A thunderous weekend expected

It’s been very warm and late Spring-Like today. Right now temps outside are supposedly in the high 70′s. Tomorrow temp high is supposed to be about 66 degrees F. That’s more like early Spring ;)

We are also supposed to be getting Thunderstorms later tonight and tomorrow. That’s very Spring-like. Volatile weather. I do love those kind of storms, but don’t like it if they cause damage, of course, but that’ s just a fact of life since The Fall of Man in the beginning. Something that must be understood from the Biblical View that is correct … something that Man rejects without being stirred by God, since the Fall disconnected the spirit of Man from God, as Adam and Eve had direct communion with Him at first.

God is shown to us in nature. Thunderstorms are one of those sorts of mighty things that shows God’s work and truth. But this is not enough to make man recognize Him and Who He Is. But it is not His fault. It is the hardened peoples fault. It is enough, should be enough but is NOT since the plan from the beginning was for man to come to God through Jesus Christ. His shed blood for our account is what is needed. Whomever comes to Him is saved. Why? No man comes to the Father lest he be called. No dead man stirs himself. Only a quickened heart may beat alive and answer the call.

God uses nature’s witness to make man understand who He is and answer that call. It’s one of His methods to make man see what his heart condition is like. It’s not the only thing though. The PRIMARY is the Gospel and that is through HEARING the WORD. Is that what saves? No. It is GOD who saves. Hearing the word isn’t magic. IMO it’s the ability to hear the Word that is PROOF of a quickened heart. It’s recognition software, in other words. It’s the truth that drives man to God on his knees. It’s the utter ability to hear and understand, all because of that inward quickening and call.

So the hearing may also then hear the thunder and understand that God’s Might Power is real. This confounds the wicked, those who are of stone hearts. They will explain it in any way they can, but fail to acknowledge God. That is purely the point we turn on constantly. It is not man who comes, but God who calls. It is still though man’s own fault for not coming. Man sinned. Man needs God. God chooses and calls, and those who do not come stay dead, they aren’t called. It’s not for us to grasp and understand. It’s the way it is. God’s Way, not mans. Thank God for that. I thank God for the calling of His Children and for that being the thing that He does in families, not some whim here and there, but a steady wind … ever widening.

I look forward to the rain and wind and lightening and thunder. I pray for the safety of God’s children and things. We should all pray for the safety of His children, but also that God’s Truth may be made known to more souls through the challenges they are presented with in storms such as are marching across the southern U.S. this weekend, as well as other weather damages throughout the world past and future.

Spring continues to break out

It’s another wonderful Spring day. A commenter yesterday was jealous of the weather here. :wink: Surely that is a good thing! For now. Another day I’m sure it would be quite not that. Wait until a month or two has passed and temperatures will be hotter than hot. :veryshocked:

Spring growth is occuring in more places now. Weeds are springing up mightily and faster than that. Just two days ago there wasn’t as much “green” out there, what we call our yards, that is.

I did a bit of work, not much, just a bit, in my herb garden. That’s a great big task to hack at later. The weeds are nasty around the edges, I must move them back and get some sort of brick border installed. I bought a Sage plant and installed that today. I moved some Thyme around too, there are woody dead looking parts, and that’s what I moved. To see if it would come to life over there, fill out another corner, or not. If not, no big deal, it’s in the back, not as primary in view as where it was previously.

On the opposite end of that square of herbaceous-supposed-growing-grounds are two areas with “for show only” value. They are perennials and haven’t started to grow back up to the sun as of yet. No hurry, I say. The weeds are thick throughout that area, and I don’t want to battle them out with tender shoots coming up. Purple Cone Flower is one type, the other I keep forgetting, a Giant “A-something-0r-other”, butterflies love the pink flowers on it. It gets fairly large.

The Yoshino Cherry Trees are starting burst out into flowery beauty. A few of the buds have opened today, first day of Yoshino opened buds. :smile: All the buds, or most of them, are very pink and getting fuller and fuller and I hope to get a good photo when they all burst out into glorious song!

The area around the October Glory Maple in the front yard is needing work. I have to get more flowery plants out there sometime. The grassy weeds are encroaching where I don’t want them, but can’t get them out of there at all. It’s the area that we are naturalizing with … um, you know, star, or burst, or fire, oooh, the name escapes, little perennial bulbs that grow each season and get bigger and bigger. They grow tall green spikes and unfurl their little blooms top down, firey crimson beauties. Onions and grasses are there when the main livers go dormant. That’s late fall through early Spring. Every Spring new little plants spring up. These plants are super producers and naturalize easily. Right now that’s what is happening. Under all the weeds, little cuties are getting green and popping up to become bulbs eventually, if they get that far. The ones that are older are bulbs and will begin to put up spikes again fairly soon.

