A Contemplative Life

September carries significance for me, birthdays of those I deeply love alongside the loss of my brother Joe, who took his life twenty-nine years ago. These joys and sorrows are carefully balanced within my heart, many for whom I pray. Last year I wrote a post about Suicide Prevention Awareness Month . Again it's that time of year. I don't know why autumn was chosen to highlight it, but I certainly feel it, as my niece took her life in October of 2019. She was about the same age as my brother when he died, not sure what that means in the grand scheme, other than those in their mid-twenties, with so much ahead of them, slip away to a place which I pray is far more peaceful than the realm they left. 988 is the number to call or text if you need help. For veterans, call 988 and press 1 to connect with counselors who understand your experiences. We want to love you here and now. Yet, I understand that sense of despair, feeling one's existence holds no purpose; when I was I fi...

An uncomplicated pretty quilt top. Thanks Past Me for putting in the time cutting fabric, etc. Sewing and walking slowly, Metamucil, and being happy about it all, lol. Yes, this is how I felt today. Well, I was a little shouty on Bluesky, but that was the kind of thing that happens every once in a while because, well, I'm approaching the age where at times I don't give a fig. Where a notion pops into my head and it's like, "Oh yeah! And why haven't I thought of that previously?" Am I going to be a snarky old gal, hmmmm. Future Me is a wee bit...impatient at times, maybe not quite snarky, but certainly.... I just looked up the definition of snarky (critical, irritable, bad-tempered) and I'm not happy with any of those. Or maybe smirky is a better way to describe Future Me. Or some halfway point between the two. Not that I can see Future Me smirking, she's actually not around. But as though I am stepping into her shoes, I feel that smirk creeping over m...

Top two rows are stitched together, with the third pinned and waiting. Welp, as my eldest likes to say, it's Tuesday. The equinox has occurred, fall in place mostly in the lessening daylight, although this morning we started with clear skies and bright sun, once the sun rose, lol. I was knocked off my feet over the weekend, just starting to feel human again. Sometimes life throw curve balls, and we end up on our backsides, wondering what the hey's going on. September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Three of my beloveds have taken their lives, including my brother and niece. I wanted to write something meaningful about the subject, but now I feel like I'm just scraping the surface, yet it's imperative to tell those we love who are fighting depression that we are here for them, that they matter. 988 is the number to call or text if you need help. For veterans, call 988 and press 1 to connect with counselors who understand your experiences. Please know that so many ...

One finished side block, another underway. Despite beginning to stitch edge pieces to Mandolin blocks, other edge pieces remain left to hew together. Sometimes it feels like hewing, lol, but I am grateful to have underway the joining process for said quilt! Which, as these things occasionally go, might not take as long as I thought because when sewing blocks, be they half or quarter-sized, all those little and large pieces need to be attached in a whole, of sorts, half or quarter element notwithstanding. But drawing all those blocks into a WHOLE is merely stitching edges to one another. And yeah, that's some hefty handsewing, but not quite as much as I thought previously. So that means this Mandolin quilt top *could* be completed before the end of the year. Which if you'd asked me a few days ago, I'd have shaken my head, smirking. Next year fer shure, I'd have smiled. Future Me is smiling, I see her almost breaking into giggles. Not sure over what, but something has her...

The breaks in the cloud are faint, but cannot be dismissed! The sun isn't shining, a menacing marine layer keeping those of us along the North Coast aching in the gray. However to the southeast a break in the mundane is trying to emerge. This delicious light stirs me to write this post, because despite it being the high days of summer, our landscape has felt like the dark days of late autumn for too damn long. A metaphor perhaps for all that blankets our current world scene? Sure! Big ugly legislation, miserable conditions everywhere we turn, natural disasters wreaking havoc, tender souls wrenched from reality; all these traumas want to strip our joy, leave us bereft. I woke to another gray morning, assuming the flat dull horizon would remain. However peeks of brightness remind me that all is not lost. Goodness prevails. Does this mean the sun and blue sky are about to muscle in, shoving the dreariness aside? No. The marine layer is far too entrenched for that to occur AT THIS MOME...

