Watching the Groceries: Halfway Through 2026!

Really? We are already halfway through the year? Yeah, right. That's like telling me my youngest son, Sam, is 36 years old.

Oh, wait. Sam did just turn 36! And yes, 2026 is halfway over!

So where is our household on grocery spending for not only the second quarter but also the first half of the year?

Better than I dared hope. 

As I have often written, "groceries" means food and common household items such as toilet paper, tissues, and cleaning supplies. "Groceries" does not mean eating out, which for us, unless we are on the road, tends to be very minimal. (How minimal? Maybe three to four times in any given quarter.) 

Like so many of us, I continue to watch many prices rise. In April, when I was totaling up our first quarter spending, I noted that milk was $3.19, a new high. Not anymore. A gallon of milk yesterday at Kroger? $3.29.  Now, I like milk. A. Lot. I watch for sales, of course, but the reality is I will continue to buy milk. It is a small luxury I am grateful I can afford. 

Another kink in the shopping, and it will take another quarter to figure our what, if any, impact there may be, is the re-emergence of diabetes. Things have changed since I wrote about this at the end of March. I have a new family physician who I just had my first appointment with yesterday and she and Warren and I had a long discussion about where my A1C is (too high and barely down from March), what changes I am willing to make to my diet and lifestyle on my own (the diet is the bigger issue), and how she would like to see if and how much I can bring that troublesome A1C down before I see her again in late September. My doctor wants me to focus on eating more complex carbohydrates, starting with something as simple as brown rice. (But we are finishing the white rice first. Just saying.) So there's that.

Okay. What did the second quarter hold?

From April to June, we spent $561.63 on groceries. $32.03, or just about 6%, of that was on household items, ranging from toilet paper to (my favorite) 5¢ on Dawn dish soap at CVS. The rest was on food. May was our most expensive month, as we had a big stock-up at Aldi that came in at about $98.00 and then a later trip that I thought would be small, but still topped out at over $65.00. In June, we had one Aldi stock-up that came in around $105.00, but that was the only one. Our second quarter spending averaged out to $177.21 a month. 

Combined grocery spending for the first half of 2026? $1226.42, or a monthly average of $204.40. 

Not bad. not bad at all.

We have been making a concerted effort to eat out of our pantry and freezer. The good news of that? We don't have to buy much. The downside? At some point, we will be restocking both the freezer and the pantry. I am watching the grocery ads for sales on chicken (our primary meat in this household); I'm hoping for a "Buy One Get Two" sale, but have not seen any of those recently. And both of us continue to be very, very vigilant about food waste. So much so that when the occasion presented itself recently, I trash picked a gorgeous apple (with one medium bruise) out of our shared compost, brought it in, washed it off, cut off the bruise, and enjoyed every single bite with Warren. Just saying.

So that's where we are at the half. The 4th of July is upon us; of course, there's a concert that night. We have just come under a heat dome (and I really, really hate heat) but it is supposed to break before the 4th. I certainly hope so.

On to the third quarter!

A long-ago Sam celebrating the 4th! 

Another Nudge From Beyond

Warren's new space

Earlier this month, in my post about Warren's mother, Ellen, I noted that she still makes "her presence known in our lives" in small ways.

Well, she's not the only one. 

I never met Warren's father, Arthur. I knew his solid reputation in town as an optometrist. I knew he'd created the masthead for the junior high newspaper, the Willis W.I.S.E., when his younger son, Brian, a year behind me, joined the staff (I was the editor-in-chief as an 8th grader). Only after Arthur's death did I learn of his involvement and commitment to this community through the Masons, the American Legion, and, way, way back, co-chairing Delaware's polio vaccination drive when the polio vaccine first came out. 

So I have a sense of who Arthur was, but only a sense.

Warren recently moved into new storage space for the business through the generosity of the owner of a former industrial site, Ranco. His new space is in the former administrative office building. One Saturday earlier this month, we went out to vacuum and shampoo the carpet, as well as dust out spiderwebs, to get it ready for him to start moving in lumber and other materials for his business, as well as some of his percussion equipment. I was at the window at the far end of the room, cleaning the windowsill. I stepped off the stepladder, turned towards the door, and saw for the first time the door from inside the room:

The back of the door in the new room

I called to Warren. He, too, had just seen the back of the door that morning.

"Your dad."

"Yes."

Like Ellen, Arthur also occasionally lets his presence be felt in small ways. This one blew me away.

Arthur Irvin Hyer would be 115 today. I am sorry I never met him; I appreciate him for what he gave this community and his family.

Happy birthday, Arthur!

Community

Sammie 

When my longtime friend Katrina was here earlier this month, she commented more than once on the sense of community she felt in Delaware. Things like the older neighborhood homes with spacious front porches where people called out hellos from their swings and chairs. People walking by smiling and saying hello. The walkability.  The community-focused events we took her to: the 3rd birthday of our remarkable TreeHouse program (Young Adult Transitional Housing) created by our amazing, groundbreaking United Way of Delaware County, the June Justice Bus—these gave her a closer look at how some of us ("us" being both agencies and their staffers as well as volunteers) work to strengthen this community.

