That Favorite Time of Day

Its pitch dark and a heavy cloud of sleep presses upon her like the downy comforter in which she is curled up. In her dreams a bird is screeching in her ear and as she fights to ward it off it slowly transforms into a round metal ball. The metal ball continues to screech until finally the noise penetrates a new level of consciousness and she fumbles through the tangle of sheets and blankets to reach for the annoyance. 

Groping blindly her hand makes contact with the metal object, searches out the button and finally—silence! Exhausted from her efforts to protect her sleep, she now rolls onto her back and admits defeat. Forcing her eyes open, she searches the ceiling for the meaning of life, waiting for her brain and body to reconnect and allow her to negotiate her way out of bed.

Scuffing down the hall, her robe securely tied around her, she is aware that certain parts of her anatomy are more awake then others. Morning rituals must be followed. When she finally makes it to the kitchen she sniffs appreciatively; the auto setting on her coffee maker is a life saver.

Taking the first cup black, she lifts the mug to her mouth and sips slowly. This is nectar of the gods she thinks. This is a holy moment. She senses before she sees, her husband, ensconced in his chair in the living room already sipping his coffee. He lifts his mug in silent greeting; he knows the rule. No speaking till her cup is almost gone.

“There isn’t enough coffee in all of Central America to make me a morning person.” She once told him and he believes it. It is safe to say that early morning is not Jane’s favorite time of the day.

The early morning routine rarely changes and soon Jane has eggs frying while she tucks sandwiches into Sam’s lunch box. It’s amazing what a person can do in their sleep, Sam has said, after watching her shut the refrigerator door with her hip, while balancing juice, and a pot of jam in the crook of her arm. Although occasionally an unintended item makes its way into his lunch (the raw egg that was thought to be hard boiled comes to mind) Jane pretty much has getting him out the door each morning down to an exact science, whether she’s fully awake or not.

With Sam out the door and daylight still fuzzy on the horizon, Jane pours a second cup of coffee and adds her daily treat of half and half. Settling into her own chair, she is soon joined by a purring Marley. The tuxedo cat stretches across her lap and lets her scratch him between the ears for a few moments before taking his sentinel place on the back of the couch. This is Jane’s quiet time.

She will read her bible and perhaps a page or two from a favorite devotional before flipping open her journal and jotting down any significant thoughts. It is safe to say that without this quiet time each day Jane will flounder. It has taken her a long time to learn this and now it’s a habit she cannot afford to give up. As she returns her bible and journal to her chair side table, a little sigh of satisfaction escapes her. This might be my favorite time of day, she thinks.

The next thing of habit for Jane is a brisk walk through the neighborhood. She rarely misses a morning, regardless of the weather. On a cold or rainy day the exercise is especially invigorating. but on a sunny day she turns her face upward and soaks it up. Breathing deep makes her feel as if she could swallow the sun like a tall glass of orange juice.

When her walk is done and she places her shoes and coat back in the hall closet she feels accomplished and gratified. She truly enjoys the physical movement and the benefits she gains from being active. With her endorphins pumped up Jane is ready for anything. “Bring it!” she challenges. There is no doubt that her daily walks are a favorite part of her day.

Being a stay-at-home-wife and-empty-nest –mother means the rest of her day is quite practically hers to command. Household duties are easily interwoven with volunteer activities and outside interests. Doing laundry or running to the bank, a trip to the grocery store or to the library, women’s bible study, or preparing a meal for a shut in, all of these things bring Jane fulfillment. Contentment is a rare gift but Jane has learned that it is also a choice. Reaching out with both hands she grabs hold of it vigorously and tries to live in the moment. Could it be safe to say that those are her favorite times of the day?

Yet, when Sam returns each evening and she hears the motor announcing his arrival, a little pitter-patter occurs in her chest. Like the nervous flips her tummy did when they went on their first date, or the way her heart picked up speed when his eyes locked with hers, his return at the end of each work day still brings her pleasure. She kisses his cheek and tells him often that this is her favorite part of her day; his return. Watching his eyes light up when she says this only makes it all the more true.

And yet… when Jane sips her after dinner tea and reviews her day she is often surprised to realize how fast the day has gone. Keeping busy will do that but for Jane this goes deeper. She has spent a greater part of the day in her own company, something probably only an introvert can truly appreciate, but she is also aware that she doesn’t really walk alone. The presence of the Holy Spirit is always there, strengthening her, guiding her, teaching her. And when she offers her humble prayers of thanks for another day in His presence, she arrives at the conclusion that for every moment she recognizes this,  its beyond a doubt, the very best and most favorite time of her day.

Java Love

Coffee or Tea? The question was posed. My answer came swiftly.  Coffee. Hands down. No offense, Tea. I mean, I do enjoy a steaming cup of Earl Gray, made in a proper china teapot, every now and again—usually mid afternoon, with my feet up, but … its coffee that has my heart.

