Daily Notes- April 30th

Image from the newspaper pinned to my "mood" wall.  Accidentally, I gave the paper crow on top a huge red berry (thumbtack) to eat.- Ha!  The lower two crows are squawking.  Where's our berry????

I made chili yesterday after writing to you here.  I had been putting it off.  The making.  I am rather out of touch with daily cooking.  So, it seemed like too much work.  But I broke it down and it got done.  I add diced carrots to my chili because that's the way my mother made it.  And I diced  the largest green pepper I could find in the vegetable aisle at the local grocery.  The carrot could be described as a horse carrot.  Really large.

I'm not sure what I would be called.  Certainly not a vegetarian but I eat WAY MORE vegetables than most of the people I know.  And I take after my paternal grandfather--"strong like bull" only I don't pour whiskey into my morning cup of coffee.  The tendencies to be an alcoholic skipped me.  I am grateful.  But, man, I did LOVE breathing in the aroma of that strong coffee and whiskey. My grandpa's morning "wake up".  First drink of the day.

We had our one day of sunshine (and I picked the first 2019 tick off G) and now it's back to DARKNESS and RAIN and COLD so the aforementioned chili is a wonderful thing for me to have for today's meal and tomorrow's.

The intermittent fasting is going okay--  I don't know what weight I started at--so I used the weight from my last doctor's appointment in October. I'm certain I gained weight since then but--I'm going with the doctor's visit weight as a "known" so the loss totals 9 pounds.  Ten pounds is one size.  So, my winter pants are easier to button.  I am wearing my 20 year wedding ring.  These are markers that I can notice each day.  And now that the scale is in my bedroom and has a fresh battery--I can weigh in each morning.

I am going to layer that very pale patchwork I showed you a few days ago.  And do some in the ditch quilting.  See how that goes.  Just what if-ing.

I forgot to mention--Goodwill Sunday-  Treasures.  A one dollar silk print blouse.  In a black and brown herringbone print or weave.  Very nice.  To wear or cut up. And at the other Goodwill across Town a wool bear about 8 inches tall- (perhaps 10) with long  moveable arms and legs and a head that turns.  Dark brown as well.  He looked up into my eyes and I looked into his little button eyes and we decided to live together. I checked his ear to see if there had once been a Steiff button. No.

Also, fabric.  An old fashioned green twigged print I added to the Civil War Box and then two very wild and crazy prints--not African but sort of like that.  Oranges and Blues.  Something to think about using.

Daily Notes- April 29th

Working.  Pulling weeds, cutting the dry herb stalks from last year.  Piling everything into the wheel barrow.  After the walk....I am starting a habit of walking with G and Riley each day...I cut down White Pine seedlings along the path to the woods.  24 to 30 of them.  Perhaps more.  There are thousands.  They block the Sun went they grow older.  They make Winter days bleak with their walls of darkness.  I look back there and its a wall of black as far as I can see.  Enough.  I want light.

Reading, still, the Night Ferry.  The book is not as compelling as the ones that went before.  One policeman is in solitary confinement and another is on a train to Bosnia.  Will he find the answers he needs?  Only about 100 pages to go.  I'm sure the authors intended suspense at this point. No.

Women Rowing North is waiting for me at the library.  And I have the Cloud Atlas on the reading shelf and one other book which shall remain nameless as I am not getting up to find out what it is.

In just a moment in Time--which is how it comes here in Maine--I switched from my corduroy pants, wool sweater and thermal long sleeve top to short sleeved tee, black knit cropped pants and no socks. and I sat in the sunshine and let it warm me to the core.  Then my left ear gave me a shout out that I need sunscreen--NOW!!!  That ear is like an early warning beacon. So, I came into the house and-well, the computer lured me here.  I will go back outside with sunscreen and wearing one of my "sprinkle/sparkle" work shirts.  I wish I had sent more of them to be "sprinkled".

Neighbors are coming out of their houses--I was thinking about a Block Party--only it would just be just our street. So a Street Party.  It's a long street with each home sitting on the back of an acre plus lot. Mostly I see the neighbors I do know--at the grocery store---like once a year.  I'll give it more thought.  I heard, long ago in the early 1990's when I moved here--that they had parties all the time on this street.  Even had a progressive New Year's Eve dinner.  Some of the men wore tuxedos.  Then it stopped.  And never really got started again.

So a bunch of grills, a blow up bouncy house for the kids, music and perhaps someone making margaritas in the Vitamix with fresh limes and lemons (me).  What could go wrong?  Laughing.

Daily Notes- April 28th

Image from one of my old decorating/design books.  No longer relevant but some of the images still lovely.  My husband brought home a rocker when our first baby was a few weeks old.  He's seen me gently rocking in our one chair. We still have that rocker--it was and still is--a porch rocker.  And when I sit in it and rock--I am reminded of my two babies.