Community.

Another friend, Maike, made a similar comment about community in a recent letter. She marveled that an across-the-street neighbor walked over and offered to share tomato plants with us and our neighbors (Ryan grows his own from seed). I took one solely for its name: Pink Bumblebee. (I mean, how could I not take that one?) Maike wrote that she thinks she is the only person in their suburban neighborhood that even has a vegetable garden, calling herself an outlier. In replying, after offering sympathy for her situation, I noted that there are multiple vegetable gardens just in our block, let alone in our city, whether we are talking a plot like ours, raised beds like our neighbors on either side, or even a well-tended tomato in a pot on a front porch.

Community.

Yesterday, I took a morning walk while Warren worked, and the sense of community played out fully. Dog walkers nodding and smiling as we passed. A man clipping a shrub who waved as I walked by. About a block and a half from our home, I stopped to talk to Joe, who I've known for years and who recently turned his lightly sloped front yard from grass into all native plantings, inspired by Doug Tallamy and the Homegrown National Park movement and committing to taking the leap when he realized that Andrews House has a native plant garden on its sloped front yard. The sprinkler was going, the sky was blue, the sun was out, and we both celebrated the freshness of the morning, the joy of being retired, and his hopes for his native plants yard. "Tell Warren I said hi," Joe said as I walked away, waving goodbye. Closer to our home, Andy and another neighbor were on Andy's front porch; they both waved and called hello.

Community.

We spent a large part of yesterday afternoon exploring a nearby community, Newark, its downtown as well as the Earthworks nearby. We ate locally (Moe's BBQ; superb), I spent time reading with Mark Twain, toured the Earthworks (a UNESCO site), and, on the way home, stopped at a Whit's (a frozen custard chain) in a small town on our route, for a treat. (June 21 is a special day for us, and not because of the solstice.) A little boy, maybe 5, maybe slightly older, was there with his grandparents—running in and out (they were eating outside as were we), grabbing napkins, saying hello to everyone. They departed and three bikers (motorcycles, not bicycles) came out with their orders and reveled in the day, the friendships, and the treats. As we came back into town, we made a quick stop at Aldi for ONE item that I needed. Walking in (quickly), I passed a friend, Bennie, who was devouring a candy bar while he hustled his groceries to his car. I quipped about him not waiting until he got home or at least to his car, before digging in, and Bennie grinned, then said, ferociously,  "I EARNED this!"

Mark Twain reading to me

Community.

I am writing this out by pen at our local library while Warren uses the facility's laser cutter to make engraved end caps for a crotale stand order. We were here at 9:00 when it opens, after my going next door where I am cat-sitting Sammie while Mark and Mary are out of town. I reminded Warren we still had baked wonders in our refrigerator, sent over Saturday evening when Margaux next door had a birthday party.

Birthday delights! 

Cat-sitting. Cookies. 

Community.

The Rest of the Story

A work in progress

Last week, I gave an update of our vegetable garden and showed the ignored and neglected basil bed. After embarrassing myself by admitting my lack of attention, I decided I needed to address the issue head on.

So I did.

Over the weekend, I waded into the basil (well, I sat on my gardening seat and bent over) and started pulling out weeds.

Did I get every weed out? No? Did I make progress? You bet. Is the basil grateful? Absolutely. Some of the seedlings, freed from their weedy caverns, grew overnight!

Look at me! 

It was clear that a sizable portion of the seeds I had sown did not germinate or, more likely, were smothered before they could get up past the soil. Too dark, too weedy. Fortunately, a local nursery still has seed packets and I was able to find some basil packs among the dwindling stock.

Heading soon into the garden

So all is not lost and I hope there will be a good basil crop this year. I still have more weeding to do to get the bed in better shape and I intend to follow through. After all, I am looking forward to bees in the basil and bee therapy later this summer! 

Many of us in my age bracket (i.e., old) remember legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, who, in addition to his news broadcasts, also had a weekday radio show, "The Rest of the Story." Harvey would tell a story about a historical event or individual that everyone thought they knew. He'd introduce and set the stage at the start of the broadcast, then at the end tell listeners the quirky twist or surprise facts that he had dug out. His tagline was "And now you know...the rest of the story."

I'm no Paul Harvey. But I thought the basil situation deserved an update. And now you indeed know the rest of the story. 

Of Course She Did!

There is an open container in our basement that holds numerous menus from restaurants that Warren's parents visited over the years. Warren knows that many of them date from mid-century Chicago restaurants. I have never looked through them, but one was sticking up so prominently ("Look at me! Look at me!")  a few days ago that I pulled it out and glanced at it.

Oh my.

On September 30, 1978, Warren's mother Ellen took a one-day trip to New York City (from where and why Warren does not know). She traveled with a close friend, who Warren remembers as being blind. They ate lunch in the Peacock Room at the Waldorf Astoria and Ellen not only kept (of course she did!) but also annotated the menu as to the decor of the room and table setting (down to the color of the napkins) as well as what they ate (they each ordered the fresh fruit plate with cottage cheese, as well as cheesecake). 