The pussy willow bush is there too. It’s not really going further, just waiting for something … or … ?

We have so much work to do outside, and not quite enough rescources to fill in what we’d like to. There is renovation work too that we’d like to do, but don’t know if this is the year we’ll be able to, rip out the ocncrete sidewalk and put down a new paver one from a different point and path to the door. That is in accordance to our landscaping plan we had drawn up some years ago. It would give more useful landscaping space outside of the house where the current dining room is. Right now it’s just a 2 foot wide space of dirt and weeds and wildflowers, then concrete sidewalk. I don’t like the sidewalk there. People show up right in front of the door so fast with no warning that way. Talk about shocking an introvert :veryshocked: It’s an efficient walk, to a degree, but not ergonomic nor asthetic. It could be rip out and forgetten easily. A graceful curve from further up the driveway would be nicer, and with a branch up towards the road to the mailbox. Foot traffic then would come down through the property, not down the side and out of view of the occupants of the house as is now.

Plants and dirt and mulch and other things cost so much, so we’ve had to do what we can when we could in the past, and are still doing that. Some years ago we did have some extra $ and we had to decide what to do. We had to put trees in, and had to do that first, so that they could grow and anchor into the land and be the corner posts of all the landscaping. The support framework, whathaveyou. That kind of thing was important to us as we had no trees except for the Locust on the side-line of our property and the neighbors, by the garage. It was the one lone tree.

That one lone tree was once small, but is very big now. It has produce many offspring too. Under our deck is one growing since last year. It’s small, and needs to be moved. Just a foot high, still dormant right now. I think I’ve written about the tree that needs moved that’s in front of the gate … it’s the first big offspring of that big lone Locust tree. It’s really large now, and must be moved this Spring.

I’ve spied new offspring this week too. Little division leafsets coming up. They are peculiar and very noticeable. Thick and definitely not a weed. I’ve grown some of them before, but not to adult hood. I wasn’t a good waterer and they died while still in small containers. I did the same to some baby maple trees. I just don’t have the right area set up to propogate little trees to bigger-hood to then plant in permanent place. But I’ve had fun working with them and seeing what’s what. I will have better success if I can get just a little bit of other stuff done this year.

So I did take those tiny new sprouted Locust seed growths and put two of them in better spots of the back yard, and put a big stick as a marker by them so they won’t get trodden or mowed over.

Two others I have in a little pot, I can’t leave them there, I will kill them if I do :shocked: It’s just a holding tank, for lack of other termage. Once they start getting bigger, putting out roots … they’ll be hungry and thirsty and need to be in the Good Earth.

I’m thinking of veggies now too. I need to get some tomatoes out, and get some seed and grow some tomatoes to put out myself later in the season, for the second half. So I need plants to set out first. I haven’t had good fortune with the ones I had last year. I’m not sure exactly where I’ll get the plants, or where I’ll put them. I’m itching for some good home grown fresh tomatoes though, with sea salt and mayo. Mmm, Mmmm, Mmmmmmmm!

Besides all that, it’s Spring and a happy time of the year, or should be. But it’s a sad time for me. This is the week that is the one year anniversary of miscarrying our 4th baby, and I just can’t get rid of the images of it all. It has nearly split me into two people. One is depressed and one is not. But we are one, not one is truly depressed, only that one is bright and happy, the other is dark and saddened, more sensitive and ouchy, just touched to the very quick of my soul and changed forever. I’m sensitive to this and it’s like a beacon … marking out a place and strobing light hit’s my eyes every so often. It’s empty arms right now when they would have been full, and seeing others that are alive, it just reminds me of the deep pain I carry and am not supposed to unmask for anyone but God. But here it is, that’s the truth and it’s the one year anniversary this week. I can’t help but write about it and put it into the dear Springtime bloomings things.

I’m moreso reminded of it as well because of the place where we get our hen feed from had a fire and one of their barns burned down. Many animals that we looked at and petted just a few short weeks ago lost their lives, and among them a black Ewe who was pregnant when we saw her, and gave birth to twin not long after that, they died in that fire. It haunts me, as do the deaths of this past year and a half that so heavily marked the time for me. Animals and people. My own baby being one of them. So much pain and sorrow. When God wipes the tears from our eyes, we will rejoice, and until then, the tears will fall. When time is no more, sorrow will be no more.

