HOW NICE!

It is howling like a banshee outside, sucking the heat up the chimney.  I've got the damper solidly closed and it doesn't help a bit.  Still the air is slowly heating in the room.  The tea water will be hot soon and the smell of some spicy mixture will drift through the whole place.  

I recently did a cheap but effective change over from a screen door to a storm door by covering the backside with a multi-layered plastic sheet I made from a #.99 drop cloth and duct tape.  It cut down the draft in the house that the weather stripping just wasn't getting.  I don't know, a loose door frame perhaps?  Whatever the reason I'm pleased with the result.

The sun is starting to come up enough to change the landscape outside from dark and miserable to white, foggy and miserable.  What a good day to be inside!  I still have to throw and stack another quarter of a cord of wood but that is warming exercise.  It also smells good.  Then, I'll take some pictures or maybe even just start outside, painting watercolors on the porch.  I want to paint the white, grays, silvers, charcoals, blacks and tiny flashes of red and green that can be seen in the blowing snow.

When I've proven once again how limited my skills are compared to nature I'll go inside and make cookies.  I'll have to cook them down at the neighbor's as I still haven't gotten a new oven but he doesn't mind that as I split the results with him.  While I'm waiting for those cookies to cool I'll take my dog for a walk.  I like bundling up and walking in a snow storm through our local cemetery, another place where unexpected spots of color show up,

An afternoon of reading and music, watching a movie and fixing something good for dinner seems like a great idea to me.  The limited amount of groceries in my cabinet (I didn't get to go shopping before the car broke down) is a challenge.  Some of my best meals have come out of situations like this.  I'm looking forward to this one.

How nice not to have to drive on icy highways with the holiday crowds. This year there are probably fewer people but I haven't been close enough to the Highway to know.  It's part of my mini-vacation.  So far, life is good!

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving morning and my fire is blazing merrily away.  I'm drinking a Gypsy Chai with black pepper, cinnamon, cardoman, orange peel, ginger, and a number of other tasty ingrediants.  It is a tea that makes me feel cosy, homey, and grateful for a number of things.  My animals are enjoying the warmth and their company is an unending source of joy, humor and unconditional love.    I have a wedding candle burning with it's lush floral scents and on the wood stove a piece of pine sap is just starting to melt and send out it's aroma.

I'm not gathering with friends and family today as I'm ill but I'm still grateful for them.  I have the best son I could ever dream of having.  His partner is a joy to me and I love to talk to her.  They make me happy just by being happy together.  The rest of my family are all unique individuals and life would have been poorer without them. 

I have long friendships with people I can never hope to live up to in generosity, kindness and understanding but I try.  My friendships have been one of the great joys of my life and one of the things I am most thankful for now or at any other season.  

At any time I can look out my windows and have to catch my breath from the beauty I see there.  The air I breath still smells good to me and there are still springs on the mountain I can drink from without fear.  

I am still in good enough shape to find my way up the side of a mountain every so often,  I can still wild craft my herbs and find mushrooms to eat.  I can walk my dog beside rivers and see bear, coyote, deer and elk.  

So, though I won't have the big dinner and gathering today, you can see I have many things to be thankful for.  Perhaps the top of the list has been gaining the patience and wisdom to know this is only one missed holiday and that next year will brings it's own joys and celebrations.

Happy Thanksgiving!

NOT THIS YEAR!

This is what it looked like here last year at this time.  Not so much this year, like the ground is bare and some things are still green in the garden!  Tell me there is no global warming in effect!  Our ski areas are hurting and their only snow is manmade.  There's a thought.  When did man start wanting to make snow instead of hibernating during the cold season?

It's going to be one of those days.  You know, the kind of day you think about odd things.  Your thoughts don't really focuse for quite a while on any one subject.  I can't seem to get a coherent pattern going this morning.  Must be because I have no coffee.  AAARRRGG!!  What am I babbling on about when I could be counting the seconds until the local coffee shop opens?  

When is that shop going to start delivery service?  When are they going to open before 8:00 in the morning?  The day is half over by then..  I think I'm getting nervous!  LOL!  Have a good morning and I hope you have coffee.

THIS MORNING

I started the day with a feeling of awe, a drenching in beauty, a gift from the earth and sky of colors.  My whole mood was better after spending time watching this sunrise from start to finish.  It takes as long to drink a cup of coffee as for this miracle to come to a finish.  I think watching the sunrise is a meditation.  It soothes me and directs me into a calmer more peaceful day than the last one. 

Today I start begging rides to work again while I hope my car's clutch won't take forever to replace or cost my Christmas money!  So I needed some calmness.  I do try to live in the day and I have a ride to work today.  To each day it's problems and it's solutions, tonight I will worry about tomorrow's ride!  

