Gratitude
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Three More Days of Thankful
It’s Sunday and we’re closing up the lake cottage for the winter season, which means draining all the pipes and pumping in antifreeze, packing up all the food, storing all the deck furniture, making the place as unwelcome to mice and other rodents as we can, and covering the furniture with dust sheets. It’s bittersweet. I love being at the lake, it is unquestionably our escape from real life and we work hard to keep it that way. In the past, when November came around, we were pretty much ready to stop making the drive and spend winter in the city. This year . . . well, not so much…
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Still Here, Still Grateful
These are pictures of the lighthouse at Point Betsie in Frankfort, MI–the town Willow Bay is based on. Remember this lighthouse–it will show up in Sarah’s story and in Libby’s, too–the Women of Willow Bay books currently in progress. I’m behind, as usual, but with good reasons . . . well, okay, decent excuses. I confess gratitude comes hard after this election because I’m sad and scared. But, sad and scared is no way to live. Neither is angry, so I’m working very hard to remember that I live in a great country. America is already great and we’ve survived this long because of our diversity and creativity and our…
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Three More Days of Grateful
This is my picture of peace–it’s Lake Michigan. Isn’t it lovely? It’s been a disturbing week–the national elections didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, but as I’ve read all the comments and postings on Facebook and Twitter and listened to news stories and pundits and commentators, I’ve come down here: It’s going to be okay. Our democratic process worked. The way our founders set up the electoral process functioned as it was meant to function. It didn’t work the way I wanted it to, but it worked and now we have a new president-elect. Like everyone else who voted for the other candidate, I’m disappointed and yes, frightened by…
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Two Days of Grateful
Yesterday, we packed up and headed back to the city–just one more trip to the lake for 2016 and that will be our one to winterize the cottage and say goodbye until spring. So, I didn’t write yesterday and I didn’t write today either because we had Internet issues that needed to be resolved and then I went to vote and now . . . well, I’m done with the first part of the editing gig I’ve been working on and my foot hurts and I have a meeting at church tonight and I’m just longing for a cup of tea and a nap. So, I’m thinking . . .…
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Checking In . . .
. . . with my 21-Day Writing Challenge. It’s Day 10 and I have gotten up every day between 6 and 6:30 a.m. and written for at least one hour. Sometimes I get so involved that I’ve written for an hour and a half without realizing it. I’m surprised I’ve made it halfway through without missing a day–that may not sound like much of accomplishment, but given the chaos of the last couple of years of my life, it’s big stuff. Altogether, I’ve managed to get down 9,625 new words on Sarah’s story–an average of about 800 words each day–which brings the story to a little under 14K words. Given…
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Happy Mother’s Day
Today is my rogues’ gallery of family Moms . . .this isn’t near all the great moms I know, but they’re ones I love . . . My mom in the late 1970s–love that smile! My darling daughter-in-law with Grandboy–she’s one terrific mom! Sister Pam and her sons and daughters-in-law–she’s a terrific mom! Sister Kate, who loved her kids and grandkids with all her heart and soul. Then there’s me, also a mom to a pretty terrific kid. You get a double dose of me because there’s also Grandboy . .…
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Lent Check-In . . . I’m Still Here
Wow, I’d sure like to say that I’ve been hugely successful at unknotting the knot, which was my Lenten goal, but sadly, I’m not quite there yet. But, I can say that I’m trying, I’m releasing stuff, just not everything. But in an attempt to let go of the body issue worries, I’ve scheduled the CT scan and Can’t wait for it to be done, so that the doc can tell me, “Kid, you have diverticulitis, welcome to aging, and pay attention to your diet.” One thing I have learned about the diverticulitis thing is that everyone is different. Some folks can eat whatever they want, some can’t. I’m being…
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Lent Check-In
It’s been several days since my last check in, which is okay because I’m consciously not stressing about not blogging regularly. It’s a knot thing, you know? But here I am, reporting in. We saw the doc on Wednesday–I really, really like her. She’s very reassuring without dismissing my fears and anxiety. She agrees it might be time to take a look inside me and verify that we are dealing with diverticulitis and how severe it is. Apparently there are other things we can do for it from different antibiotics that don’t wreck me all the way to having surgery to remove the offending portion of intestine. Hopefully, we won’t…
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More Days Later
. . . I don’t want to count them and besides, getting particular about this kind of stuff does nothing at all for the knot in my stomach, so let’s just say, here I am again, checking in. Life goes along . . . we’re enjoying some lovely spring-like days in February, which probably means March will be a nasty bear, but maybe not. Sometimes we just get a soft winter and an easy spring that slides right into lovely summer days. We got some outside stuff done and I’m still working quite a bit on editing gigs. We’re enjoying Wednesday Lenten Study at church and sad that Downton Abbey…
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Days 5 Through 10
I know, I know . . . I could be a better blogger. Actually, I could do a lot of stuff better. However in the spirit of knot-dissolving, I’m not going to list them here. Instead I’m going to talk very briefly about how the knot is getting smaller and why. First of all, I got a lovely note from sister PJ telling me not to worry about the African violets, just water them and they’ll be fine. I’m trusting her on that one–they are her plants after all. Plus, it occurred to me that if I kill them, I can always buy her new ones, so no need to…