You have to understand. I grew up drinking coffee. I was raised on a dairy farm and it was my job every morning to bring the cows in from the field to be milked. This required EARLY rising and I am not, nor have I ever been, a morning person, let alone an early one!

Mom would roust me out of bed; I’d stumble out to the kitchen, wiping cobwebs from my eyes, to find a special treat waiting for me. A sturdy mug of coffee, specially prepared for me by Dad. Now, granted  it was mostly cream and sugar with a splash of coffee in it, (the original latte) but the privilege and luxury of sipping a mug of sweet creamy coffee made me feel  important, grown up and most of all, loved.

Charged up by the sugary octane, I would find my way to the mudroom for my coat and boots and head out into fields still shrouded in darkness to search out our herd of cows.

As I grew older the amount of coffee in the milky cup got stronger and while I eventually gave up sugar, the cream is still a very important part of my morning cuppa.

Now days, mornings are made possible by my husband, who almost without fail, brews a pot of fragrant coffee, before I’ve even rolled out of bed. When I scuff my way into the kitchen, he will hand me my cup. 

He knows to not try and engage in conversation with me until that cup is at least half way gone. That morning pot of coffee,I tell him, is one of the reasons I fall in love with him all over again. He chuckles but I’m dead serious.

I chuckle when I think of our early courtship, when he confessed to not being a coffee drinker and I, shocked at such an acknowledgment, drug him off to the nearest coffee house and introduced him to mochas. He can blame me for his coffee addiction, but I stand by my convictions. Coffee is a necessity!

I was terribly chagrined when a trip to the south a few years ago revealed an appalling lack of coffee stands. 

As in NONE. 

Sweet Tea, yes. Coffee? Uh, No.

I made do but after two weeks of Waffle House Sweet Tea, I was desperate. I threw myself shamelessly on the barista at the airport Starbucks and practically kissed her feet when she handed me my iced Americano. Hey. Don’t judge.

All our road trips start with a coffee stop. Gotta have proper fuel for the journey. I think the perfect road trip might be to plan it around espresso stands. We could call it research! One of the highlights now when we go camping is making coffee in my old fashioned percolator. That cheerful little glub, glug, glub as the water boils up into the coffee grounds and hits the little percolator knob? Sheer delight, I kid you not.

What else can I say about coffee? I love the aroma. The feel of the mug in my hands. But in the broader sense, it’s the conversations that take place and the relationships that build simply because someone says, “Let’s meet for coffee.”

Pink and Perfumed

I put out the challenge to my women writers group this week to write a story that incorporated certain words in the text.Well, of course, I included myself in the challenge. The assigned words were: magazine, she froze for a moment then, clever, it doesn't matter


Spilling the mail on the floor as she tripped over the entry way rug, Margo cursed under her breath. She watched as the new home design magazine slid across the freshly polished mahogany floor. Flinched inwardly as it ended up against the closet door, cover flipped back, crinkled, and slightly torn.

“Well, aren't you the clever one.” She muttered crossly. “Dan’s bound to be unhappy about that one.” Stomping to the closet, she grabbed the magazine as one would grab an offensive child by his collar. She smoothed the pages down and shoved loose inserts back inside, kicking off her boots as she did so. 

Satisfied with her efforts to restore order to Dan’s precious periodical, she slapped it down on the side table along with her car keys. Shrugging out of her jacket she marched back to the door to gather the rest of the wayward mail. Having grabbed the mail from the outside box on her way up the walk, she’d not yet scanned the contents and now took the opportunity to do so. Flipping past utility bills and bank statements, she smelled it before she saw it. Pink and petite, addressed to Dan in a loopy feminine handwriting, the perfume wafted up and tickled her nose.

She froze for a moment, then using her thumb and forefinger extracted the letter carefully. She flipped it over. No return address. Her golden-green eyes narrowed to slits. What the heck? Margo tapped the letter against the palm of her hand contemplating her next move.

She could set it on the hallway table with the rest of the mail and watch Dan’s reaction when he came home and saw it. She’d be able to tell a lot by his face. Poker-face was not a word you would use to describe Dan by any means. Would she confront him then and demand to know what was going on?

Or she could open it, obviously, and find out just who this brazen woman was and know exactly what was going on. She wouldn’t need to wait for some limp excuse, or worse, something she wasn’t ready to face.

Carefully now she laid the letter down on the kitchen counter and put some water on for tea. Paced back and forth across the tile kitchen as she waited for the water to heat. Picked up the letter. Set it back down. Paced some more.

When the tea kettle began to emit its whistle, Margo snatched the letter back up. Holding the letter in one hand she moved the tea kettle off the burner. What if the seal of the letter just happened to be in the path of hot steam… what then?

