” The snow is snowing and the wind it is blowing But I can weather the storm What do I care how much it may storm I’ve got my love to keep me warm… “
… So sang Ella Fitzgerald, one of, if not the most revered female jazz songstress of the 40s, 50s, 60s – of all time. Click to listen to her rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldshQfzs6Jw
Today, we have had a weather phenomenon: SNOW! I actually don’t recall when we last had any appreciable snowfall …”snowmaggedon” in 2010 ? 2016? I must admit that the 2016 snow event totally left my memory…
My niece shared this photo of her pooch, Hazel, totally enjoying a romp in the snow – at about the time it first started, earlier this day. Hazel had just had a bath and was outside for a few minutes. “Look! Snow! I think I’ll flounder around in it for a few minutes!” And she did! Ah…simply a moment!
SNOW! Wonderful Snow!
Hope you’re enjoying the day – and SNOW too, if it fell your way.
I started this post on Sunday, 12.30.23, listening, as I have most Sunday mornings, to the wshu radio musical program: Sunday Baroque. I know, feel it in my bones, that I’ve been listening to this radio musical treat for at least 24 years of Sundays… Sometime, earlier in 2023, the program’s start time shifted. It appears to me that streaming took over. I know I can/could figure it out or at least contact the station or consult the website but I haven’t…”Next week,” I tell myself… the good news is this Sunday I get to tell myself “next year”! Solving this puzzle goes on – to the top ?- of my 2024 list…
What happened to Monday?
Today, Tuesday, 2 January 2024, I am writing this post during my daily 8 Am Writers’ Hour zoom session. I started this gig in 2022 ? (date escapes me ) and have been “faithful” to starting each day, M- F and within the 55 minutes circle of time, to writing. Some people do a word count; I haven’t —-yet!
This is the time of the beginning of the New Year when many resolve to make this the “best year ever.” I do not exclude myself. My plan is to “get my life in order” which is no small feat – I’ve been focusing on just that task for decades – and I do mean decades! Some days I win. Some days, I manage to take those three steps forward, backwards…
Many also choose a word of focus – a one word to guide one’s actions throughout the year. In my writer’s room, I am surrounded by my words, gathered since 2009, when I first started this practice of focusing on a single word for 365 days to help guide my thinking and actions. My first word : JOY.
This year, rather than choose a single word, I’ve decided to revisit all my words chosen and incorporated in my daily life these past 14 years. I have almost all those words in wooden form, each made for me by a dear friend’s husband.
I’ve shared the fact that I am also a big fan of Gretchen Rubin, as she often describes herself: “the Happiness Bully.” I first “met” Gretchen via her book, The Happiness Project, a 2009 publication. I have purchased and read all her Happiness -themed books; I listen to her weekly Happier podcasts with her sister, Liz Craft, also a writer, and prior to Covid’19 pandemic, attended her writer’s book tours (also with her sister). This year, 2024, I am participating in the year-long Happiness Project Revisited .
And, for me, a major component of Happiness is staying true to my daily intentions to bring peace, calm, order, via implementing beneficial habits to my daily life. One of those habits, dare I say life long, is writing. Write2024 also happens to be this year’s focus to listeners of Gretchen’s and Liz’s annual challenge. Again, dare I say “ A match made in heaven” ?! (Currently I’m typing this on my iPad and it is being uncooperative with making an Interabang: a combination question and exclamation mark. Grr!)
It is 10 AM. Writers’ Hour has been over an hour and I, distracted trying to make the Interrobang on the iPad, lost track of time as well as my train of thought. I see I shall have to take a photo of my words, A – Z…
To be continued…Do you have a word for 2024? Please share in the comments and a link to a blog post if you wrote/published.
ELEVEN Days til the WINTER SOLSTICE. FOURTEEN days til Christmas. THREE weeks til 2024! Where does the time go?
TODAY, we awoke to 1) below freezing temps and 2) SNOW! YES! SNOW! Not much, just a dusting on slanted roofs, grassy areas and the deck & railings. A small and seasonable surprise.
Off and on, over this autumn season, I’ve been weeding both my book and fabric collections – a part of my goal to enter 2024 with “less is more.”
T’is a quiet 14 days ahead …and I really don’t have much – any?- prep or shopping to do. Just a couple projects to wrap up – pun intended – before holiday festivities kick in…
What’s on your to do list?
