A Contemplative Life

Today's pics are ones I took last night, dried flowers collected by the grandgirls and my youngest daughter that adorn our fireplace mantle. These post-Thanksgiving days are...strange. Such a big holiday, then a busy weekend with family, traveling included. Now we're home, yet more alterations await; dear friends are coming on Sunday, staying for the week, yay! I need to prep the house, although not put up Christmas decorations, as there is no time for more than stringing lights on our front fence, so necessary as daylight has diminished sharply. There's also a quilt on the design wall that I put up yesterday and want to stitch together before our guests arrive. I wrote a chapter today, WOO HOO, so missing that element of my life. I adore sharing our home with beloveds; it's also great to return to familiar rhythms that bring me so much peace.     Then I stop myself, realizing how blessed am I to have that peace. This nation is fairly fractured, but not openly waging vi...

One small Far & Away square in Brushfire. The end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend finds my other half and I home from familial visiting. Dinner has been eaten, we're listening to the new Kurt Vile EP-LP, Back to Moon Beach . I'm working on another Cornflower block that I took with me to stitch, but after getting the inner petals sewn together, I found half of the squares were basically the same hue as half of the petals; DOH! We weren't home more than half an hour and I had chosen a different fabric from William Reue's Architecture School collection. 'Far & Away' in Brushfire was the winner, as well as being very close to the title of my fictional WIP. Then I wondered if I had coined the title from that print, or maybe I dreamed doing so. I had been longing over that fabric once I saw it on my fave online store, and it's been in my stash for a while. Very fun when incidental issues get tangled together. I've been awake for a long time today,...

Faith Family and their good general health A great spouse Dear friends A comfortable home Food in the fridge Plenty of creative outlets Cognitive cohesiveness Few aches and pains Love Happy Thanksgiving.

Excuse the slight reflection of this shot, taken yesterday. We're back from our familial celebrations and prepping for the national holiday. Cranberry sauce is cooling; I put in vanilla per an online recipe, and it's pretty dang tasty, if not a little heavy on the orange juice. Notes have been made for next year; I love cranberry sauce, and I try a different recipe whenever possible. As soon as I woke this morning, once the decaf brews were made, I sat at my computer and picked up on page eleven of my WIP; I'm hoping to read through it over the next couple of days, then we're off to see our youngest daughter, then we're back and I'll finish the read-through and maybe write a few chapters before dear friends arrive the first week of December! I would LOVE to complete this novel by the end of the year, but won't hold myself to that, in that the holiday season is full of surprises, and I want to enjoy Advent without feeling I have to do this, that, and the othe...

Having finally united the lovers within my novel, I find myself getting up very early to write. Well, my right leg is being troublesome, so that also plays into these well before the crack of dawn noveling sessions, but most of my enthusiasm at truly ridiculous hours of the day (night) is based upon itching and aching to further the story. That's an immense blessing and I'm extremely grateful for it. Strangely enough, I am not dropping off for sleep at six or seven or eight p.m. at night! I'm not getting a ton of hand-stitching accomplished, but last night during the Kings/Lakers game I completed a Cornflower block, pictured above, and was struck at how it perfectly, but accidentally, represents my novel. Space-themed inner petals are bordered by hearts; dude that's my story to a capital T! This block originally had a dark blue floral print for the squares, but after I basted them, it just didn't feel right. I had a strip of the hearts print leftover from my younges...

  A dear friend is enduring similar heartache to mine from earlier this year, a beloved diagnosed with a very serious illness. We chat regularly, having known each other since our England days. That's over two decades ago now, time slipping past at a rate I really don't want to analyze. But right now time is strange, how a year ago my brother-in-law was ailing, how at the beginning of this year he died, and now it's again November, but this year others are where my family was in 2022. Right now my life is focused on writing my novel, still emerging at a rate that makes me wonder for how much longer will the plot keep barreling down Storytelling Hill. Till it's done I guess, or I hope. I'm nearly finished with youngest granddaughter's quilt top, will probably wrap that up tomorrow. We're going away this weekend to celebrate a birthday with our eldest, then will host my sister-in-law who is managing life without her husband. Traumas occasionally last a long ti...

This applies to all areas of my life, but as this blog focuses on the writing and sewing, I'll limit my appreciations for those aspects (and still write a long-arsed post, heads-up!). I just finished my second chapter of the day, oh my goodness. I told my husband this morning over breakfast how this novel is pouring from my head and fingertips, and then I took a shower, considering what might happen next, then proceeded to start another chapter for the day (the first completed before eating). I haven't written like this IN A LONG TIME. One day last week I wrote two chapters in a day, not sure from where all this novelistic enthusiasm springs, maybe due to it being November and I'm channeling my prior NANOWRIMO days or making up for last year's spectacular fail. Whatever it is, I'm VERY GRATEFUL to be so prosy, lol, although I do need to get some housecleaning done this week, ahem. But relishing this rather I'll just write myself thank you very much story is ess...