Dear Reader:

Just before I headed over to Vickie’s beautiful back garden to feed Sweet Fuzz (the cat I am babysitting) her breakfast and pour some clean cool water in her bowl…something caught my eye in my own back yard garden…It was a turtle…slowly making its way across the yard from the fence to the garden path.

I was in the middle of tying up the sunflower stems…they are so tall and thin…they just collapsed under the weight of the torrential rains a few nights ago. (looking like a deflated giant yellow and green mushroom spiral.)

I got some cord…the sunflower stems were sticky and scratchy…not fun to work with…by any stretch of the imagination…but I finally got it done! (It was like tying up a Christmas tree to lug to the car)

When I finally turned round the turtle was missing…no way it could have made it across the big back yard into the garden…but it had…I actually found it on the other side of the garden…this turtle’s name should be “Speedy Gonzales!”

Right after seeing the turtle in the garden…I came across two other turtle symbols (within an hour)…a school teacher/student t-shirt (on-line) and a turtle garden design from a  high school friend on Facebook…

Very strange…Somebody was sending turtle vibes my way…and I finally decided I was being cautioned to slow down in this extreme heat and just cool it inside.

I made one trip out to drop off some start-up supplies for my niece, Bekah and her daughter, Ady in their new apartment…They weren’t home so I left the goodies and gift cards in a bag by their door. Glad they had a happy surprise when they returned! Have fun ordering off Amazon girls! I sure do! 🙂

I got back, fixed a banana sandwich for lunch and fell asleep until I heard Jeff outside…he had returned to cut my bushes out front down, down, down!

They only have been trimmed but never really cut in all the years I have lived here…so  I was ready to get them cut down to my window ledge level…and not have the “giant” azalea bushes and others bushes dominating the front facade of the house.

The azaleas will have to go through an “ugly” wood stage… but not for long with this hot, wet summer we are having…the green foliage will cover it in a blink…in the meantime I am so happy to finally get the front bushes in a more manageable and organized condition.

Now when I look out my window..I don’t see a wall of green any more…but I get to see life in the neighborhood.

Isn’t it hard to believe we are already at the Fourth of July? What is the old adage about time…”The days are long but the years fly by?”

Even deliberately slowing down my personal day yesterday…the sun kept rising, then climbing, then sinking…while the moon took over its cycle of time. No matter what we do or don’t do…stay busy or not…nothing changes the daily natural cycle of life. Thank you God for that one constant comfort of reliability…of dependability!

Even when we ignore time (or try to) life keeps growing in spite of it.

So until tomorrow…While we sometimes (during these pandemic days) seem”stuck” in the waiting room of life…this, too, will pass. In the meantime….Give yourself a “slow” moving day as needed! 🙂 and remember: “Be gentle on yourself.”