A Contemplative Life

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....

Before I slip into all about writing, let me say that Gigi is no longer broody! She didn't need to be placed onto the wall-shelf last night, and has spent the last two days out with her sisters. Yesterday we received SO MUCH RAIN, over three and a half inches in twenty-four hours. Owl and Nadia were out in the rain MOST OF THE DAY. Camilla joined them for the latter half of the afternoon, and by evening, as a mere drizzle fell from the sky, all eight hens were poking around the grass and gravel as if worms had fallen from heaven. Eight hens preening or chillin' out, sweet chickies! Also, I completed the medallion-Minnesota quilt, but it was TOO WET to hang it out for photos. My husband acquiesced to act as holder, and I'm very happy with it. Right after the photo session, I carefully folded it, and now it's on the stack of finished quilt tops/backs that are beginning to pile up in the closet where my stash lives. Not sure at all when I will get to them, or in what manne...

Crystal Manning fabrics (with a Speckled center) from a few years (or more) ago. This will be appliqued onto a light pink t-shirt, once of these days. Gotta fix a cup of Metamucil, then I'll be back to expound upon this ominous title. Okay, so getting used to life without gluten, dairy products, and red meat and NO CHEATING on those edicts has been...fine. Kinda like using Draft2Digital is FINE . It is what it is, and you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. My eldest granddaughter used to say that when she was little, but now at ten years old, I don't hear it from her much anymore, LOL. I don't mind the Metamucil, although it will be a cold day in hell before my husband drinks it, as it figured heavily in the lives of his elderly parents. It wasn't anything my parents used, and it still tastes like watered down Tang, no big deal. I feel good, have lost six pounds, and my knees don't hurt, so if dairy was aggravating those joints, it's a trade-off wor...

Not the heart quilt but what I worked on last night for my medallion quilt also known as Alexandria. Pics of heart quilt coming soon! Kind of like life without grandkids around, or being on the other side of the solstice. It's an emptiness or loss that you knew couldn't be avoided. Eventually one quilt top is completed, and even if you make the pattern again, different fabrics proffer an altered vibe. And IF the same fabrics in exactly the same placement were used, the manner of application cannot be duplicated. Life isn't static. Everything changes. Yesterday after lunch our daughter and her crew departed for their home. Items were left behind, nothing essential, merely a way to remind us that a return trip is desired, or how I interpret it, lol. I threw some things in the wash, collected scattered toys and scraps of paper from art projects off the floor. I still need to toss their milk, as we drink lactose free and have no use for regular two percent. Last night as I sat ...

A pretty apt photo for today's subject. Over three years ago Smashwords and Draft2Digital became one company. Last night I received notice that it was my turn for the migration queue, and for the rest of the night I was...slightly pensive, nostalgic, and resigned to change. Lol. Change is often not nearly as traumatic as we think it will be, current American governmental coup notwithstanding. I chose not to do more than ponder this somewhat monumental to me alteration, instead working on a one thousand piece puzzle (see above) that will keep me occupied until I feel the shingles are truly GONE. 'Nuff said about that. Yet for Smashwords, my goodness! I independently published The War on Emily Dickinson on July 16th, 2011, that's coming on fourteen years ago! SO MUCH has changed in indie publishing, although this is not an analysis entry, more of a walk down memory lane while assuaging my mind and heart that ALL WILL BE FINE. It truly will, ahem. Since then, I've releas...

Nearly finished with another small block for Alexandria. Fashioning another bit for that EEP behemoth is somewhat akin to keeping alive the flame of JOY right now. While this blog remains about writing and quilting, something has altered. I have changed and no matter what emerges from the current political situation, my nation will never be as it was before. I didn't wish to become a revolutionary. I'm fifty-eight years old, never wanted to be this damn strong again. But revolutionaries come in all ages, from all walks of life, performing tasks previously unconsidered. No one, or very damn few, take Revolutionary 101 in elementary, middle, or high school. And those who study such topics in college rarely have the opportunity to use all that learning in the real world. The definition of revolutionary as an adjective is twofold: 1) Involving or causing a complete or dramatic change, and 2) Engaged in or promoting political revolution. Using it as a noun in this post feels odd, sl...

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...

  The mug pictured above is a pleasure, and a bit of a disappointment. This morning I noticed some of the print is starting to flake off; I just bought this in June for my husband, oi! Yet the messages on this Fred Rogers cup are timeless, and we'll treasure it as long as the words remain. Despite being partially disfigured, the quote in white struck a cord in me today, hence this early morning entry: Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else. Wow! I'm truly feeling that in my current getting over illness, merging back into my house state. Mostly this sense of newness is related to, ahem, accepting my age. Not that suddenly I'm ancient, but OMG I am certainly not as young as I was, um, previously. How previous? Earlier this year, last summer, pre-covid 2020? I'm not exactly sure, but for discussion's sake, let's say March 2024, when I decided to dip my toes into semi-retirement. When I was still fifty...

Blackberries are thick, just need time to ripen! I'm home and very glad to be here. Three weeks have passed since I left for a sojourn that ended up being longer away than I had planned. Sometimes life works that way. Re-entering my house, I felt to have been gone for ages, not sure if it was lingering effects of covid, my own age, or something less certain, but truly remarkable. Because I'm still feeling...not displaced, yet an intangible sense of alteration remains, like I didn't merely stay away longer than intended or dealt with a malady. It's like I've started a new chapter of my existence, which sounds alarming and more than a little dramatic, but I am a writer, melodrama part of my stock and trade. It's like a fog has cleared, the mist of thinking I'm a lot younger than I actually am, lol. While hanging out with extended family, I gravitated to my sister-in-law, a dozen years my senior. Definitely three generations of us, but no longer am I among thos...

  Bright pretty quilt-to-be! Okay, so yes I have a new shiny waiting to be sewn together via my machine, which, ahem, has been under cover since the beginning of March! There has never been a time, when I've been home, that my sewing machine has sat so silently, but at least it's not gathering dust. Not sure when I'll remove the cover, might not be today, although if the Warriors play poorly this afternoon, I'll hide out upstairs while my husband witnesses the carnage. It's the last day of basketball season, not that we have high hopes for Golden State going far into the playoffs. More is this a time of transition, one sport leading to another as spring drips from the sky in precipitation that is good in the overall sense of rainfall, but WOW we are ready for warm, sunny days. This morning I made a fairly comprehensive list of all my novel WIPs, even a couple that might never be completed. Or started, lol. But they're accounted for, for better or worse. And yeah...

We're enjoying some glorious sunshine and warmth, sometimes those don't always go together. I trimmed the garden blackberry bush, then sat in the sun reading before going in to wash the dishes. I'd hoped to get to that Cornflower Quilt, wanting to make that quilt sandwich, baste it, then bring it downstairs to begin the hand-quilting. But my work table needed to be cleared, which meant putting away the paper shapes from the above mentioned quilt. It's thrilling to remove papers as the blocks, then rows, are sewn together. Bagging those papers, I knew eventually I'd need to return them not only to their box, but from the sources where I borrowed squares and diamonds to complete it. Fortunately I'd written down how many I used, so it was a matter of counting out shapes, slipping them back into envelopes. Certainly not the exact shapes I'd removed, but the papers were in good condition, and I won't be using them anytime soon. I put the Cornflower Quilt box ...