Ellen then noted what their entire day's activities. Their morning was spent at "the Metropolitan" (I'm assuming she was referring to the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Their afternoon was spent shopping—at Bonwit Teller, Tiffany's, and Macy's—and included a carriage ride through Central Park.

And there was one final entry of note.

Ellen had a history of crossing paths with famous or well-known people. She once rode an elevator with Eleanor Roosevelt. She met Ronald Reagan in the lobby of a Dayton hotel, either in the late 1960s or early 1970s, not running for office, but, as Warren described it (who was there with her) "with an entourage." And, she knew Clayton Moore (the original "Lone Ranger") from her childhood on, as he was a relative, and posed for pictures with him years later in California.

So it was absolutely no surprise to me when I saw the final note on her memo:

"Saw Robert Redford!" 

Of course she did. If anyone was going to have a celebrity sighting on a one-day trip to New York City, it would have been Ellen. 

Ellen would be 105 years old today. She is still making her presence known in our lives through little things like this. 

Happy Birthday, dear Ellen! 

What the Garden Looks Like After One Month

Two of three deck planters, the largest not in the photo! 

Back in mid-May, I wrote about how Warren and I had labored to get our basic vegetable garden in and done. After that post, we spent another weekend putting together the Big Flower Pots that we set out on the deck. They are all annuals; we do for color and variety. 

And that is about it.

I wrote last year about giving up the Hej Garden in the rear of the property and how we both decided it was okay to let it go.We made some similar decisions this year about extra "stuff" we had on hand, ranging from more tomato cages than I will ever use in my life again to more (MORE) planters ranging from medium small to BIG. Warren and I reached agreement very quickly: let them go. So they ended up on our curb—the cages on a Saturday, the planters the next day—and guess what? They went to new homes in no time!

So what do we have?

This:

Our vegetable garden, June 2026

The peppers, cabbage, and tomatoes are coming on. With luck, I might have a tomato by end of the month. Time will tell.

Maybe?

The lettuce, in the lower lefthand corner of the garden, came on like gangbusters and I picked some this morning to add to our salads later today. We are having a series of hot days, so I do not know how much longer the lettuce will last. I told my neighbor to please pick some for her and her husband to enjoy.

Salad! 

The basil is struggling to get through the weeds. Yes, I know; I should have been WEEDING. I have decided that if I go out very early in the morning with my gardening stool and a fork (yes, a fork, as in "out of our silverware drawer"), I may be able to knock down the weeds and give the basil a chance.

Yes, there is basil in that mess! 

Stay tuned on that one.

And finally, in a nod to our bees and pollinators, I am delighted to see that the milkweed I curate (I say "curate" because our yard is not a butterfly garden and I limit the milkweed I let grow to maturity) has begun blooming. No bees in this photo, but I have seen them burrowing headfirst into the blooms already.

Milkweed blossoming

While I was visiting my dad earlier today. one of the workers and I talked about gardening: what did I grow? I told her, then focused on the basil, explaining that I had not weeded but needed to do so, because I make a lot (A. Lot.) of pesto in the late summer. I then told her how I let the basil go to flower for the bees, adding that last year I decided one of the best things I could do for myself was sit and listen to them, my own bee therapy. She nodded approvingly. 

"We could all use that, I think," she said. 

Indeed we could. 

Losing the Inches

I sat down last night, pen and legal pad in hand, and wrote out this post. Originally, it was titled "Inch Fourteen: Inching Along," and I started out by writing about thinking of titling it "Losing the Inches," explaining that I am not talking about dieting but about abandoning my announcement back in early March to write a post, an inch so to speak, a week. I penned out most of it, then went to sleep, knowing I would get up this morning and turn to my keyboard.

When I woke up this morning, I thought, "I need that original title. And my original story," So I sat back down earlier this morning (it's now 8:30 a.m.), added some lines, and here we are.

Good morning!

First things first: I am not turning my back on writing. No, no, no. I am turning my back on the framework of weekly inches.

Why? Because I want to write more than once a week.

Well, duh, April, then write more than once a week. Yes, I know. I think I just felt boxed in with the notion of one inch a week. How boxed in? Look at my "off schedule" post, titled "Inch Eleven and a Half," so titled because I thought I was breaking the rules. Whose rules? My own rules. (Which of course brings to mind that beautiful moment in the movie, "Field of Dreams," where James Earl Ray says to Kevin Costner, "There are rules here? Oh no, there are no rules here.")

There are no rules here. 

So why the change? After all my complaining and whining and kicking my toe against an imaginary brick wall (with my foot issues, no way I am kicking a real brick wall!), I have felt something shift in me where I suddenly feel I can write more.

Can? 

I want to write more.

So my new approach is telling myself to write at least one post a week, and let everything else flow from there. 

I have just started reading The Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams. I have admired her writing and thoughts for a long time, and this is no exception. Subtitled Visitations From the Holy Ordinary, Williams reminds the reader that "Holy," however one defines it, is as close as an ant carrying a petal across her deck.

