Seasonal Updates and a Sneak-Peek Scene

I picked up this ornamental pepper plant

on the last business day at a local plant nursery. 

"Wow--last day! You must be so excited to have some time off."

But the nurseryman didn't seem thrilled. 

At least not as thrilled as I was for him. 

The tiny peppers were all purple, then turned 

a lovely, seasonal orange.

I got outside with my "real" camera on a foggy 

morning this week. Mist laced every spiderweb 

with delicate droplets. As the sun burned through 

the haze, it turned the drops to diamonds.

My heavenly blue morning glory vine is finally showing off. 

The vines have tangled themselves into a crown studded 

with sun-pointing buds. The base of the vine is as 

thick as a young tree--amazing.

Side Note: 

I've been working on a novella set in midcentury bluegrass Kentucky. I'd love to hear what you think about this scene from chapter 8. Main character, Etta Everman, a curmudgeonly spinster, made it to church early and picked her favorite seat...

    The Cedar Bridge United Methodist Church opened its doors for Sunday services at 9 o’clock. It wasn’t easy to dress properly, have a cup of tea, and walk around the corner in time to be early, but always worth the effort. If she’d been five minutes later, she’d have to watch in the narrow vestibule while the deacon pulled the bell rope. Witnessing his delight at the slight hop he received from the pull of the bell on the rope was embarrassing. Where was the dignity of the church elders? Long gone, that’s what.

    Not today, though. Etta rested in her half-pew, third from the front, on the pulpit side. She relished the half-pew, knowing if she sat in the middle, no one would be able to squeeze in on either side. She placed her Bible to her left and her black handbag to her right on the red twill. Only the pastor’s wife would sit in front of her, as was proper. The new pastor’s young children would be downstairs singing or praying—or whatever children did down there. 

    In her childhood, Etta’s family filled the second row from the back, choir side on the Sabbath Day. Mama’s favorite stained-glass panel, to the near right, featured white Easter lilies. After Mama passed, her father wanted to sit in the back pew so he could leave whenever he had a mind to. When he’d stopped going, Etta enjoyed attending alone. But she hadn’t always been alone, had she? 

    Etta pulled her purse to her lap and unsnapped it to retrieve a hanky. She smoothed the thin white fabric and fingered the blue-stitched initials in the corner—T. F. It was one of his, a left-behind, unlikely keepsake. She swiped her nose with the quartered square. No use thinking about all that mess now, not when she had this afternoon’s dinner with Claiborne Lee and his family to consider.