hide, day, tip

* Frankie hides metal napkin rings in her bra.Shivers."Ee! COLD!"

* A jacketless day. Marvelous clouds of the front coming in.

* Tip: When a mammo is scheduled for the afternoon do normal things in the morning. Pick up dog poop. Shop for toilet paper. Drool at (but not on) the donuts at Whole Foods. Get chased out of said WF for photographing luscious produce without permission. Buy beer for someone who is not supposed to have any. Pause in the whisky aisle because you just saw a documentary about Islay whiskey brewing (?) and wow are you thirsty. Buy Canadian Club instead, after fainting at the Islay prices. Drive home to let slip the dogs of war. Accept Meals on Wheels with great gratitude. Write a blog.

eyes, Sundays, breath

* "Sorry. Did I roll my eyes out loud?"

* Cartoonist Victoria Roberts in a 1987 (!) interview said she spends one Sunday per month in bed in polka dot men's pj's and declares all Sundays to be "disorganized" days in which nothing is planned, nothing tidily put away, etc. I read this while lying in bed wearing polka dot pjs on this Sunday. I sighed for the discovery of a kindred soul.

* I have been practicing coherent breathing. Yesterday I lay down on the sofa and suddenly realized I was coherently breathing without even trying.

Choc, refusal, cream

* Five perfect chocolate covered cherries.

* "Elegance is refusal."

* Thick, I mean really thick, lavender scented body cream for scaly legs.

ride, brook, book

* After I have completed my errands there is time before 4 pm so I start on my favorite drive -- maybe for the last time this year because of the snow forecast. Up, up around the res. "Beware of falling boulders" on the left. The lower water level reveals a shoreline of summer mystery.  Over the first foothill with houses perched on either slope, past a trailhead on to a long valley. I am the only car so I can putter and travel slowly past furry horses brought down from the mountains for the winter. A continuous cycle, they fertilize the pasture in the winter and while they are galloping in the mountains in warm weather their winter food is grown. Past llamas and alpacas and rusted farm machinery and quarries. I turn at a brick schoolhouse, back to the town and medical equipment, blood sugar numbers, insulin gauges and his pain. But my ride has been refreshing and joyful!

* The brook on the way to the post office is trimmed with lacy ice.

* A book in the mail: Our Man in Charleston -- a snowy week-end's read.

* Grateful that I have lists of knit projects to look forward to amidst all the uncertainty that is my life now.

* Fresh new mechanical pencils, each with portrait of an animal on it---foxes, owls, raccoons.

* "The cancer was hideous. It takes the wind out of your sails and I don't know what the future holds, if anything. You feel so ghastly, you wouldn't mind dying a lot of the time. The last couple of years have been a write-off, though I'm beginning to feel like a person now. My energy is coming back. I ought to pull myself together a bit."
Dame Maggie Smith

* Thinking of everything that is on my plate now. There is no certainty in the outcome of anything. And somehow I am on my feet. Deep breaths.

* "Of Mind and Music"

* Coffee


* A Trip Into the Blue

ahhh...April, kitchen, weeds

* And now it is April....Trees are blooming their lil hearts out bec no killing frost or snow lately=gorgeous, senses (all of them) enveloping beauty.

*People are coming to tear up the kitchen this week. The furry residents will become the dogs of war. The end result being that I will wallow in the beauty and actually look forward to cooking.(Considering sleeping on the counters.)

*Pulling weeds = instant gratification  + deep sleep at night = joy.