Month: December 2015
Too soon, the end of day
I really need to get up to fetch another cup of coffee. The last one barely reached from coffee pot to microwave to recliner. I’d planned supper, but then overslept. Al fed the dog while I took my nap, coming home while I was still asleep, and also fed himself. So I will rethink my own supper while he is doing his shopping. I’ve promised to eat two of the ripe bananas if only he will eat the third. Samantha also likes bananas, but I am pretty sure that she shouldn’t have one all to herself.
I need a different plan for managing yogurt jars. I really do! Between my acquisitions and my mother’s, which she has passed on to me, I have one (new) working yogurt maker with a 7-jar capacity and at least 37 jars. When I had this problem with the flatware, I simply tossed the flimsy pressed flatware. Fewer pieces to use, but always fewer pieces to wash at one time. Jars can break, though, and so if I could simply put the largesse in a less accessible location…
I am rereading, this week, my most favorite series by Sheila Connolly: the Relatively Dead mystery series is now up to book 4. Every once in a while, I could read them forever. {{bliss}}
And recently, on quiltedpoetry.net I have been having fun posting mini-poems (some haiku, some not) inspired by some of Mara Eastern’s Phoneography Project 365 pieces. She and I met online shortly after Writing 201: Poetry of February 2015 (?), after she started the Poetry 101 Rehab group. (Andy Townend picked up the group when Mara took the summer off to write her dissertation and finish the work for her PhD in Literature.)
new ghosts walk the lawns.
near hidden by sun’s glare…
silent whisperers
and
On the outside, now,
looking in…make-believe world
of tinsel and lights.
are two examples. I’ve tucked them into Comments on her photo posts and also added them to my blog and twitter feed. It’s a quick, enjoyable exercise. Other things I must get back to, but failing in concentration, as my eye strain is still a problem. I am considering use of my eye lubricant (individually sealed, preservative free). That has to be done, though, in conjunction with reducing overuse of my eyes, and not as an aid to furthering any damage.
Speaking of which . . . supper sans computer.
Noon meal, holiday week
Ongoing, mealtime photos and recipes are moving to The Art of Disorder. Pretty much. I think.
I need some coffee
Toddy coffee, warm with lots of milk.
I have still to wash one frying pan and 20 more yogurt-machine jars before I’ll be finished with the washing of kitchenware. This is important because I really need to get caught up before I start the next batch of yogurt on Thursday. That will take the last packet of yogurt starter. I may buy more at Creative Kitchen, which is in the mall, rather than brave downtown Fargo, where there is no parking and Al must drop me off at the door to Swanson’s and then drive round and round the block until I emerge, package in hand.
While I am happy with the Poetry 101 Rehab poem for this week (the prompt being Odyssey), I cannot think of a haiku using the words year and new that doesn’t come out sounding totally inane. And then, desperation inspiration struck: The Poem(s)
My eyes are shot, again. Must I go back to cleaning yogurt jars? I suppose. After I finish off the final drops in the coffee cup.
Frost on the Window – 2014
We have yet to get frost on our windows, this winter. Also, my best windows for photos may not produce any; the frame was rebuilt during our home repairs project and new windows put in. For the time being we seem to have no storm windows, and so the screens are still in place. I am hoping that the screens are small enough mesh that we won’t get a build-up between the screen and glass. The temperature seems to be rising. May be a warmish winter, here.
Anyway, here is a frost photo from this date in 2014.
Odyssey of Education and Reading
Sort of like the poem I wrote for Poetry 101 Rehab, today, and so am reblogging it from Quilted Poetry. For those who are keeping track (Writing 201: Poetry), the device is enumeratio and the form is haiku (in a series).
Daily Post Prompt: Young at Heart
Daily Post Prompt: Young at Heart.
What are your thoughts on aging? How will you stay young at heart as you get older?
Since living past age 35, I haven’t much thought about aging. I have had chemical/fragrance sensitivities since high school, food and respiratory allergies—physical conditions that I am used to dealing with, and so those are non-issues. My mother has many of the same, and she is active, still seeing to the needs of house, husband, &c. and she still has a sharp mind and a … weird sense of humor. My father is jovial, physically fit and active, getting out every day to have coffee with the “boys” downtown. He manages the life and activities and camaraderie he has always enjoyed, keying down to what’s comfortable to him. I look at them and say to myself, “Yeah, I can do that.”
With my parents as examples of adapting to and enjoying life in their 94th and 100th years, I am prepared to copy with physical, financial and social changes. I have modified my lifestyle, retiring half a year before my 66th birthday and dropping some lifetime pursuits to make more space for down time, resting, correspondence and self-expression (blogging, art work, et al.), prayer and meditation.
Although I have spent my life wrapped up in music, both as a listener and as a lyricist (mostly for my own amusement), singer, and instrumentalist, I found it relatively easy to drop the music for more time to read, returning to political philosophy, social theory and ecology. Although I am considering having the piano tuned, once we have finished house and grounds repairs. (I cannot get to the piano, since most of the downstairs movables have been stacked in the living room since the spring of 2014.) As I can no longer maintain a vegetable garden, I sow wildflower seeds and watch the insects among the blooms from May through October and sometimes November.