 I talked to my boss last night and we'll work on a schedule that will allow me to get weekly doctor visits again.  Much as I hate them, if the end result is good, I'll do it.  I want to be able to keep on working and to get many problems fixed before my insurance is no longer available to me, should that happen.  In four more years I will have my car paid off and hopefully in good shape.  After that i can take a breath and hope that all my medical issues will be in line and maybe old age won't be as bad as my grimmer moments portray it!

In fact, after watching this morning's sunrise I'm pretty sure nothing will be as bad as I thought last night.  Mornings have a way of doing that for me.

SO MANY THINGS!

Everytime I read a political blog, watch the news, read a newspaper, listen to NPR I hear yet another crisis is in progress.  These events aren't just happening here but all over the world, ever day, hour and minute.  Many people I know give as much as they can.  Many of us make special time to give our neighbors anything we can to help.  Those neighbors can be next door, next town, next continent, the effort is still made to give!

We keep on trying but most of us aren't even sure how many different ways and means this country is in trouble.  Which conspiracy theory should we believe?  How dare the political parties that have had scandal after scandal run in the name of family values?  What kind of families do they have?  My family doesn't encourage pedophilia or call girls.  Does yours?

Petroleum companies have posted record earnings for years now but suddenly gas is down to under $2.oo a gallon.  Do you think there is no profit made at that price?  I bet there is.  Food is staying high in cost.  Houses are not worth what is owed on them.  Even the Swiss have been pulled into the financial mess by their bankers.  They are damned mad about it too!  However, they like us aren't sure how many companies, CEOs, politicians, etc. may have known this was going to happen and still willingly participated just out of greed.  The lack of forethought among so many is hard to believe.  

There is an excellent new book out called "Our American King" set in the very near future that might make some folks very upset when they read it.  The horrible future shown is this book is so frightening because it is so possible.  

I'd like someone who really knows to tell me the truth of our financial situation globally and nationally right now, not someone who is only looking in one or two directions but someone who understands the whole mess.  From what I'm reading there may not be such a person.

Grim Post, I need to find a nice picture to end it with.  Just to remind us all there are beauties all around us.  And that beauty is.....that it doesn't look like that here today!

   

Crabby Old Bitch

Yep, that's just what I'm in the mood to be!  I remember when I was in my twenties, working in resturants, wanting to get old.  Why?  So I could be the bitch I really am at people and they wouldn't hit me!  Unfortunately I still need to work for a living so that hasn't worked out well for me.

The getting older part happened.  I'm not quite a blue-haired raisin only because I don't use hair dye and blue isn't the happening hair shade it used to be for the senior set.  The hip-hop group has pretty much taken over that color and all it's shades.  However as the years have passed the respect youth has for the aged has lessened.  I would probably get smacked just like I was a 20 year old cage fighter if I told people half the thoughts that pass through my mind in the course of a day.

My chance at the American dream passed by decades ago, poor choices, poor Karma, whatever.  My chance at being that nasty old lady who lives alone with 30 cats and her dog is still possible.  Support me in my efforts to be that old lady who scares children on my block!  I thank you.

Wondering about the picture of the day?  That's my 81 year old father fishing last fall.  I can only hope to live up to his level of independence as I get older!  Just thought I'd end with an up note.

My Place

I got up this morning very early.  I'm going back to work today and I thought I'd try to get accustomed to walking around again as I've been in bed since Tues.  I got dressed and went outside only to find the wind had blown the half a tree back up the hill again.  

I can't get this picture right side up but if you turn your head you can see half a dead tree hanging off my power,cable and telephone wires.  Might I add that all of the forementioned companies have refused responsibility saying it was someone else's line?

I don't know about you but I just think it screws with the view.  Badly !

WHEN YOU JUST CAN'T SLEEP

Sometimes you see beautiful things.  These pictures were taken a few nights ago.  I find I can do some effective thinking sitting outside on the porch and looking at things in the dark!

The moon rise was happening when I took these and as it rarely does, it showed color!  If you look carefully you'll see the pinks and reds reflected in two of these pictures.  While I was out there drinking hot tea and taking these shots the coyotes serrandaded me.  The owls who live in the tree above my place were out and hunting with their triple calls.  And just to make it more  special I heard one of my old friends and neighbors sitting outside on his porch playing guitar and singing the blues.

By the time I finished my tea, "Lights out Campers" is the name of it by the way, the show that nature and neighbor had put on for me had quieted my mind and body.  I spent a last few minutes looking at the beauty in the night time sky and then went to bed again, this time to get a few hours of sleep.