Hiking the Skyline Trail...

I have learned a couple of things from today's hike... I like to hike alone, I am still in horrid shape for hiking uphill and in the sun, and that I am starting to get over my fear of heights but it still stops me in the end. Just things I pondered today in this beautiful place.

More greetings from Canada...but no WiFi...

Having lovely (rainy) days on the coast of Cape Breton the last few days... and no WiFi around. Managed to get a few moments on a public computer in the Info center to post a note... I am hoping soon I will be somewhere where the WiFi is working and I can post photos...

If not, then later...

It is beautiful here, lovely winding roads through forests and along beaches... just my recipe for a relaxing start of my retirement!

Photos soon!

Greetings from Nova Scotia, Canada!

A silly selfie from Peggy's Cove lighthouse. Got to Halifax and have been exploring. Went to this lighthouse and to Lunenburg yesterday...

Querencia and other thoughts about writing...

I have been thinking about writing lately...

From Writing Towards Home by Georgia Heard:
 Querencia: a place where one feels safe; a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn; a place where one feels at home. From the Spanish querer to want, to desire.

          {Where is my querencia?}

This makes me ask other questions:

Where do I feel most at home?
Where do I feel most happy and relaxed?
What is my ideal writing environment?
Where can I write with all my full powers?

I like quiet places.

Places without a lot of distractions.

That is why often writing in public places like coffee houses is difficult for me, unless I can find an out of the way table or a booth.

The quietest place for me is really a time – very early morning before the world seems awake. This has  worked well in the past then I got distracted with work and stopped writing for long time. Now I am retired so I can reclaim my mornings.

Another thought, taken from an art workshop years ago, maybe Julianna Coles? She asked, "Where does your art hide for you?"  So I am taking a side step for today...

          {Where does writing hide for me?}

Where in nature? Where in art? Music? Colors? Tastes? Textures? What memories hold hidden writings? People? Places? Things? I know there are many tidbits of life that are keeping secret writings – it is my job {task?} now to find them and draw them out. Another question might be, WHY does writing hide for/from me?

Another theme: Find my own truth. Seems to be a recurring theme. What is my own truth? Who am I now? What is the path with the heart (Castenada)? What is my bliss? The same question in different forms.

These are some of the things I might be thinking about as I travel this coming month...


“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hanging out...

It might just be easier to post from my phone...

Trial run...

Oh heavens no... not me actually running!

This is a trial run using the equipment I plan on bringing on my trip next week:  my little Lumix camera, tablet and connector so I can plug it and my SD card into the tablet.

Notes To Self:
So ok, for this to work on the Tablet I need to upload to Piassa then to Blogger. For some reason I cannot load directly from Flickr or Instagram on the tablet.

I am probably making this way too difficult!

Getting up early on purpose...

Setting the alarm in fact. Early. 6 AM. Or maybe 5:30.

          One word says it all:  HEAT!

The last two days have been over 100 degrees here by early afternoon and I have missed out on the cooler early mornings by letting myself sleep in. My normal annoying kitty alarm has not been going off at 6 like it did for school so I have slept until 8 or 8:30. Normally I wouldn't mind but when it is this hot, I want to be up early so I can have a couple of cooler hours to get things done before I start to melt. I think even Persephone has wanted to sleep in lately.

And I need to water the garden. Poor little plants just don't like the heat and Andy wakes up too late to give them any watery comfort in the mornings so that job has fallen to me.

 I don't mind of course... it gives me some time to be out there and take garden photos (and play with Instagram) and muse over what else I want to plant when I get back from my vacation.

And to issue a great big sigh when I realize I will be gone for the next month when these lovely apricots will no doubt ripen and be delicious!  Maybe some of them will hold off until mid-July when I get back... just enough to let me savor their golden goodness and give me dreams of apricot cobbler.

Sunday morning thoughts...

My mother died on Thursday. I am not saying that to elicit any comments of how sorry people might be for my loss. Please don't. She and I had a very adversarial relationship especially these past 20 or so years.

I am just thinking about it today and how some losses affect me differently than others.

