A Contemplative Life

I didn't get around to posting this until after lunch, but it was initially written at 6 a.m. this morning....  Our grandsons are visiting this week, so blogging time is curtailed. It's still dark outside, yet frogs are awake, croaking like their lives depended on it. They are quite loud at night; my eldest grandson likes falling asleep to their rhythmic songs. Eldest grandson fashioned this space plane with additions to origami, lol.   My life as a grandmother is SO DIFFERENT, and because these interludes are far and fewish between, I tend to let my being absorb that realm, which before we moved to Humboldt County wasn't so altering, in part the kids were little and they napped, lol. Also that we saw them more often, at their residences, whether it was for several hours at a time or over a few days. Yet who I am has changed too; the sewing isn't paramount, though my youngest grandson wants a turn at the machine, and the writing is less. Less what, I'm not prepared ...

Quilt is coming along and Ruthie wasn't still in a nesting box tonight! I had wanted to title this post Almost done , but that's just not applicable. I can't sew for hours like previously, and not every night either. I'll sit with this again on Thursday, then put it away for a few days, as family is visiting for Easter! Yet, this beautiful rainbow quilt has definitely turned a corner. One of the perks of going round and round from the perimeter inwards is that every row gets shorter and shorter and shorter. Slowly, of course, but little by little.... I've been threading six needles per session, but this evening I probably used eight or nine, and my shoulder feels it, lol. Thankfully my right thumb is fine; it's been bothering me in addition to my shoulder. As sixty years old gets closer, I'm truly starting to notice changes in my body that weren't there previously. Moving on from that, Ruthie the broody hen also made progress tonight, putting herself on ...

Which is kind of irrelevant, but my husband and I chatted about it yesterday, how the holidays were officially over, although tomorrow is Epiphany. After tomorrow, I'll put away the nativity sets and few random Christmas baubles. Christmas placemats, coasters, etc, have been landing in the laundry, then are tucked away. For all the December hub-bub, the trinkets seem irrelevant once New Year's is passed. Yet.... A deeper flame burns in my heart, a renewed pulse of my faith, of Christ, of a life lived not for self. Of a wisdom that makes no sense in what the world views as success, what I read about last night in 1 Corinthians 1:1-25. And in reading aloud a chapter from Nothing More Complicated: The Hawk Book Four , I am reminded how the horrors of this world are recycled time and again because we as a human race can't seem to grasp that love matters most. Not power or money or whatever seems to churn the engines of governments. This time last year I was swamped by last-min...

Not a contender for the cover, but pretty nonetheless. This outing was slated to occur over a month ago. Then I was laid up by diverticulitis. Yet I still needed a book cover photo for Home and Far Away , so yesterday my husband and I traipsed down 101 on a most gorgeous early autumn day, enjoying lunch and snapping pics as we traveled. I began the driving, as my better half likes to snooze whenever possible, lol. First off I noticed how deciduous trees speckled amid the Redwoods had altered from our last trek south; golds and oranges and reds and dusty green-grays were their hues, sparkling as though wishing to out-muscle the giants for recognition. We wondered how the grapes further south would appear; Home and Far Away takes place in fictional Jumpville, California, standing in for Hopland. I was hoping for grapevines still with leaves, but would take what nature provided. After reaching Willits, vineyards appeared, and to our joy almost all were still leafy, in a variety of colour...