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 |  Day to day stuff....a memoir without order. |
 Imagination is described by Webster as...The act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses in reality. Albert Einstein said "Logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will take you everywhere."  I never realized it until I read it somewhere but there are ways to boost one's imagination: Create a visual journal Draw whatever you see for 15 minutes a day. You don't need to be an artist. Think like an artist Cut out pictures from magazines & piece them together to create an original image. Listen to Bach Close your eyes while playing your favorite music. Or listen to the sounds of nature on a CD or in the great outdoors. Play word games Try thinking of as many words as you can that begin with MAR...or you pick. Daydream Let your mind wander, or focus on a single object & study its characteristics.     Everyone has a story....here's mine.....c   |
| Get gas and cut grass, my list for today...done. I had to wait until it's in the 80s, whew it's hot but at least it's overcast, most of the time. Now, with a single serving pizza in the oven, I'm cooling off at the computer and wonder if I want a beer or not. I have a droning headache (2 visual migraines yesterday, today the pain). Will a beer make that worse? I always get gas at one particular place and today when I arrived, the pumps were all roped off...changing them...panic, almost. After going halfway back home, I turned around and went to the place across the street, and surprise, easier than my regular one. So I guess my old haunt may have lost a customer. My neighbor is having a new roof put on and the banging and bopping is not helping my head either, nor Mopsy's. Not that Mopsy has a headache, just an I'm scared, I have to hide under the bed ache. They have finally left and all is quiet again. My writing critique pod meets tomorrow, so looking forward to that. And tomorrow is my last day of 10 mg of Prednisone, Wednesday will be 5 mg. So glad I got the grass done today. until next time...c |
| I'm here at the computer in front of my open window, swooning to the smell of the blooming jasmine. It drifts in on the breeze along with a hint of wood smoke. I have jumped around from blogs to art and my mind is buzzing with words and visuals. What a morning to be alive in the here and now. The art "up front" in my brain is from visiting a black and white show of local artists at a local gallery yesterday. The gallery is new but the group is not, a Gainesville institution for many years. It was deserted except for two attendants, neither one artists but volunteers. I literally had the whole place to myself and it was wonderful. I read about the show on their site  and wondered what kinds of things took to black and white art. The answer...everything. The diversity of subject was surprising, portraits, landscapes, abstracts....I drove by the Repurpose Project to do but found not one parking place. In fact, their parking lot was roped off with obstacles, full of parkers, so I slowly went far enough to turn around to save that visit for a day less crowded. After the art gallery, it was too soon to call it a day, I've been cooped up too long, and my tummy was longing for some ice cream (thanks to Mr. Prednisone). We have this place specializing in a low calorie version, expensive but oh so tasty. I parked far away (to get in some walking), traipsed through several shops along the way, and ended up with a small cup of vanilla (with mint patty sprinkles). Then I walked, while eating, all the way around the block finally getting back to my parking spot about 30 minutes later...feelin' great.So that was my great Saturday, ready to do something different today, still contemplating... until next time...c |
| I thought we were going to have a bad thunderstorm last night as it started to thunder and rain around seven but it fizzled out quickly, just an all night drizzle. We need the rain. I am feeling tip top this morning. Looking back on my April calendar makes me sad, so many things written down to do but not one done. There are so many things to do in Gainesville, it boggles the mind. Today for instance, Pioneer Days in High Springs, just 20 miles north, the Repurpose Project in Gainesville is having a thing, there's a musical of Little Women at Buchholz High School, Earth Day celebration continues at the Harn Art Museum, bunches of things are blooming at Kanapaha Gardens, the list goes on and on...so lucky to live in Gainesville. I just need to choose and go. until next time...c |