Or a bee in the spiderwort. 

Let me see what summer brings.

Inch Thirteen: Old Friends

Getting soft-serve ice cream at the local Dairy Depot

Old friends, literally and figuratively. 

Katrina and I were matched 52 summers ago as freshman roommates at the University of Chicago. Margaret Perry, the member of the administration who made roommate matches, was a friend of Katrina's mother, June. Katrina remembers that Margaret told June that she had made a very good match for her daughter,

Understatement.

Katrina and I corresponded over the summer to get to know one another better. We exchanged letters and bits of information. I was recovering from a knee injury and I know I alarmed her (she told me this years later) when I said I would be arriving with a bucket and loose weights to do the mandated physical therapy of lifting the bucket several times a day with my leg extended. (Yes, I arrived with the bucket and loose weights. No, I did not continue the therapy.) I was intimidated not by anything she shared with me, but by the older student helping the freshmen find their rooms when she said to me, "Oh! Your roommate is already here! She is tall and has gorgeous long blonde hair!"

Gorgeous blonde hair. Okay.

Katrina was tall. And she did have gorgeous long blonde hair. But even more important, she had a great sense of humor and an open heart and a welcoming smile.

52 years.

Over those years, we have stayed close despite our lives spiraling in sometimes very different directions, staying connected through letters mailed back and forth. We even now rarely if ever text, email, or talk on the phone. But the letters and postcards have flowed back and forth, east to west, north to south, this way and that way, for 52 years.

But not this week. Oh no, not this week.

Not this week because Katrina and her husband Ed were in Cincinnati for a family wedding last weekend. When Katrina let me know she was coming to Cincinnati and asked whether I thought we could meet up somewhere in between here and there, I let her know she was about two and a half hours away. Her immediate response was "I'm coming!"

Katrina arrived Sunday (her husband flew back to Miami on Sunday). She is staying into tomorrow, so she will get to watch and help and see our monthly Justice Bus in action. And during this precious week, we have talked and talked and talked and talked.

What a gift.

On the door of my study is a quote attributed to Aristotle: "Without friends, no one would choose to live though he had all other goods."

That about sums it up. Here's to 52 years of friendship, my friend! 

Inch Twelve: On Writing, On Time

Why this photo (one of my own)? Just because I like it! 

There have recently been some changes in the online writing world with some bloggers stepping away. temporarily or otherwise, and some others changing platforms and formats. Writer John Patrick Weiss, whose works I have been reading for several years, recently announced that he was moving his blog off of Substack, which if memory serves me, he had moved to from Medium before that, because he now feels that Substack is "more like social media than a home" for his writing. There are other bloggers I have followed whose sites have become increasingly bogged down with ads, making it harder to scroll through their words. I get having ads to help garner some income; I regret how much it interferes with the real product: the writing. 

In recently rereading some of my older posts, I came across an entry from 2019, in which I noted that the writer of the blog Plough Monday, was closing it because he wanted to redirect his writing efforts to publication. I go on in my post, noting that I had been blogging since 2009, to wonder aloud about my own writing (or the lack thereof). And here I am seven years later, still not giving my "serious" writing enough time or focus. Heck, I wasn't even giving this blog that much time or focus. Although, as I write that, I think, defiantly, "hey, THIS is also serious writing!" 

I have written repeatedly about the time crunch around here, about feeling as if I am shortchanging myself because of other "things" (stretch that word as wide as you wish) that take time and attention. Last week, we had a rocket trip to Mayo, at which yet again Mayo Clinic staff demonstrated that the core vision of the Mayo brothers—"the needs of the patient come first"—is indeed woven into the fabric of that institution and not just words to be mouthed routinely. We saw longtime friends in Chicago, we traveled blue highways to reach a client of Warren's in Iowa, and our last day, encompassing my medical visit (I am stable) and the drive back home, was roughly 19 hours. Let's just say that it drove home (no pun intended) the point that I am indeed 70 and cross-country road trips are a lot harder now than even a decade ago. 

I will confess, however, that I have been sounding this note of not enough time, not enough taking care of my own needs, being on overload—whatever and however I phrase it—has also been a thread through this blog since, well, probably since the beginning. That tells me a lot right there about my own sometimes conscious, more often unconscious (or at least subconscious) tendency to heap far more on my plate than is good for me. (I know, something else to work on!) 

And now, to tie it back to where this started, I am trying to write more, starting with the weekly "Inch" post. (I posted one last Saturday, designating it a half inch. And yes, there is an update to that story. Stay tuned!) And I am trying to spend more time looking through the lens of a camera, be it my Canon or my phone. (I share my photography on Instagram; you can find me @tovadawn.) To quote my good friend and photography companion, Brandon, the "very best camera ever is the one you have with you. Every single time." He's right. (And if you want to see his stunning work, you can find him on Instagram @framesandgrainphotgraphy.) For me, photography is another way to write, to think through my life and my thoughts, and to try to capture them, written or otherwise.