Spring is the season of coming to life. So it’s a happy/sad time for those who have seen death in this time. I’m encouraged by seeing the Yoshino Cherry trees getting ready to bloom. They sang a dirge for me last year, and now break into song again this year. Time marches on.

Mary Sue Candy and Marysue

Someone searched Yahoo for “Marysue Easter Eggs” and a few links for my site came up near the top. That is totally normal I think, since I am Marysue and I talk about eggs often enough, and apparently even have the word “easter” in a post or more than one. ;)

I found out about “Mary Sue Candy” in the form of their Vanilla Butter Cream Easter Eggs long ago in Florida, when I was much younger. I found them in a drug store and bought one due to the name on the little package, and fell in love with the flavour of the actual product. It’s delectable!

I hadn’t thought much about this candy since moving to Georgia, but last year when in The Cracker Barrel one day, I spied a Mary Sue Easter Egg, and had the first one in a long time then.

It’s that time of the year and I’ve been thinking of them on and off, and then here someone else out there thinks about them too and seaches and find my site! :)

Anyhow, as for eggs, we haven’t had our hens laying any for awhile. The last day posted in my egg report for March 2005 before today is uptodate … no more eggs than that. Today though, we got a brown egg! That’s spectacular since it’s been a very long time since we had one of them. Let’s see now, my notes show: March 8 – 1 Brown egg. None of them since then until today. Last white egg: March 18 – 4 White eggs. None so far since as of right now.

We had better production in February, and March has been alright some days, I mean better than the none for weeks on end of winter! March days of laying have averaged about 3 per day, but that doesn’t include non-laying days. Production has been weak, very weak. I hope it’ll go up very soon now that Spring is officially here.

Back to Easter Egg talk. I’m hoping that Frank will get me some Mary Sue Butter Cream easter eggs today while he’s out. I reminded him where he can find them. He thought it interesting about the Yahoo search and me being at the top with the candy company in rankings.

I’m not super surprised though, I get good rankings on many searches. I’m not proud of it, it’s just a fact of being. I talk about things because they are interesting or it was a problem I had with something and I solved it. I like sharing info if it can help even just one person besides myself.

Anyone here know what Mary Sue is? There is a genre of writing that using that as a Litmus Test, there are Mary Sue Litmus Tests out there. It’s a strange genre, not my kind of thing. Good thing. My name isn’t suited to that sort of writing ;) It’s a bizarre world out there.

I had that name given to me in 1966. It meant nothing more than splicing two names together as a compromise. Not my favorite name. Not a good life with that name. I don’t mind it as much now, but insist that I am “Marysue” … not “MarySue” or “Mary Sue”. That’s one reason to adopt a nickname for oneself, and that’s me, “Maisy”. It’s a better fit for me and that’s a fact of life for certain!

There are other “Mary Sue’s” out there, and they are popping up with internet getting more popular. They seem to be creative. I am too. But haven’t done much of anything with my creativeness. :( I have nothing but my amatuer photography in my Photo Blog, and my websites to show for my talents.

One of these days, if I can get stuff accomplished, I hope to have music available … my stylized singing, CD’s, MP3′s. Sigh, but that’s no where close at hand. I have to record somewhere, and just haven’t had that opportunity yet. I have no equipment to suffice for even a hacky job of it. :(

So I am Marysue, but will probably try to make myself moreso Maisy. I’ll be singing from now on as Maisy. I will be writing as me too, that’s Marysue and Maisy as one. Mary Sue was a trial to have as a name being a child … it’s hard to have as an adult too.

So here’s more of a Mary Sue rant:

When you meet someone new they hear your name and say “Nice to meet you Mary.”

Um, I said “Marysue”. I refresh it and retell it and they still say “Nice to meet you Mary” or “Right, Mary”. Urg.

When I send an email to someone it is signed “Marysue”. Responses are oft times to “MarySue”. Urg.

It’s just personal preference for what I like and what is right for me and I wouldn’t fool with YOUR name as such! Why my name? Just because it’s weird?

I could go on with the other types of names … all the forms of “Mary-whatever”. But I won’t.

Of all those, the only one that’s alright to give me is one that is never given, Sue … that’s just as much me as Mary, isn’t it? I see other people with “Mary” and another name attached, they can drop “Mary” with no problem, right inline in a conversation it’s acceptable for a “Mary Jane” to be “Jane” all of a sudden.

