A Contemplative Life

Guests have gone, a quiet house this evening. Fog rolled in a couple of hours ago and my goodness it's as thick as it was early this morning. Family has landed in their respective domiciles where it's not at all marine-layer-like, lol. Funny how within one state, albeit a large state, the weather and climates can be so different. I think I'll sleep well tonight, pondering how being close to routine still feels a little strange. Hosting several beloveds became immediately normal and now that altered normalcy is quiet, foggy, autumnal. Earlier sunsets and later sunrises get a little lost in the card game shuffle, long chats, and lots of dishes washed. Now it's truly October, very much fall, and with four molting hens to boot, lots of change occurring. Ruthie on the baby perch while Cami looks on. Photo courtesy of my husband from this evening. Cami and Owl are both looking scraggly, Welsummer as well, though she still has tail feathers. Camilla is hinting at the molt, wha...

Hearts along the edge sewn last night, including different colours of the same print, lol. Some people have trouble with the word blessed . It conjures a false sense of living, it conjures the hypocrisy of America's current government, it conjures anguish for pain suffered at the hands of those espousing religious sentiment or judgement. I understand it's a difficult word for some people in this moment of history. However, I'd be remiss not to use it for how it applies to my manner of living in Christ's expansive and inclusive love. If that offends, I apologize, but I also ask you to hear me out. And if you can't or don't wish to hear me out, I sincerely wish you a peaceful day. Okay, so I was going to make sausage/carrot chili this afternoon, but my goodness last night's Warm Hearted Quilt stitching did a real number on my relatively feeling good right shoulder. Sigh. I recently had a biopsy on a very small red spot on my arm, and the wound care requires Va...

If we give everything away, we have nothing to lose. My BFF left early this morning, a few days of World Cup games, card games (gin rummy, which I'm hoping to teach to my eldest grandson), MUCH CONVERSATION amid football and gin rummy, and sharing last night's fireworks seated in the closed-off parking lot nearest to the Fisherman's Statue at the Woodley Island Marina in Eureka. We'd never taken her there, and she wandered over to the Fisherman, who honors those lost at sea. Meanwhile I snuggled under my Quilt of Grace as it was a marine layer evening that became a misty, breezy night as we waited for darkness to fall. Fireworks began before the ten p.m. announced start time, and were quite impressive! Only a few headed into the clouds, slightly lessening their brightness, but all in all it was a marvelous show, and we headed home grateful for the outing, and for forty-five years of friendship shared. Cropped from a landscape shot, but a decent example of how large is t...

Gigi Chicken, quite contemplative. May 2026; photo courtesy of my husband. I remember fifty years ago as the bicentennial approached; I was very excited to celebrate something so seemingly momentous! Bicentennial quarters were the rage, lol, as well as the sense of being aware of a part of history I would recall throughout my lifetime. Fifty years later, I'm not planning to celebrate America's independence day other than perhaps going to some local fireworks with my bestie, visiting for the weekend. More on my mind are things far less temporal, corporeal. The kinds of notions one ponders as age imparts. For certainly, I'm not ten years old any more, LOL. Clouds from May 2026. Yesterday my bestie noted that in where we live, amid nature and its marvelous spoils, a quiet life removed from even a medium town's bustle has altered my husband and me, to which I heartily agreed. This was spoken as we watched one of the three World Cup games, she LOVES football and tournaments....

Yesterday I finished arranging this on the design wall. Might start sewing it together later today, a post to write about how machine sewing has made its surprise return to my life, like embracing the impending time change.... I know Daylight Savings Time begins in a little over a week, but recently, like yesterday maybe, I came to the realization that the five weeks it takes for us here on the North Coast to reclaim all that morning sunlight isn't the be-all, end-all as I often believe it is. That this year, instead of whinging how suddenly the mornings are dark again, I'll use that time to get my early a.m. stuff accomplished. Then someone will feed those chickens, lol.... Does the switch from Standard Time to DST bother you? It never previously irritated me until we moved to Humboldt County and I could SEE the morning light; no longer was it obscured by houses in our tightly packed Silicon Valley neighborhood. I don't recall what I thought of it when we lived in the UK, ...

A top is finished. Photographed a couple of days ago when the sun shone brightly, lol. Now it covers a guest bed as the wall harbors what will be the back. I'm not writing more than these posts, but the sewing is going full tilt! I don't have much more to say about this rainbow quilt top, other than I will add a border because it's a tad smaller than the back, and when using the Kawandi method, both top and back are about the same size. And this way the rainbow perimeter squares won't be smaller than the rest; with Kawandi, you fold in the back and top edges about half an inch, the batting tucked under the back fold, if that makes sense. When I begin that process, I'll include some photos, or maybe in a few days, when the mystery quilt reaches its destination, I'll yammer about it in that post. I truly LOVE not dealing with quilt bindings anymore, and I don't mind at all the slower, hand-stitching manner which Kawandi promotes. Something very old-school and...

Making some hand-quilting progress on this Lucy Boston quilt. My life, really. My faith. And, well, read on.... I don't want to negate the suffering currently happening not only here in America, but planet-wide. Yet, YET! There is much for which to be grateful. Like my faith. Which I don't discuss too deeply, but maybe I should, so this post can be better understood. Or I could direct you to this page on my blog, which talks about it. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Because for some people faith in God isn't a comfortable subject, especially right now due to how falsely faith in God is portrayed by many in my nation's government. I have no problem saying that because refusing to authorize affordable health care and releasing monies for SNAP benefits is NOT loving one's neighbor. Yet blessings abound, and I would be just as remiss if I didn't denote the goodness of this world. That I'm alive is a miracle. That I can write novels is a marvel. That I mainta...