In truth, I started writing this at midmorning, but time got away from me. The temperature is -4°F/-20°C with a wind chill temperature of -21°F. It seems odd to me, seeing the Hazardous Weather Outlook embrace both wind chill and river flooding in the same set of announcements. I woke up, waking the Scampers also, a bit after seven o’clock, this morning. We have gone through all of the minimal, necessary morning chores, and have climbed back into our respective beds, Charlie at Al’s feet and Thadd at mine. Continue reading “Wednesday, midmorning tea”→
The temperatures are rising, the frost has gone out of the ground, and the snow melt is trying to move into the basement, again. Al was away when the water sensor started to alarm, but he got home in a timely fashion, took the plug out of the floor drain…and found the drain snake in the garden shed. The pipe out had gotten plugged since the last time we did this. (A few weeks ago?)
I got the dishes washed while I waited for him to arrive home, since I can’t use the kitchen sink while the floor drain is unplugged.
Hopeful that we won’t get a lot of rain, tomorrow.
If we were getting together for coffee or tea, this afternoon…you would be able to get to the house. Travel advisories are canceled in the area, and the sun is making inroads on the seven or so inches of snow that fell on Thursday and Friday. I think that we are expecting a second flood crest, but for the time being, we’re good, here in town. The seepage ended in the basement, and I was able to catch up with the laundry and dish-washing. We made a trip to the butcher shop and grocery store, and I cooked the meat in anticipation of a possible loss of electricity during the blizzard. Which there actually were, in the area, but not close enough to us to worry.
Blue Wild Flax Flower – September Garden
Photoart – Blue Wild Flax Flower
Blue Wild Flax – September Garden
I would also show you where an industrious bird (possibly looking under the snow for nesting materials or food) was clearing away snow, this morning, and tossing dead leaves and grass onto the front sidewalk, looking for something that he or she didn’t immediately find. I hesitated to take many photographs from my vantage point in the doorway, for fear I would frighten away the bird before it found what it wanted.
Discarded Rubble
If we were visiting together, I would tell you about my progress in the April poetry writing, a poem a day during National Poetry Month. I have written at least one poem for each day, plus a couple of warmup poems at the end of March, through Friday. I still have to write a poem for today. When I tried this (without my poetry-writing email group) for National Haiku Writing Month, I gave up at about this point in the effort. This time around, I am not concerning myself so much with writing to provided prompts from Writers Digest, a daily library mailing, or the Academy of American Poets (a group that I have supported since the beginning of last year). Not all of the poems that I have written so far this month are ready to put online, but I have written and posted one original poem for each day on my Quiet Spaces (dot net) Journal. And also, randomly, on others of my blogs.
Writing, whether poetry or prose, inevitably stirs up trains of thought that I many not always want to follow to speculations and/or conclusions. A dangerous thing about writing, as opposed to reading. The “inspirations” come from within me, and not as distractions from outside of myself.
The Scampers have fallen asleep while waiting for their suppers, and so I must leave you! Coffee or tea to go, as you journey on? Help yourself! (I have eaten all of the filberts and veggie crackers. Sorry!)
I look forward to reading about your week! And don’t forget to stop by Allison’s to read her Weekend Coffee Share post and connect with others.
Best wishes for the week to be!
Love & hugs,
Lizl
P.S. I never did get through the “Terms of Service” for the new link set-up for Weekend Coffee Share, and so I am not adding my Coffee Share link, there. You can still find me on Twitter and the WordPress Reader, though, if you aren’t following my Coffee Breaks blog.
The Scampers are dozing across the room from me. They’ve spent a lot of the day running around the back yard, enjoying the new layer of snow. I think that’s to be finished by eleven o’clock or so, with no more until Friday. Sunday, it’s back to sinking temperatures, snow, and blowing snow until Tuesday night. My order of thermal pajamas and longer casual pants arrived, yesterday, from the folks who make 100% cotton (hypoallergenic) under- and outerwear.
My tea order from Stash arrived earlier, and I am enjoying the fresh batch of English Breakfast tea before bedtime.
