A Contemplative Life

Hand-quilting the rainbow extravaganza is going to be a LONG PROCESS, but better than no stitching on it at all. And sewing! Although that's being managed like I'm on a minutes restriction. Sometimes writing feels that way too, half a chapter here, another half there. Yesterday, however, I wrote an entire chapter, which felt AMAZING. While today, ahem, this entry will be it. (Heads-up: Long post, lol.) Part of my stop-start fictional output relates to morning activities. Tomorrow we're celebrating a birthday with friends, sharing lunch as one of them turns eighty-one! I'm hoping to get a scene written before we meet with them, might be half a chapter's worth, possibly two-thirds, what I accumulated a couple of days ago, woo-hoo! Not quite as thrilling as turning eighty-one, but certainly noteworthy as sixty keeps knocking on my door, dude.... Didn't I just get into this writing gig, wasn't I just in my forties? Um, NO. Sometimes that feels like a LONG TIME A...

A trench my husband dug today as the run was a soggy mess from the rain. Owl or Cami Chicken is to the left. Photo courtesy of my better half. Sometimes a theme attaches itself to a sewing project. Sometimes I go into a quilt with an agenda. And sometimes it's a mix of these notions. The medallion quilt, the first I have made by machine, is both. (Pictures of the progress in the next post, once I complete the current round....) The gray/blue/neutral fabrics lend themselves to winter. Which is coming down with abundance right now all over California. In adding the pink, I wanted to break up, just a little, the gray/blue theme. But I didn't want to diminish the cool sense of.... Detachment? Sorrow? Understated comprehension of bleakness? Yes, I wanted to somehow honor those killed and suffering in Minnesota. Yet all over this planet heartache and injustice rages. But beauty and compassion and love also stand firm, welcoming all those seeking mercy and solace and affection. We can...

I could use this shot as a cover photo for the book, lol. Just a scene, merely to note that while bad things happen and no one blinks, why can't miracles occur similarly....   The actual haircut took ten minutes, the chit-chat minimal. Hannah was no-nonsense during her work, one of the reasons Kym had started going to her over fifteen years ago, after Hannah got her ya-ya’s out living in Santa Rosa, first in attending cosmetology school, then meeting who she would marry, then dragging that man back to her hometown because despite losses, nowhere on God’s green earth was more beautiful and peaceful than the King Range. Hannah had been smart enough to know that Deadfern was the closest she and Connor would get in terms of urban living, and Connor had been wise enough not to argue with her. He worked at the post office, and had weathered a few years with Shauna before she had been moved to delivery. Yet Hannah and Connor were years younger than Kym, had three kids, and after Kym adm...

Gigi from yesterday enjoying a flowerbed inundated with weeds. She's looking pretty pleased with herself, lol. Photo courtesy of my husband. Don't forget the chickens, yet will they forget the sunshine? Sunday afternoon on the getting more soggy by the minute North Coast of California; I just finished adding the round of pinkish-orange Grunge around this developing medallion quilt. I've plotted out the next round, but am unsure how wide the strips will be. Currently the quilt is thirty-nine inches across, and if I add six and a half inch wide slabs of fabric, then I'm looking at a pretty large-ish quilt, with a couple more rounds to go. I'll have to consider this notion, but with over four inches of rain forecast for the next several days, I see myself sewing as often as my tinnitus allows. It will be striking if nothing else. Which has been every other day or so, but what's a little ringing of one's ears when it's super-wet out and cold for our neck of ...

I was fooling myself last week, assuming I could have the rainbow quilt on the living room sofa, all ready for me to hand-quilt. Conveniently I forgot about securing the perimeter, that I prefer to do in our guest room, with said quilt spread out on the bed. That imperative fact somehow slipped my mind, or I blocked it. Either way, for the next few days that precious quilt will loiter in its own space, and eventually it will meander to where I am currently seated, typing this post. One reason I didn't make the quilt sandwich until today was that yesterday I attended a protest/rally to denounce the murders taking place in Minneapolis, as well to honor Keith Porter, killed by ICE in Northridge on New Year's Eve, 2025, and others harmed and slain by ICE in the last year. This protest was announced in our local news and on Reddit late on Saturday afternoon. Less than eighteen hours later over one thousand people stood in front of the Humboldt County Courthouse seeking justice, peac...