So I cut out this picture.  In case I forget.

I am sorry for the words yesterday.  This new thing with my husband is really, really hard. He is a gentle man and kind but when frustrated his fall back is anger.  And he is stubborn.  When a thought is in his mind it festers.  He keeps returning to it even if I have said "no".  He doesn't hear the no or he immediately forgets it. He wants to prune the blueberries.  I have said no.  I always prune the blueberries.  He has never done it. Each time I look away he is down in the garden with pruners.  Doesn't remember me saying no.  What follows breaks my heart.  How many times can you say-"we just talked about this"?  I guess countless times.

I have decided-when reading the notes for Week 10 in the Morning Pages book--that I am being frustrated with the pages at exactly the right Time.  Who knew?  So, today at Goodwill I purchased a smaller journal with nice smooth pages.  I will count the lines on each page and see if I need to stay with three or do four.  I have run out of pages in the super large journal I thought would last the entire 12 weeks.

I am closing now--to find my clippers and go out and prune the blueberries.  We clipped the thin white cloth to the outside perimeter of the fence where the blueberries grow.  To scare the birds away. I want blueberries this summer for blueberry sour cream cake.  The thin cloth floats and lifts in uneven motion.  The birds can't get used to it.

Daily Notes- April 27th

Image like the ones I am cutting out of old books on my bookshelf.  Not all chairs.  But mostly chairs.  It's so cold in the house today.  Rained all of yesterday--starting right after we arrived home from the walk.

G and Riley had a very bad night.  Neither got much sleep and they spent the morning and early afternoon sleeping which is why I was watching TV in the dining room.  I could have gone down into the sewing room--but would need a coat and gloves.  Everything on television and the internet is screaming SUMMER and here in Maine-- it's still Winter.  Yes, the grocery is selling piles of hothouse tomatoes, sweet corn and boxes of strawberries.  Still Winter.

I'm going to start reading The Night Ferry.  A Danish Thriller.  And I am wrapping myself up in the down lap robe.  And I might turn on all the lamps.  Mitigate the dark gray outside the windows.

That's all I have for you today.  My jaw aches, my fingers are too cold to type, and I think I might want a nap like the one G and the dog just finished.  Morning Pages-I wrote I have nothing to write on one full page and started in with that same sentence on the next page.  Then I wrote down G's list of woes from last night with the dog as he talked about them.  When I get to the last page in a few days--I am stopping.  Not wasting any more journal space on words.  The bad dreams are back and I wake up crying.  I even cry while typing these worthless daily notes.

Daily Notes- April 26th

Pale.  Ghost of a pattern.  My own plant based dyed cloth.  The old, old soft cotton.  It waits (laid over a yard of new cotton).  So patient.  Will there be more?  I don't know.  Only Time will tell. I started this while reading back into Jude's files on Pages and Sanity two winters ago. Spirit Cloth.

Walked the past two days with G and Riley.  Riley had a good night's sleep last night which means G did also.  He is still sleeping out on the couch with the dog at night.   On the walk in the woods out back (with a 15% degree up and down hill and valley) Riley was checking for messages --I call it Pee Mail. If he gets a reply to one of his Pee Mails--then he leaves a new message.  Only two today.  So many yesterday that he had to restock his water supply a few times.

We crossed over two bridges (water isn't as deep as it will be tomorrow after it rains all of today) and I collected a pine branch.  Will try to get some color out of it in the steam kettle.  The table out in the Vestibule is loaded with plant material that I will steam with cloth.  I've been collecting more than I have been steaming.  I could make a fire outside but I don't have one of those cast iron kettles.  Yesterday I collected fat mounds of moss.  Which I potted up in a clay pot near the deck.  A shady spot.  I often added collected moss to bonsai and dish gardens at work.  And interesting rocks.  For a more natural look.  More of a "garden".  This moss garden will live outside.

I did get all the blueberry bushes fertilized yesterday.  I had a small white dainty tea cup as my scooper.  It was the perfect size and it really did a good job.  I must have brought it home with me--from where--I don't remember.  But it ended up on the potting bench.  I also gave the acidic fertilizer (Hollytone) to the rhubarb after I raked all the debris of Winter way from the bed.

Yesterday I started and finished Nina George's Book of Dreams.  It's really all about living and dying. I found it disturbing, loving, fascinating and at the end--incredibly sad.  I will remember Henri and Eddie and Sam for a long time.  Nothing to do with Paris.  I had no idea her books were translated into English.  Difficult to do, I think, as it was first published in 2015 in German, I would guess.

It's supposed to rain all day.  Later in the evening and overnight some of the coastal areas will be flooding.  We've been asked to have our drinking water tested.  "Things have happened". The letter didn't say what that might have been.  Maine is like the canary in the coal mine for the rest of you.
"Things have happened".