I’ve poured my last cup of tea for the evening. Al is listening to the local news broadcast in the other room, now that we’ve enjoyed our half hour (to an hour) of “puppy time”, talking while the Scampers play fetch and nap on our laps. They’ve had bedtime treats (dried beef liver) and gone to sleep, now.
It was nice to be able to exercise in the gazebo, today. Warm enough with the space heater, nearly 40 degrees. Yes, the only place other than the bathroom cabinet over the sink where we have a mirror is propped up next to the back door, waiting to go out during Spring Cleanup week.
Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)!
Grab a cup of coffee and share with us! What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans? Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?
All are welcome! Just add your link to the Linky-List, and be sure to visit others and join in their conversations!
Welcome! Please help yourself to your choice of (virtual) beverage and snacks. At this time of the morning, everyone else is still asleep in our household. I am trying to avoid making any sounds. The Scampers have been quite demanding, being inside and without any meaningful exercise for too long.
Bored, Now
If we were having coffee together, this morning, I would tell you that I have welcomed the respite from the long stretch of sub-zero Arctic air that should have stayed at the North Pole where it belongs. When I took the Scampers outside, first thing on Friday, the temperature was high enough that I was able to go out in shirtsleeves to snap a few photographs. Our next Winter Storm Advisory indicates a return to inclement weather less than ten hours from now. I am not amused.
Cotoneaster Fruit
One of my planned activities for the weekend and the rest of the month is to write a haiku (or related poetry form) for each day in February. I am not confining myself to the prompts provided at NaHaiWriMo (February is haiku-writing month), but of the haiku that I’ve written so far this month, one of yesterday’s poems included the prompt. So as to not clutter my poetry blog, I am collecting the February haiku at my Blogger blog for the time being: theartofdisorder.blogspot.com (I also have November’s poem-a-day poems there; I didn’t manage a poem a day, but I didn’t miss a lot of days.) Here is Friday’s poem:
winter’s fingers draw pictures on the windows
while I sleep beneath my quilts
There is also a photo to go with it. My other activity for this weekend is to go through my sorting boxes, looking for music CDs that my husband wants to add to the computer that he takes out to the workshop. I had not been keeping track of them, not having a CD player for too many years. I have been feeling out of sorts for weeks, now, and I’m hoping that napping and remembering to eat more often will help.
If we were having coffee together, this morning, I would mention that another of my cousins has died. I hadn’t seen him often for many years, now; not since his father’s funeral in 2013, I believe. I had 60-some first cousins, my dad being the oldest of twelve children, and I did not know many of them. Most did not live in the area, and I had left home at age seventeen, missing most of the family reunions for that side of the family. I think they had a lot of reunions on the West Coast.
I can hear the Scampers waking up in the next room, and so I must bring our conversation to a close. Looking forward to visiting your Weekend Coffee Share post before the weekend’s conclusion.
Welcome to Weekend Coffee Share! This is a time to catch up with everyone’s news from last week, plans for the next, and current preoccupations (see our host Allison’s Coffee Share page for this week at her blog, Weekend Coffee Share).
Welcome! Reminiscent of working years, I note that tomorrow is a postal holiday, when I would not have had to go to work. I actually took those days as holidays, also, during my freelancing years. One should savor unstructured time as one can.
If we were coming together to visit, I could offer you hot or cold-brew coffee, green and black tea, and also oolong, of which I ordered another 200g at a reduced price, its being on clearance. Also at a discount, I think, another pound of English Breakfast black tea, which is going down really nice. That lives in a sealed canister, so as not to dry out before I use it.
If we were having coffee together, this evening, we would be listening to puppy snores from the love seat across from us and also the TV; my husband is watching a Columbo rerun. I am thinking of ordering a second set of earphones. One for each room that holds a computer.
I must confide that it is taking longer than I had hoped for the aftereffects of the chemical exposures to wear off—mostly from the college 50th reunion, last week, Thursday through Saturday. I have had some trouble concentrating. The 26th wedding anniversary dinner went much better than I expected. I slept a lot, this past week. I am glad that we decided to postpone dinner by a week. Was a good thought.