Our first All hens laid an egg day! This was a few days ago, on the fifth. Yesterday again all eight chickens laid eggs. Maybe this doesn't seem blog-worthy, especially in the light of current world events. My prayers are with those suffering from abject cruelty all over this planet; strife isn't limited to one nation or continent. Yet much hope and goodness remain! And in my realm, a sliver of that golden sunshine are eight chickens, less than seven months old, laying eggs as well as enjoying free range freedom for much of the day. Camilla leads most of the posse a day or so ago. Photo courtesy of my husband. Well, most of daylight. We're only getting nine-plus hours currently, but in those hours, the hens are foraging without supervision and they are LOVING IT. That system has been the norm since maybe the second of January? Here it is, already the eighth, and I can't even recall what day we said, to ourselves of course, "You know, I don't want to stand out ...

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...

That's how many of my novels are available. Lol. Six standalones, four series, two volumes of poetry, and one collection of short stories. DUDE!  That's a lotta writing. I mean, that is a copious amount of literary collections. Excuse my loose vernacular, I just cleaned the chicken coop. But yeah, when one tallies the output, after nineteen years of this fiction gig, it adds up. I won't include the two novels currently under the revision microscope, though I could squeeze in Home and Far Away in another few weeks. Hopefully I'll be releasing that book before the end of the month, but it's the twelfth of October already and, well.... We'll see, fingers crossed, whatever God has in store for that manuscript, 'nuff said. Okay, enough stated about that installment of The Enran Chronicles , but I shall wax lyrically about the rest of my beloved books. Briefly. Um, yeah, lol! Oh wait, FACEPALM! What about Drop the Gauntlet ? Maybe this post should be rewritten, ...

The short row of stitches directly under the lower safety pin are those done SLOWLY with my left hand. In sewing, book publishing, and everyday life.... I considered this post a few days ago when I was happily appliqueing by hand Lucy Boston (LB) blocks. Since then my right shoulder has asserted its right to be cranky, and I don't know for how long this will be the case. Hence, perseverance now applies to waiting out troublesome joints, being fully aware that what will be most certainly will be. Ahem. Anyways.... I pondered this post while hand-stitching a project I truly had no idea would come to fruition. Perhaps this entry is also about being faithful to one's inner spirit, or Spirit, depending on your beliefs. Either way, being faithful, obedient even (now there's an idea to spark blog post musings....) to what calls upon your heart is EXTREMELY VITAL. It's why I have books available for readers, why a Lucy Boston quilt in an altered form continues to evolve (as ear...

There's a full moon under all that glow. And yes, a little star to the left. Keep an eye on that star in the next picture! It's been a longish day. I was up early, but I got to enjoy the moon, although snapping a decent picture of said moon is a crapshoot and today, well.... It's an okay shot, and a few minutes later I went outside again with a different phone that didn't give me anything better, lol. And now it's ten hours later, and I just finished formatting Home and Far Away: The Enran Chronicles Book Four , which might be one of my all times fave novels I have written. And not to get too distanced from Straight to the Heart , but man, I am one lucky writer to have crafted such tender yet witty tales. That I considered myself lucky doesn't begin to explain how I feel about this craft. I'd say blessed is a far better adjective, as it's solely by God's grace that I write anything, including this post. But some people aren't comfortable with ble...

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...

Home again and happy to be here! The roses above greeted us on the front porch; clouds were thick and we even received some drizzle last night, although night now depends on your mood. It was still light at well past half eight (8.30), the heavy mist reminding us that while we'd been in Nevada, now we were back along the North Coast. I wondered what the chickens would think of rose petals this time next year.... Lol! Chickens are still on my mind, but other items lurk in the gray matter, one of which *might* be the start of a novel. Maybe. Possibly. Really? I don't know for sure, but I am feeling like closing my eyes, allowing the muse to open the door where my writing hat lives. The muse could wander into that room, setting the cap gently atop its head, and maybe, MAYBE, I'll find myself writing another book. In the interim, there are chickens to consider, the garden in need of attention, some sewing to ponder, and bravery is necessary for it all. On Being Brave is the t...