Those of you who know me know I was not close to my real mother and that she was often vicious and verbally mean/rude to me and most people in any adult encounters, but still it is a strange emptiness. I am eternally thankful I did not grow up with her past my 10th year so that I at least turned out pretty "normal" and have had a pretty happy life. She was always bitter and unhappy.  It took me a long time to figure out all her unhappiness was her problem and to learn how to not get dragged down into her well of acrimonious despair.

The more I ponder it, I am coming to the realization that I had always hoped things would improve and that we might have a decent relationship in her old age. I think I am mourning the loss of that possibility rather than the actual person.


On another note I am enjoying my new retirement, although it still feels like summer vacation to me. I am sure the reality of it will hit when I don't have to go back to school in late August. In a way that is another loss, albeit not a bad one, just a transition that I will need to go through.  For a change I will have the time to do all those other things that interest me: making art, traveling, writing, doing more yoga, getting outside more and certainly lunching with my other retired teacher (and librarian) friends!

The roses have a drip system in place but the lawn is suffering. I need to get out there and water on our select days (Tuesdays and Saturdays) for our address.

Hiking on Monday...

One of my intentions for my retirement is to get into better physical shape and what better way to start than a visit with another retired teacher friend Marilyne and a nice hike in the Auburn area.

Location: Hidden Falls
Google Map

She had a couple of choices for me and I chose the waterfall one, which it turned out was a LOT of uphill in the sun so I will know better next time! But it was beautiful and I want to go there again maybe on a slightly cooler day (and start earlier in the morning) and once my legs have a little more strength for all that uphill!

At least it was a wake-up call for me to let me know what sort of physical shape I was (not) in. It wasn't a long hike (3 or so miles) and it wasn't until the end with all the uphill in the sun that my weaknesses showed up. Hello jello legs! Hello no stamina! At least I brought a hat and sun screen!

It's Official!

Last day of school was today! It is officially summer vacation and more official for me, my last day at work. Officially starting tomorrow, I now join the ranks of the happily retired!

Crank up your speakers!


Now for the next chapter in my life... a couple of weeks here then off to Nova Scotia for a month. I will definitely blog from that trip and post photos here. After that, the world is my oyster. Hmmm, maybe I need to start liking oysters!

It's a lovely Thursday in the neighborhood...

 Today I am...

• Appreciating that I had an extra personal leave day I could take off to get a boatload of errands taken care of, including getting a new vacuum cleaner!
• Excited to see the progress of our little straw bale vegetable garden and thankful that my husband put in the hard work to get it started.
• Realizing that I need to clean out the fridge so I can plan my meals better.
• Giddy at the prospect of being retired by the end of next week.
• Getting excited about my upcoming trip to Nova Scotia.
• Thinking how much I love the bedroom being so free of clutter and getting excited about decluttering the rest of the house.
• Thinking about what I want this blog to become as my time is freed up in retirement.
• Excited to go to Leslie's this weekend and do more art!

I saw this "Today I am... " idea on THIS blog and liked it so decided to make my own list! I look forward to having time when I retire to catch up on all the blogs I have added to Feedly and bookmarked... lots of interesting stuff happening out in the blogosphere that I have not been reading.

The heat is on!

It is going to be 100 degrees today... yikes! And it is only the middle of May!

On the up side... only 11 more working days until retirement! Yay!

And in the garden...

Today is where your book begins...

Sometimes just the right song comes along at just the right moment , and even if it is an old song, it may be one you have never heard or never thought about before. Then suddenly... BAM! It is there in your ear, in your brain, and it is saying exactly what you need to hear at exactly that moment.

Such was what happened to me the other day when I heard the Natasha Bedingfield song  "Unwritten". Even though it had been out for many many years and came out before her other song I always liked, "Pocketful of Sunshine", I do not think I had ever heard it before last week.

It spoke to me about my coming retirement and all the thinking I have been doing about it lately:

"Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten"

I especially like the lines:

"Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten..."

Full lyrics here. 

Here is the video from You Tube:

Sometimes you need to change your methods...

