time I really wasn't surprised - He was a cruel, sadistic, evil man who abused her in ways you cannot imagine for 17 years, so it's not like I expected anything good from him. They weren't divorced when I was 6 months old and she didn't ...

The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe My rating: 5 of 5 stars What an unexpected gem of a read!  I originally picked it because I've been focusing on novels with a sense of place more like where I live to try & help me with my own writing struggles with sense of place. Yes, I live in NJ and not in a traditional shore town, but, we are right on the coast & directly across the bay from a barrier peninsula.  (I'm still not over Hurricane Irene & the area of our Northwestern NJ home (inland) was hit worse than we were here on the coast! Anyhoo...)  My Aunt loved this book so I thought it was high time to give it a try.  Plus, I love Southern novels. I didn't expect to be swept up into the story of this novel, nor did I expect it to be such a touching & emotional read.  For many this has been & would be a great 'beach read' as it's often referred to!  For me, it touched on areas very close to home ( spoiler: one of the main characters...

Welcome everyone!  Here at Diggin' Around I share about gardening, writing, reading and my day to day.  Depending on the time of year, you'll often see that garden photos take center stage! Gardening has been a life-saver for me and given me more joy & healing than I ever thought possible. It is my shelter.  It is my church.  It is my connection.  It is a deeply rooted (no pun intended!) part of me and something I cannot not do.  Living with disabilities tends to be very isolating because you're stuck at home much of the time, unable to do so much, while your friends & family are out working and socializing.  Twitter and more specifically #gardenchat has also been a life-saver in many respects because it has given me the ability to interact with others and share my love of my garden and gardening in general.  It has led to meeting such wonderful and like-minded folks, many who are in the same boat as I am.  It also led me to w...

my beloved father.in.law. Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

For newer friends who don't know: My parents divorced when I was 6 months old in 1976 and my father died before I turned 4 years old in 1979. To say he didn't treat my mother well is an epic understatement. To say he was abusive is an epic understatement. His 'tough' city fire fighter co-workers were afraid of him. He drank heavily, another epic understatement, from a very young age and, for all intensive purposes, drank himself to death. He had his first heart attack at the age of 36. He died shortly after his 3rd heart attack at the age of 44. It was a case of Doctor Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, but Mr. Hyde was in control more often than not, whether he was sober or not. And despite everything he did to her, had she known he was lying in a FL hospital bed dying, she would have gone to see him to say goodbye. But my grandparents didn't want her to know. That's another story for another time. Grandmother eventually told my mother his ashes had been scattered in...

To my beloved Father.in.law, the wonderful man who has blessed these last 8 years by making this day mean something positive to me for the first time in my life! Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

For my latest gardening memoir column on the #gardenchat blog , please click here . To scroll through all of my past columns, please visit the Adventures In Gardening archive, by clicking here . Hope to see you there! 

Every day, as you already know, I take a bazillion pictures, especially in my garden and this Bee in the pink Knock Out Rose bloom is a new favorite I just had to share with you! For as long as I can remember, the sight of these bright orange Tiger Lilies has made my heart sing with joy! Orange has long been a favorite color of mine but I can't tell you exactly why they captivate me as they do. They're in full bloom now, along fences & roadways, in gardens & borders, even unexpected places. My favorite season within a season! (Usually Summer, but this year they're a bit early by about a month, so it's Spring). Been quite a while since I've done a Friday Favorites post, this was fun! Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

I have a few weekends to catch up on but in the mean time, enjoy this weekend's scenes: Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

The Southern novel I'm reading in the waiting area while Mom has her endoscopy, The Tender Mercy Of Roses by Anna Michaels, is in a word: Incredible. "When you leave home, even if it's just to go to the Piggly Wiggly for a loaf of bread, it's possible to become somebody else. It's possible for regret to fly out the window like a blackbird and something wonderful to fly back inside and perch on your shoulder. Something with yellow wings that sings a song you heard in childhood but thought you'd forgotten." With writing like that, it's a great distraction while waiting. For the most part anyhow. I'm definitely not liking Not being the patient and now feel awful that this is what Hubbs & Mom have gone through when I am. I'm praying it goes well, that it's easy on her afterwards and will show she won't have to have surgery on her esophagus, at least not right away, that with time and speech therapy, its' function will conti...

Actually, this is about one of my favorite things in our home: the mantle. Many years ago, when I was a little girl and my hometown was still a wonderful community in which all of yours needs could be met without leaving its' one square mile, one of my mothers many purchases for us from the used furniture store down by the hospital on the river was this fireplace mantle.  Back then it was more off white than yellow and the barn red insert was a faux black & white marble.  It also came with one of those light-up electric log sets that had a tiny fan which blew strips of yellow, red & orange cellophane for that "cracking fire" affect.  I loved it!  I remember lying on the livingroom floor in front of it, in the dark, watching & listening to the "fire." Fast forward to 2004.  I'm 29 and Mom decided to get rid of the mantle.  She told me if we didn't pick it up by the end of that weekend, she'd take it apart and get rid of it herself.  ...