Daily Notes- April 25th

Here's the postage stamp doll quilt with a final row, all around of only pinks.  I think it pulls it all together, huh?   I'm not sure I have enough pinks to go around a second time and I am not al that interested in cutting more tiny squares.  So, this might be it.

I learned a few things.  I may never do this again.  But if I do, I will mix the colors from the beginning.  Or just settle on three or four shades of one color.  The doll quilts like this on the internet are usually an assortment of colors alternating with a solid white or cream.  I hadn't even considered doing that.

G and I had a shouting argument in the fenced garden yesterday and then agreed to stop talking and just rake leaves and dead quack grass out of the paths and away from the blueberries.  Four big wheelbarrows full and then I called it quits and we took showers.  He wants to make taller raised beds for me but doesn't want me to grow "more" vegetables.  G doesn't eat vegetables.  So, I was all why the hell even BOTHER.  G was raised on TV Dinners with the little tiny vegetable triangles in the corners of the foil trays.  Which he probably didn't touch.

The only vegetables I grow that he shows any interest in are the tomatoes.  And, I guess the zucchini I turn into pickles.

He wants me to grow flowers.  Lots and lots of flowers.  The Earth Laughs In Flowers.

So, I think the pink doll quilt now moves into being layered up and ready for hand quilting.  I'll move onto making new placemats.  I am thinking of making the new placemats square not rectangles.  More room for the plates and drink glasses.  Who decided placemats were rectangular?  Or I can just make a very large "table mat" that covers the entire top of our table.  What do you think?

I am going on line after hitting publish here and seeing what the parameters are for making a microwavable rice bag.  I think there might be "rules" for safety etc.  Then I am reading a book.  Start to finish today.

Daily Notes- April 24th

Another unfinished piece.  The crow is just sitting on it.  Not attached.  This goes into the try and try again pile.  I am trying to make a "story cloth" but I don't seem to have a "story" that translates into cloth.  I think I am not fitted out (design wise) for small cloth.  Or story cloth of wind, plants, roots and Spirit animals.  No matter how MUCH I want to be. I will have to find another way.  Path.

It's wicked cold in the house this morning.  Same temp as all the days of Winter but suddenly--feeling way colder.  Because the sun hasn't shined in days and days here in Maine. And it's dark inside the house even with lights on.

G asked me about an spot on his head minus skin.  I said -the crab tree when you were pruning. Who will remember for me????  I am now G's rememberer.

Another good night of sleeping for Riley.  G on the couch.  No tranquilizers and the dog ate his three small dog meals yesterday.  We divide his daily kibble into three servings- breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And I now agree with G--The dog is looking very thin.  Bones and ribs are very noticeable.  The hip divot is deep.  Riley was up at 5am and wanting breakfast, which he ate, and then out for a pee and getting the morning paper from the box at the end of the driveway.  Then back to sleep. Riley has always been an avid fan of his three meals.  Me, too.

G and I went out for lunch yesterday.  G had a pub steak and fries and I had the chicken tender salad. Which included lettuce, bacon, fresh baby cucumbers, tomatoes and other veggies with a honey mustard dressing.  It was very good.  I had to chop the chicken fingers into tiny bits in order to chew them.  But things went well.  The restaurant featured the Red Sox game on four screens.

I guess I am going to have to turn on more  house lights and perhaps even put on a second sweater. I have another row of pinks to add to the postage stamp quilt.  The first one looked nice.  I think I'll go do that now.  G has a floral delivery to make--his "side job"--before noon.  He and Riley will go. Riley still enjoys a car ride even though he has never been one to sit up and look out the window.  He tends to sleep in the car.

So, nothing much going on here and I'll just get back to what I was doing and see you all tomorrow.

Daily Notes- April 23rd

Blooming right now at my house.  Such lovely things orchids.  More so I think, because it takes so long for them to re-bloom.   Off to the left and behind-- one of the pansy orchids has a few buds opening very slowly.  Perhaps, by Friday.  Flowers look like pansies.

Something has happened to the computer overnight.  Very slow and quite stubbornly opening pages. I haven't been able to get any of my emails to open.  If things are truly messed up---I will be very very sad.  All of you "out there" are my only contacts with humans other than my daughter and my walking buddy.  I write to you and sometimes--not often enough, you write back.  But I know you're out there.

This morning--as soon as I was up and dressed--and even before the Morning Pages--I was up in the Magic Attic looking for the two (possibly three) pink fabrics I used for the center pieces of the postage stamp doll quilt.  There was a tub of cloth I hadn't looked at closely enough.  I had to go back twice and finally brought down ALL the pinks.  Held them up to the square and matched all of them.  My reason for searching--I think I need to re-introduce the original center pinks back into future strips.  Continuity.  All that pink was looking out of place.  I'll be cutting 1.5 inch squares and seeing if it works out.  I really should have co-mingled the pinks and all the other colors much sooner. I may just add one more strip going all around.  Show it to you and see what anyone thinks.

