Thin blue skies. Temperatures soaring into the low thirties. That’s all the invitation I needed to layer up and find my hiking boots in the too-clean garage. My favorite in-town trail follows the Deschutes from Farewell Bend Park upriver for a mile and a half before it crosses the footbridge and heads back down.
It’s beyond my comprehension how the color white—a sort of non-color—can be so beautiful. On boardwalk.
The rules are childlike. You simply list ten things for which you are grateful. But the catch is this: the Top Ten things must have something to do with the moment. So, last evening, for example, as I was driving home from Saturday evening service alone, in freezing temperatures and darkness, and my car started up and the heater kicked on and the roads were paved and Christmas lights were cheering along the way … well, there you go – four things on the list already.
Daughter Summer recommended a book a while back by Jon Acuff entitled Quitter: Closing the gap between your day job and your dream job. It’s a how-to-quit-your-day-job-the-right-way book. The first chapter is entitled, “Don’t Quit Your Day Job.”
Gifts of food continue to arrive. Because I’ve been eating popcorn regularly for dinner, this homemade soup was a nice change. It’s not that there isn’t food in the house; it’s simply that I can get away with popcorn for dinner because there’s no one here to say, “You should probably eat something a little more dinner-ish.”
It’s one of the benefits of living singly.
Our bathroom toilet clogged up the day Hubby went back into Hospice House. I sent a quick electronic plea. Tom and his lovely wife, Fran, showed up armed with all sorts of unclogging gadgets.
On his way out the door, Plumber Tom asked about our beautiful, old door propped on our front porch: “Hey, do you want me to fix this old screen door?”
Now that’s where I draw the line. The mesh may be torn, but don’t be messing with my beautiful repurposed-into-front-porch-art screen door.
I order a wreath from her every year, but I had decided against it this year. An unnecessary extravagance. And then, this. On my front porch today. I recognized immediately the handiwork of the Wreath Fairy before even reading her note. Julie. Owner of Desert Dream Gardens.
A couple years ago, Hubby and I decluttered our garage, which nearly landed us in marriage counseling. I questioned his wanting to keep a tin of rusted and bent nails, screws and washers; he threatened to toss the boxes of Christmas decorations if I so much as touched his tin.
If you’ll remember back a few weeks, Daughter Summer and three of her angel friends cleaned our place, set up the Christmas tree and rearranged the living room furniture. All rather secretively, and while Hubby and I were resting at Hospice House.
And then Summer showed me a photo posted to Facebook. I sent the photo to a friend, who is handy with tools and lives on property with plenty of fallen tree branches following a recent snow storm. This friend recruited another wood-working friend, and together, with the artistic lead of wife Carolyn, they built this beautiful piece of wall art out of white branches. Which I plan to decorate at each holiday and with each change in season.
The washing machine is humming and Hubby’s side of the closet is looking bare. Declutter is my middle name. And while I’m not necessarily eager to be rid of Hubby’s things, there are men at Shepherd’s House who could use warm jackets and thick gloves and oversized flannel pajama bottoms this time of year. Oversized because Hubby’s legs and hips and abdomen had swollen with edema during his last weeks.
When Daughter Summer—you remember our Personal Pajama Shopper, right?—came home with size XXL, Hubby looked at me and deadpanned, “Your next husband will have to be extra-extra-large.”
Update bank accounts. Complete Employee Enrollment Form to change benefits. Remove Hubby’s phone from the cell phone account. Fill out the Death Benefits Claim Form to satisfy the insurance company.
Oh, and vehicle title changes. I spent more than an hour at DMV today waiting for Number 217 to be called. And since you can’t break into the numbered order to ask the expert behind the counter which form you need for updating ownership, you’re left to your own common sense.
Copyright © 2025 Marlys Johnson
