I’ve had the strangest dreams lately, in part because the world has gone crazy and in part because I keep YouTube playing all night and who knows what gets spoken into my brain. Most of the time I wake up with Emily Baker (retired attorney extraordinaire) reviewing one of the court cases I follow, which are about big, bad crimes with lots of terrible details. No telling what Emily is going over. She’s amazing. So much so that I listen to many of her hour plus videos and live streams, and it’s very hard for me to be still that long. Open YouTube and search Emily Baker and listen in. You’ll love her. And then there’s my personality thrown into that mix and some pretty strange dreams wake me up in the middle of the night.

Here’s my last night’s dream: I was in a bombed out, burned and charred building with no floor left and no roof, but I and a group of my friends were searching for cocktail attire to ‘go out’. I know. I found a red dress that fit, one friend found a black one and one found a cream colored silk one. The TRICK was finding shoes. We all found a pair, but not all at once and not located together. It was like an Easter egg hunt for shoes. Oh, and all clothes were clean, go figure. I woke up just when I had found remnants of a wedding gown, heavy silk, beaded and sequined all over (now that had to be a deep seated illustration of something), torn into 10 inch wide strips… because for some reason I needed a casual scarf to go with my dress. I woke up while my girlfriends were wrinkling their noses about using that piece of wedding dress for ANYTHING. Now this dream tells me a lot, but mostly the resilience of my psyche. Okay, everything is destroyed, but hey, let’s get dressed and to out! It’s gonna be OKAY! If you know me, you know I’d help OTHERS find a dress but you’d have to drag me to a cocktail party. But moving through disasters is something I’ve learned to do well in my life, so…there you go.

I watched a documentary about ravens tonight AND we finally got some much needed rain. I went out on the front porch to move my flower pots into a rainy spot and that was the moment for a huge crack of thunder and of course the leading lightning. Didn’t take me long to move the pots, for sure. So I’m looking forward to some interesting dreams tonight.

I’m grateful for the rain, but we’re going to need a lot more to get us out of this drought. We have rules for watering, and I am also conserving all I can, but my plants are SUF-FER-ING. I dreamed I had to dig out my hydrangeas. Yeah, I did dream that. It’s because 1) they are not blooming; and 2) they are sunburned and dehydrated. Now, understand, this bothers me a lot because I actually care about my plants. I bought some shade cloth to try to give them some relief and it works. Gerbera Daisies are looking much better, as are the hydrangeas. But I wasn’t planning on hiding my flowers under shade cloth all summer, since, you know, I grow them to stare at them.

Anyway guys, we’ve had some discussions about conserving water, and we’ve also talked about light bills. So I DISCOVERED that if I only use the big appliances after 9 pm, my electric bill is a LOT lower. I set the dishwasher on a time delay, so it starts after 9, and I just put in a load of laundry after 9 and/or start the clothes dryer at that time too. This works for me; might not work for you, but I thought I’d share.

Back to the point of this blog post: we have a young, enthusiastic, smart weather guy out of Charlotte that you need to listen to. He’s on YouTube at GM Weather. His name is Gerald Mengel, and wow it’s so good to have someone focus on us for a change. He used to be on a Charlotte news station, but quit to go to YouTube exclusively, and if you follow him, you’ll see why.

My friend says I curse her, because she watches YouTube all the time now. So do I.

I hope you are able to stay cool and have pleasant dreams. I’m very tired of all of the yelling and screaming and burning of buildings and blowing up of the same, that we are experiencing these days. We could go a long way if people would pick up some manners along the way, and learn how to cope with life when it doesn’t go exactly the way we want it to. Coping skills should be taught at first grade and onwards. Better yet, why not start at home. You know, like we USED to. Remember we are told to walk THROUGH the valley, not TO it.

Stay safe and well everyone. (links below to the youtube channels)

Emily D. Baker YouTube Channel (True crime)

 GMWeather YouTube Channel (Weather)