The photography workshop is going nicely. One of the topics for this past week was light. During the course of the week, I discovered how to adjust the aperture priority setting. I had fun with that, even when I could not yet retain the workshop lecture material. I’ve a whole stack of things to read and do, once the workshop is over. I anticipate many enjoyable hours devouring and digesting the essays and lecture materials and looking through the many examples. The workshop is indeed the basis for extended study. I am so very glad that I signed up for it, but sorry that it lasts only two more weeks.
I am including a few of my favorite “new” photographs. That is, beginning with the beginning of September…
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…as well as two pictures from this past week.
The 4 O’Clock flowers did not make it through the freezing temperatures, but some of the others have, so far. Our weather forecast calls for winds, rain, and cold, now. I haven’t really gotten my balance back, yet, so I expect I may not get out with my camera until we have favorable weather, again, except for taking the Scampers into the back yard.
Speaking of the Scampers…the Scampers are speaking and I must take them into the back yard. I hope that you have enjoyed your weekend. Best wishes for the week to come.
Welcome to Weekend Coffee Share! This is a time to catch up with everyone’s news from last week, plans for the next, and current preoccupations (see our host Allison’s Coffee Share page for this week at her blog, Weekend Coffee Share).
Welcome to you! Tea’s wet, and water’s hot for cocoa or Toddy coffee (concentrate made fresh this week).
We are finished with college reunion activities for the year. The next scheduled class reunion is the 55th graduation anniversary in 2023. We went to one evening reception, one noon luncheon, and one breakfast. We actually saw people that we knew and had a chance to visit with and get to know (as well as one can under such circumstances) new people that we would have liked to get to know better. Mary Jane and Stewart, to name only two of the group.
Do you attend class reunions? How do you feel about them? My husband remarked, this afternoon on our way home from the grocery store that the things that he noticed in particular were that the alumni in our class looked to be in remarkably good health and that almost everyone he talked with was a “professional”. The definition that made the most sense to me, I found in Wikipedia: “With a reputation to uphold, trusted workers of a society who have a specific trade are considered professionals.”
At the breakfast, they had a memorial ceremony for classmates who now are dead. They lit a votive candle for each of the 49 deceased. If I had noticed sooner, I would have left the room before my blood oxygen level went down to 80%. I spent some time outside, doing deep breathing exercises before the group regathered in the hallway for the class photograph. This time, I did not count myself as being one of the taller class members and planted myself in the front row. And smiled.
We got our freeze, here, but most of the flowers on the south side of the yard were not killed off by it. (There is nothing left of flowers in the backyard garden but seed pods and dead or dying stems and leaves.) After a long nap and a grocery run, I took some photographs of the garden, thinking each day that it is my last chance until the tulips start to come up sometime in April.
Wild Flax, November 3
My six-week photography workshop enters its fourth week on Monday. It has become quite exciting. I very much look forward to these next two weeks, addressing tone, lighting, simplifying the image, and such. As we are simplifying our photos/subjects, my subjects pool is cutting itself down. (Cold weather!)
I was not up to using the exercise bike, the later part of the week. Tonight, I did some lifting with the hand weights, though. I think that helped me to relax. Too much activity, this past week. Time to rest, again. Napping is good. Adding in eight hours of sleep at a stretch would also be a good thing.
Thank you for stopping by! I hope that your weekend is continuing as you would wish and that the new week will be engaging and renewing.
Best wishes,
Lizl
The URL for the InLinkz is Here with links to blogs of people participating in Weekend Coffee Share.
Welcome to Weekend Coffee Share! This is a time to catch up with everyone’s news from last week, plans for the next, and current preoccupations (see our host Allison’s Coffee Share page for this week at her blog, Weekend Coffee Share).
Welcome! Fortunately for us, virtual beverages can be supplied to order. In “real time”, I am working on the last of tonight’s tea, and the Toddy Coffee ran out earlier in the weekend, and I cannot enjoy any until mid-morning Monday. There is, however, very dark chocolate to be shared. Since I had no Toddy coffee concentrate, I saved my 10g of chocolate to eat just before I go to sleep.
