Chill weather, lots of sleep #WeekendCoffeeShare 2021-03-26

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld2021/03/262023/05/06

cocker spaniels on loveseat, asleep, scattered toys on the cushions — Afternoon Nap

Welcome to my weekend! Coffee and tea are hot, and cheese and flax bread are on the table. It’s early enough in the day, so far, that I have just finished breakfast, which consisted of mixed nuts, a square of vdark (90%) chocolate, and hot Toddy coffee reconstituted with milk, rather than water. The latest batch of coffee concentrate turned out to be a bit strong. Need to dilute it with more water, this week.

Overcast sky, today, and humid, but no snow or rain, yet. I’d rather, the snow, but we’ve now got the rain. The Weather Service page headlines include a “Latest Drought Briefing”, rather than spring flood forecasts. Oh, my!

This week, I usually slept until my alarm clock rang at 9:00 a.m. Mostly, I slept for at least eight or nine hours a night, although one night I was up until 4:30 a.m., writing poetry, lifting hand weights for a while, and then fooling around with my Patchwork Prose domain WordPress blog. Really need a place where I can find what I am looking for (poems, song lyrics, stories, essays, &c.). I have been forgetting to eat, though.

I feel like I was more interactive, this week. The one-hour social Zoom meeting for last Saturday turned into a two-hour social/co-working session, instead. Yesterday, I enjoyed the live two-hour webinar event by the city of Redmond, Washington, featuring a poetry reading by five of the city’s Poets Laureate, of whom I know two, if only via the Internet. I think I’ve got all of Jeannine Hall Gailey’s poetry collections to date. The other, Michael Dylan Welch, coordinated the February National Haiku Writing Month end-of-month poetry-reading sessions via Zoom, the last weekend in February.

Again this week, I took part in the Wednesday evening Poetry Heals workshop. I wrote a poem, that evening, the prompt being the current violent civil unrest occurring throughout the country. Our metropolitan area has not been immune to it.

After taking some time away from writing and photography, I restarted my outdoor exercise routine of using the stationary bike in the backyard gazebo. Up from 0.3 miles to 3.0 miles, this week. Wearing my face mask when outside definitely helps! Tuesday through Thursday, the forecasted pollen level had increased from 0.7 to 3.0 (scale of 0-12). I also got a few photographs taken, more towards the end of the week.

This weekend, I hope to continue my poem-a-day writing, leading into National Poetry Month on April 1. I should also finish my computer data backups and get another backup drive to the safe deposit box, next week. Sunday evening (7 p.m. my time, I think, Speculative Poetry presenting a poetry reading on Facebook and Zoom by Terese Mason Pierre. New to me, and so I may look for some of her published work beforehand. Two weeks later, the scheduled poet is Jennifer Crow, whose poems have sometimes sung to me. I hope to hear more.

Getting on toward the Scampers’ next mealtime, and so I must put this post aside for the time being. Best wishes for your weekend and the week to come. (Finally back to finish up and it’s almost eight o’clock at night!)

Love & many hugs,
Lizl

Our host for #WeekendCoffeeShare is now Natalie, of Natalie the Explorer, whose post for this weekend is both fascinating and eclectic. You may find her current post and Link party here: https://natalietheexplorer.home.blog/2021/03/26/5-themes-for-a-fun-week/

Spring is ahead — #weekendcoffeeshare 2021-03-13

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld2021/03/132023/05/09

Thank you for stopping by, today! Short on munchies, right now. Must find more variety, next time my husband goes grocery shopping: yogurt and blackberries, fresh mozzarella cheese, and some gluten-free flax bread that I can thaw out to go with the tinned sardines. There is, however, hot tea, if you’re not a cold-brew coffee fan.

I was hoping to write my Weekend Coffee Share post on Friday, so as to clear my weekend. Didn’t happen. I am double-booked, Saturday afternoon, for social Zoom get-togethers. One of the meetings was new to me, and so I made that my priority, this first time around. I’m glad that I did not skip it. I added another writer to my Patreon list, about a month ago, is Steve Gould, who hosted the meeting. Three of his books are on my “perpetually reread” list.