My seven day book- The Book of Dreams has an "due soon" noticed in the emails I can't open.  So that's on my to-do list for today as well.  And my daughter wants me to create "rice bags" for her eyes.  Something she can heat in the microwave and place on her eyes to perhaps unclog her oil glands.  It all sounds weird to me.

G's turn to sleep on the couch with the dog last night.  Even with a tranquilizer.  I am starting to think it's not the going to bed--it's the turning off of lights.  The dark.  Riley is sleeping as I type.  By the couch and alongside the large ottoman.  But the lights are on.  Perhaps he can't see in the dark?  Which is why he's bumping into things, panting and drooling.  He is eating.  He chased a deer in the woods yesterday.  He jumps into the car and goes with G on errands.

Yesterday G and I pruned the red crab tree.  It was hard work.  For G.  I was in charge of pointing out where to cut.  Collecting branches.  Raking leaves out from under and around the tree and the rhododendrons.  And clean up. And finding the different saws in the tool trunk. And putting the insect nests into the soapy water bucket.

We watched Antiques Roadshow--well, I was the only one awake.  A double feature yesterday. Then I watched Hallmark Mysteries.  A haunted castle and stolen antiquities.  Episode Two.  I'd already seen episodes one and three weeks or months ago.  Then I went to bed.

Daily Notes- April 22nd

Now 12 inches square.  It's a cheerful little thing.  Doll Quilt?  What measurements for doll size quilts?  But I did two full rows for today and my Morning Pages on events in Life where we could have taken another Path.  I could have written 20 pages on that subject.  I have made poor choices for most of my 72 years.

The dog needed a tranquilizer to get thru the day yesterday and then I slept on the couch with him last night (he sleeps on the floor).  He was ringing the bell we have on the back door.  I taught him to do that if he needed to go out to pee when he was a puppy.  Now he rings it when things aren't feeling good.  I got myself into a comfortable place on the couch and fell asleep and woke up around 6 am.  Still in same spot.  G got up to feed the dog and we switched places.  I got another few hours of sleep in my bed.

I don't mind.  Riley is a good dog and probably has no idea what is going wrong inside his head.  Why be mad at him?  Or feel inconvenienced?  And, as both G and I have discovered--the couch is very comfortable.  We take turns.  It's good.  But we know the clock is ticking on the amount of Time we have left together.  The three of us.  No regrets.  I get emotional.  Tears are every present these days.

It's warmer today--Spring--but still cloudy with chances for rain all day.  G is pruning the nests out of the crab trees.  Nests of tiny worms that mature into caterpillar type things with thread hairs that cause much suffering if they get on your skin.  Itching and a rash.  He has a bucket of soapy water to put the nests in.  We have to do it before they hatch out of the worm stage.  And the caterpillars manage to eat all the leaves off the trees as they grow.  Over a period of Time, killing the trees.

I made G's favorite pasta sauce yesterday for his dinner.  Never got around to making a holiday dessert or making a special dish for myself.  I think I might go to the store and buy a small square of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  He loves that.  I still have my yogurt with cut strawberries from Saturday.  Feels too cold for a bowl of cold fruit and yogurt. And I might buy a slice of baked ham. Just for me. Fry it in the frypan.

Daily Notes- Easter Sunday

A cutting garden bouquet.  I am thinking (planning) on making one of the raised beds in the fenced garden into a "cutting garden" bed.  Rows of annual flowers.  Cosmos, snaps, celosia, etc.  Whatever I can find in a six or 12 pack.  I want ALL the colors and shapes.  It will likely be the old carrot and strawberry bed that the chipmunks tunneled to eat all the carrots roots and leave me just the tops.  A good Easter story, no?  And they ate all the strawberries as well.

Riley had a bad night.  He's sleeping now--with the aid of a tranquilizer (now he's awake).  I'm thinking we should give him a pill at about 8 pm every evening.  Perhaps earlier.  G is worried that Riley is getting too thin.  Old Dogs.  The long goodbye.  Really hard.  He did enjoy his walk today.  I was still having breakfast when they went--otherwise I would have gone.  But G wanted to beat the coming rain.

Later, I started the work of culling books from my bookcase.  Not many hold my interest now, so will be donated, but the "other stuff" found in the books was of interest.  Sales slips, hand written notes,  an old phone number etc. I did removed images from most of the books.  For my journals. Because that way, I'll always have the images I liked or loved.  Don't need the books.  The pile is heavy and oddly enough all the books are square.  I imagine book publishers found decorating books are nicer if the pages are square?  The print color on the older books is terrible.  I didn't keep any images from them.