We are on the cusp of summer. Gardening, writing, photography, the Justice Bus: let's see what summer holds. 

Inch Eleven and a Half: Another Piece of the Past

Work by Brian Blum ©1980 

In my last post, I reached back to law school days after finding a copy of One L in one of our local Little Free Libraries. (And yes, it is bringing back memories of that whole first year experience.) At about the same time, I received an email from the law school announcing upcoming faculty retirements. One of the names, quite possibly the last professor I had decades ago who is still teaching, was on the list.

It has been 45 years, after all.

And, it turns out I have an unexpected tie back to my law school past beyond just recognizing that name.The retiring professor, Brian Blum, was (and perhaps still is) an artist. I am not talking about his ability to teach law (although it looks as if he had a long and distinguished career); I mean he was an artist in the traditional meaning of the word. And I have had one of his works in my possession for the last 45 or 46 years.

Not unlike my first copy of One L, the art piece came to me courtesy of my late father-in-law, Sid Lezak. I believe he and his wife Muriel had me and my then husband (their son) over for a meal with Brian Blum. Don't ask me why; there was some connection, possibly South Africa, that resulted in this meal. Sid knew Blum was also an artist and, if shaky memory serves me, asked him to bring some of his works to the house. My birthday was in the vicinity of that evening, and Sid told me to "choose one," gifting it to me on the spot.

I did choose and my Blum original has traveled many, many miles and many, many years with me ever since. That's it at the start of this post.

In recent years, as I begin to sort through possessions and think about what I want to pass on to my friends and family, I have thought of reaching out to Professor Blum and asking him if he would like his work back. Seeing the notice about his retirement spurred me to write him an email, telling him of how it is that I have one of his pieces, and asking him if he would like to have it back for his family or have me donate it to the law school in his honor. 

I then took a deep breath and hit "send."

It is a holiday weekend and I hope that NO professors are reading their email (the year is over), especially a retiring one. But I admit I hope that I do get a response. And if he says he would love it back, I look forward to packaging it carefully and shipping it back, carrying more long ago law school memories with it as it goes.

Inch Eleven: A Reread

 Because of things going on this week, I knew last week that I needed a book that was lightweight and that I could throw in a bag without worrying about it getting rumpled or crumpled. A few weeks before, stopping at one of the several Little Free Libraries that are between our house and my dad's apartment in Assisted Living, I saw One L and pulled it out. It is a paperback, already worn around the edges, and fits what I need. 

Oh my. Talk about memories flooding through me.

I first read One L, Scott Turow's account of his first year at Harvard Law School (1975-1976) in 1978. Given that the book came out in 1977, my copy may have been a first edition. I did not buy the book. Rather, my then father-in-law, the late, great (I mean that) Sidney I. Lezak, gave it to me, writing on the inside, "The best is yet to come, Sid." (Yes, Sid was a lawyer, to say the least.) I was beginning law school in the fall of that year, and he wanted me to know he was supportive.

I read One L when I got it. I read it several times over the following years. Years later, I  may have sold it, or donated it, or neither. It no longer had its dust jacket; a later spouse abhorred dust jackets and proceeded to denude any and all books in our home wearing one. (He also resented that I still had a book signed by my former father-in-law, but no need to rehash that issue.) 

This month, probably right around now, marks 45 years since I graduated from law school. I remember our commencement speaker—the renowned civil procedure specialist and legal ethicist Geoffrey Hazard—not because of what he spoke about, but because he was a close friend of Sid's and his son Jim and I were friends. (I have no idea what Geoff spoke about.) I remember being relieved that law school was done, done, done. 

This copy was also bought as a gift for a to-be law student. The front page is dated 12/05 and is to "Mary." It reads "May you study hard so you may achieve your dreams. This law primer is in my opinion, one of the finest works that encapsulates the first year of law school. Remember that you may achieve anything that you desire. God bless you!" I don't know if Mary has been the sole owner of the book for the last 21 years, but on flipping through it, I see sections underlined and occasional marginal notes in both pencil and ink, including one, undoubtedly Mary's, where she wrote "I wonder what it is like in 2006?" (reacting to Turow's commentary towards the end that law schools were changing in their approaches, especially with younger and more diverse faculties). 

On the verge of rereading One L again, I am wondering what my response to it will be 48 years later after that first read, and 45 years after graduating. Almost every professor I had back then, some of whom would have fit right into Turow's account, has retired; I just got an email that one of the youngest professors of my era is now retiring. (Most of my former professors have also since died.) To the extent any of us in my class respond to calls for Class Notes, most of my classmates have, like me, also retired. 

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." (And yes, it was 1977 when we first read those lines.)

Let's see what galaxies, if any, One L transports me to. 

Inch Ten: The 2026 Garden Season Begins

How about a pot of tomatoes? 

And what a beginning it was!