I've spent much of this day prepping my next novel for release. Brave the Skies: The Hawk Book Two has been published tonight! As it takes Smashwords/Draft2Digital several hours to get a newly published novel onto the Smashwords store, I have chosen to upload a new book in the evenings, Pacific Daylight (or Standard) Time, then happily find my story the following morning. Publishing novels isn't an earth-shattering experience, although writing a book and getting it to this stage takes much time, work, self-belief, and assistance from those who have been in my corner for the last thirteen years of indie publication, over seventeen years on my overall authorial journey. For seventeen years I have actively written/revised fiction, and despite the writing feeling a little thin recently, I have been heavy into edits both for The Hawk and The Enran Chronicles . Two series at one time is indeed a LOT of effort, taking away from time I'd love to craft a new story. After Brave the...

Dark starry sky from 5.21 a.m. PST today. The act of publishing a book. Then actually letting it go.... After the first death (or goodbye of whatever sorts), others accumulate. It's the nature of life, which is consoled by new shinies that distract or ease or heal said losses. Maybe that Splitting the Sky is a standalone, rare in my noveling wheelhouse, makes it harder for me to simply walk away. And yes, it's only been one friggin' day, but somehow yesterday felt.... Bereft. Perhaps the new administration added to that sense of WTF, well, of course it did. LOL not LOL, yet that wasn't the only reason I kept feeling like my heart was empty. Well, not empty. Depleted. Askew. Changed. How you feel after one much loved passes. Or something similarly disturbing. Or altering. Or whatever. Whatever dude, what the eff ever. Okay, this is definitely related to yesterday's hoo haa. Did I predict that sense of WTF-ever when I decided to release a book on Inauguration Day, ob...

Trinidad Head from Saturday, 11 January 2025. It was blowy and cold, but nice to observe from inside the car. "I don't see how anybody can predetermine how their movie is going to turn out, or why anybody would want to, because it's a creative thing that is changing every day, and you're changing every day while you work on it. You start to make a movie, and when you finish it you'll be a different person." - Barbara Loden I read this quote earlier today and obviously it struck a chord. Not that I'm planning to make a movie soon (or ever). Only that I'm hoping to start writing soon (or ever again). And the first (long) line proffered me a whole lotta freedom. I have notions how the story will end, snippets of ideas for the middle, but no clear path for how to get from Chapter 3 (because I'm keeping Chapters 1 & 2 that I wrote last year) to say, Chapter Question Mark. I don't even know how lengthy of a story this will be. Not The Hawk l...

While the Carter family absorbs the loss of their patriarch, I watched Jimmy Carter's funeral with a sense of peace. Joy. Recollection to simpler times before all this modern technology when it seemed that strength of character and honesty mattered. Perhaps I'm blinded, wearing rose-coloured glasses tinted by the vibrant pink sun pictured above. Regardless, I needed a throng of eulogies to lift my mood and dangit I received that in full yesterday morning. It's funny what can herald a breakthrough in one's emotional state, their creative endeavors, or physical well-being. I needed a presidential state funeral, okay! What I NEEDED was the reminder that goodness matters, selflessness is imperative, decency isn't superfluous. Good lessons all round. But what about that bright pink sun? That scrap of Kaffe Fassett material had been slated to go into the block below. Yet when I tried fitting it in, its massive PINKNESS overwhelmed the rest of the hexagons, so to the offic...

  The hourly forecast for Saturday; indicative of my mood are the clouds, but if no rain falls, I'll be SO GRATEFUL (also indicative of my hope for the future). Recently a dear friend sent an email about being patient, trusting, and celebrating exactly where I am right now. I was grateful for her grace, that peace, and the accompanying anecdote about happy pigeons proffering a glimpse between where I currently stand and a world just beyond the veil. Where I am right now feels like thin ice, although Future Me is holding my hand, reminding that she just told me things were gonna suck. She squeezes my fingers as if to confirm that notion, the pressure not harsh but healing. She and I have been in some VERY DEEP VALLEYS, Past Me too, and yet here I am (or we are), breathing without difficulty on this bright, Thursday Humboldt County morning. Family arrived on Tuesday, my sister-in-law and her partner. The birthday celebrations begin tomorrow, so today will entail grocery shopping and ...