I'm eating the candy shop jelly beans our neighbor gave us.  Only one color until it's gone.  I think I might have eaten them that way as a child.  My grandmother made us huge Easter Baskets each year until I was 9 (lots of jelly beans and a chocolate bunny) and we moved and didn't share a house with our grandparents any more.  I don't remember my mother making any Easter baskets-ever.  Just lemon pies--which she liked.

But I do remember decorating the eggs with hot wax and a pen with a metal tip.  And dipping the eggs in colors and then adding more wax designs  I also remember frying potato pancakes.  That was my job because I did it better than my mother and I was the one who smelled like grease afterwards.  Eggs, potato pancakes and tuna salad.  Don't ask me why.

Well, enough of that.  Happy Easter

Daily Notes- April 20th

Happy Easter tomorrow.  It's raining here and not one speck of blue sky or sun.  These daffodils will have to do the job.

Got home from work a little after 4 pm.  I left the house at a little after 8 am.  Two classes and I divided and repotted 24 African Violets for a customer.  I've been doing the same work on these Violets for 6 years, I would guess.  A very satisfied customer.  Lovely woman.  Always enjoy seeing her and aside from the one year I had to give her bad news-- her violets were infested with mealy bug--  we've co-managed many, many violets.  Very large and very healthy.

She came to the store with them--because she'd heard I was going to be "in the building" today.

I'm tired.  I have two books I can read--  The Midnight Ferry by Danish authors- Lotte and Soren Hammer and a Paris book by Nina George-  The Book of Dreams.  I wish I wasn't so exhausted because I want to read both.  Right now.

I watched episodes of CSI yesterday.  I had forgotten how very gruesome they can be.  But for some reason it doesn't bother me on CSI--any other venue and I'd be covering my eyes and changing the channel.  And, sigh, there was nothing else to watch.

Well, my bowl of Kraft Mac and Cheese won't eat itself.  Gotta go.

Happy Easter!!!

Daily Notes- April 19th

Good Friday.  Our neighbor is back home--the baby decided to wait a bit longer to arrive so one grandmother returned to Maine and the other arrived to .... wait.  Our neighbor brought gifts for collecting her mail and packages.  Jelly Beans and foil covered chocolate eggs.  Tiny eggs.  It's enough.  More than enough.  We try and tell her we would do it just for being a neighbor.

I was thinking--when was the last Time I filled an Easter Basket?  Or cooked an Easter Dinner?  So long ago, I can't even find a number in my memory.  And the eggs.  I am reminded of coloring a few blown out egg shells with black ink a few years ago.  But no longer the waxed designs and dipping eggs in colored dyes.  I think it all goes away when you have no grandchildren.  By my age- most would have great grand children.  Neither my brother or I have any grandchildren so the line will end.

G called from the dining room to tell me a male Cardinal is calling in the back yard.  Trying to find a woman?  Telling all the females that he's built a very nice nest?  On the drive to and from Bath (closer to the ocean) we have noticed the Eagle is sitting on the nest high in the light poles (right above the busy highway).  And the Osprey are already nesting in Phippsburg also way up on top of poles along the highway.  When I worked at the greenhouse we often had Eagles circling overhead. Magnificent.

I carried my envelope headed to Arizona to the mailbox--- helping pay postage for a loom going to a woman in California.  Her home and belongings lost in the fire.  Many hearts make light work of giving.

It rained most of yesterday and into the night.  But not raining right now.  Overcast.  No sun.  This is how I remember most Good Fridays from my childhood.  Dark.  Silent.  Tomorrow the greenhouse and two classes.  The big glass house open now and filled with tulips, pansies and Easter lilies.  It will be a lovely day spent with so much plant material even if the sun does not shine.

Daily Notes- April 18th

Ten by Twelve inches.  Things are happening.  No more of the tan/green fabric so I started in on the gold/yellows.  I liked how that tan/green was a "resting square" but I searched most of an hour in the solids box.  Nothing.  Where did only 6 squares come from?

Finished reading Paris By The Book  (Connie you will like it) at one in the am.  Author is Liam Callanan and I am going to read his The Cloud Atlas next or All Saints or Listen and other Stories which ever one arrives first on the library reserve.

I stopped at Walmart after my haircut to see if they had a cassette/CD player.  Sony.  It looks good and now I will be able to listen to music while I sew.  I'll start with vintage mixed tapes of early sixties music.  My friend's husband made them for me.  I used to play them when I had parties.  In the big player we had. One would finish and the next one start--in a continuing loop. I was complimented on my good taste in music.  The tapes remind me the early 60's in college and the joy of that music.  Makes you want to dance.  Or just sing along.  We all know the words.

It looks like it's going to rain.  Hard and for a long time. My car is out in the driveway so it'll get washed.  I might don my raincoat and use a large sponge with car wash soap on it when it 's raining really good.  To scrub the last of the road salt off the flat back side of the Fit.  The hatch has this wing over the top and the backside never gets clean even in a carwash.  2008.  30K in mileage.

