...weird weather & beautiful blooms...

Saturday morning I started the day, a very rainy day, by pruning! I cut back plants and cleaned up the dead leaves and debris from the yard. All the stakes and support beams were taken up and put in my small shed. It’s all packed away. The yard isn’t exactly winterized; I didn’t go crazy today but I simply tidied up. This hasn’t been the semester where I feel like I can get much home-stuff done so I took advantage of the warm weather.

Of course, the weather was in the mid-80s on Friday and in the 70s before that. Today we’re only supposed to hit 59 degrees. We shall see. Still, the plants and flowers are a bit confused. Which season is it?!? Shrug. It keeps things interesting.

From azalea blooms, a new elephant ear leaf, daisies, salvia, butterfly bush blooms to berries on the bush. We are in the in-betweens. Happy everything!

...Halloween morn...

Our pumpkin babies all grown up

On Hallowe'en the thing

you must do
Is pretend that nothing
can frighten you
An' if somethin' scares you
and you want to run
Jus' let on like
it's Hallowe'en fun.
~ from an Early Nineteenth Century Halloween Postcard

Halloween didn’t exactly start off like I wanted it to. I wanted to wake up with Magic dancing all around. I wanted to wake up in Halloweentown; and, I wanted to have a fun, fun day BUT I am an adult who must do adult things… so when the morning started off with a leaky toilet, my fella and I were off to Home Depot.

First, he made coffee. While I was sitting waiting for him to get ready I used the last tissue in our Halloween Kleenex box and the Halloween candy burned itself out. Really? Halloween had just started and I was already grouchy.

the good donuts :p

decorated tree at Dunkin Donuts

My fella said that we should stop at Dunkin Donuts for a *fun Halloween breakfast*. Can you believe that I even spit out the pumpkin cake donut? It tasted horribly chemical and I refuse to eat anything that is gross. Fortunately the pumpkin pie donut was much better… and it had toffee crumbles on top so I’m sure that it was the breakfast of Halloween champions :-/

 

When we arrived at Home Depot, we noticed nearly 100 pumpkins available for sale. What happens to the unwanted, left-over ones? I asked one of the associates who said that unfortunately they’re “thrown out.” She seemed a bit sad about this as well; after all, she isn’t making the decisions for the company. She then asked if I wanted to take home a few for free which was super nice; I explained that if I took one I would only feel guilty about the others that I didn’t take. Later when I arrived home, I did a little research and learned that the landfill isn’t the only place for the left-behind pumpkins. Some retailers return the pumpkins back to the farms from where they originally came and farmers plow them into the land to add extra nutrients to the soil. Left-behind pumpkins are sometimes fed to livestock.

a new pumpkin with an air plant

This year my fella and I didn’t buy any pumpkins. We cut our fourth pumpkin from the vine this morning so that he, too, could be a Halloween pumpkin. He ended up being the second largest of the group and when we were removing him from the vine I noticed that he had been attached to two healthy vines. No wonder the little guy grew so big so fast!  

grocery store flowers

We got our groceries and ran some other errands which made me completely fussy because TODAY IS HALLOWEEN DAMN IT! But, as my fella reminded me, today is Saturday and that means it is errand day so that Sundays can be more relaxing. One of the reasons our relationship works is because one of us always has to be the adult when the other one is busy being a baby. Today, I’ve been the baby and he’s held my hand and cheered me through all the tasks.   

And now we’re finished with the grocery-shopping, recycling (yes, in our state we have to drive our recycling to the center), home repair, laundry, and dishes. House of Wax with Vincent Price is on in the background; the new Halloween candle is lit; and I’m chomping on candy as I write this post. My Harveys Nightmare Before Christmas bag even arrived late last night which was before the estimated date of arrival! In a few hours, my fella and I will don some masks and make our way to Ashland Coffee & Tea for a Spooktacular Halloween show.  

Harveys Nightmare Before Christmas Bats Crossbody bag

...a fourth pumpkin but this is a post about 3's, love, and understanding...

This weekend the weather turned cold. The summer plants were pretty much gonners! I cut the droopy leaves of the hibiscus, and the canna. I figured that the pumpkin patch was also in this category since most of the leaves were droopy. I didn’t have the heart to cut the leaves so I left them to droop in sadness. Today I arrived home a bit early by this semester’s standards and I was met not only with a shot of pumpkin liquor (thank you sweet fella!) but with the unstoppable Magic Wedding Pumpkin Patch! The vine looks healthy and there are even some new! How in the world is this possible?!? I’ve decided not to question it; I’m thankful that we even harvested three pumpkins…but a fourth?!? Why this is all a miracle.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about chances…especially third chances recently as our one year wedding anniversary approaches. Where has the time gone? And how in the world after so many bad tries did I hit a homerun. Ohgoodgod, I’m using sports metaphors? No, no, no! Let me try again. In Dracula, there is the not-so-subtle emphasis of the number 3. Arguably intentional and Catholic-based (think Trinity- Father-Son-Holy Spirit… although as a kid we said Holy Ghost and I always liked the idea of ghosts connected to the church ;D ), in the third chapter of the novel Jonathan Harker meets three vampire ladies. Later when Harker breaks into Dracula’s bedroom, he discovers The Count in the third coffin. Lucy also has three suitors but this really isn’t a post about Dracula. But the novel does follow a religious connection to the number 3. For the novel, it is connected to Catholicism but we know that the Catholics *borrowed* from our Pagan friends. The triad. The symbol of unity—mind, body and spirit. Past-Present-Future. The oldest of Indian symbols, Chintamani, which is found in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, is the sign of happiness and appears in the Three Treasures of Tibet.

