The Happy Gardener

Years from now (hopefully), when my wee weary soul finally begins to make its journey over those grey seas, they will rummage through my closets and find all those buttons in my sewing kit. And they'll wonder why they smell like almonds.  To get to the bottom of this mystery, one must travel back a few weeks (from now) - back to India where it all began. (Alternately, they can look on the outside of the box that the buttons are in and figure out that the box held almonds at some point of time). Anyways, let's take the cinematic route. To India - where it all began. We (C,his parents, my parents, and I) flew from Hyderabad to Delhi and back as part of our sightseeing tour. We had paid for snacks along with our tickets (that meal business is a whole another blog) so we got our choice of an assortment of nuts, cookies,etc. So far so good.  But here is the key. These snacks all arrived in cute little tins/boxes instead of the microscopic plastic packages that we're used to i

This is the prologue. Tomorrow morning, when the cat feeder goes off, my mind will vaguely register that it is just getting to 7 o clock. And that's about it. There will be no attempt to open my eyes, no racking of the brains to remember if I have a 9 AM meeting that I need to prepare for, no pondering on what this week will look like work-wise. Sounds good. Yes, tomorrow will be the official first day of our 8 week sabbatical leave. A suggested that I maintain a log of my time off and write about what I did (or rather, did not do) over the course of these weeks. He said it'll be something to look back and read once I'm back to the daily drudgery. He's a precious sun beam, isn't he? Well, I need very little persuasion to write so I decided to take the opportunity anyways. I'll have to figure out how I handle the whole travel piece but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Folks are often surprised when they find out how domesticated I am - I am not

There are facts that make you pause. There are facts that make you wonder and change the way you think about things. And then there are facts that turn your world upside down and change your frame of reference for everything.  I came face to face with one such fact today. It was something that I had long suspected but I finally gathered up the courage to face it today. Here it is in  all its stark, cold horror :  I own 21 pairs of shoes. I had to take a deep breath before and after I typed that sentence. 21 pairs. That's one pair more than twenty. That is two tens and another. Painful. It started with organizing some shoes in the living room. C & I bought bought some new shoes - supposedly for all the hiking and walking we intend to do in NZ and they were lying in the living room along with our daily use shoes. I was putting them away in the coat closet and was appalled by the number of shoes already in there. They seem to be multiplying every time I opened that clos