Cheers!
PS. This Friday my intention is to return with a “Simply A Moment” post.
Two days (and counting) have passed since I planned and would normally have drafted and hopefully published this monthly post…I kept telling myself: “later”… Well, now IS later.
In the background, my clock, ticks steadily: tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…I don’t remember the last time I changed the battery. I do know it’s been more than a few years. T’is a comforting sound. The clock, designed to replicate three book spines, has faded over the years I’ve had it…at least ten? A quote from Anne Lamott : “It’s good to remember: We are all on borrowed time.”
Wednesday, my birthday – a quite a lovely day it was:
Loads of well wishes from family and old friends, far and near. Beautiful cards plus, a long call from my college days’ friend – we were freshwomen when we first met…that was eons ago…
Kicking off with a Zoom session with friend Kathy, complete with my wearing a paper crown…
A long phone chat with a local friend (too many days had passed since last we spoke) …
My friend Linda sent this absolutely lovely hand painted, stitched quilted piece she made…
As it is November and the month of gratitudes, I have been keenly conscious of my own gratitude list. Each day, during my 8 AM Writers’ Hour session, prompted by a DayONE Gratitude challenge, the theme on my birthday, 15 November: “ a simple delight I have been enjoying lately” and to the above I also add:
Good books – source for another post. Currently, I’m reading a second Maggie Smith title: Keep Moving, after enjoying a Writers’ Hour interview with her last week…
Autumn colors, temps and sky – for the win!..
Decluttering my craft and stitching studios for current and end of 2023 holiday projects…
Thanks for spending a few moments with me. Do have a great week end.
The clock is ticking down, this last day of October. Halloween festivities tonight – no doubt at recreation centers and shopping malls. The boys are NOT going “trick or treating” tonight – Dolly has planned an arts -n- crafts and candy making bonanza plus they’ll dress up, play games, etc. She’s creative that way and I know they’ll have a great time, more than enough treats and fond memories… which brings me to the memory I had of the last time I went “trick or treating”.
I was probably 9 years old. We’d arrived at the last house, occupied by a lone man. He kept his shades drawn all the time. During the day, one of the neighbor’s had spent the day raking and burning leaves…they were smoldering. We knocked and shouted “trick or treat” several times; no response. One last warning and then we did the unspeakable: we soaped the window screens.
The lone man opened the door and shouted at us. We screamed and ran for our lives – so we thought. We of course had opinions of this reclusive man and were scared – mainly because we knew we weren’t supposed to be soaping his window screens. I stepped into the pile of smoldering leaves. Burned my foot “big time”! Threw my Halloween loot in the air – not intentionally; ne’er the less, it landed all over the ground. No time to try to gather, just needed to get the h*** outta dodge.
Limped home; my foot burned and hurting. In those days, there were no “late or all night” drugstores open. My pain was exacerbated by the fact that I also knew I had no recourse but to tell my parents the truth. They, in their wisdom listened and said nothing. My mom just applied a homemade remedy to my burning foot.
T’was the absolute last time I went trick or treating.
10:15 am: The sky is a clear, crystal blue. Trees are slow to change color this season, or so it seems…
A flock of sparrows or starlings or wrens land in the yard and begin their feast and swoosh, just as they appear they leave – a breeze?
Contemplating “when” I will go on my daily walk/jaunt to the park …
Listening to my favorite Sunday Baroque musical program from WSHU in Connecticut. I know it’s been a Sunday morning “fave” for I want to say 20 years and counting…
The hot tea from the the yellow mug feels good in my hands. What shall I will fix for breakfast – oatmeal appeals…yes!
A look ahead at the weather forecast suggests clouds will arrive in the afternoon; I find that hard to believe looking out the window… at the current sky…
Aha! the slightest wisp of clouds begin to appear, just at this moment: 10:15 AM
The clouds arrived at 5:15 PM…
Post Script: 10/16/23 . I managed to forget to hit publish yesterday…
Lots of leaves on the ground these days; sadly, they aren’t very crunchy but t’is fun to see the types and colors. Currently, at 4 PM, as I write this post, the sun shines and the wind is gently rockin’ the trees, causing, of course, more leaves to fall. I love Fall and my walks during this season just make me happier.