I have been a Sudoku fan for a long time, and always carry a small puzzle book in my purse for those unavoidable waiting in line times, and I always have a puzzle magazine in the bathroom (easy ones that get done quickly). I admit I do not like the hard ones -- no patience for the long time they take to solve, but I enjoy the medium difficulty ones a lot.

Last summer when I was in Alaska I taught my friend Evie how to do Sudoku puzzles. I showed her my way of going through the numbers one at a time like I show my students when they want to learn how to do the puzzles I have in my "Spare Time" box in the classroom.

... and recently I realized my own solving method had morfed into something different from how I taught other people how to play. I find there is a combination method to solving the puzzles that takes them a box at a time rather than just by numbers in order that works better for me -- no earth shattering news but it seemed like a metaphor for other things in my life that maybe needed to change.

Why? Well as I look around at my messy art room and messy house I see that my old ideas of how to keep things in order no longer work for me.

Time to do something else.

I have had to change how I work with my kids at school lately because a lot of the old methods we could use when the kids actually followed directions don't work anymore. Short attention spans maybe, lack of manners definitely (group work turns into gossip or yelling fests), and so I have had to change my methods.

And I am realizing with a great epiphany this morning that how I approach so many things are going to need a revamp.

Time to do something else.

Maybe it is because in 9 short weeks I will be retired, or maybe I am just tired of my old ways of not cooperating with myself (it is all me of course, I am my worst critic and worst plan derailer)...

No other answers here really, just the call out to myself to start rethinking my methods of living my life and being happy about it...

Fitbit free and lots of flowers...

Today was Day 1 Fitbit free. I decided to take a break from counting my steps because I found it was holding me hostage... I would check it all the time and be bothered when it wasn't registering right, and finally it was creating way more stress than I need right now. I already know my patterns: I walk more when I am at school in the course of a day and need to purposefully walk or move more on the weekends. Doesn't take an electronic gadget to tell me that. One less thing to keep track of in my life. I like that.

And lately I have been feeling very stressed enough from other things. I noticed that when I was on my yoga mat before class this morning. I had a hard time stilling my thoughts -- they were all over the map! I am glad at least I got myself out of the house for yoga because at the end of it I did feel less stressed, and a slight bit taller. I love how all the stretching makes me feel and for a while I think I walk taller and more aligned. Of course then I went home and got on the computer and hunch up and probably ruined it all but it was nice while it lasted!

And finally all the bulbs and flowers Andy has been planting in the garden are really exploding with color! Oddly however, we have a ton of yellow poppies coming up. Lovely but he thought he planted red ones! Too bad we don't still have the bag they came in, but anyway they are very pretty.

The freesias just smell divine! They are definitely in my top 3 of favorite spring flowers! And the poppies are going wild! Wish we had a larger area of them planted (like the whole front lawn?) I have never liked grassy areas in gardens although I know we need some for when our dog goes outside, but if I could have what I really wanted I would go for the unkempt English cottage garden look any day!

A different crocus...

Lately every day I go outside a new crocus has come up! Andy planted them this time and I am loving all the color variations. There are some white ones too but I love this variegated purple one!

In my garden this morning...

I can't wait!

Same crocus...

Photo app.

Later thoughts...

Whoa! WAAAAYYYYY to big here!

Ok I like this app, it is fun and a little different for me but... just like the phone pic, there is no way to regulate the size of the photo and that I don't like. Ok, now I know to just save the photo and post it the way I usually do from Flickr or my computer.

By the way, the app is from A Beautiful Mess.

Yesterday...

Crocus in the rain.

Posting this as a test from my phone.

Later thoughts from my computer...

1. Photo is too big.
2. There is no way to adjust the size of the photo upload from the phone (that I know of, if there is please tell me!)
3. It is a pain to type out blog stuff on my phone. Guess my fingers are too fat!

I know, I know, it's only February...

But I have been thinking lately a lot about my intentions for my first trip this summer once I have retired… (partly because I have to start making reservations and partly because it is just so exciting to think about!)

