Just 10 Hours

What can you do in 10 hours?
If I ever had 10 hours straight to work in the yard, I could mow the grass, do the edging, trim the bushes, clean the gutters, get rid of weeds, sweep the walks, and enjoy several breaks for big glasses of cold water.
At work I could proofread one whole 68-page issue of the Christian Standard in its new monthly format, proofread one weekly issue of The Lookout, enjoy a lunch out of the office with a colleague, handle some correspondence, and waste some time checking Facebook.
In 10 hours I could pull out and test the Christmas lights, go to the store to replace the strands not working, string 'em around the bushes in my front yard, come back inside to unpack and assemble our prelit living room tree, hang the ornaments, and take a few breaks to find my favorite Christmas CD's to enjoy while I'm decorating.

Obviously, I didn't drive every minute.
I couldn't resist playing with the camera
on my computer while Evelyn was driving.

In 10 hours I could drive to the airport, check bags, go through security, and fly to Europe with time to spare.

And in 10 hours, or maybe a little more, I can drive from 7056 Darcie Drive in Liberty Township, Ohio to the Brick Hotel in Newtown, Pennsylvania, having stopped three times: once for gas, once for a late lunch at Eat 'n Park, and once more to visit the restroom and snag a tall decaf mocha at a Service Plaza on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

We had a good trip yesterday. Left exactly at 9:00 a.m. as planned. Enjoyed perfect weather (off and on sunshine and clouds and 50+ degrees), reasonable traffic except for one stretch on I-276 toward the end of the trip, and a nice assortment of classical music and NPR news on the radio, mixed with two editions of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" I had downloaded to my computer from iTunes.

We checked in to the hotel and then got to Jen and Matt's by about 8:00 for a nice visit along with pumpkin cheesecake and decaf. We oooed and ahhhed over their latest round of renovations (a professional tile job on the kitchen floor by Matt, the amateur, and an amateur paint job in the living room and dining room by some workmen, the professionals) and visited till past 11:00.

This morning we're taking our time with showers, breakfast at the hotel, catching up on e-mails and some other work, and hopefully browsing the little shops in Newtown before heading over to Jen's by noon or so to run errands, start cooking for tomorrow, and enjoy more relaxing and reading.

Ten hours is a small investment for the chance to enjoy time with our family (Geoff and Lisa will be here tomorrow!). 

The Production Continues

The November issue of Christian Standard has been printed; copies should be in the mail now. The boxes of samples arrived Friday, and my copies were waiting for me when I got in the office this morning. Doug Priest, one of our contributing editors and the leader of Christian Missionary Fellowship, Inc., helped assemble the articles, and much of the photography, including these two wonderful shots, were supplied by missionaries and missions agencies. We'll be distributing samples of this issue at the International Conference on Missions in November, and we're pretty pleased with what this one contains.
Even after just one day out of the office, there was catching up to do today--mainly correspondence to handle. Today is the deadline for most of the copy for our January issue, so, thankfully, a lot of the material was coming in via e-mail throughout the day.
I spent some time looking over the Magazines budget for 2013. I'm "on call" to come defend the budget  sometime tomorrow.
Evelyn mowed most of the yard before supper this evening. She saved just a little (most of the front) for me to do. After I mowed I put down some grass seed in a couple of bare spots, threw away some plants that are done for the summer, and picked tomatoes. Yes, for the record, on October 15 we are still getting ripe tomatoes from the garden. (The skins on some of 'em are pretty thick, but Evelyn was able to salvage enough of one to liven up our salad for supper.) It's supposed to be cold tonight, down to 39 degrees. I'm thinking temperatures like those may be contributing to the thick skins on these tomatoes. If it doesn't freeze this week, though, we should have several more ripe by the weekend.

Still Growing, Still Mowing

Yesterday was gray and cold. Today was sunny and a few degrees warmer, so we mowed grass after work before supper. Actually, Evelyn mowed most of it. I finished up when I got home and then trimmed and swept. The afternoon was sunny and bright, but at 50-plus degrees, we were mowing in sweatshirts.
Evelyn put supper together while I was finishing up outside. She had made a new soup recipe yesterday: pasta bean soup. It was great. We had it with a salad that used the last of our cherry tomatoes with some mozzarella I had bought on a whim at Fresh Market Saturday. I grabbed some flowers from the backyard before I came in. They're saying frost warning tonight, but I figure it won't come. (They usually warn several times before it actually happens.) But if this is the last bouquet of the summer, we'll enjoy it.
I know this was just another Monday. But when it's possible, it's refreshing to make meal time a special time, and tonight's was.

The Grass Is Always Greener . . .

The grass is always greener . . . when you pay a guy to dump fertilizer on it, when he spreads gypsum and lime and then aerates and adds grass seed. THEN the grass gets greener. And as I was mowing tonight, just 5 days since Evelyn mowed it while I was gone this weekend, I was looking closely at the neighbors' grass so I could feel good about all the money I'm pouring onto my lawn. The issue, of course, isn't just GREEN. It's green-ER. No pride here, of course, it's just a desire to upgrade the environment, you know.
Anyway, while I was mowing, I looked carefully at the lawn just beyond my driveway, and I felt a slight sense of satisfaction because I do believe that one neighbor, at least, has a yellow tinge to his lawn that I'm just not seein' in mine.
Of course several days in a row of steady rain hasn't hurt anybody's lawn, and I have to admit that a quick drive through our neighborhood shows everyone's lawn looking a lot like spring.
We had a 70-plus degree afternoon today, with green lawns under trees turning gold and maroon, and it was just beautiful. I even enjoyed mowing the lawn!

I got out of the office at lunchtime, because my buddy Robb Faust needed someone to pick him up from the car rental office after he returned the Toyota he drove to the NACC meeting this week. I was glad to be in the warm autumn air. But tomorrow I think I'll stay in all day.