A Contemplative Life

One of the barnevelders, probably Nadia, finally stepping into the coop for bedtime. 30 June, 2026, photo courtesy of my husband. I was going to post an excerpt yesterday, but instead the better angel of my nature stepped in, insert smiley face here. Yet this morning it is again sunny, chickens have been fed, and despite usually not coming off the wall until the light is on, as I stepped into the coop, three hens were already down, waiting to go outside. LOL! Hold on hens, you're still hanging in the run these days. Owl backed up as I entered, placing their feeder in its usual spot. I exited, walked away, then remembered to turn on the light for the rest, hehehe. Anyways, all of this is to say here's an early morning post of much of yesterday's chapter. Greg is learning to trust, and Careen? She's still very much a work in progress, but then aren't we all? Insert another smiley face please. Have a wonderful day! Chapter 11   On New Year’s Eve afternoon Greg and...

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...

Recent additions to my Peace Round the World quilt. Greg and Hugh Lund and how did I write all this anyway.... With guests back in their own realms, this morning I sat to read what I'd been writing last month. Wow; where has this month gone? Silly question, but I throw it out there because it's already the thirteenth of July, DUDE! Okay, time warps aside, what I wanted to ponder was how sometimes love stories aren't about eroticism. Sometimes they're about familial rapprochement or merely recognizing how much someone means in our spheres. In reading over the five chapters of what's going on in the lives of Richard and Suze Lund, I was struck at how in two particular instances love within that family, but not Suze and Richard, drives the plot. Or it stirred something in me now a couple of weeks later. Love between brothers Greg and Hugh, between Richard and both of his sons. Love as meaningful as what's shared between spouses, but doesn't get the airplay that...

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....

My husband at Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, in October 2019. This doesn't have much to do with the post, but was the photo on my screensaver when I sat down to write this post.  Deep Space Nine and character development mattering more than plot. As well as a way to process what seems like a plethora of extended family illnesses. 'Nuff said.... So I'm writing about Suze and family in Jumpville . This is the second of four short stories/novellas in what will be Book Five of The Enran Chronicles . I had some plot ideas, but what seems to be foremost is character development. And that matters, as I've moved their timeline up twenty-eight years, ahem. But what else I've found is something I heard while watching the DS9 documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The writers were discussing a particular episode, and I tend to associate it with "In Purgatory's Shadow" , as well as its conclusion "By Inferno's Light...

Embracing what I have and not lamenting what isn't.... Ironically I have always been a morning person, lol, yet as a kid, sunrises weren't my jam. I more appreciated sunsets, and I still adore them. However, where we live not only are sunsets hard to wrangle, what with that pesky marine layer, but the western treeline of our property obscures them. Ahem. Seedlings Quilt, February 2020. Well, o-kay.... So instead I've glammed onto, as much as I possibly can, the notion of grabbing the sunrise when it's available. Today was one such morning, as I slept poorly, finally ambling out of bed around four a.m. hoping not to disturb my husband, which I didn't which is a WIN! Reaching the kitchen, immediately I turned on the kettle, because it was going to be ONE of those kinds of CAFFEINATED mornings, lol! Yet as I stepped from the kitchen, I yawned. I was SO TIRED. I really WANTED TO FALL ONTO THE COUCH and GO BACK TO SLEEP. But (BUT!) I peered out the window to find starry ...

Colour does the heavy lifting in these six-inch squares with splashes of low volume to add sparkle. Despite two broody hens, one of which is a NEW BROODY HEN (ahem), I finished a definite quilt back this afternoon. It will be the back because the front is an EPP heart beauty, and this brightly coloured extravaganza will complement that warm-hued top just FINE. Life right now feels very....interesting, in a slightly overcast, marine layer sort of way. Revisions I wanted to do this week didn't happen. An extra broody hen wasn't in the plan. Completing this quilt top, however, was a goal, and I met it, and feel good about it. Certainly a win! Today my husband and I walked along Samoa Beach at low tide. The sand was packed and sturdy, the waves were loud, the wind blowy. I thought about how this setting could be incorporated into Noth's next storyline in The Enran Chronicles , as well as what looked like a driftwood forest there on the sand. Pondering that idea lifted my spirit...