I subscribe to NPR’s Life Kit – a weekly podcast and an email . This week’s “Kit” shared the responses to a question queried last week: “What’s a recent book you read that you couldn’t put down?” My immediate response was Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain that I read six plus decades ago – definitely not recent – when I was a children’s librarian with the Detroit Public Library. The book arrived in the morning delivery and for some reason, I was emptying the delivery – don’t remember where the clerical staff were – maybe a staff meeting? Anyway, the book captured my attention! I sat down to flip through it and the next thing I knew, t’was 3 PM and the kids were arriving from school. I had absolutely become mesmerized. Don’t remember eating lunch, helping any customers, nothing! Just flipping the pages as fast I could to reach the end and find out what happened! Thinking about that time made me happier…and of course, since then there have been many, many many books that have captured my full attention!
And I was delighted to see the first lawn display of Halloween, as I made my way home from to the park.
7:15 p.m. As I type this, the sun is setting. This has been a lovely Fall day, just warm enough to be without a jacket. I took a long, unplanned walk, to Franciscan Monastery and “wrote”, i.e., spoke via Apple Notes about the trip to and back. What follows is a very edited version of those spoken notes.
Sunday, October 1, 2023.
At the Monastery. I’m sitting on the bench overlooking the forest; to my right, the Ronald McDonald house. The sun shines. The trees are not quite as leafy as they were a month ago. I hadn’t planned to come to the Monastery today – I left home without ID or bus fare or a credit card or cash. I was just going for my normal daily walk but I found myself heading north and Here I Am .
It’s a lovely day: Quiet; there’s a cloud or two or three or four, but they’re not menacing – just adding to the overall glory of this day. I enjoyed a quiet morning in bed, dipping into the three new books on memoir writing I bought yesterday; listening to WSHU’s Sunday Baroque; and jotting down thoughts in my journal. Just relaxing. Enjoying doing nothing.
According to the clock it’s 1:33 PM and this is Sunday, October 1. A month ago I was here and I challenged myself to learn something new every day. Well, I suppose I did but what I didn’t do was document what I learned. C’est la vie.
So again, here I sit, partially in the sun and partially not if I turn a little bit. I’m just resting, enjoying the breeze and the scenery, and looking up at the sky following the trees to their very tippy tops. Such a beautiful, peaceful setting. I see a young boy running uphill and wonder where he’s going.
The koi pond is overflowing with plants; I barely saw any fish; wonder why they let the plants grow that way? I’m sure there’s a reason. I tell myself I’ll take a couple pictures of the Koi pond on my way out.
And thus the day comes to an end. Welcome October 2023.
9:15 AM – The bright blue sky is crystal clear; there is a slight breeze, evident by the gentle sway of leaves on the trees, bushes, grasses and an occasional leaf or two, whirling to the ground. There isn’t a cloud to be seen. A beautiful autumn day.
Look closely. Do you see the butterflies?
I sit here at the table, trying to decide what do I do next? Writers’ Hour is over for the time being; there is another session scheduled at 11 A, EST, 8 AM PST… I doubt I’ll join for I’m not actually bursting with words begging to be made visible and my day’s to do list is long…
I contemplate a walk to the Franciscan Monastery but my “to do” agenda rules that out. Me thinks my morning walk to and thru the park will fit the bill quite nicely and on the way to/fro I will undoubtedly stumble on a leaf or more on the sidewalk, a lovely autumn fleur, and the refreshing caress of a breeze on my cheeks. Cool enough for sleeves on my arms.
Over the past couple years, since Covid rudely interrupted all our lives, I’ve sat at this table and watched another apartment building being built. DC is only 64 square miles and these days, a plot of land, especially on major thoroughfares and streets, becomes prime real estate for multi dwelling buildings … and because no building can be taller than the Washington Monument, sky scrappers are out of the question, thereby limiting how tall any building may be …
The big decision: do I check out the progress of the new apartment building on my walk to or from the park? I think To… or Fro…Hmmm
1:30 PM – This gorgeous day is half over! I’ve completed my walk and every step was as lovely as I’d anticipated. The breeze still caresses the trees and the sky, cloudless. Three loads of laundry – not necessarily “fun” but definitely D-O-N-E.
A photo to end this post: Elias, now in all day kindergarten, working on his autobiography. They start young…
Morning Glory Studio 