Lips pursed, Margo allowed the envelope to dangle in front of the tea kettle. Eyes wide with fascination she watched as the envelope flap curled slightly. Forgetting the tea making, she slipped one perfectly manicured finger against the flap and slightly under. With just a little more pressure the seal would give and the letter would be opened.

Aware she was about to cross a line she forced herself to take a deep breath and reevaluate the situation. Was not her and Dan’s relationship built on trust? Did she really believe something less than honorable might be going on here?

Yes, she reasoned, she did trust Dan. It was the sender of the fragrant letter that she wasn’t sure about. She laid the card back on the counter and crossed her arms.  

Slowly she began ticking off all the reasons she could think of that someone would write to Dan using pink and perfumed wiles.

Perhaps it was a thank you note. Dan volunteered often with Habitat for Humanity. It could be from one of the office gals. Or maybe it was from an aunt. She couldn’t remember Dan mentioning an aunt but she was willing to give the benefit of the doubt here.

After that, Margo was stumped. Suddenly her face brightened. “Oh! I know! Maybe it’s a gift card for me and Dan wants to surprise me with it later!” Then, “But why would they send it looking all girly-girl and smelling like…” she took a closer whiff. “… Vanilla Musk”

She slapped her hand against her forehead. Of course. Vanilla Musk. Her favorite. Available only from the Secret Pantry, where she had added Dan’s name to their mailing list a few months ago to help him remember upcoming events. Like their anniversary.

Her cheeks flushed, she hastened to the hallway table and laid the letter carefully among the rest of the mail.

“And if I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter. I trust Dan.”

Her decision made, Margo returned to the kitchen for her forgotten cup of tea. 

Bloom Where You're Planted

yep, that's this years garden!

I don’t garden. Shocking but true. Just add it to a long list of things I don’t do:  I don’t sew. I don’t pintrest. I don’t play Martha Stewart and… I don’t garden. It’s not that I can’t. And it’s not that I won’t. And it is certainly not something I have never done. Because I have. Some of them have been successful. That one year the tomato yield alone was enough to supply salsa for most of East County. That was a good year! And Zucchini? Who can’t grow zucchini? Um... Apparently me, because the following year not even the long necked green squash grew under my attentive care.

One year we didn’t have time to work in the garden. By the time we finally got around to it, we found ourselves planting on the 4^th of July. Isn’t that when corn’s supposed to be knee high? Well, whatever. We planted late. Then we suffered an early frost and everything shivered to death on the vine before we could harvest it.

As I said, I don’t garden.

But I could. Early in our courtship, my husband wrote me a love letter in which he outlined things he was looking for in a woman. He listed gardening. A-hah. He wanted a woman who could garden? I’d be that woman! (He also listed darning socks but I’ve managed to finagle my way out of that one!) I was happy to don bib overalls and walk barefoot in the cool damp earth, dropping seeds into carefully prepared mounds of dirt. Ah, it was one of my finer moments.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against gardening. In fact, there’s something to be said for getting down on one’s knees and digging in the soil. (There’s something else to be said about getting back up but whatever.)  It just seems that gardening takes a special touch and, these days, I don’t seem to have it.

I can plant however! I love going to Home Depot and buying trays of pretty flowers and bringing them home to transplant into happy little pots to line up on my deck. This seems to work well for me. I sit outside watching my pretties bloom and I smile.

A few years ago, when I was a self employed business woman, the “Bloom Where You’re Planted” quote was very popular. I had never pictured myself running my own business but there I was, and doing it pretty well if I say so myself. It was hard work; long hours and much sacrifice but as the business grew and thrived, I did too. My self confidence grew tremendously during that time, as did my spiritual maturity. I knew God had planted me in the world of women’s fitness as a way to share my faith while encouraging women. About two years into the venture however, I hit a snag and things began to unravel a bit. That is when the bloom felt like it was fading and as year 2 slipped into year 3, I didn’t find the idiom of blooming where I was planted quite so cute and charming anymore. I switched my mantra for the next couple of years to a verse from Galatians that said, “Let us not grow weary while doing good…” Weary was the word all right and I prayed daily to be released from my role. Eventually that chapter was completed and I was free to move on.

For all my disparaging remarks about gardening, I do love the parallels between growing things in the soil and growing things in our hearts and souls. I look back over the many challenges I have faced in my life and recognize the many seasons I have gone through. Just as there were some good years in the garden, years that yielded good fruit, so there have been in my personal life. Drought and blight can and do descend, even when we are most diligent so finding ways to overcome are important. 

Just as I switched from trying to maintain a large garden plot to managing smaller containers, I’ve undertaken that in my own personal life also. Now, when I look out at my deck lined with its bright splashes of color bursting out of clay pots, I see happiness and joy. I hope that when you look at my life, you see the parallels. 

living on the deck, one grateful moment at a time. 

thanks to Suzanne A. for this weeks writing prompt: gardening.