It will be a relatively local and short trip for me, just to DC and NJ on the East Coast and then to Nova Scotia. The East coast part will be to visit one of my cousins and an old friend from High School with whom I have reconnected thanks to Facebook. They are both named Barbara so I call that part the 2 Barbaras tour. Then I will head to Nova Scotia and that is where the intentions come in.

After a lot of searching on the Internet I found there were so many places I wanted to visit that I had to prioritize and figure out just what it was I wanted to see and do there. So I came up with these three things:

1. To listen to Celtic music and go to a few Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee and is a traditional Gaelic social gathering, which usually involves playing Gaelic/Celtic folk music and dancing). I absolutely love Celtic fiddle music.
2. To enjoy nature there and wander along a few beaches to find some sea glass, especially more rounded older pieces (and if I am lucky, in some of the less common colors.) I also want to see some puffins either from a boat tour off the northern part of Cape Breton Island or a more complicated trip to an island nesting site from New Brunswick. And speaking of nature... getting to see a sun rise from the Altantic, which is why I went to Nova Scotia the first time about 40 years ago!
3. To visit a few of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in as I like to do when I travel. I am focusing on a few in Nova Scotia but maybe I will also find some in DC and NJ for the East Coast part of the trip.

So just in the planning and dreaming stages... more to come.

Friday florals on Saturday...

I am slowly getting back to things this weekend...

Went outside this morning and saw these bits of Spring playing in the flower pots. Cheered me up enough to get a few photos and make a blog post. Spent some time yesterday starting to plan out a summer trip. Slowly life is getting back to normal.

And thanks to all of you new folks who joined my blog and/or left a message on the Grow Your Blog post. I am (very) slowly getting around to visiting your blogs. Thank you in advance for your patience!

Saying goodbye to another cat...

We had to say goodbye today to our dear Perseus... (Kidney failure) He came into our lives nearly 19 years ago already maybe 6 months to a year old... so he had a wonderful full life here with us. He and Pandora got along so well. When she died, he started going downhill and his kidney disease was discovered. We tried a couple of treatments for him but his health failed quickly this last couple of weeks. We did not want him to suffer any more so we brought him to the vet today and said our goodbyes. He will be buried outside next to Pandora in our flower garden.

Rest in Peace dear wonderful Percy.

Last of the Season...

Satsuma Mandarins. My favorite fruit! I discovered them when I lived in Japan 30 years ago and have loved them ever since! They are an easy-to-peel seedless variety of mandarin orange. I am fortunate in that they are grown in my area for us to enjoy in the States.

They have such a short growing season. Around here it is usually late November until late January. Andy found these tiny ones at the Farmer's Market this morning but they are definitely the last of the season. In high season they are usually twice as big! Still yummy but it just reminds me that some things are seasonal so enjoy them when I can.

HERE is more info about them!

Thinking about a tea cosy...

I cannot believe it is already February!

I was thinking last night that I needed to make a tea cosy. I often make tea in my tea pot and then of course it cools off over time. I remembered last summer having a delightful tea at a cute shop in Tillamook and found I had taken a photo of their tea cosy.

Not sure this is the kind I want or the sort of quilted kind that goes over the whole teapot. I may have to scour the web later today to find one I like. I am sure I have enough fabric stashed in my closet to make one. (Said with tongue firmly in cheek as I have a whole closet full of fabrics for future quilts and projects!) Now where is my sewing machine...

Linked to:
Pink Saturday

Floral Friday...

A big thanks to all my new blog followers from the Grow Your Blog party last week! I am slowly getting around to all the blogs of the people who left comments from last week's post. Some great new (to me) blogs out there to visit! You can see the list on the Grow Your Blog page via the button on my sidebar or in the last post.

So I have been thinking about the blog and wanting to add more floral colors now that we are starting to get some much-needed rain and Spring is approaching... and then when I came home from work today I saw some of the Icelandic Poppies my husband had planted had gone crazy and bloomed up during the day -- what great color!

I think this poppy red-orange is one of my all-time favorite colors!





Linked to:
Orange You Glad It's Friday