Rainy Days

Day 4 of rainy day weather here in the Sunshine State.

Everything is soggy, including my mood.

In the front gardens, the Mexican sunflowers are bowing down to the zinnias and marigolds before them, not from devotion, but because their 4' stalks can't take the amount of water and wind we've had over the last 2 days especially. Parts of my backyard are so saturated that I sunk up to mid-calf when I went to check on the plants hanging out on my little gardening table in the northwest corner. They seemed okay from a distance, just waterlogged, much like my mood.

I can't quite get to the southwest corner, my mulched paradise. From the back window, the tomatoes and cayennes look fine. It's the peas and beans I'm worried about, but I will tear the heck out of the yard if I try trampling through. We have such poor drainage here that it's almost silly. Our street turns to a river with a narrow strip of elevated dry in the middle if it rains hard for longer than 2 minutes. The intersecting street to the north ponds with water. The sidewalks heading towards that street pond.

I have walked these sidewalks, twice a day on the bus stop march, and been thankful for the cheap flip-flops on my feet that keep taking a soaking and emerging cleaner, if squeakier.

I miss the sunshine. There are several positives that I shouldn't be ignoring. Kids are meant to splash in puddles, even if their shoes are new. My hose needed a break. The topsy turvies have needed zero attention. I haven't broken a sun-induced heat sweat in a few days, and the house is staying a little cooler, overall. When it stops, and the sun comes out again, everything will grow and grow and grow. These things cannot be discounted. In the meanwhile, I've been cleaning my house like crazy, scrubbing top to bottom in the kitchen, emptying cabinets, rearranging, trying to approach spotless, as if I will be judged otherwise.

I spent an hour and a half trying to return the ceiling fan in my kitchen to its' original state. As God as my witness, I shall never buy a white ceiling fan for my kitchen again.

I still have the fridge to clean, but I usually leave that to the beloved geek and his favorite household toy, the steam cleaner. He was home yesterday and will likely be home again today, toppled by a stomach bug.

Yesterday I had the uniquely female experience of a mammogram, and am now waiting anxiously for the results. Thanks to a doctor's less than stellar results communication procedures, I may have been walking around with time bombs in my chest for five years. Yes, 5 years.

So I've been kinda in a state of panic for the last week. The new test will show what's what. Maybe certain things disappeared on their own. After all, they've had 5 years to do so.

Keeping busy is helping with the waiting and worrying. Gotta make lunches, interrogate children about school, try to make budgets stretch, look for a job, write a bestseller that will solve our troubles, keep a clean house, and do the laundry. No big deal.

And the rain just started up heavily again. Another day in paradise.