  Fashioning a mitered corner for the Sunflower Quilt. I'm almost finished with the Sunflower Quilt, pleased to also be nearly done with one for my husband, in the I can make the binding, attach it, then add to the hand-quilting, then take out the safety pins way. The latter project is still far from landing in the washer, then spread out on my other half's half of the bed, but it's been much longer under construction, and I can't wait to have all my regular safety pins to use! Not that I have a quilt top in need of basting, merely the sense of not being in the hole when it comes to quilts, ahem. Yet that's not exactly what today's entry concerns, although simple quilt tops lend themselves to piling up, why I'm in this spot in the first place. However, let me return to easy but intricate before this post loses focus. Hand-quilting once the binding is wholly attached. Um.... Hmmmm.... I started this draft last night while sitting under the Sunflower Quilt, s...

Over this stormy weekend, snippets of blue sky have lightened my heart. We've been lucky to not have lost power, and I've enjoyed fixing soups and other warm dishes that lately I haven't bothered with, but this kind of weather calls for a variety of one-pot meals. This kind of weather puts me in a sewing mood, so this morning I cut fabrics for EPP stars and whatever else lends itself to English paper piecing. I'll spend the afternoon listening to the Warriors/Celtics basketball game, tending the fire, maybe tackling revisions of The Hawk , probably some slow stitching on the Cornflower quilt or diving into that stack of shapes and scraps, diamonds and jewels and a few hexies aching to be clothed with pretty prints. Spring is so close; I feel it in the fabrics, in the lengthening daylight, in how green is the grass and trees producing small buds, a few ahead of schedule. Despite this chilly spate of weather, the brighter skies make me hopeful, setting aside the darkness ...

What a colourful little quilt this shall be! I'm nearly halfway done with the above quilt top; three and a half inch squares are futzy, also mindless. Six rows are currently stitched together, another two waiting to be attached, that leaves nine left, which I'll tackle this weekend. But I am taking special care while ironing the seams open, spritzing them with my spray bottle to make sure they lay as flat as possible. That's a plentiful amount of open seams for the back, and smoother is better when I make that quilt sandwich. Yesterday as I stood at my ironing board, pressing and pressing and pressing, I considered how so much time is spent standing there as opposed to sitting at my machine. If I'd been told that when I first started quilting, I'm not sure I would have believed it, lol. Then I pondered how writing is similar, at least for me, in that a first draft spills from my brain onto the keyboard, but much effort remains to shape it into something I'm comf...

  So I'm still looking for those five missing squares. Above is how the quilt looks now, draped over the bed, another quilt underneath it, kind of obscuring the essence, but you get the idea. I basted a bunch of triangles for the borders, still plenty left to do. This Cornflower Quilt is coming together on its own time, and I'm not going to argue with it, missing squares be darned. Last night I read three chapters of The Hawk . My goodness I am enjoying this tale! But all that reading cuts into my evening sewing time, as well as a fantastic episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . "By the Pale Moonlight" takes place in season six, well into the Dominion War, and if you are keen on great drama and magnificent performances, have a gander at what Avery Brooks and Andrew Robinson produced, truly stunning television. But awesome distractions aside, I've started hand-sewing in the mornings while my hubby has breakfast. I've already eaten, because I'm on day nine ...

Snapped last night before I realized what was missing! (A basted square halfway attached, but others remain elsewhere...) I know I'm not feeling good when I'm too weary for editing. A debilitating head cold has finally drawn its line in the sand. Dude, don't play games with me. I might feel crappy, but seriously? Especially on a really SOGGY day here in Humboldt, a king tide making the ground squishier than usual. Whatever the elements, nature and viral, here I am limping along like a forgotten sock soaked in the rain. And.... I can't find five basted squares for my Cornflower quilt! I had the sewn rows and their accompanying stacks of squares laid out on the guest bed and after completing a row last night, I placed it with the other two, then gathered the next row and squares and.... What the heck? I don't know what I did with them, but my husband checked around and he didn't see them either. Basted paper pieces just don't walk away on their own, ahem, but ...