I keep looking at the picture up top.  I need more "resting" squares.

Daily Notes- April 17th

These are a few of my favorite things.........

A house is always the first choice in a drawing.  I think of a house as shelter, safety, home.  I had a home as a child but it wasn't sheltering or safe.  I spent much of my pre-school play trying to "build a house" and then in Kindergarten-they had a life-sized child's playhouse.  They couldn't get me out of it.  I wanted to live in it all by myself.  I was given a bad mark in the sharing column.

I see these simple pictures over and over again in my journals.  Child-like.  An emotional litmus test.

I went out for a Walk with my Friend this morning.  She asked if we could walk down to the bridge over the river and I said yes.  The Spring (snow melt) water is deep and running fast over the rocks. Quite a dangerous place if one gets too close to the edge.  We didn't.  And then we walked back into Town- the Maine Street and farther along onto the campus of Bowdoin College.  I wanted to know where the concert hall was located.  The college sponsors concerts during the summer.  Student and professionals.  I had wanted to know where it was so I could try and attend a few this summer.  The concert hall used to house the college swimming pool.  So the acoustics are excellent.

I watched  7 episodes of Chef's Table on Netflix yesterday.  Nothing much happens.  Usually there is a story narrative on how the Chef came to be a chef.  Motivation.  And the images are usually quite beautiful.  Usually.  The episodes I watched are the current ones.  Interesting but not as visually beautiful. Eventually I'll get back to the original ones.  Little talking.  Just pictures.  Especially the Korean chef who is a Buddhist monk.  I want to see that one again.  There is also a chef who builds a fire on a snow covered shoreline.  It's like a meditation.

I am needing meditative things.

I added a few more strips of one inch squares to the pink center.  Yellows, blue, greens, tan and a new pink.  The pink needed to show up again.  For continuity. So I broke my word to myself and cut more pink squares.  And because the sides are getting longer and longer--I needed more of the other colors (I had enough green) to balance everything.  I make rules and then break them.  I think as the square gets larger and more multicolored-- things will work--but right now the center pink square looks like a mistake.  I should have started adding the other colors sooner.   I could have stopped then--when I saw that the pink center was wrong--but I didn't.  I'll take another picture of it after I finish today's two sides.  There is a tiny voice in my head saying--you can cut away the threads and remove  a few of the interior pinks and replace then with colors.  That tiny voice always thinks something like  that will be "easy to do" and it never is.

That Tiny Voice is always getting me in trouble.

Daily Notes- April 16th

Another drawn on a junk mail envelope while a beautiful 800 year old building blazed in the night.

I have been to Paris (more than once).  But I hadn't gone to see this wonder of the world.  I sat yesterday thinking--I shall never see what others saw.  Why hadn't I walked there or taken a taxi from the hotel?  It was very early in my Life on the Road-the 80's.  I know I walked the streets of Paris.  Loving the way it felt. And I do remember the bar at a very important Paris hotel- the Ritz?  Everyone laughing as they charged their food and drink to an unsuspecting co-worker who would have to do "some explaining" when they all got back to Chicago.  I remember being very sad on the plane ride home-trying to sleep on the three seats.  Yes, dear Readers-- I had three seats to recline on in Business Class and a Limo to take me home from the airport.  This is one very big reason I hesitate to travel now.  Cattle Cars are not that interesting to me.  On that trip I was told I would be moving to Europe.  In a few months.

I am reading a book  "Paris By The Book" about a woman who's husband just vanishes one day and is presumed dead.  She finds, in a dusty box of cereal, a slip of paper with numbers on it.  A code for airplane tickets for her and her two daughters.  To Paris.  They go.  They stay.  They live above a bookstore, manage the bookstore and thrive in Paris-sort of..  The woman goes out walking each day, looking for a man who looks like her husband.  And then she follows that man.  Never catching up to him--just watching and walking where he does.  Hoping someday she'll actually be following her very own husband so she can ask "why did you leave us?".  I haven't finished yet so I don't know if we find out why.

I will pick up and take home to read, any book I find on the library shelves with the word Paris in the title.  Little Paris Bistro.  Paris Apartment.  Paris Key. Paris Bookstore. Loved them all.

I have my herb garden seeds ready to start in the plastic milk containers.  I should have done this weeks ago but it was still cold and snowing and I thought Spring would never arrive.  But it has.  With rain and blustery wind.  But Spring.  One raised bed will be herbs and pollinators.  One will be flowers for Beauty and the Bees. Another will be zucchini for pickles.  The boxes on the driveway will be Tomatoes and Peppers.  And that is it.  Later.  I will plant green beans.  I would enjoy growing carrots as I enjoy eating carrots.  We'll see.  I will grow only what I love to eat.  Buy the rest. Oh and kale.  I always grow kale.

