And What Did You Do With Your Extra Hour?

Here we have a sort of Day of the Dead flower situation although not really. I do call that old vanity my hallway altar. I used to be far more into making altars than I am now. I guess the last vestiges of any spiritual practice have slowly dissolved from my soul. 
Although. 
I will admit that my tortoise shells and seashells and Virgin of Guadalupe and pictures of my babies do bring me comfort so maybe not entirely. 

I will not lie to you- I did enjoy waking up this morning and discovering that it was still quite early according to the change in the time calculation device continuum. I felt indeed as if I had gained an hour. I made us a Sunday breakfast which, by the time we ate it, was closer to noon than eleven, at least by yesterday's time. It gets so confusing. I felt like it took me forever to get it all going. For one thing, I was out of self-rising flour for the biscuits and my baking powder has passed its best-by date. At one point as I struggled to get the biscuit dough made up and cut and in the little skillet I cook them in, I wondered if I was dreaming because one of the main characteristics in many of my dreams is that I have a shit-ton of people to feed and do not have the proper ingredients and I have no idea where the bowls and spoons and knives and cutting boards are kept. This frequently happens on Thanksgiving morning in these dreams as I realize with panic that I have bought neither a turkey or anything else to make the feast and people are already gathering. 
But no, this morning I was not dreaming and eventually I got my biscuits made, along with the sausage and grits and eggs and although I'd worried the biscuits would not rise properly, they did a fine job of jumping to attention in the oven. 

So that was all fine. I did a crossword and some laundry and then I set myself to the task of cleaning out a large drawer in my bathroom which I realized, when I was getting ready for our trip, had a good amount of roach shit in a bottom corner and yes, that is gross, but when you live in Florida...
And if roach shit was going to kill us, we'd all have been dead decades ago.
That's the drawer where I keep my travel toiletry bag and other bags and pouches in which I put jewelry when I travel, most of which I never wear but somehow it doesn't feel like vacation unless I take a few sparkles. I discovered that I have approximately ten of these bags and pouches, all of them dear to me for different reasons and most of them I had forgotten I even owned. There were also four pairs of old glasses which I don't even think the Lion's Club would want. I girded my loins, kept the two most recent pairs and threw out the two oldest. 
That drawer is also where I toss the little bags the dentist office gives to me every six months when I go in for a cleaning. I consolidated all of the tiny toothpastes that were as yet unopened, along with the dental floss. I now realize I will not need to buy toothpaste or dental floss for at least a year. I tidied the band-aids, the Neosporin, and the Hydrocortisone ointment after I dumped out the roach shit and cleaned the drawer, and let it dry. And now that is done.

I swept and did a desultory dusting of things in the bedroom, the laundry room, the guest room, the hallway, and the kitchen. And then, to top it all off, I did a relatively decent cleaning of the newel post at the bottom of the stairs which I have not touched with a rag in years. I got out the Fabuloso and vinegar and I sprayed and wiped and even scrubbed with a toothbrush. 

Someone had illusions/delusions of grandeur when they put that thing in. It's way too fancy for this sort of house. It really needs painting so it doesn't look as good as it should, but hey! it looks better than it did! As an added bonus- the smell of the Fabuloso and white vinegar filled the air for awhile, making me feel doubly virtuous. 

And...that was about it. All-in-all, it probably took me that one gained hour to accomplish all of this and I felt quite satisfied with even that little bit of housekeeping. Somehow my day filled up with other, less productive things and here it is, dark as- well- night, at 6:30. 

Mr. Moon hung about all day, doing this and that but mostly smoking a pork shoulder which requires a great deal of attention. (It's hard to keep those papers lit! Haha. Old stoner joke.) He does love to cook meat outside although it does not happen that often. I've got some sweet potatoes and apples that I'm going to bake together and some broccoli to steam. It'll all be good. 

I haven't talked a great deal lately about the Zepbound adventure but it continues. Despite eating different foods than I normally would in Roseland, there was no weight gain and I felt quite satisfied and happy with what I ate. This all still seems miraculous to me. I get around so much more easily and often even allow myself to look in a mirror! Amazing! It's been years. Sometimes when I look at my face I realize that yes, the lines are more visible, the skin in the neck is even more ridiculous, but for some reason, I do not care. All of that is part of growing older. It is as natural as getting gray hair. 
There is a saying which is supposedly French which is that after a certain age, a woman can have either an ass or a face but not both. This would be without surgery, I am sure. 
And although there is probably truth in that, I have neither ass nor face that would qualify as looking like anything but what they are- parts of a seventy-one year old woman. 
But I no longer have to worry about getting up off the ground while I am weeding and that alone is just about enough to make this whole journey worthwhile. And I will admit that feeling better in my clothes has given me some happiness. There are even overalls that I loved for years that had gotten too tight and which are roomy and comfortable again, and I love that. It's not like I'm fashion-plating all over the place. I just want the clothes I feel comfortable in to feel comfortable. 

Does that make sense? 

It does to me and that's what counts. 

The roses are really putting on a show. Remember that tiny Fiesta Ware pitcher I found at the dump? There you go. 

Soon...camellias. 
Sigh.

Love...Ms. Moon