Between all the "stuff" going on around here (which I have described from time to time) and concerts and visitors and anything else we had going on, I didn't have a whole lot of bandwidth for gardening. Yes, I'd bought some seeds, yes, we'd gone out to our very favorite locally owned farm center (Miller's Country Gardens) and bought pepper, tomato, and red cabbage starts several days back, but...yeah. That was about all the farther we had gotten, with the exception of Warren tilling the kitchen garden, the 10 x 16 plot that will be THE garden this year. 

The plants from Miller's waiting for their time

Last weekend Warren gently nudged me. "Maybe this is a good weekend to get the garden going."

Yeah, it probably was. And so we did, first going to our local Meijer for potting soil (more for flower pots, but needed all the same) and compost. 

And marigolds, of course, for bordering the garden.

In keeping with discoveries (and lessons learned) of years past, I did NOT indulge in tomatoes. Three Early Girl and two Husky Cherries, one of which is in a pot. In they went, nice and quiet.

Tomatoes in (except for the pot; you can see it above)

The peppers and cabbages followed suit. Three cabbages, all in a row; 13 peppers, all sweet. Warren then raked off a bed for lettuce on the far side, and one for basil. These are on the left side as you look at the photo below.

Saturday's efforts

The very back of the garden, with a metal pole temporarily marking the area, we (I) reserved for flowers: zinnias and bee/pollinator mixes. But after Saturday's efforts, I looked at Warren and said, "I can't do anything more today."

And I couldn't. I was exhausted. I was feeling every minute of 70 years old and then some. I was sad a bit about that, but also realistic. Yeah, I'm 70 chronologically, but closer to my early 80s physiologically thanks to 22 years of cancer. And yes, that makes me disabled to boot! 

How disabled? I got those plants in using a gardening stool to sit on, because kneeling or bending over 20 times was 20 times too many.

That being said, I finished it off in fine style on Sunday. 40 marigolds planted along the border, and the flower seeds hand-sown with joy. Again, I had to sit on the gardening stool to get those marigolds in, but it was with great pleasure I tamped No. 40 down and announced "Done!" 

Warren and I did some more yard-related work on Sunday, which resulted in a new holly bush being planted in the front of the house (a sentimental favorite for Warren; the one that died over the winter had been planted by his mother, Ellen, decades ago). Both of us hit Sunday early evening worn out but satisfied. 

There are still seeds, including a hefty amount of cosmos seeds I collected last fall. We will get the cosmos broadcast; Warren wants to move them to a backyard flower bed where we can see their brilliant colors easily from the house. As for the other seeds...well, they may wait until next year's garden.

But the vegetable garden is in. The plants look happy and are standing up straight. Yes, there is more work to be done in the other flower/plant beds, but the vegetable garden is in.

And that is enough for now! 

Waiting to grow

Inch Nine: Music To My Ears

"Jupiter" at the Hannover Proms 2014

As I have written about a lot over the last several weeks (months?), I have a lot on my plate. A lot? At times, it is as if food is dropping off my plate onto the floor, while a smiling server ladles on more food. That being stated, I think I am doing better at taking time—not as much as I need and never as much as I want—for me me me.

One way I am doing this is that I have added a short (and very simple) yoga routine to my mornings and have added a longer (and still very simple) tai chi routine to my evenings. The morning yoga helps me pull myself together before diving into my day, and the evening tai chi (which I absolutely love and will never be able to thank my friend Tani enough for suggesting it) helps me put the day behind me. 

Another way I let go? I listen to "Jupiter" from Gustav Holst's work, The Planets. But I just don't listen to the piece; I watch it on YouTube. And, to be more precise, I watch/listen to one specific performance of it: the 2014 (yes, a lifetime ago) performance by the NDR Radiophilharmonie, conducted by Andrew Manze. 

Yes, I know, I know. There are lots of recordings of "Jupiter" out there, including by some Big Names. But this is the one I return to daily at least once, sometimes more. I love watching the musicians lean into the music; I love seeing Manze's sheer joy on the podium. 

Listening to this helps center me. I play it in my head when I walk. I play it in my head when I go to bed. It is playing in my head right now as I type these words.

For a household where one of us has made and continues to make a living in music for 50 years, we don't have a lot of music playing. If Warren is preparing for a concert, he will listen to the works while studying his score, and when he was preparing his classes, he would listen to short excerpts of this or that, but otherwise, he does not listen to music. And I never listened to a lot of music myself. So for me to listen to "Jupiter" repeatedly has been a seismic shift in the home. 

Maybe because of my listening to Jupiter, maybe because of the weight of some of the days, I have let a little bit more music into my ears and into my life. What, you ask? About anything that David Byrne just performed at Coachella (excellent music for peeling and dicing a boatload of apples last week) and "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Why those selections? Byrne is because I always liked Talking Heads and, after seeing a brief reference to Byrne's Coachella performance, I had to try one song. And then another. And then another. And Queen? Queen is because way back in my past, another lifetime ago, I used to write a monthly article for our then local paper on downtown architecture. I was in private practice, I was supporting two households, I was (no surprise) overextended on too many fronts, and often the only time I had to write (my articles ran 2200+ words) was after 11:00 p.m. Never (NEVER) a night owl, but with too much on my plate (hmmn, that sounds familiar) to get up early to write, I would put on headphones, pop in and turn up Queen's Greatest Hits (recommended by my son Ben), and crank out the article. Those songs, while probably doing significant damage to my hearing, were the stimulant I needed. Those tunes are undoubtedly hardwired into my memory and something last week triggered "Don't Stop Me Now." I found it, I listened to it, and I am now pulling it up every now and then.