| On April 12th my doctor gave me instructions to decrease my prednisone...again. On alternate days I was to take 5mg then nothing then 5mg and so on and so forth. It did not work. By Saturday, the 16th, all my symptoms (PMR) were back with a fury and I had to revert to my normal 5 mg per day. By Monday, the 18th, my symptoms had barely improved and I had to call in to my doctor's office, asking what to do. I couldn't sleep for the excruciating pain in my neck and shoulders, could barely roll over in bed from painful hips, and after taking my pill in the morning, I realized no tiny cessation until around 1 P.M. Late on the 19th I got a call-back from the nurse instructing me to double my dose for one week. By the afternoon of the 21st I was feeling much better, and this morning I am almost back to feeling as good as I did before the no pill days. I don't know how other people in pain can continue to function. I can barely think straight...whatever that means. I want to do nothing, try to sleep, care about nothing, and feel sorry for myself. I'm ashamed of that and want to tell no one about how I feel. Even though I have gained fourteen pounds (hungry all the time) on prednisone since I started it in March of 2015, I am not looking forward to reducing my dose again. Even though prednisone can aggravate some of the things I already have and may contribute to other new problems, I will continue to take it as long as I have symptoms and the doctor allows. What else would a sane person do? I want to do things I enjoy. I want to feel normal. until next time...c |
Up at 7 A.M. to the sound of thunder and the flash of lightning...and Mopsy. The farmers' market may not happen. Severe thunderstoms forecasted until 1 P.M. The art festival is being delayed too  . And it is very warm, another bad sign.I'll have to busy myself with other things today, a sewing project standing by, a new book to read, and watercoloring a Carolina wren I've been watching. The air smells so fresh when it's raining, I can't breathe it deep enough. A nice breeze is blowing in my open window with a few tiny sprays of rain mixed in. Mr. & Mrs. Redbird are nearby, chirping, bouncing up and down from feeder to porch railing to water dish. They nest in the bush just beyond, little ones on the way I think. They pay no mind to the storm. until next time...c |
| I'm sitting here at the computer with the window beside me still open and the darkness outside with its croaking frogs and katydids. Or maybe that's locusts. What was it my mom always said you hear when it's dry? Once in awhile I hear footsteps jogging by out on the street. People do run in the dark around here, cooler I guess, but dangerous with the traffic. Yep, I hear frogs...ribbit, ribbit. And a dog barking. I'm off to the farmers' market in the morning and then maybe a stop at a couple garage sales along the way. We're having a big (huge) art festival in Gainesville this weekend, but I won't attempt that until Sunday when some of my favorite musicians are playing...if I can find a place to park. Oh, wow, a whippoorwill. It is amazing what you can hear if you listen. until next time...c |
| I've already seen a hummingbird at the feeder, the same one several times, and he looks very familiar. I think I read somewhere that they will come back year after year. I cut my grass this morning, trimmed and everything, finishing just before a downpour. Gone are all the lupine and the little yellow whatever they are. The weeds (flowers?) were taking over. Now everything is smooth and turning green in the raindrops. I did have one unpleasant moment but I'm over it. I mentioned awhile back that my neighbor was letting his dogs race across my front yard, actually with him chasing after them. He is such a big kid. Well, only by a huge piece of good luck did I see doodoo in the grass before stepping in it or mowing over it. I gritted my teeth, got a plastic bag and took care of it. I really don't mind him and the dogs playing in the yard but, please, clean up their mess. There's nothing more annoying than putting away the mower and suddenly smelling s**t after you're already hot, tired, and sweaty. Thank goodness, I found it first, but next time I may not be so lucky. Then he will hear about it. until next time...c |
| Spring means lots of different things, first and foremost to me it means warm weather, not just this sporadic stuff we get here in Florida in the winter. I can almost see the grass turning green. Yes, the grass here in north central Florida does turn brown in the winter from our numerous frosts. Many of my neighbors have already cut their grass for the first time this year although mine has not sufficiently beckoned me yet. Only the weeds are growing so far. First is the warmth, then the pollen, pine pollen. I have thirteen huge pines in my back yard. Someone on FB said it doesn't snow in Florida, it pollens...so true. My back porch and everything in it gets a fine yellowish green film practically overnight. I sweep it, blow it, and ultimately hose it out. It usually lasts around two weeks but seems much longer. Somehow even my front porch gets its layer but not as