So who cares, right? I do. Me, plagued with a name that never has had consistency except to be blander than bland.

Even the Mary Sue of that writing Litmus Test fame isn’t a sweety. She’s the “perfect” thing, a writer putting themselves into their story as a character that is perfect, that’s a Mary Sue character and is not a desired thing in that genre. OK so it’s not a perfect description, I don’t know how to write one. I’m not perfect and know so little about this topic, more than I ever wanted to, in fact. It’s just another reason to want to be who I am without being “Mary Sue” or “Marysue”. Or then it’s the “Take back my name and make it something right”. But then I still haven’t been able to conquer the wrong put-my-name-together-isms, and so, after all is said and done, I am just “Maisy”. :) I am also Suzie-Q, btw. That’s another pseudonym of mine. As a child my mother called me, seldomly, just occasionally, Susie Q, and I don’t know why it never was upgraded to a real nickname, it was superb and I loved it. I otherwise had no real nickname, not that I needed one, but since my woes with my “real” name were so hefty, and easier nickname could have been real gain for me.

One might think that if my name is Mary Sue I would hear my name if I heard “Mary” called. I never have. If I hear “Sue” or “Susie” or “Susan” called I perk up and think of my name as being that automatically. It’s not that I conditioned myself to that. It’s always been that way for me. Hence my discomfort with “Mary anything” it’s just such a plain name, ever too popular for my own zone of living. Go figure I’d marry someone with the first name of “Frank”. Did you know that nearly every movie has a “Frank” in it, TV has an awful big share of them too. I do mean “character names” mind you. Passing through any smallish town you can see “Frank’s Garage” or “Franks House of …” or “Frank’s Pawn” or “Frank’s Bar and Grill” , etc.

It’s really plain, I’m being Frank about it. :)

I made a point about my children having true first and middle names, and that they’d have nice names. Able to be perverted, yes, isn’t any name? But less so needful and on purpose we’d call them their first names. Me, I was “Mary Sue”. It was my name. Not really first and middle names, just two first names that never were separated legally. They were one name, with a little tiny space between them. I put them together in my later young years. Legality people don’t care. Why should they anyhow? It’s me with a space or not, capitilized or not. I’m not a name, I’m a dumb SS#. :rolleyes:

So I am who I am. It’s not that people can’t change their names. Sure they can. Sometimes it happens in childhood, or at school or home at any point. It’s is sometimes oneself that does it, but more so rare, I think. I’ve done it. It’s me and no one else has been interested in naming me properly, that’s then my job. Being an Introvert it makes more sense about this who name thing … why it’s been as it has and why it’s come to me being the one to confirm a name choice on myself different from birth certif. name.

Do what y’all want to with that Mary Sue stuff. It’s a familiar name, but I’m not attached to it tremendously and think of myself as “Crazy Maisy” more oft than not nowadays. :)

But I still like Mary Sue Candies. Those easter eggs are good. Vanilla Butter Cream is my favorite. Chocolate Butter Cream is my second favorite. They are just little things, a nice snack. Grab handful. If you don’t like them, send them to me via post!

Spring Plant Profile

Our trees, etc:

Autumn Flame Maple – 3 : blooming
October Glory Maple – 1: nearing readiness to bloom
Weeping Willow – 1: leafed out and getting longer
Apple: 3: waiting until April
Yoshino Cherry – 3: getting ready to bloom soon
Cherokee Chief Dogwood – 2: getting ready to open blooms
The mystery tree we forgot the name of – 1: blooming and leafing out
Various other little trees are starting to grow and put leaves out, no blooms on them.

Pussy Willow bush is ready to go, but isn’t yet.

Peony bushes are pushing up their burgundy spikes still.

Hostas are pushing up their purpleish spikes now too.

Iris – several plants – are growing more again

Lambs Ear – 1: is getting new growth going and extending itself further

1 unknown bulb is putting up leaves, but don’t know what it is. (it’s never flowered in previous years, it’s something left from something I planted there a few years ago that never did anything)

In my herb garden the two varieties of Thyme there are growing more, the Spring Thing! I gave them a hair cut the other week as well.

BeeBalm is getting a bit more spunky, expect it to start growing upwards again soon.

Chives are getting spunky too, starting to put out bigger greener Springy tubes.

That’s not all, there is more, but those are the main plants. It’s Spring!