2022 Happy To Be Here

Yesterday I forgot a very important thing that I was happy about. Two of my champions showed up just to represent during court. I was thrilled. My exhaustion from the day left me with a poor memory. Some happy things from today: There is a line from Simon & Garfunkel’s song "The Dangling Conversation", “And we note our place with book markers/That measure what we've lost”. As I came closer to finishing two different works of fiction these lines kept crossing my mind. There are points in storytelling that have an anticipatory excitement. It could be a "Whodunnit?" type anticipation or something else, but with good writing, it is there. As books reveal that information, excitement can dwindle and the book soon ends. I'm not sure if that is what Paul Simon meant by those lyrics, maybe he meant time, but I’m looking at it as the loss of that anticipatory excitement. I finished reading The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer today. It was a ...

When I walked into work and saw that they placed me where I tend to have the most aches, I signed up to get voluntary time off. 25 minutes later I was out of there and heading home to do class work. After that, I tried to nap but couldn't. Instead I did dishes and cleaned the kitchen a little. Here are some other happy things from today: I left home just before the sun rose so I brought a flashlight. It wasn't dark, but the flashlight made me feel better.  Walking to the studio this morning in the brisk morning air I realized that these walks will be ending once the snow falls. There will not be enough room to safely walk some of the streets to get there. Plus the possibility of ice makes it just a bad idea. A nice talk with our studio friend and I am told which sidewalks are best to walk on near the studio come winter.  Walking over the Merrimack River there are definitely trees that are more empty than colorful. The beauty still lingers as it reflects on the water...

It seems that walking to or from the ceramics class on Mondays is the easiest way for me to get my step count. I don't have to walk all the way, just most of it. Keziah picked me up on her way there so we could be on time. I was able to get one cylinder thrown and one piece trimmed in class. I only have a partial picture of the one I trimmed.  It was already on the shelf when I thought of taking a picture. It is now drying and waiting to go into the kiln for the first time.  Some other happy things:  The reflection of the trees on the Merrimack River as I walked this morning was captivating. The river was fairly calm and the trees were colorful. Lately, Gideon, my grandson, has been asking for hugs more often. This is a happy occurrence for me. Kids go through stages; I'm liking this one. With the dog, Aesop, no longer living with us, the cats are all over the place. They love that there is more time for us to play with them. I miss Aesop, but from what I've hear...

Instead of falling into a restful sleep yesterday I had an anxiety attack. Eventually, sleep did come but the end result is that I felt sick at work and came home early. I decided that feeling shaky and dizzy near machinery was a bad idea. Here are some happy things from today: It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep when I returned home from work. I even slept later than I wanted to. Somehow, I still felt tired all day, but the shaky and dizzy was gone. I worked on the module for my prerequisite class while the rest of the house still slept. Keziah wanted to go to the studio so I walked part of the way there and she picked me up for the rest. I got some pictures of the Merrimack River from the south side of the bridge.  Yesterday the pictures were from the north side of the same bridge. At the studio I worked more on the module and did some weaving. It is my attempt at finding some balance between the class work and the SCA crafts.  It is also more comfortable to wor...

Over the weekend I wanted to work on my prerequisite class but I didn't. I made a point of working on it this morning before ceramics class. This course is supposed to take about 240 hours to complete. I already doubt my ability to get it finished before January just because of time. The more I complete, the more I will know and that counts too. Other happy things from today include: Ceramics class went well. I made a slightly warped cylinder. The class worked on handles, but I'm not there yet. In the picture, last week's is the hourglass sort of shape.  This week's is the other one. Walking home from the studio I found myself humming notes… no particular tune that I know of or remember. This is an unusual thing for me.  I think it is a good thing. Along the walk I finally got close enough to a plant to take a picture and identify it. The common hibiscus seems like a plant I should have been able to identify, now I guess I can. I crossed the Merrimack River.  ...