bad. I wonder if anyone has ever written a song or poem about pollen. I don't recall ever reading one. Yesterday, after sweeping the front porch, and rehanging plants from their "winter" migration indoors, I decided to prepare and hang the hummingbird feeder. My hummingbirds disappeared sometime in November, heading farther south I guess. After putting it back in its old place, I looked up on the web for info on their return to my neck of the woods and March seems to be the month. Hopefully, I will see some soon.I tend to stay cooped up in the house during winter so spring means getting outside for me, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on these old bones. I get back to my daily walks and start preparing a spot for some tomatoes and peppers and salad greens as long as they will grow. The increasing heat shortens their growing period here. Then there is springing the clocks forward last Sunday morning. I barely get used to the sky lightening at 6 o'clock when suddenly I have to wait until 7. It is a little disorienting for a few days, but I do enjoy the later sunset which means I can drive later. I hate to drive after dark so there is one reward at least. until next time...c |
| Last Saturday I attended a writer's workshop sponsored by my local writing group. They called it "Writers in the Woods". An author in the group (I'll call her Sophy for sophisticated because her pure white hair makes her look that way) allowed us, 40 of us, to pile into her historical country home to learn a little more about writing. We got a bonus. She, a widow, owns 110 acres about 20 miles southwest of where I live. After all the presentations, she guided us on a tour of some of her land. We walked about an hour, part way on an old railroad berm. For those who don't know what that is, it's the built-up area for the tracks. The tracks were no longer, but it made a perfect walking path. The day was clear and sunny, about seventy degrees. As we made our way along, around fifteen of us who decided on the adventure, we smelled the pines, heard a few birds, and were careful where we stepped. Small rocks (limerock) and fallen twigs littered the path. Sometimes I noticed tire tracks and then I walked in the ruts. We dallied at the edge of one of several limerock pits on the property, a use of years ago. The ground around it declined steeply, dotted with some scraggly new growth trees, and at the bottom lay a twinkling pond. Our hostess had named it Lucy after that Beatle tune. It glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. An overhanging rocky face greeted us on the far sides of the man-made lake, perhaps a hundred feet in height. We noticed a large object sticking up out of the water far away near the middle. She said someone had gifted her a mattress when the water level was low, then went on to tell us how some of these pits went right down into the aquifer, that place where we get our water. The water never leaves but rises and falls with the rain. Our facial expressions began to change and the chatter became more serious. We started to see problems. Water contamination, dangers to children, unsightly trash. What at first seemed aesthetically appealing now had other meanings. Borrow pits as they are sometimes called seems an appropriate name. The material is borrowed for use somewhere else. But the digging opens a clear chute into our drinking water system, all connected. The property around our hostess' is cattle and farm country equaling runoff directly into these pits and our aquifer. Yes, this day we learned more than we had bargained for. until next time...c |
| My writing group sponsors a library speaker (writing related) one Sunday each month. Last Sunday we had a local professor, Dr. Kevin McCarthy , a prolific writer, author of many, many books (62), all non-fiction, on a vast array of topics. He writes 500 words every day (every day) and turns out two books each year, some published by our university press and more through Createspace, for which he had only good things to say. We had a huge crowd who enjoyed his laid back presentation. Research was high on his list of how to be successful at non-fiction, and he gave several good sites for this, mainly Florida research since that is his specialty which he calls "Floridiana". Another good point he made was to write your non-fiction book for a particular audience. He has written some on towns in Florida, which he said makes for a captive audience, practically everyone in the town will buy one. I've never considered anything like this before, but thinking about it, there are several things I wish there were a book written about...so.... And even if writing a non-fiction is not a goal, it could be lots of practice for the goal. Goodreads has a nice listing of non-fiction sub genres.until next time...c |
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