Pumpkin Sunrise

  Good morning! How are you? The last time I posted I mentioned that my husband had the stomach bug last Saturday. After diligent sanitizing, social distancing in our house, I was blessed with the same virus on Tuesday (ugh!). I am feeling better every day but this virus has taken a lot out of me. Yesterday was the first day I was sitting upright and able to read and comprehend a book. I haven't done much knitting or anything else this past week. Eating food is a chore as well. I am getting too old for this! The above photo of me knitting maybe 4 rows on a second sock before exhaustion sets in once again and I set aside the knitting and resume reading a book. Frodo has been my constant companion, he is a funny little guy. The older he gets, the more clingy he becomes. He mainly sits beside me most of the time but does like to sit beside my husband as well. However he has to see me and gaze at me lovingly while fighting sleep across the room. And while he shows his age in some ways

  Good morning! How was your weekend? Well now, do I have a plot twist for you. Our plans to meet our little grandson were abruptly canceled due to my husband coming down with a stomach virus. So now we will meet him briefly at the baptism early March and then have a nice longer meet during mid March.  I was so disappointed. However, no one wants a stomach bug! So far, I am feeling good and my husband is well on the road to recovery. I believe I'm living on sanitizing fumes, ha ha ha.   One other plot twist, last night my knee started to hurt and so I'm babying that. I might message the RA doctor just to see what she thinks about it. It might be tendonitis (if my diagnosing is correct....).  In between all the happenings and cleaning, I read a lot and knitted a lot.  I also did my fair share of laundry and hand washing some hand knit sweaters. The weather has been all over the place. It snowed, it melted, it snowed it melted again. All I can say for sure is that the robins are

  Yesterday it rained all day and most of the snow melted and today I woke up to intense 'flurries' that could or could not accumulate, that's to be determined. I know why it's snowing, I put the heavy coats and the winter boots in a different closet. I jinxed the warm up!  This week has been 'busy' with a splattering of random appointments strategically placed nearly every day breaking up the rhythm I enjoy. We met our new dentist earlier this week (and passed the exam!) and now I think we are done with establishing care with new medical providers. Phew!  I enjoyed reading your comments from last Friday's post about saving things for special occasions and the special occasions never come. I have plans for my deep stash with yarns that are over 20 years old. In my defense, I inherited much of my mother's yarn stash when she died in 1998. I have yarn that I bought in 1990 that I have yet to knit up! Right now I'm thinking I should always have some kin

  Lately I've been thinking about what brings me joy. I revisit this theme over and over throughout the year and try to tweak my days so they reflect what fills my bucket. My challenge is that I have many many things that bring me joy and trying to fit all of them into my days is nearly impossible. I keep a track of the following in my planner: knitting, journaling, sketching/watercoloring, reading and cross stitching. I'm not strict at what I do each day I just like to see how I end up allocating my time. Anyways, when I eat well and exercise daily I feel fantastic and that brings me joy. I keep track of those activities as well as daily meditation and yoga. Good health is a top priority for have a good day. Keeping my creative pursuits revolving in and out during my days makes for a delightful existence! Since moving here I've been managing any perceived stresses (usually self generated!). I want to sit down at the end of the day and feel like I enjoyed the day, lived it

  This week has been bitterly cold and yet Frodo and I keep trying to take a walk in spite of the weather adversity. He loves his walks but he doesn't remember his limitations (almost like me!). He is a glass half full kind of dog (unlike me, I'm trying to be more like him). On one walk we were approached by a loose dog then another loose dog by the same owner. I'm lucky I can pick Frodo up and wait for the mayhem to settle. This owner like many loose dog owners before him thinks Frodo is afraid and that is why I pick him up.  Sadly I pick Frodo up because he can get nasty with other dogs...I still love him and his 'spunky' attitude.  Since the weather is frigid, I am doing all the indoor activities. Lots of reading, knitting and I started a new cross stitch project. It's been fun circulating my brain amongst all of my hobbies, I'm lucky that my hobbies are vast and I rarely get bored.  I have a routine eye doctor visit early this morning, I'm hoping she