I still haven’t done a lot of writing since the beginning of March. Still winding down from the Internet social activities and the poetry writing for April, which is National/Global Poetry Writing Month (Na/GloPoWriMo), and so I get to do February all over again?!?

At the beginning of the week, I wrote a poem for the Ronovan Writes Haiku weekly challenge: Silly songs. On Thursday, I came late to the daily hour-long Lunchtime Write-In, but sat down to write seven haiku/senryu during the last 20 minutes. It was a lot of fun, just copying them from my head to the computer file, one after another. Different from the photo-haiga (poem accompanied by a photograph) that I mostly wrote during February’s NaHaiWriMo. (Link to page on my Written Word journal: Thursday morning thoughts). And another, which I wrote today/Sunday morning: Remember.

I had hopes of getting an appointment for a J&J covid-19 vaccination. Schedule an appointment today for a time slot on Sunday: no time slots left by the time my alarm rang, this morning. Al has had both of his vaccinations, and so I am not concerned about coming down with the flu, myself; I spend most of my nights and days three or four feet from my HEPA air cleaner. Perhaps when everyone else who wants a shot, gets one, there will be a leftover J&J shot for me. I expect that once everything calms down, again, my healthcare provider will be able to schedule an appointment for me at the clinic.

Natalie (our host for #WeekendCoffeeShare: Weekend Coffee Share: A Year Later) asked a question about my new reality versus a year ago this month. Everything considered, this is the healthiest and physically strongest that I have felt since my breathing problems landed me in hospital, nine years ago. And the most contented. A long interval of ” between crises” that I am very much appreciating. Mostly, the creative process really does flow, and I am taking advantage of that. And, of course, I have been more and more often in conversation during the past twelve months than in the preceding nine years.

The marvels of the technology culture as the deteriorating global air quality continues to restrict increasing numbers of people into physical isolation. Tradeoffs! Gotta love ’em! Double-pane glass and carpeting on the floor of my gazebo. Even so, my world has expanded and circles of acquaintances and new friends continue to multiply.

The bewitching hours are approaching, and my lap is filled with puppy, and so I must close this somewhat abruptly.

My Scamper and I wish you sweet dreams and restful sleep!

Lizl and Thadd

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

The end of a long week | #WeekendCoffeeShare on 22 Jan. 2021

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld2021/01/222023/05/09

Well, almost the end of the long week.

Welcome! This is a decompression day (2nd of 2 for the week.) I forgot I was to get up and make breakfast, and so I am eating now, before lunchtime catches up with me. There’s v. dark chocolate, mixed nuts (with or without peanuts), Toddy coffee (of course), and fresh mozzarella cheese, and also filtered water, cold for drinking or ready to heat for tea.

It was nice to visit the dentistry office, on Wednesday. Too long since Al and I last took the drive to Hawley. Next month, if all is well, I get to meet with the optometrist, also. I’ve a small cavity starting on the gum line, so hope to go back, sometime after the eye exam, if the weather and pandemic cooperate.

Wednesday evening, I attended the free Poetry Heals workshop via Zoom, which was fantastic and just what I need. Listening, being heard, and writing poems together. Yesterday, a lot of notes for more poems and resting. Catching up on sleep. The Scampers and I also attended, via Zoom, the weekly noon Meeting for Worship for Healing.

We (the Scampers and I) awakened before the alarm went off. They had breakfast, but I had not. The nuts are good, and the chocolate was delicious. I’ve a Zoom meet-up scheduled for this afternoon with the four oldest siblings in the family. That would be the Bay area in California, eastern North Dakota, the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and Connecticut. I need to fit a lunch into the next hour.

Tomorrow noon, I will enjoy an hour’s Social gathering with Liz Danforth and friends via Zoom. This week, I have been rereading a 2-book story arc by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., comprising The Parafaith War and The Ethos Effect, both of which have informed my view on current U.S. events; Blood Banked: Stories from the Blood Verse, by Tanya Huff, in ebook format., so I can read them comfortably ; and I have just started rereading William Least Heat-Moon’s PrairyErth: A Deep Map, which merges prose and prose poetry—quite addicting.

Twice, this past week, I got out into the snow-and-cold with the Scampers to take photographs. Hope you find something you like among them.