My neighbor across the street is in Boston waiting for a new grandchild to arrive, but packages from Amazon continue to arrive.  We have created a pile of things in our hallway while we wait for her to come back home.  This morning's package was from Whole Foods via Amazon Prime.

I have a new recipe card here on the desk.  From Simple Veganista's blog-- Lo Mein this time. I'll skip the crispy tofu (soy which I can't eat) but the sauce looks interesting and I can load up on veggies. Carrots, asparagus, cabbage, bell peppers, snow peas and Broccolini.  No one has been able to tell me how a vegetarian gets protein if allergic to soy.  Even the fake cheese is soy based.

Daily Notes- April 15th

Two Chairs For Company.

It's been "a morning" of riding a roller coaster of emotions.  Too personal to delve into here.  But now I understand fully "having the rug pulled out from under your feet".

Riley is tired today.  He had another episode because we had rain and thunder last night.  I medicated him and stayed with him until his eyes lost focus and then went back to bed. I think it was well past midnight.  He still looks medicated this morning but no drooling or unfocused movements.  No panic. It really wears him out.

Daughter came by with a gift of cactus dahlias for G and I.  Orange and yellow for him and shades of pink for me.  I'll plant his in a container near his workshop so he can see them as he goes in and out. My pink ones will go near the front steps.  I usually plant something both pink and yellow on the back deck where we both sit on warm summer days (after the sun is blocked by the tall pines).  It's lovely that pink and yellow look so nice together especially with some pale blues and whites. The dahlias look nice and healthy--already seeing white roots in the packages.

Busier week than usual for me. Today I went to an appointment with G and was going to the library but it's closed for the "holiday" (Patriots Day).  Strange that the post office is delivering mail.  Tomorrow is a free day so far.  Walking on Wednesday.  Haircut on Thursday and teaching two classes on Saturday.  Sunday is Easter.

I never got down to the sewing room to add the fourth strip of multi colored squares to the pink project.  I should do that now.  But I am so darned sleepy.

I might just join Riley in a mid afternoon nap.  G has gone to exchange the door lock set he bought.  It wasn't what he needed. I think this is the third one he has bought and had to return.

Daily Notes- April 14th

Finding the graphite pencils I purchased long ago in Europe--- has made this image possible.  I filled in the white spaces.  The graphite is smooth as soft butter on the page.  On the media fast Week 4 - I went back thru the journal this image was in and colored spaces on so many drawings.

My Coffee Buddy is now going to be my Walking Buddy.  Yeah!!!.  It's how we began.  Then health/breathing issues for both of us stopped the once or twice a week walk.  But we are back to walking.  In Town.  Places to sit and rest.  Places to get water or coffee.  She is 75 and I am 72.5 so we pace ourselves, especially as we begin.

Nothing from Goodwill.  There was a striking, painterly tee top from Vera Wang.  I carried it around for awhile.  Not sure it would fit.  And, I am not really sure it ever would.  Not sure my daughter would want it.  So I left without making a purchase.   But I did drop off my Five Things.

If I continue to go to Goodwill on Sunday--I will also continue to drop off Five Items.

I haven't read about the coming week's exercises for the Artist's Way.  I'm not really very good at doing the exercises or the artist dates.  I have started writing in the book instead of on separate paper.  I guess I will have to burn that as well when I finish.   I read a review of the author.  She is described as a failure in every artistic endeavor she has tried.  Also been addicted to alcohol and later drugs.  So rehab and AA.  I have no idea if these comments are true or false but the AA sounds about right.

We stopped at the grocery on the way home.  It was expensive and we hardly bought anything.  I have a can of tuna in the fridge and I think I will mix up some tuna salad and have it with the remainder of the greens in the fridge.  A Big Salad.  Easy enough to manage with my jaw still not enjoying chewing anything.  I forgot to buy another box of cream of wheat.  The only thing I can eat for breakfast.

I added THREE strips of little squares to my pink block yesterday afternoon.  I was going to push on for the fourth and last strip but it felt like my heart wouldn't be in it.  Push is not a creative word.  I mixed green and blue and tan into those strips.  It changed the block.  But still okay.  Different than I had thought...... but the project was to use up all those tiny squares.  So, different is where I am going.

Daily Notes- April 13th

I managed to bake a pie, get Watchathon working again, watched a movie (Arrival) which I had seen  before but it leaves a real impression--sends me a message each time I see it.  I wish I had gotten to see it again in a theater.  The soundtrack........something about it.

I had a very strange "waking" dream today.  Somewhere between being awake and being asleep.  I'm not sure if I was or wasn't.  But some things became clear.  I could see how it might be, at the end. Like in Arrival, Time moved back and forth from past to future while the viewer stayed in the present.

