Yesterday Chuck, my sweet husband, gently hoisted our sunflower like a giant flagpole ...and tied it to the garage with garden twine. Its leaves were wilted but he gave it a good drink after standing it back up. This morning that plucky sunflower stood towering cheerily over the garage roof...looking almost back to normal!
Don't you just love to see the underdog come back? Sometimes all it takes is a little help from a friend! Stay sunny!!
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Every morning we look out our bathroom window at our raucous little vegetable garden in the backyard below. Chuck and I have been keeping an eye on the mammoth sunflowers planted among the okra and cantaloupe in front of the garage wall. It's been kind of like watching a horse race...even though all the seeds were planted at the same time...some of the sunflowers are outrunning the others by a mile!
One sunflower amazed us for days as it grew a few feet taller than where the roof and wall of our ancient garage meet...still no bloom but inching its way to the treetops. So you can imagine our disappointment 2 days ago when we looked out the window and the sunflower was nowhere to be seen!
That morning I shuffled out to the garden to have a look. I "shuffled" because I had pulled some muscles in my back a few days before and had been moving in slow motion ever since...a frustrating situation for a gardener who loves pulling hundreds of feet of water hose all over the front and backyard gardens.
Anyway, the giant sunflower had not walked off, but had fallen over from its weight and was lying on the ground beside the tomatoes in our raised beds...its petals almost ready to unfurl...its roots now mostly out of the ground. What a shame to see this enormous flower come to such sad end...right before it was about to do what it was supposed to do...BLOOM! I couldn't leave it lying on the ground like that so I propped it up on the post that was holding up the tomatoes in the raised bed...the uprooted sunflower was leaning precariously at a 45 degree angle. I watered its roots and went inside.
This morning I looked out the bathroom window to check on the sunflower. It was still at an awkward looking angle...but it had managed to turn its large head toward the sun and unfurl its petals. It sort of looked like somebody in a lounge chair relaxing in the sunshine!
That sunflower may have been down but it wasn't out!!
Challenges can be frustrating and discouraging. Whether it's a temporary inconvenience like me and my sore muscles or a more serious overwhelming life situation that you may be facing right now...we can take a cue from the flowers...nature may not be perfect but it's always persistent...and we can still bloom...maybe in a different way than we had planned...if we act like that fallen sunflower...and keep our sunny side up!!
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I am definitely starting the New Year out of my comfort zone!! My friend, Montrue, and I are hosting refreshments for the garden club meeting tomorrow...that's where the chocolate pound cake comes in. It's cooking in my oven even as I write...and that's where Eleanor Roosevelt comes in! Maybe I should explain.
Every month the Chatham Garden Club meets in one of the churches here in town. The meeting begins with dessert and coffee hosted by two members. All of the women in Chatham are wonderful southern cooks so this part of the meeting is always a treat. The serving table is always set with a silver service and dessert plates of mouth watering slices of homemade cake or pie. A beautiful centerpiece of flowers completes the table.
Now, I consider myself a capable person. I graduated from college with honors. I can calmly figure out most problems that confront me. If I were asked to write a poem for the garden club, I would do it with joy and confidence. Arranging flowers is something that is fun and calming to me.
But the cake...baking the cake...now that is something that sends a paralyzing shot of fear right down my spine! There are so many things that can go wrong with a cake!! Even a delicious cake can break in half when you try to take it out of the pan...when you ice it...the crumbs can get in the icing and make it look lumpy! Or worst of all...you can leave something out...like the vanilla flavoring...and have to start all over again! It makes me sweat just thinking about it!!
Montrue is a wonderful cook and hostess. But her oven is not cooking right so we decided we would just buy our dessert. She and her husband, Bill, went this morning to the grocery to gather our supplies.
And that gets me back to Eleanor Roosevelt and her famous quote, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." That quote helped me have the courage to get over my fear of public speaking five years ago. So I decided today to see if it would work on cakes!
I called Montrue and told her I really wanted to try to make the cakes and she said okay...she would handle everything else. That shows what a good friend she really is...she's seen me bake before!!
I've been cooking chocolate pound cakes since 10:30 this morning. It's now almost 9 pm... and 2 cakes and 4 dishwasher loads later, I'm finished. Montrue said my kitchen looked like something out of an "I Love Lucy" episode!
I did forget to put the vanilla flavoring in the first cake. I remembered as soon as I put the pan in the oven...so I took it out... poured it all back in the mixing bowl...added the vanilla...washed and re-greased and re-floured the tube pan...and poured it back in. It was somehow able to overcome my abuse and be a real chocolate pound cake after all.
Like me, the pound cakes are not perfect. The chocolate icing could have been a little creamier but I managed to get it on both cakes by pretending that I was spackling a wall...that is something I do know how to do!!
Tomorrow we'll take the cakes to the church and have dessert. It won't be the prettiest or best dessert ever served at the garden club. But it did make me start the year way out of my comfort zone...and I survived the day...and I'm not afraid of cake anymore. Eleanor Roosevelt was right!!
Montrue and I at the Chatham Garden Club
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Our town is a couple of hours from the Virginia Tech campus. People in Chatham can be divided in two categories--either you are a Hokie or you know and love one! Hokie flags fly proudly from front porches year round. Little boys have Hokie ballcaps and little girls wear maroon smocked dresses with the Hokie mascot embroidered on the yoke. Even UVA grads know that there's no stopping the Hokie spirit!
This week's tragedy at Virginia Tech has hit our community in a very personal way. We know students who lost friends and classmates. We've talked with students who are safely back home and can feel their pain and sadness as we look into their eyes. And our hearts ache...
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If you've got a dream...you've undoubtedly met with obstacles. Well, here's a little visual encouragement from a determined little johnny jump up! I discovered him growi
ng through the gravel in our driveway with his little chin up looking beautiful! I planted his mother in the flower bed beside the driveway last spring. I guess a seed washed out into the middle of the drive and somehow took hold. This little fellow persevered through the clay and gravel reaching for the sunshine. We walked on him and drove over him, but he kept on doing what he was created to do...bloom!
When you get discouraged in pursuit of your dream...remember johnny jump up...you can do it, too!
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