Last Monday, I began the first week of the six-week photography workshop that I’d signed up for, last spring. It was rather fun. I am happy that this is a small group. (Limit of 8.) There are topics/lessons that I believe will be quite useful to me as a photographer.
An interesting part of the simplicity theme is the introduction of the concepts of “serenity” and “calm” as being (necessary?) components of simplicity. I perceive simplicity as something apart from that.
I am eager to explore how much of a difference there is, if any, between my practices and those being taught in the workshop aside from divergence of semantics. My roots are in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology and Franz Brentano’s psychology theory informed by Quaker silence (i.e., [for me] openness to the inspiration of God).
Anyway, I had mentioned sharing some of the first week’s exercise results with you. And so, some photographs that I chose because of their simplicity and/or my preferences. And also, we were asked to pick out some of our photographs that others praised, but we ourselves were less enthusiastic about. This first group contains photographs that I treasure and also that I consider “simple” (as opposed to complex).
Golden Light
Good Neighbors
Blue Wild Flax (Art)
There are others that I would have added, but I didn’t want to clutter up the group board.
I hope that this coming week will be calmer. Aunt Pat (Al’s aunt) died, this past week, but we did not attend the funeral or family gathering, this weekend. Too long a drive. I had thought I’d wound down, having slept long nights, last part of the week, but I hadn’t, since it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning, here, and we still are having coffee or tea.
Thank you for keeping me company. It feels good, visiting. I appreciate it.
I have nothing on my schedule (aside from photo workshop exercises) for the entire week, now. Puttering would be nice. I hope to visit your Weekend Coffee Share post before Monday’s over.
Welcome to Weekend Coffee Share! While this is a good time to catch up with everyone’s news from last week, plans for the next, and current preoccupations (see our host Allison’s Coffee Share page for this week at her blog, Weekend Coffee Share), I must confess to being quite tired and feeling out of sorts. Accumulations of activities and commitments and expectations.
I finally got another electric water kettle, one with automatic shut-off and thermostat/temperature regulator, so that I can quit worrying about whether I turned off the burner, heating tea water in my larger sauce pan. This afternoon, I’m steeping an English Breakfast tea blend, ordered from Stash.
What’s burning?
I also replaced my two broken tea infusers and did some bulk buying of everyday teas (Irish and English breakfast tea), as well as smaller quantities of a good green tea and a variety of oolong teas in 50g and 100g packs. It’s been that long since I’ve indulged in tea. I mean, really indulged! I had been having Toddy coffee using milk instead of water for breakfast as well as a snack before going to sleep at night. Decided that I don’t want to spend so much of my carbohydrates allowance on dairy products.
I have been spending less time exercising, since the deterioration in Air Quality. My exercise bike is in the gazebo, but the building is not insulated, since we do not use it often in winter. We used decking for the floor, allowing air to come in from beneath and flow out through the open eaves, which usually keeps the structure cool enough to sit in. There are windows with screens all the way around that are usually open. Oops! Irrelevant!
I still am working on the “sort and toss” project to clean out my sitting room/former office. There are too many papers. I despair! 😀 I am getting outside with the dogs, each morning, and taking along my camera. The smoky haze does nice things for color saturation, and so I will have many, many photo files to sort through, this winter. I look forward to that.
Some of my favorites for this week are insects, whose photographs I will include here:
I have caught up on some correspondence, this week; that pleased me. I sent in reservations for a couple of homecoming activities, this week. Finally! Next on the agenda is to make a grocery shopping list, since I have put off buying food, most of this week. Mostly, because I don’t know what I might want to eat. But I’m running out of eggs, and I’ve eaten the rest of the ham.
There should be “go to” foods when one must eat, but cannot find enthusiasm for anything besides a cup of good tea.
Thanks for stopping by! The Scampers, having no trouble with their appetites, have decided that they need something to eat now…close enough.
Best wishes for your weekend and the coming week! I look forward to reading your Weekend Coffee Share posts, this weekend.
The Moments Between 