While having respiratory problems and diminished eyesight require shifts in activities, there are always new things to learn about, thoughts to pursue, poems to write, photographs to take, art to create. And more, too, I find myself digging in, seeking out and enjoying the activities and interests that my husband and I have in common. Making dates to spend time conversing over meals out, as well as setting the house and its innards to rights while we are still up to doing so physically.
Life is life. It’s ups and downs, crises and contentment. Love, joy and loss, but always revolving around…centering on what is truly important but which can never be taken away. Even with the pain of the losses—obituaries are more often for people our age and younger, and not just the aunts, uncles and parents—there is nothing we will ever face that has not been faced and endured with optimism and confidence by many more than ourselves.
Both of my husband’s parents have died. Out of the nine of my parents’ children, six of us are still alive. My own body chemistry does not deal well with medicines or medical facilities, and so my end of life will be relatively uncomplicated. Loss and heartbreak and death are as much a part of life as love, joy, faith and peace. The one set doesn’t over power the other. They are part of the life that we all live, but they do not define us.
Romans 8:38-39 is real. We go along, at last, for the ride, hanging on with both hands to the one who’s holding onto us.
Faith and Vanity
An interesting phrasing of the beginning of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, i.e., everything is vanity.
Apart from fellowship with God and love of others, humans chase the wind and waste their lives in a cycle of futility. [V. Fizzell]
Also, in Eccl. 2:24-26:
24 A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26 To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. [BibleGateway, NIV]
I think that’s pretty much true. In particular, knowledge of what is right and what is wrong is important to living a life of faith. Wisdom involves knowing whether a particular “right action” is one that I am to undertake. That is, something that God has called me to do. Mostly I am called to not act. I am called only to what I can and should do. There are many people who are better suited to respond to nearly everything.
(My ego often gets in the way, and so I now more easily recognize when my responding feeds my self-esteem rather than the other’s need. It is humbling to realize how often my prayer devolves into “Forgive me for making mistakes. Please make me perfect now!” while ignoring the things that actually call for repentance and forgiveness.)
Walking in faith, for me, involves not being blown about by the winds of politicking, advertising, speakers or movements, rallying cries, &c. Rather, faith is a relationship, a daily dialogue. With me doing the preponderance of listening. I want an understanding, recognition of what I can do that is not idle vanity, but obedience, and also common sense.
There are many voices, but if God does not speak to me, affirming that what is being said is for me to follow up on, then I should not. There is no cause that will fail because I am not called to put my hand or voice to it. God calls laborers each to their particular paths. And a path may be a short one for some, while lifetime commitments for others. It’s not all about me. It’s about relationships.
And so, my calling in life is to have faith in and maintain a two-way relationship with God and to love all others. Not mine to “judge”, but also not called to condone, approve, become involved with, or such. I am not called to insert myself or my ego into other people’s lives. I’m just called to love them and to live in the joy that centers on God.
Lizl
I enjoyed this prompt — Pingback to Un/Faithful | The Daily Post — and the prodding to revisit the fundamentals explicitly.
Note: Still having eyesight and coordination problems and not doing well at all in recognizing and correcting my copy.
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If we were having coffee | late edition
If we were having coffee, it would be in my bed sitting room, again. This past week has been cluttered and holidayed. There was even a birthday party to attend at Happy Joe’s Ice Cream and Pizza. The birthday of a nephew’s son. (There must be a label for that. Grand-nephew?)
I would share the high points of the week. Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchanges went nicely. No toxic substances, but much congeniality. At the birthday party, where there was gluten-free pizza! I ran afoul, at the last, of cleaning product being used on a table across the aisle, but think I’ve finally slept it out.
And also the lesson. I must make a sign (I could embroider a wall hanging!) to put on the wall, reminding me that chemical exposures result in an uncertainty of moods. I look forward to looking once more upon life from the position of a “calming center”.
With the end of the holiday season upon us, Al feels that the worst of the 365 days are behind us, and everything between now and the middle of November will be relatively clear sailing weather.
The season’s activities have been most revealing, as well as consuming. And I have heard from two long-lost friends, email and Christmas card, to which I must respond, this time, rather than blowing them off, as I so often do, having no energy. Must do something with the energy.
I hope that the reader takes joy in the holiday season and suffers no post-holiday depression, loneliness for the people who gather only one or two times a year, regrets or second thoughts.
I am going to enjoy a second cup of coffee, while the laundry is in the dryer, and examine more closely the thoughts and emotions of this week. There are some matters that appear to need addressing and resolution. If only that would not make things worse.
Also, I take thought for my parents, my mother in particular, because I cannot solve her problems like I did when I was fifty. It is a sadness, but a fact.
I am looking forward to the coming week and New Year’s Eve, which we do not celebrate at all.
(Please excuse typos, etc. My eyesight gave out before I got to this.)
To connect with more Weekend Coffee Share folks, this spot is a good place to start: Part Time Monster and also #weekendcoffeeshare on Twitter.
Samantha’s Rabbit Came Calling
One wonders if the rabbit or rabbits stopped to knock on the front door…to inquire if Samantha could come out to the back yard and play with them. She would certainly share her Lamb Chop with them.
The Moments Between 