cheese

* Catamount Hills cheese with bread and butter chips. Oh my!

rise, Fair Isle, books, good

* To rise just as the light begins to filter in through the blinds on the last Sunday of the year. To discover my room mate already shoveling snow. When I join him the sounds of our swipes reverberate. Are we waking the neighbors? The snow properly tidied, off he goes to gather grub while I drive through the magic of freshly fallen snow to a warm coffee house. I am alone by the window deciphering the NYT puzzle--until red nosed people begin to filter in and it is back to home where the aroma of his breakfast fills the air.

* May your New Year be like Fair Isle patterns:dynamic, bursting with color, full of details yet harmoniously flowing from one to another with ease.

*"I don't believe in the 'best of' books. It creates a hierarchy, and books are not hierarchy, books are medicine. We read what we need to heal us."

* "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

calm

   KEEP

   CALM

   PARADIGM SHIFT

   IN

   PROGRESS

chicken, still, tarps, paper

* Strolling past the roasting chicken display at the market. Oh! To climb into it, to live in it for the winter. I content myself with standing in front of it, basking in the aroma and the radiating heat.

* "Jesus has not been in Whole Foods" meanders through my mind as I pass the display of still water.

* To market, to market to buy tarps....shall I dash into the smelly, dark, guaranteed to be depressing big box store or.......the hardware store. No real quandary. The hardware store wins in a breath. I spend satisfying quarter hours browsing through things I do not need but that fascinate me. Much time elapsed, I walk out with the tarps and paint chips.

* Choosing Christmas wrapping paper to line drawers and looking forward to opening the drawers in the summer heat.

cough, knit, wind

* Doxycycline Hyclate Tablets (for her kennel cough)

* Knitting in bed

* A fresh west wind blowing

secret, strings

* I have secretly nurtured within me ideas, opinions, beliefs, visions, views for 45 years. They bubble out of me now with great joy. What time will I have for the bubbles? In quiet places I wonder. And I realize that any length of time is time.

* the violin,
   the fiddle

life, cold, perfunctory, Eileen

* "The urgency of life when it is being lived so close to death."
  
             Anthony Minghella speaking about Cold Mountain

* The cathedral height lobby is frigid. 
   "6 degrees outside," comments a lady with no hair.
   (How does she bear not hair without wearing a hat? I always wear a hat now.)
   I leave my coat, everything, on as I travel in stages to the exam  room:reception, weigh in room, corridor, nurses' station. In each stage of travel the temperature rises until at last the atmosphere is 
   pleasant when I get bearable for the exam.

* "perfunctory solution with a gun"

* Eileen Atkins

jolly, move, earrings

* It is really jolly to go into a coffee shop where everybody knows your name. (Even if the name you told them is an alias.)

* I have recently considered moving--but my current neighbors are so fascinating and vigorous that I have decided to stay around to observe what they will do next. 

* Pearl earrings that dangle.

alto, home, before

* Somewhere in time my voice became alto. Noticed at candlelit service tonight.

* Home to watch men roasting hunks of meat (a whole pig) over a roaring fire while women sing fado.

* Talking with women before the service.

wind, lines, curves

* Wind sockets horizontal in the blizzard.

* The austerity, the clean lines of a desert.

* Fonts.

sweet, stay, yarn

* On the day before the blizzard and cold front I open the windows and doors to let in the sweet, sweet air. I hang my quilts and comforter on the line to sway in the breeze and bask in the sunshine.

* The dogs will not stay outside alone although I explain about the snow and cold coming soon so I must stay out with them for awhile (such a sacrifice!).

* A raid of the yarn shop, the result of worry that I will not have enough yarn if I get snowed in. HA!

sleeping

When God calls me home
And my soul is laid to rest
That won't mean I'm gone
Darling, heaven knows
I'll love you just the same
So, don't you feel alone
You may cry a tear or two and that's okay
Just know I'll never be too far away.

I'll be sleeping in the stars
Shining through the dark
Watching, smiling, singing out into silence
Everywhere you are I'll be sleeping in the stars.

Some steps that we take
Leave an everlasting mark
Even death can't take away
So, if you're missing me
Just look inside your heart
And let the memories play.

You may cry a tear or two and that's okay
Look up and know I'm not that far away.

I'll be sleeping in the stars
Shining through the dark
Watching, smiling, singing out in the silence
Everywhere you are I'll be sleeping in the stars.

Jaida Dreyer, Mark Irwin, Gareth Dunlop

Airport, nose

* Totally surreal day. Early to the airport. Wait in an uncomfortable chair for 7 hours until the airline cancels the flight to sunshine and sand. What to do, what to do? My thought= how can I salvage this day planned to introduce someone to palm trees? We sink into soft chair at the oasis of Jamba Juice. Hop onto the shuttle . Home in an hour and a half. The gem was people watching, seeing their reactions to the cancellation, realizing a cancelled flight is not the end of the world, observing the puppies in transit. I am thinking of riding the shuttle to the airport next week to hang out a while.

* A tiny humidifier, easy to manage and my nose moves air around easier.

word

* I have not noticed any thoughts about 2018 year names on the blogs I read yet--perhaps Christmas planning  dominates the thoughts of people at this time. Looking back to February, 2017, I gave my year the hope and goal of 'Enough (already!)'. I am toying with the name for 2018 and keep landing on the word someone said to Dr Zhivago amidst the turmoil of revolution:'Adapt'.

* 'Enough' proved to be a perfect word using the definitions adequate and sufficient number, quantity, or amount. Like 'no more', 'we've had all we can take' with a little bit of 'we have everything we need to be content'. 

lights, discover, card

* I do not celebrate Christmas. Charmingly, magically every year at this time I am amazed and awestruck by lights, twinkly lights, on cold, dark nights.

* "It is possible at any age to discover a lifelong desire you never knew you had."

* My first Christmas card of 2017.

sunset, sat, nuts

* Having been a grumble bunny all day I flop onto the sofa, continuing to grumble wretchedly. When the dog uses my stomach to catapult onto the back of the sofa my head jerks towards framed paintings on the wall and I catch the sunset's reflection. The sunset's gorgeous brilliancy. I glance toward the lace curtained window just beyond the rosemary plant's silhouette. Looking out the window later I can see the section of the garden once full of prickly, hurtful thistles now weeded and clean after today's work. 

* The last episode of a series satisfyingly executed.

* I have heard people mention 'It's a Wonderful Life' and the movie about the boy's gun as their favorite Christmas movie......My very favorite and the movie I return to all year 'round is 'Mixed Nuts'. When Steve Martin yells that his problem is a "weeny, woony one".......When Steve and Liev dance together, oh my! Adam and his uke...Madeleine stuck in the elevator.....

m'gram, WIP's, fierce

* I am awash in a sea of pink (never my favorite color). 

* I giggle realizing how many photos of WIP's I see displayed by people in their pajamas.

* A day of fierce, cold wind=lovely.

carryings

* Old well used well worn suitcases.

* Baskets.

* Cross body well used bags

* Satchels

Tony!, promise, ikons

* Oh!! Tony Shalhoub. Kiss. Kiss. "The Marvelous Mrs Maisel"

* When hollow with lack of sleep  I promise myself a return to bed after fulfilling appointments (this morning a blood draw). Just the promise catapults me out of bed. Just the glowing hope of returning to the coziness of a warm dog filled bed gets me to the place I need to be. Oddly, I hardly ever return to bed after the appointment. Other tasks get tidily checked off--well, I am in this side of town so I will do this and this and this until all the boxes are filled and I realize darkness is coming.

* I carry with me always little ikons from Greece in a Hawaiian pouch.