In Three

Two-thirds

On this, the day before Thanksgiving, I'd like to create a list of the top three things for which I'm thankful. Things in my life seem to run in threes, after all, and I have a lot to do today and can't spend all morning writing a long entry. I don't know if I'll be posting anything tomorrow so this may have to suffice...

Pulling Me Home

Last week in a Ladybits blog entry, Mrs. Anke posted a photo of Caro Spinette and some of her hand painted porcelain creations. I went slightly bonkers over this teapot and said as much in a comment.

The next thing I knew—and I mean that literally—she wrote to me privately, asking for my mailing address so that she could send it to me! Try as I might to make her give up her address so that I could send her something in return, I failed utterly.

The generosity of both Bettina and her husband Christopher (the now-famous Mr. Anke, who keeps a number of blogs and sites and who is an inspired photographer) humbles and amazes me. It was only last year that he sent me my beloved "I ♥ Royal TW" tee shirt, which I supposedly won in a contest. Ahem...

Stop the Train, I Want to Get Back On

"The bad new is time flies. The good
news is you're the pilot." 

Is it just me, or are the days actually going by faster?

Deni once told me that our perception of time is directly related to our heart rate, that as we age and our hearts slow down, time seems to go by faster than it did when we were young. I guess I need to research this a little. Whatever it is, I never seem to have enough time to do everything I used to get done in a day. I get up early enough—8:30 or so—and I'm up until around 2am. That's enough time. So why does it seem like half-a-day to me? Maybe I'm just moving slower these days.
__________
Quote by Michael Altshule

Packed In Like a Sausage

You did it too. Admit it.

I was one of those girls all the other girls hated. Throughout high school I never weighed more than 95 pounds. The day I came home from the hospital after having my first baby at age 18, I weighed 100, then, after the birth of my second baby at 23, I came home weighing 103. And that's where I stayed until I was about 38 years of age and had to have The Operation...

Life's Trials Are Only Temporal, Grasshopper

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem."

Thanks to my son Micah, I've gotten hooked on the old Kung Fu telly series. When it first aired I was a widowed, 21 year-old single mom who worked a factory job. I enjoyed the lessons the show espoused and the tranquility it lent my hectic week, and since I wasn't being asked out on dates, well, I spent an hour every Friday night with Kwai Chang Caine...

Grey Area

Wind chime

It's a gray day here at Bookends Cottage. As you know, I love this kind of weather and can enjoy it for days on end.

This picture is of a wind chime that was made by a friend of Lynette's. Made from a candy dish and a collection of spoons and knives, it makes a lovely sound when there's a gentle wind blowing. It hangs from the eave over our kitchen door. Today, I like the silver-gray of it against the autumnal backdrop.

I Feel Much Better Since I Gave Up Hope

I feel a trite segue from the topic of Thanksgiving to this blog entry's subject coming on. Wait. Here it comes. Ah. There it is. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to do that, it's just that I've been thinking too much...

Where Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean

Over the past week I've acquired a sudden interest in the English Civil War, most notably as it applied to Charles I, the only English king to be executed for treason. I won't go into the politics of that, but let me just say that I think he got the dodgy end of the deal...

A Fresh Outlook

Now that I've made the decision to make Beyond The Bridge a series rather than a trilogy, I feel a huge burden has been lifted. You'd think I'd feel more pressured to write more books on my chosen subject, but I don't because now I'm not obliged to push myself through Book Three just for the sake of doing so...

The Door

It doesn't matter what I do, what I think, what I feel, how much I try, how much I believe, how much I want. It doesn't matter whether I meditate, whether I visualize, whether I claim. It doesn't matter if I sprinkle fairy dust on myself and jump from the window, or if I follow the rules and take a more sensible approach...

A Rare Offering

One of the best things about Autumn is soup. Every year I have several people strongly suggest I should put together a cookbook of my best recipes. The problem is, I don't write recipes...

An Author's Prerogative

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a writer is to never paint myself into a corner, or at least try not to. The best laid plans, as the saying goes, often go awry or lose their immediacy the deeper embroiled we get. Then, our beloved project becomes a chore. We become blocked. We languish in frustration. Well, I languish, anyway. Maybe you don’t...

The Falling Season

Our property has no fewer than nine old trees on it. Of these, four are of the oak and sycamore variety so every autumn our yard gets swamped with falling leaves. This morning they're falling like a steady snow, and when the breeze kicks up it looks more like an orange and yellow blizzard...

Your Good Angel will be with You on that Shore

Many of you many remember that I used to post entries of far away and isolated places I'd like to visit one day. Those posts are still here, labeled under Travel, if you'd like to see them, although it has been a long time since I posted a new one.

Last night while engaged in my favorite pastime of blog-hopping, I came across a blog called Life on a Small Island. Wow! Did I ever hit the jackpot where my fascination with isolated lifestyles is concerned...

Turning Point

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. In fact, I have absolutely no unhappy childhood memories connected with it, and I've been able to carry that on through my adult life...

Just a Few Close Friends

Last night, after the cake was eaten, after the coffee and wine were gone, and after everyone had either gone home or gone to bed, Micah and I sat in the dark living room and watched my Concert For George DVD...

I Should Have Known

I should have known. On that summer day back in 1990, I should have known. On that summer day back in 1990 when he came to me asking to be shown some guitar chords, I should have known. On that summer day back in 1990 when he came to me asking to be shown some guitar chords on my Yamaha 6-string, I should have known. I should have known...

Folk Like the Blues

On nights like this one, after a stressful day, I like to light the candles, pour a cup of Earl Grey, and turn on my Mellow Music Pandora station. It comes to me through an app on the telly, which is connected to some awesome speakers, so the songs sound just as good as they did through my component stereo system back in the 1970s and '80s.

In the days before the internet, cell phones, iPods, and video games (except for my sons' Atari system which I never really played) my friends and I got together to make music. We'd gather in someone's living room, bringing jugs of wine, bags of chips, and our guitars, and we'd settle in for a long night of music, chat, a little political discourse, and a lot of warmth...

The Anemic Need Not Apply

There was an aspiring young writer named Frances Turnbull, who attended Radcliffe. In 1938, during her sophomore year, she wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald, a family friend, and sent him a copy of her latest manuscript. The celebrated author replied with this starkly honest letter, which I found satisfying.

As you know by now, I have no use for books that are written according to a marketable formula, and containing no heart. Somewhere, sometime, a writer has to leave drops of blood on his or her pages...