Fascinating from the back, as though a map to an unknown destination. It was an early start today, half a chapter written, then texting with my youngest daughter and enjoying photos of her sunrise a few hours east of us. I woke to clear, starry skies, but clouds have since moved in, rain forecast for the next few days. Maybe in a few days I'll have completed my novel; it's VERY CLOSE to being done, but I said that in a recent post, The End dangling like a carrot merely an arm's length away. Meanwhile I've been stitching together Cornflower blocks each evening. The photo above was snapped last night, what I see as I sew. MANY papers to remove, but I'll deal with that later, lol. I'm also working on another quilt, hehehe, more about that in a day or two. And the last ones for this year are washed and waiting to be given to my granddaughters on Christmas, which is just a little over a week away! I considered today's title right after reading through the sevente...

So many stitches (and quilts and books etc...) I'm suddenly realizing the enormity of certain projects, and oddly I'm telling myself, as in Present Me to even more Present Me, to just stop, breathe, and DON'T RUSH. It's a weird thing, like Present Me is suddenly Past Me, but not snarky, impatient Past Me (sorry Past Me, but you need a serious dose of get over yourself), but a frazzled yet willing to listen Past Me that seems to possess a decent amount of self-awareness. Or just that surprisingly, I'm wising up to what I can and can no longer accomplish. And what I might complete in the future, hehehe. For starters, a few days ago Present Me (or Recently Present Me) realized that while I would LOVE to sew two lap quilts by the 26th of this month, I just cannot manage it. Instead said quilts will be Christmas gifts for the grandgirls. They chose the fabrics months ago, but this abuela doesn't have the wherewithal to do that much sewing while trying to write and pr...

Green and blue hexagons waiting to be sewn into blocks. Several still days of my writing life have accrued. The depletion of my emotional bandwidth is mostly to blame, what with aftershocks, bomb cyclones, and impending loss colliding. The result is I feel barely capable of cognitive thought, and very grateful for all the fabric I cut recently. Hand sewing takes little out of me mentally, although my right shoulder is beginning to protest from the uptick in slow stitching. Past Me has no good advice; she's dwelling in memories that occurred before last spring when cancer was diagnosed. Future Me is also staying out of the picture; perhaps she's quietly steering me to days when atmospheric and emotional storms are few. Right now it's me, myself and Present I bumbling about; drinking warm caffeinated tea, listening to the rain. Gazing at the still sparkling Christmas lights on the front fence, peering into the darkness of a winter morning. Well, I was doing that until I sat a...

Christmas hexie coaster that won't necessarily be put away anytime soon. A few phrases have survived in my lexicon from our years in Yorkshire and Happy Christmas is top of the list. While my hubby and I are celebrating solo, video chats with family lessen the distances, as well as calls made earlier this week with relatives and dear friends. Our beloved battling cancer in the Midwest is improving, talk about miracles. And of course the most marvelous occurrence is feted today, the birth of a saviour in the guise of a migrant child born in extreme poverty. Christianity is full of contradictions, which later Christ told his followers was to mystify those unable to understand his message. Which is yet another oddity, but not for me to analyze today. Today is about noting peace. Peace two thousand years ago, peace in our time, peace to last.... Forever, eternity, the ages. But I'll take peace right now; aftershocks continue here, the cold persists back east, other calamities worl...

A sample of my efforts from this past week, the center of a Myrtle block. Currently Gracious Mysteries , the second novel in my That Which Can Be Remembered series , is available at no cost on Smashwords during their annual End of Year Sale. I had planned to release the final book in the series to immediately coincide with the sale, but I am still away from home and hope to have That Which Can Be Remembered released perhaps on Saturday? Fingers crossed for that publication. This series does take place in a different.... Universe, planet, solar system, you make the call, however their tragedies and triumphs are closely aligned to what we on Earth experience. There is no moon attached to their planet, which isn't a major plot point, but something I paid attention to while writing when a character trekked outside to admire the night skies. Only stars shone, proffering a distinction between our world and that of Brynn, Pollette, Finn, Strivek, Timral, Mo, and the rest. This past week...