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While sitting on my deck Tuesday afternoon, thinking about nothing much more than the bird I didn’t recognize who trilled from the top of our neighbor’s spruce tree, I realized I had forgotten to create this week’s blog post. It happens every year, my willingness to settle into summer, forget about commitments, and actively seek […]
Even though the snow on the deck of our house is still up to my knees, I’m sensing a shift in the light, the breath of a new season. Winter is waning, no matter what the depth of the snow may be. Along with the shifting light and that promise of change, I’ve been thinking […]
I think I have mid-winter brain. Never mind that I like winter most of the time. I am still susceptible to hunkering down so much I get lazy and sluggish. My energy has almost disappeared. It’s work to put on coat and boots and go anywhere. Tuesday was a good example. An enormous full moon […]
January in Minnesota has plenty to make me happy. Yes, this does make me a weirdo among many. But just yesterday I found myself thinking what a great thing days with temps well below freezing and a little fresh snow are. Days when our neighborhood owls call to each other in dim early morning light […]
The rain fell yesterday, its cleansing of the dying garden and leaf-littered deck a welcome sound as I worked. I ate my lunch late – a toasted tomato sandwich with a tasty tomato from the St. Paul Farmers Market – in front of the rain-spattered patio door where I could watch water droplets plink into […]
I struggle with feeling too tied up by everything in our society. Social media, cellphones, requests, demands, expectations, and noise – sometimes the sheer amount of all of it makes me want to run to somewhere untouched by others, somewhere without a cellphone signal, without television, without sales pitches and political campaigns and nudges toward […]
Every time I go on social media, I see posts from someone pondering their next writing move. Maybe they are tapped out for inspiration or maybe they are considering a lot of ideas and don’t know which one will be best for them. Every week, when I think about what to post here, I have […]
It’s been quite some time since I made the move to having dedicated writing space in my house, a whole room that became my writing studio. There’s a large computer screen that allows me to edit two documents side-by-side with ease, high-speed internet, a door I can close, and a window I can open. How […]
I’ve been in a bad mood lately, the kind of bad mood that makes me want to do nothing more than lay on the couch and watch T.V. I could blame my bad mood on the weekend blizzard that dumped more than a foot of snow on my city just when we thought it was […]
Monday morning writing sometimes happens far away from computer keyboards, for which my eyes always thank me. Today it’s happening at a marble-topped table in a booth at Quixotic Coffee in St. Paul, Minnesota. A quiet place on Cleveland Avenue in a quiet-ish neighborhood – at least, Monday mornings at 8:30 are quiet. Given the […]
