What's outside of your picture window today?

Quick! Before the deer find these little tidbits on their daily prowl around the yard! I swear the garden is a buffet table!

I believe that we are meant to have fun in this world. Very simple recyclable fun. My husband paints very crude birds, so we have painted birds in some of our trees. Up close...not so much ... but from a distance they are very cool. So we are probably the only people in Maine with parrots in our trees, a bed fence, and some birds even nest and fly among our plants on tall, almost invisible stakes. its just fun. We are not the crazies in the neighborhood. It just looks playful. and colorful. Not overdone. It makes me smile. At one point we considered taking down our bed fence because I saw some amazing bicycle fences on the internet (google bicycle fences), and my neighbors begged us to not take down our bed fence. They are sort of a landmark in our little town. We live on a main road and tourists stop and ask if they can walk through our gardens, and of course we allow it. I also had a Little Free Library but Covid ended that. Children and adults came and took free books. I saw a man who built chicken coops, and I bought one (they delivered it). My dear hubby painted it (Little Lulu and Tubby are on the door fronts), and we stocked it with free books and Goodwill finds. Even at our sickest we tried to keep things going. The gardens got over run, but now that I'm feeling much better I roll myself down to the garden, and together we tried this summer to refurbish them, and they are looking pretty good. I'll keep going as long as I have a breath left, and so will he. We have to create. It's in our blood. So we do funky, fun product. Not everything at once, because then we would be crazy, but we choose what to do each year. One year we had a "Pot Head" couple sitting out front in lawn chairs. They had flower pot heads. She had petunias for hair and he donned curly Garlic. She wore a floral dress and he wore farmer jeans). Both had clod hopper shoes. We store things in our barn or give them away when we're done with them. We live in an old farmhouse with attached buildings typical to Maine. We have the house, connected to the porch connected to the woodshed and outhouse...a three seater (not used) connected to a barn. It's freezing cold out in that barn in the winter. But that's how farmers continued to work in the winter in cold climates. So we refused to let these illness get us down. We try to create something most days. When I was at my sickest I did designs in my head. Most days in spring, summer and fall he's in the barn, and we do projects together. I design and he carries out the project. We are novices, but together we have fun. In the winter he paints birds, outrageous woodpeckers, and crows that we give to friends, and family, and I do needle and thread projects, that I give to same. My eyes are failing, so I use magnification when necessary, and we're Both a bit hunched over. Too funny. Our kids just shake their heads and roll their eyes and smile, but they don't try to stop us. Way too funny. We would put up a fight. ha ha, but we do truly enjoy life. I think they are secretly glad that we stay out of their hair.

Nancy I don't want people to think that I'm a Polyanna and have my head in the clouds. I was very sick for a very long time. I felt hopeless and without any possibility of recovery. I've always had a creative mind, but when I couldn't cook for myself, and my husband poor dear, was putting on awful meals (he is not a cook), and we humbly ate what was in front of us, I saw no hope. He insisted every day, as sick as I was that I get up, get dressed and he helped me out of the house into the car and we would go for take out food for lunch. I had just enough humility to be grateful. We would sit overlooking the ocean, the lake, the mountains, and eat our take out food often in the car during Covid. I dive an 18 year old car, and I love it. It suits me. I'd say to. m y friend...my car looks like a dirty diner. We'd talk about how grateful we are to still be together at 84 & 85. Some days I could barely dress myself, so I know what the people on this site are experiencing. My kids knew we were going out every day, and we just acted like we were not feeling great if they came to the house. I didn't want them to give up their lives to take care of me, and we sort of figured out ways to "cover". The rest of the time I just sat in my chair. I was exhausted, and I got to my docs appt., and we did whatever we absolutely had to do, but our lives were bleak. Then he was diagnosed with Early Alzheimers, and it was almost the final straw. We were just plodding along. I had a few friends who knew how sad and sick we were. They did things to brighten our days, but I saw no hope ahead. I did worry about how my husband would care for himself as his disease progressed, if I died. My husband became depressed. he lost his best friend, then his brother, another friend moved away, and then when Covid came he lost his cribbage friends. No one could gather. During this 4 1/2 year period I had two back surgeries that were serious, and then an abcess. So three surgeries. I was desperate, and I signed up for a zoom class called Living Well With Chronic Pain. it was sort of a last ditch effort. That Course helped me to began a very basic, simple exercise program that I could do regardless of my limitation. It helped me to learn to advocate better for myself, I began to cook simple meals, and I began to socialize with my friends who I had been hiding from, I began to stop taking meds that were not helping me. My life began to change. I'm still not physically much different. I have pain, sleepless nights, and instead of focusing on that I look out my window at the birds at the feeder, at my flowers, or think of the next project that I'm going to produce. I had two sewing rooms upstair that I could not access. I called a friend and she came and took pictures of those two rooms, and she had them printed and enlarged. I would circle things on those pages, and have my husband go upstairs and bring down 4 or 5 items, and bins filled with fabrics and supplies. I found a hallway that I had hubby set up with a desk and a few pieces of furniture where I could store what I wanted. There was a stairway, and I believed that it was empty space under it and I asked him to cut into it and see if there was storage space and there was. I would drag myself into that small hallway, and sort through. I gave about 50 new patterns to charity, and yards and yard of fabric, extra sewing machines, and kept my favorite one. I figured out how to get a small sewing area set up, and then I began to work on projects on a card table in the living room. I tried things that didn't work, and then tried things that did work. I'll only say this once, because I will not focus on it, but as I sit here, and type, I'm wracked with pain. I refuse to focus on the pain. I can see over my desktop computer into my back yard and the birds are feeding outside my window, and my gorgeous lilies and summer phlox are blooming. My cousin and her boy-friend will arrive from New Hampshire in a few hours, and she'll bring her show and tell, and I'll show her my projects. She's 73 and I'm 84. I search for patterns on my computer because I cannot negotiate going into stores. I have taken my life back, and my production and creativity has exploded. I'm doing more and better work that I ever have, and with determination. I refuse to give up. But when I write these things that I write it's because I want others to reclaim their life in the best manner that they can. We do not have to live our lives focused on pain and suffering. We can see a better tomorrow. I had that choice and I took it. I can talk symptoms and meds, and pain and suffering, or I can talk about the gorgeous wool chair backs that I designed and made for the dining room chairs with flowers and birds, and colors, and stitches that I did by hand that were difficult with arthritis, but produced something beautiful. Dig out the guitar, and sing a song, or read a book, or look at the stars at night, or the sun coming up over the horizon. Do something even if it takes your last breath to do it. You are alive, do one thing today that you love.

Thank you for the inspiring post! I'm going to bookmark it to reread when I'm feeling sorry for myself. You are most definitely a glass-half-full person.

If we could bottle your determination and sell it, the world would be so much better. You have convinced me that I should put on my hand/wrist braces this morning, fire up the sander and finish sanding my daughter's woodwork so I can refinish it.
Sue

I'm confused about how the site works. I answered to Nancy, but Sue answered. It's fine, but as I said before I'm not a tekkie. I also love your comments. Always very insightful. thank you.

I'm confused about how the site works. I answered to Nancy, but Sue answered. It's fine, but as I said before I'm not a tekkie. I also love your comments. Always very insightful. thank you.

Hi ..Thanks Merry. Sometime I find 35 responses and I don't know what to do about that! I love the site, but can't answer that many, and then I open another one and there might be 14 responses. I just respond to one, or two, but I cannot devote my life to this site when there are other cool things to do in a day. I'm afraid if I delete I will end up in the dunes of hell with 80 the next time. Help.