1.  I'm not in charge of anything or anyone.
2.  Gardening and feeding the Earth seem to be what I do best.
3.  It's Time to work on another Random Act of Kindness and not just think about it.
4.  I want to start a daily walk routine.  I wasn't fast enough today and G and Riley are already gone.
5.  Thirty Minutes on the sewing machine each day.  Set a timer.  Longer is okay.  Shorter is not.
6.  I may never stop writing the Morning Pages but I will never, ever read them.
7.  Realizing that beginning is the hardest part of anything.

It's raining here in Maine.  And it will be raining for several days.  And, then, perhaps Spring will arrive?   I'm going to dust and vacuum and do laundry today.  In fact, I am going to begin doing all those things as soon as I hit publish.   And then I will add rows to the pink square.  Other colors as I am out of pink.

The image up top.  A drawing I have made in cloth and on paper.  Recently I added color to the black and white drawing.  I draw this image over and over as the years go by.  It keeps arriving on paper and cloth.  Here it is today.  I could look at it forever and be happy.

Daily Notes- April 12th

The stack of fabrics on the sewing machine chair.  The top fabric is the Goodwill find for one dollar.  Everything else is from the Magic Closet in the Attic.  I'm not sure about the aqua dotted fabric.  It's the only aqua I have in the stash and the focus piece seems to need a bit of that color in the patchwork.

Jude is talking about patchwork in the new class.  Asking us to quickly define the word as it pertains to us.  The meaning it has for us.  

Pulling things together.  Finding solutions.  Making odd things work together.  Serendipity.  That last word is what makes patchwork so much of an adventure for me.  Serendipity.  When you randomly pull a fabric out of the stash and magic happens.  The whole of it just slips into place and is RIGHT. It certainly keeps me interested in cloth.  It keeps me interested in giving ANY combo a working opportunity. And the stipulation of the focus fabric being something found at Goodwill.  Even more fun.  I am considering cotton print clothing items as a source focus fabric.

Disappointment.  That was the word for yesterday. I watched episode one of Homeland season 7 on Watchathon and when I clicked on episode 2--nothing.  I ended up yelling at the woman on the Xfinity help line.  She wanted us to disconnect TiVo.  Would not accept that Xfinity was the problem.  So, I will not know what happened next on episode 2.  And Watchathon 2019 is a Great Disappointment to me.  No movies that had been made in the last 10 years.  Mostly it was series work.  Homeland, True Detective, Games of Thrones, Deadwood etc.  And I would imagine, disconnecting the viewers just as things got interesting--with the hope they would then buy HBO. No.

We also had a disappointing lunch at a local restaurant where things are usually quite good.

I had a burger and it took time and concentration to cut it into small bite sized segments so I could eat it with my fork and knife in the European fashion. It was very tall and had several layers of components. My primary care doctor would be thrilled to read this.  She calls tiny bites of food "mindful eating" only she wants me to think about each bite before eating it.  Analyzing the textures, flavors etc. I spent my Time analyzing the size of bite I could comfortably chew.

I sealed the Tax envelopes BEFORE G signed the forms.  So I had to open them.  It never ends.

Daily Notes- April 11th

My sewing machine table.  This is what I have been working on for the past few days.  The center 9 patch was sewn by hand many months ago.  But my eyes are getting too old for hand sewing, I think. I just noticed the three little one inch squares of pink-all in a row.  How did I let that happen??? But I am not going to fix it.  I'll just roll with it.  Looks like I have way more than I need of the dark violet.
Right now--I refuse to cut more of the pink squares but I might have to cave.  But there are blue and yellows there also.

I created my "Mood Board" for the Artist's Way yesterday.  I had to go into the Magic Attic for a sheet of paper large enough and happened to find a matching piece of stiff cardboard.  So the thing can lean against something.  It looks good.  All sorts of images of things I enjoy, want to enjoy or things I might want to own.

I especially like the image of the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.  The entire board is a rectangle. It was fun to fit all the pieces together and still have it be recognizable.  If you have access to some magazines with very nice pictures you might want to start tearing out the images that speak to you. don't worry what they they are saying.  I added yoga and couldn't do that pose if my life depended on it.  But I think I might want to be able to.

Last night I noticed my rings felt too tight so I got them off and put away again.  I don't know what happened nor what I ate to make me retain water.  But not wearing the rings makes me sad today.

We watched more MSNBC than I thought was healthy yesterday.  And it was no where as much as before the Media Fast.  But I said "turn it off" and we did. Lies are toxic. I have books to read. And since it seems to be very warm outside (40), I think I may do a nice easy 30 minute walk.  Up the street and across into the other neighborhood and then back.  With my rescue inhaler in my pocket.  Like the old days before we got Riley--that would be more than 12 years ago.  

G and Riley just came back from THEIR daily walk (reporting very soggy Earth in the woods) and both are now sound asleep.  Two Old Men.