"Jupiter," Byrne, and Queen. Music to my ears, indeed. 

Inch Eight: Poetry Month and a G.O.A.T.

One of my Sandburg books; yes, I own others

Warren has been teaching Music Appreciation for Non-Music Majors at Ohio Wesleyan this past year; the last class was yesterday. He has enjoyed it immensely and has already been asked back to teach again next year. And, as a true teacher who understands that students may teach the teacher, Warren has learned much from his young students. One of the things he learned this semester was G.O.A.T. when one student called Mozart a G.O.A.T. 

Warren was baffled. "Mozart is a goat?," he asked, thinking of the barnyard animal. "No!" the student replied, and then explained the acronym. (Warren loved it and then incorporated it into his slides: "Beethoven: Another G.O.A.T." and (my favorite): "Rite of Spring: A G.R.O.A.T.") (The R stands for "Riot.")

With a nod to Warren's experience, I am paying homage to a poet I consider a G.O.A.T. as we close out National Poetry Month. (In looking back, I realize I used to give much more writing time and depth to National Poetry Month; I have unintentionally left it by the wayside.)

My G.O.A.T. in poetry? Carl Sandburg. Sandburg was a contemporary of Robert Frost (no small poet there either) and the two of them, more on Frost's side than Sandburg's, had a running competition throughout their careers. Frost achieved four Pulitzers, all for poetry, and remains the only poet to do so, but Sandburg irked him by, in addition to winning two for poetry, by winning one for his four-volume history, Lincoln: The War Years. 

Me? I love Sandburg for his voice. I love him for seeing and capturing this country in his words. The Lincoln work is monumental. His poetry is monumental. I even own (newly acquired from a Little Free Library in our community) Rootabaga Stories, his creation and telling of American fairy tales instead of retelling European ones.

An amazing LFL find! 

We have been to Sandburg's grave in 2020; his ashes are under a rock at his childhood home in Galesburg, Illinois. And, as I noted in a long ago blog, even though I knew Sandburg had died in 1967, I burst into tears when I finished the Penelope Niven biography of him back in 2014. 

Sandburg and Frost are part of the deep past. Given changes in curriculum nationwide, I would be stunned if either is still read in high school. (I wrote in 2014 about the 2007 vandalization of Frost's home by teens and none of them knowing who Frost was.) And I understand that: poetry does not stand still and there have been decades of great poets since their era. But I also understand that when poetry is cut to the bare bone in curricula, we all are poorer. 

But I am old enough that I know who those poets are and what they gave us. And so here's to Carl Sandburg—okay, and Robert Frost too—for giving us the poetry that stirred them to stir us. 

And that is a good thing to remember—the power of poetry to stir us—as we close out National Poetry Month. 

Inch Seven: Commonplace Books

My commonplace books, 1986 to present

I read a lot. A. Lot. I typically read 200 or more books a year, as well as various magazines, newspapers clippings sent by my dear friend Katrina, writers on Substack, and other blogs. 

I love to read. 

And, as I have written about before, I have been filling commonplace books with quotes collected from all that reading since 1986. (I had earlier commonplace books from the 1970s, but those went away.) I just started Volume 6 this year.

A commonplace book is a longstanding and highly entrenched way for a person to keep information of all kinds, often quotes, sometimes but not always in a notebook. In my case, I capture quotes. (Okay, there's an occasional cartoon or photo, but otherwise just quotes.) 

Commonplace books date back two centuries. Who kept them? Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David Thoreau. Mark Twain. Thomas Hardy. Ronald Reagan. Virginia Woolf. Sherlock Holmes (although I do not know if his creator did). The list is endless.

Last week, I wrote about soldiering on. There's been a lot of it. I have had lots of days where EVERYONE'S needs crowd in front of mine.

But, in the mist of all this soldiering on, I came across a gem of a quote to hang my hat, or my heart, on. It from Sara Conklin's weekly email for her site "Frozen Pennies." Sara wrote:

You don't need a full reset to feel better in your life. You just need to stop abandoning yourself in the middle of it. 

"You just need to stop abandoning yourself in the middle of it." 

Did I save that quote in Volume 6?

You betcha.

 As is becoming more of a habit (once again), I am penning these words out (truly penning, not typing) Tuesday evening. The rest of the evening (it is 8:00 p.m.)? Starting to plan this year's garden by reviewing my notes about last year, and then turning to my current read: Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.

I'm not abandoning myself tonight. 

Inch Six: Soldiering On

Why the oval pan? Because an 8x13 oval will do for a recipe calling for a 9" square pan, and I see no reason to go out and get a pan size that I have seen called for only TWICE in the last 25 years! 

