Five on Friday: April 8, 2016

1. If you snooze, you lose. I did get up this morning before 7am and there was wonderful light on my desk with lovely patterns. However, in the time it took to lift my phone and try to get a photo, the clouds came over. At least I have the memory.

2. My husband was teasing me that I had a flannel shirt on over a long sleeved t-shirt. Yes, I know it's April, but it's cold! Isn't it about now that we usually go right into summer???

3. It's only been yesterday that I've been back to scrapping and somehow it's seemed like ages. The NYC trip really was a vacation for me - no responsibility for anyone but myself. Sleeping and eating on my own time. Pure luxury.

4.This week I had to go to Target for some meds, and saw this. It looked like an Easter Basket of delicious color. Yummy, like my favorite colored almonds. Even though I don't paint almost at all, it was really tempting. Even those shades of purple and lavender called to me.

5. On that note, I did find one little rainbow of my own from the crystal hanging in my window. The light is wonderful til early afternoon these days.  But then it shines directly at me from another window even with the blinds shut. I've learned I need to take a serious computer break for about three hours at that time or end up with a headache from squinty eyes.  Lesson learned.

That's all for today so have a great weekend! We have some fun plans and I hope you do also. See you again on Monday.

Shifting Seasons

Yesterday, we never turned the a/c on downstairs. It's changing, slowly but surely and I couldn't be happier. I do love the food bounty of summer but otherwise, it's my least favorite season. These cool mornings are just terrific, and if I could just get myself out of bed in the dark, I'd be fine. But 6am is dark now, and I didn't wake up till 7am. That makes me feel as tho I have lost a good part of the day, which I have! Perhaps a bit more efficient use of my time today will balance it all.

friends' Maine driveway -Stonehenge north

I even noticed last night that when I went out after dinner, the light was more like I 'see' 8pm but it was 7pm. Strange how it happens so gradually but there is one day or one night that it becomes an Aha! moment. I often stop what I've been doing to go and read downstairs at 4pm. I have usually had the outside shade down in the kitchen by midday, but yesterday I saw Sebastian on the couch just basking in the sunlight...preparing for winter?...and so I left it up.

How the seasons of our life shift too. I was looking at some shots of our trip to Vienna in 2006, and despite the gray hair I had then, we both looked so much younger. Was it the cold? the delight we found in that trip? or is the aging process going as fast as it seems. Probably all of the above. But not to really complain I think, as I always say...A day above ground is a good day. Now if I could just deal with the pull of gravity. It isn't the wrinkles, it's that so much of us is heading south. But again, we're still above ground with lots of good things in our lives so let the seasons shift. Let me accept what is as it is and I'll be content.

Good Habits...where do they go

There it sits, the lonely journal. So neglected, so ignored, trying not to judge me. How many years have I been writing my 3 pages each a.m.? Since 1997, and yet...and yet there are times when the rebellious child still inside the crone says No! I don't want to! It doesn't happen often but when it does, I am always surprised to find that a week, a month, whatever time has passed and it was not a conscious thought to stop. I look back and think... How long has it been since I ???

Today I looked at that lovely red and black journal, given to me at JSJ class last year by a fellow student, and thought Ok, you've had your time out. Get going. And so I took a photo of the book with only a few pages left, checked the prior date, and sat with pen in hand to write. Clear the mind, sweep out the remnants of last night's mental and emotional dinner. Nothing brilliant gets in there but less lingers in the crevices of the brain to come popping up at various times in the day - that flotsam and jetsam that hinders a day's passage.

I also thought I'd add the little Buddha that I call Sky Buddha. He sits on my window frame and the light shines thru him. I believe that what shines in to us changes us and then it is our responsibility to reflect it back to the world. Light in, light out. May your days be light.