Before and After

These pictures don't show things exactly as I intended since the second one is after the sun was gone, but I worked hard this afternoon to make the garden look neat.  Everything was overgrown, weeds were everywhere.  Most of the plants have finished blooming, though you can still see some Cosmos that I planted from seed and some of that Flox type stuff that takes everything over.  The Seedum is going to turn pink soon.  I've kept up with things this year better than most, and it's only been the last few weeks that it has begun to look shoddy.  Since I haven't been going to the horse shelter to work, I have had more time to do these domestic things.

Today, though, I told Renee, who is in charge of volunteers, that I would be returning to my old schedule in September.  My shoulders have not completely recovered, but I feel that I can do the work now.  I've been going once or twice a week for awhile, doing more each time.  Yesterday I conquered the last hurdle...the dreaded manure pile.  Dumping the wheelbarrow full of manure is the hardest thing we do (at least I think so).  It was always hard for me, but I got to the point where I just couldn't do it.  Shoveling is bad enough, but pushing a full wheelbarrow up a narrow board to the top of a huge hill of poop, then turning it upside down, is quite a challenge.  Yesterday I found that by using the smallest wheelbarrow and keeping my load relatively small, I could do it.

Having thus recovered, I am going back four days a week.  I will be glad to be doing something that is really worthwhile and allows me to be intimately involved with horses.

New (and probably last) Doll

Okay, enough already.........Certainly I have dolls covered.  My intention was to learn the basics of using clay and then make a three-dimensional version of the Szondi faces I did last winter.  That's still my plan and it's time to get moving on it.  I have done a couple of the faces and found it very difficult to get any kind of likeness.  Up till now I have let the faces do what they wanted, but trying to make specific individuals is another story.  Well, good.  It will give me a new challenge.

Encore

I had to take one more picture after I had finished the white blouse.  I don't know if I will make shoes, I love the feet so much I hate to cover them up.

New Friend

I must be possessed by doll-making gods..........

My Clay Doll

Once I had made the cloth dolls, I decided to make a clay head and limbs with a cloth body  This is the result.  Willy made the hair out of a spool of quilting thread.

Fruits of My Labor(Two of them)

If you plan on making a doll, think twice.  Here is the result of many full days of work....mistakes, poor workmanship, redoing, aggravation, questionable results.  The feet are my crowning achievement, but they are not enough to call this project a total success.  The sandals, which I crocheted in about ten minutes, are the most interesting and "cute" thing about it.  This is not to say that I am through with doll-making.  I am not satisfied with what I have accomplished and can not stop until the quality of my work is at least satisfactory.  I've learned a lot, and I hope to improve considerably with my second, and hopefully last, attempt.

My house was inspected today by the Section 8 police and passed muster for the fourth time.  I will continue to have a roof over my head for another year.  Of course this will not hold if Phil's lawsuit against me is successful and I loose my income.  My disbelief that this is happening has turned to indifference....a function of self-preservation.  Since I lost me beloved Lytton, all of my emotional output focuses on his absence.  Everything else pales by comparison.  I spend days at a time obsessed by thoughts of him and the consequences of his death.  Death itself looms large in my mind.  I've decided that the middle of life is the best, when there is a certain consistency.  The troubles of the past, of arranging what will be your life, are over.  The future stretches before you, endlessly.  There is still room to change, make plans for the future.  Dreams might come true.  Then slowly possibilities slip away, all that seemed permanent disappears.  People  who have been alive forever, and presumably would be there forever, begin to vanish.  Options narrow......no time left for a new career, a trip to Europe, another baby, a new puppy.  Every action must be measured against a short, indefinite future.  There is a finality about most things.  Every experience might be the last.

My father always said that no one ever knows when life will come to an end.  Being old is no different from youth in that respect.  Well, perhaps so.  But young people have reason to be optimistic about their own longevity.  They can pretty much ignore the fact that their lives will end.  Not so as one ages.  I must admit that I am more fascinated than chagrined at the changes in my appearance.  My wrinkles and moles and an visible blood vessels intrigue me.  Nevertheless, they are changes that are pretty much irreversible.  A diet or a new hairdo won't change me much.  There is comfort in that.  There is comfort in knowing that others' expectations are minimal.  Inadequacy in both physical and mental tasks is expected.  Freedom.