"Soldier on." Many (most? some?) of us know that phrase. It means to keep on keep on keeping on, no matter what the obstacles, no matter what the weather (figuratively or literally), no matter what.

In looking for the origin of that phrase, I expected to find something dating back to WWII or maybe even WWI. Nope. The phrase came into usage in this country in the early 1950s, possibly (probably) in response to the Korean War. That was a war that had no clear goal; that was the war where our country's soldiers were stuck in mud and brutal winter; that was a war that Chaim Potok captured the trudgery so clearly in his novel The Book of Lights (and Potok served as an Army chaplain in South Korea after the war).  

Lately that phrase has been coming to my mind regularly. Both Warren and I have a tremendous capacity to soldier on on our various obligations. Warren is involved in at least six (Six!—Count 'em—Six!) major endeavors right now. Mine are not so numerous, but sometimes just as time consuming. 

Sometimes it would be nice just to say "Not now." 

I'm not talking about the inability to limit my commitments. I have no problem saying "no thank you" to most social interactions, any board invitations, and a whole bunch of other things. I'm talking about the commitments that are a part of me: Dad stuff, Legal Clinic stuff, other family stuff. Oh, and my own medical stuff. 

So why am I whining since I truly cut out that extraneous "stuff"?

Because I am tired of soldiering on. I know I don't have a choice (well, a moral choice, that is) when it comes to Dad, for example. I can accept that.

But I want to go away. not forever, just for a bit.

In a recent phone call with my son Ben, when I said we would not be coming out there this summer—too many obligations, with his Grandpa Dale being one of them—Ben immediately responded.

"Oh, I get it, Mom, I get it." (They lead a busy, overpacked life out there, so Ben does get it.)

I do too. All the same, it hit me hard when, paging through past blog posts, I saw one noting that 2020 and the pandemic lockdown made it the first year since 2013, when Ramona was still LITTLE, that we would not see her either here or out there. 

Oh.

We used to travel more, and just not to the Pacific Northwest. Heck, I used to travel more.

Soldier on.

And most days, trust me, we both do in this household without feeling the weight of that concept weighing us down. And how do I know that? Because Warren had a birthday a few days ago and I made the cake pictured above! No soldiering on there: just joy. 

Inch Five: A New Number

That's an exclamation point on the end! 

Last Friday, I turned 70.

70. 

That was a number, given my initial diagnosis of multiple myeloma (an incurable bone marrow cancer) in 2004, that I never expected to reach.

Ever.

And there have been major health issues since that initial diagnosis that made 70 unlikely. The initial stem cell transplants in 2005 that failed within 90 days? I learned years later that failure changed my prognosis to 18 months. Maybe.

70.

As with many cancers and other terminal illnesses, I have had many times, some chronicled in this blog and all in my personal medical notes, where my overall health declined and the myeloma increased.

70.

And let's not forget my spectacular non-cancer hospitalization in 2023, where I coded in front of my dear Warren, and my less spectacular but still splashy one in 2025.

70.

When I was diagnosed, Sam was 14. I hoped to live long enough to see him reach 18, so my ex-spouse would not be his sole custodian. Sam will be 36 this June.

70.

When I was diagnosed, Ben was just wrapping up his first semester of college. He is now 40, married to Alix for the past almost 16 years, and the father of Orlando and Ramona. 

70.

I never expected to live long enough to see (assuming they were in the cards) grandchildren, let alone the three (don't forget Lyrick!) we have and a 4th one (Warren's daughter) on the way.

70.

20 years ago this summer, Warren and I started to explore a relationship. We had a long, heartfelt, serious discussion (while eating homemade carrot cake in the lot at a grain elevator/railroad crossing in nearby Radnor) about my health. I knew I already loved him dearly, but did not want him or us to go any further without him hearing the scope of my health and my medical needs. Warren listened quietly, then said, "I'm already there for you as your friend. Why would that change?" He made it clear that our being a couple would only deepen that commitment. And he has shown that every single day since.

70.

My birthday (and the days leading up to and then the days after) was filled with texts and cards and emails and calls from all over. The April Justice Bus was the day before and I got birthday hugs from my colleagues. The Day itself included a front door chorus of former coworkers from Juvenile/Probate Court that our friend and neighbor (and judge) Dave had gathered and walked over to our house to sing "Happy Birthday." Later that day, our friend (and conductor and internally known trombonist) Jaime called me and serenaded me on trombone ("Happy Birthday," of course) and then was joined by his dear wife and mother-in-law to shower me with love and birthday wishes.

70.

Alice's Clay Contribution

Our neighbors on one side made me a loaf of "70 bread," and their daughter Alice made me a 70 in polymer clay. 

70.

Birthday Peeps! 

Our neighbors on the other side had me over for tea, Peeps, and a candle to blow out. That sash I am wearing? Dear friends from long ago Stockton days sent that, knowing I was not a "tiara girl."

Sparkly sash and all! 

70.

So here I am, at an age I never thought I would see, and savoring the sweet time.

70.