
Mercury Glass Light
In the days before the plague hit (last weekend, the common cold), I was able to get a bit of Spring Cleaning done. My porch feng shui was all out of kilter with dust everywhere, bbq paraphernalia here and there, and old dried gourds wham bam bammed by squirrels. I swabbed the deck, so to speak. Cleaned the ceiling fan, wiped down the front door, purchased a new welcome mat, installed a mini water fountain and strung lights.
The lights were a birthday gift from a friend and a much needed addition to the porch. We're contenders now. We haven't succumbed to the daily grind by letting the house slip away by degrees. It all started with a burnt out light bulb. It reminded me of going to my dad's house years ago and finding an oven that didn't work, burnt out bulbs and stacks of and stacks of accumulation - mail, magazines, the detritus of daily life. When the light above my stove blew out, the memory of my dad's house flooded my memory. There is life here in this house and I was living as though we didn't care about the quality of it.
I'm going to back up because, now that I think of it, it all started a week previous, on a Sunday. I washed my car after years of not washing it. Years. I did it because I thought there was a very real possibility that the grime from the trees had actually fused to the rooftop of my car. It was gray-black and thick. I scrubbed the hell out of that car and again on Wednesday. The exercise wasn't for naught.
I thought about the cats that come to the clinic in filthy carriers. Those are the ones that are usually always the worse off. The owners have just given up; thinking, perhaps, that things will work out all on their own. The pets aren't worth the effort anymore. They've lost their value over the years. I don't want to be that person. I needed to remind myself of what I have and remember how much I appreciate the things that I've worked for. At one time, my car was a new car and someone was excited about it. It's seen better days but it's still serviceable. It was the same with the house and the porch.
It's all dolled up with new jewelry. I'm still playing with Photoshop so please bear with me through this stage of unconventional photo processing. Ironically, using Photoshop doesn't make me want to take more photos, it makes me want to start painting.

Mercury Light String