* A gift....'The Dig'

MOTHER, down, dance

* 1971 : "Take down that picture. My MOTHER won't like it."

* I meekly take it down and dispose of it.

* 2017 : I buy again the print ('The Precious Stones:Topaz, 1900). I frame it, hang it. I dance around the room singing the artist's name, properly pronounced. 

direction, days, beautiful, 90's, words, books

* A new direction : I will relate my decisions and thoughts kindly (mostly through e-mail) instead of keeping them 'bottled up' until they become putrid, festering and painful.

* unknown : The first five days after the week-end are always the hardest.

* unknown : It's Tuesday, and you are beautiful. And it will be exactly the same tomorrow...only Wednesday.

* unknown : I miss the '90's when bread was still good for you, and no one knew what kale was.

* Word contractions are not for me. 

* I have jumped on (trudged, sore muscled through) collecting my books into one room which I can keep unheated. Three fourths of them are there now. 

choice, mice

* To cultivate sanity it is necessary to preserve choice. I have a blob inside that must be chopped out. No choice. Proven methods must prevail. No choice. So dear nurse practitioner do not tell me to stop taking notes because at the end of the consultation you will hand me your notes. I write. I get to write. I will do this. My choice.

* No mice since before Christmas....

sit, nap

 * Sitting. Occasionally, a mild harassment wanders in. "I really should be doing _____" And bubbling up. "Nope".

* A nap on the sofa. Dogs as parentheses.

windy, lion, light, shadows

* In the windy yard most of the day, lumberjack hat on tight around my ears, the fur frames my view. I move the carefully placed last fall Granny Smith green bench closer to the house and wallow, sun-bask on it, reading. At intervals I putter at chores--watering the new trees, raking leaves left lying since November, snapping tree limbs blown from their homes, remarking the hoped for patio. What beauty is life!

* Grace Clement : If you live with your head in the lion's mouth, it's best to stroke it some.

* Shafts of light touch a mug filled with yellow mums and greenery at the end of the dark hallway. 

* I consider that I should be productive today then everything that appears urgent gets struck down so that I end up sitting, watching what the moving shadows do.

BBC, painters, cake, German, ice cream

* BBC Scotland :  The Scotland of tomorrow will thank the police of today for a brighter week after next.

* Finnell Brothers Painters : We don't send men, we go ourselves.

* J Farrell : Pretty wild how we used to eat cake after someone had blown on it. Good times.

* from Instagram : Tell someone you love them today, because life is short. But shout it to them in German, because life is also terrifying and confusing.

* A quiet house in the just about dark time when I put on my shoes to buy ice cream. But only buy it if the parking lot has fewer than 12 cars in it.

words, Wigstown, masks, James, settlement, Carey, Firth, watch, market, house

 * I like the sounds of words. Not the definition. Not the political shadows of words. Not the emotional value of these words. Any words in any languages. TROTTOIR, PARAPLUIE, OY VEZ, UMLAUT, SCISSORS, SAYONARA. And British place names....more later. QUALMS

* I want to move to Wigstown, Scotland=bookstores galore. There is also a shop named 'A Box of Frogs'

* Face masks make lovely slingshots.

* Henry James : Never say you know the last word about any human heart.

* "human settlement in Scotland" So, are there any animal settlements on a map?

* Carey Mulligans dimples.

* C. Firth : Qualms are enticing.

* I on a past day watched many rememberings (cannot say 'remembrances' which I believe to be warm and fuzzy things) of Holocaust livers (do not like the word 'survivor'). Tova Friedman, wow.

* In the mere light I climbed into my clothes and attacked the market. Horizontal snow blowing, the only car on the streets, sole shopper, loved it. I keep several blue IKEA bags in my car and load everything purchased into them having carried them around empty through the market. Though stuffed full, they are never too heavy to lift into my car, something I reassure the bagger in the market is possible. At home again, the slamming of the car door energizes the yellow dog  into maniacal barking which tips off my room mate that serious toting into the garage is needed. (I think he likes to see what I've bought.) Cozy on the sofa, aromatic dogs on either side, much biscotti dipping into chai, I listen to Fran Leibowitz.

* Does England continue to name houses? Rose Cottage, Downton Abbey. I decided on a name for mine. 'Midden House'

Whyte, photos, coffee, competence, bibopsy, sofa, cat, challenges

* 'A Morning Poem' by David Whyte

* Collecting photos from Tumblr I realize so many are of fuzzy animals.

* I do not understand the allure of coffee. When it hits my belly I feel uncontrollably bouncy and discombobulated. The steam rising from a cup is cosy and moisturizes my sinuses, yes. The warmth transmitted to my hands while holding a hot cup is arthritis soothing, yes. Now, coffee ice cream=oh, my!!

* 'crises competence'

* Another Monday, another bibopsy.

* Though fed, watered, and pooped, the dogs do not settle while I work at my desk. I admit defeat and wander to the sofa. Minutes later in the quiet of the house I rouse from my concentration and realize they are on either side of me, snoring.

* Someone who comes to my house infrequently is a cat person and does not understand that dogs want to be recognized and greeted by visitors. She has concluded that my dogs are wild and untamed because they descend upon her noisily en masse when she steps through the doorway. How would she feel if I ignored her when she visited?

* 'God only gives to you the challenges He knows that you are strong enough to bear.' So if I were a weaker person I would not be presented with such challenges?

cookies, dents, overcast

* Procrastination : the art of making cookies instead of doing something you should be doing

* Oh, my darling, it is true. Beautiful things have dents and scratches, too.

* A mellow, overcast day with quilts airing on the line.

jot, clothes, chai, maple, perimeter,

* I begin to jot down a quotation but my eyes move onto the next so that  when I read what I've written it makes no sense whatsoever.

* Forster : Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.

* OH......chai!!

* After lugging water to the new trees...She : (while he shaves my head outside in the January wind) There was a guy in my class at school whose name was 'Maple' so we nicknamed him 'Sap'. I don't think maple trees have sap. / He : Where do you think they get maple syrup from? / She : Do they? Oh, that's right! (Loss of hair results in brain drain?)

* With yarn (plenty here!) I lay out the perimeter of my big 2021 garden project with nary a thought to whether or not I will be here to garden in the spring.

* My mother would be 'turning over in her grave' if she had one. (Shall I tell you that story someday?) Such sun draws me outside where I use a blue bucket to water the new trees, wearing (me) hole-y see through pajamas. Welllll...Virginia Woolf would wander downstairs to Hogarth Press in her nightgown to work. 

* (no knowledge of origin) : she believed she could / but she was tired / ....so she rested and you know what? / the world went on and it was okay / she knew she could try again tomorrow

drive, mail, day

 * A drive in the sunshine, roommate sitting beside me. When we get to a favorite road I ask him to count the tall sturdy trees, all a type of aspen in a row parallel to the road,  because I never have someone else in the car to do it as I drive (deep irrigation trenches on either side). 32!

* Yarn in the mail and lots of ideas.

* A slow, contentment filled day.

paint, sifts, read

* Elsie de Wolfe:I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint.

* The light at 4p sifts through the back window past the yellow (desert glow) shed, glimmering the book covers and shadowing the shelves against white walls. 

* I live with an editor who does not want to look at what I write so I will just create my own rules and you will need to read what I write at least twice in order to understand what I am saying. No need to worry about his hurt feelings because he will never read this.