It's Charming!

  As you can probably tell by now, I am not one that obsesses over perfection.  Things do not have to meet others' standards to be ok by me.  If I have a stack of books on the coffee table, no problem.  If the chairs in the living room do not match, why worry?  If there are waning blooms on a bush, so be it.  There are far too many other things to deal with for me to get my shorts in a wad fretting over things that truly do not matter.  In fact, it was those waning blooms on the crepe myrtle bush that actually brought a smile, this morning.  I am glad I have not trimmed them.  

  You have heard me mention Pop and his impeccable gardens.  The man worked hard to keep things neat as a pin.  You would have thought that some of that would have rubbed off on me but, while I find happiness in the gardens, mine are quite unkempt by his standards.  I leave the morning glories grow where they sprout, the jasmine has wandered far too rampantly and those crepe myrtles. oh, those crepe myrtles.  (And, yes, I do know the proper spelling is "crape myrtle" not "crepe myrtle".  It is a Southern thing, folks.  We figure those crinkly blooms look far too much like the "crepe" paper for the flower to be called anything else. Get used to it.)  The crepe myrtles just keep blooming even though they are down to spindly clusters now.  It matters not.  They are still providing color to the gardens.  I shall let them bloom.

  The crepe myrtle bushes that I have are all from cuttings from the old farm place.  Pop had a row across the front of the property along the roadside.  There were probably twenty or more of the bushes all in a straight row about ten feet from the road edge.  Each year, he would prune those bushes until they were beautifully rounded little trees and then the tops would burst open in a blaze of color.  Most were of a vivid pink but there was one...one lone purplish one that grew at the very end of the row and looked sort of like a misfit in the bunch.  (Sort of like me...the misfit of the bunch.)  Today's scraggly blooms were of the purplish hue and it stood out like a sore thumb.  Why?  Well, for some odd reason, I have only one purple blooming crepe myrtle.  All the rest are that hot pink.  I did not plan this nor did I plan on my purple crepe myrtle being on the very end of a row of nine bushes that edge the garden.  It just happened.  Obviously, when I took the cuttings only one purple slip took.  Then, since the shrubs were tiny when I planted them, there was no deciphering what the colors would be when the bush finally bloomed.  Like I said, it just happened.  That unique purple bloomer would drive some folks nuts!  I find it charming.  In fact, I guess that is pretty much the way I look at things...charming.  The stack of books, the odd chairs, the scraggly blooms...they are all charming and make me smile.  That is all that matters.