Threes. Three pumpkins from my third wedding to my third husband and his third wife. We’re all mixed up in threes.

But, then my fella is also a first… he’s the first person who has ever acted like a best friend to me. He’s also the first partner who has ever wanted me to truly be me—not a more grown-up version of myself, a toned down version of myself, or an altered version of myself. He really does like me as I am. He really does like me for me. That’s a pretty cool thought as we approach our anniversary.

These pumpkins, well, they’re just a happy reminder of our growth. 

Some say that love is the most important thing to share between individuals. My fella disagrees. He will argue that understanding is more powerful than love. Understanding another individual in many ways is an act of love but understanding another, truly understanding why someone does, acts, and breathes the way that she does... well, that is magic! 

...a pumpkin patch as a metaphor for life...

Hope, Promise, Potential...all in a tiny flower

 Writing that yesterday was a hard day seems like an understatement. I cried... or rather had a meltdown in front of three other faculty members and an executive secretary. They were all incredibly supportive and thankfully my work BFF and had lunch plans (lunch plans that take some serious scheduling to work but it worked) and she was there to rescue me. I felt lost and hopeless; I hated everything about work which isn’t anywhere close to being true but that’s how I felt yesterday... But when I arrived home, I discovered that my wedding pumpkin patch had yet another female flower along with some male flowers. There were bees buzzing around this plant that has three beautiful pumpkins. I whispered, "Nature never did betray the heart that loved her", a line from my favorite poem, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth. Within a few moments, my day had already gotten better.

 

Then my “pit crew” came home… that would be my fella. That man gets up at 4:30am to make me breakfast and coffee every single day. While I put together my lunches on the weekend, each morning he packs my lunch bag with icy coolers and utensils. He basically gets me out of the house on time without having mornings where I’m running late and have to skip coffee. Bless his heart. We often say that in the South as a phrase meaning someone isn’t so bright but when I write it here, I mean it. He is the kindest, most thoughtful human I have ever met; when he tells me that we’re (WE’RE) going to get through this year together, I believe him.

 

So here are our babies who are currently still on the vine. They still seem to be growing and they’re terribly healthy and happy pumpkins. I tell them that I love them and how magical they are.

Sometimes I have no idea how I have been so blessed with a wonderful fella (finally!), some really supportive and amazing colleague-friends, and some of you amazing blog readers who have become very dear, supportive friends to me. Some folks don’t believe that cyber-relationships ever work. If you’re my age or simply in this awesome Gothy scene, you may have had pen pals like I did. I wrote friends I had only met once; I wrote friends I had never met in person. I wrote one guy named John in Guernsey for years. I wonder what ever happened to him. We met once when his family was on holiday in Florida of all places. Sometimes I miss pen pals but sometimes I thinking blogging simply took the place of that and then feel perfectly okay about it.

Oh, so another awesome thing about my fella and about friends overseas… the lovely Ms Misantropia over at the self-titled blog is hosting a bit of a Halloween gift swap. This was a bit of a Facebook friend event so I hope she doesn’t give me the stink eye for mentioning it. Anyhow, our gift items needed to be sent out this week which really meant that on Saturday I needed to have my box in the mail. I opted to send out a few international trick-or-treats to some of my close buddies (and new friends) but BAM! the UPS store wouldn’t ship international without phone numbers and then BAM! the U.S. Post Office had already closed. My fella was the one who took the packages to the post office on Monday and completed all the international custom labels just so that all of my boxes would be where they needed to be before Halloween. He didn’t ask any questions or complain about the outrageous shipping costs… which makes me also want to note that do you ever feel like our countries don’t want us to be friends?!?! Oy! 

So this is become tangential but for all of you who commented, sent messages, and texts of support… THANK YOU! It meant the world to me. This, too, shall pass. Having some amazing peeps from around the world sayin’, “You got this!” makes it that much nicer. 

I leave you with my pumpkin patch... it became my metaphor. On first glance, it looks dead and a bit rough around the edges. That's exactly how I was feeling about my job. But, if you look closer you will find new growth, three lovely pumpkins, flowers, and bees. That's also part of the metaphor of my job. I love that place. I really, truly do. Sometimes what looks bad really has some hidden blessings.