  Hello! How are you doing?  This past week I've been pondering about a mindfulness prompt in a book I'm reading throughout the year, A Year of Living Mindfully by Anna Black. It's a really nice book and I've enjoyed the prompts throughout this year. Anyways the prompt this week was to consider what you believe to be nourishing or draining. I've thought about this all week long. My obvious nourishing events are knitting and reading. But over the course of the week I've added some surprising concepts to the nourishing list and challenged my draining list. I had the opportunity to help my cousin at her house with her preparing for company this past week. I found helping her nourishing to me, an added bonus was making her very happy. I also initially considered walking 150 minutes draining because of the amount of time it takes to get that done and I'm not doing other 'things' but then I changed my mind because I am nourishing my physical health which i

  Around here it looks like fall but it feels like summer. Those days are numbered and I'm patiently waiting for cool breezes and seeing my breath in the early morning moments and being cold, hopefully sooner than later. How are you?  I've been busy with....knitting! Yes I finally feel like my pre-moved self and have been sitting and knitting while listening to old podcasts (I am 1-2 months behind). When I am not knitting, I am reading also playing catchup to made my reading goals I set before I even knew I was going to move. I just might make the goal but it's okay if I do not make it. Some time this month the awning guy will arrive and take down and store my shaded patio area. My husband and I love to sit out here and eat lunch. Frodo loves to sit and watch the dog walkers on the road (and bark at them) or be dazzled by the family of chipmunks that pop up in one hole run right in front of him to disappear in another hole. I can't tell what he is thinking - he watches,

  Finally, it is October! Are you celebrating? Are you excited? All through end of July, all of August and half way through September I've been pining for October. This is the secret sauce month of Autumn and we are finally finally here. In my planner I have set up some monthly pages, one of which is 'October Ideas'. This page will be the catchall brain dump of what I'd like to do, or investigate during the month. Usually I write each week what I want to do but I have to carry it over to another week (sometimes repeatedly). Maybe a monthly catchall place will work for me. Near where I live there are plenty of farmer's markets and there is one in particular that is a compound of buildings. They have a few animals for children to say 'hi' to and chat with, you can feed them some food as well. I snapped the photo of this sweet pig (hog??). I'll be missing the big fair that was close to my old home. I find it weird that the last time at the big fair I didn&#

  I've been reading a lot this week. I started 10% Happier by Dan Harris and it is really good. He writes about his personal journal into mindfulness and meditation, I've been captivated and squeezing in reading here and there during my day to gobble up the book. I highly recommend! I've been also reading a chapter a day/or every other day of Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn (revised edition), also a good book but jammed packed with lots of science and data so the reading is slow going - almost like a textbook but worth the read. The Madness of the Crowds by Louise Penny became available on my e-library loan request so I've set aside all the other novels to read this one in 21 days. Nothing like a deadline to make you rejigger your reading priorities. I love her writing and have read all of her books. I convinced myself that I did NOT need a Hobonichi Weeks planner until March 2022, then broke down and ordered the January start Hobonichi Weeks planner for 2022.

  Hello! How are you on this fine Friday morning? Can you believe that fall is around the corner (finally.). I'm excited about that. I know and you know that there will be hot days but they are just not sustainable this time of the year. I'm sitting in my kitchen watching my bird feeders and currently a chickadee is visiting. I do love having the bird feeders. The above photo is my new coffee/tea station set up. As you know, I've been improving my lifestyle for that past month. I have been a serious morning coffee drinker for 40 years. I drink it black with sugar. I have tried to cut down the sugar and can only go so far. I do not like the taste of artificial sweeteners. Added to that I'm probably caffeine sensitive and feel edgy with 1/2 decaf coffee. With green tea I do not use any sugar and it has way less caffeine unless I drink the decaf version. So I cleaned the coffee maker and put it away. I brought out my beloved electric tea kettle and bought some green teas t

  Good morning! I'm sitting at my kitchen table early in the morning with a window opened and it's a bit brisk. I am in heaven. I know that next week the weather forecast is back into the 80's but I'll take these low 70's in a heart beat. How has your week been?  We drove to a local park twice this past week to walk a loop. The first time was without Frodo and the second time it was with Frodo. Each time was wonderful, I think Frodo liked the walk. We do walk in our neighborhood but there are more cars here than where we used to live, it's manageable but different to what we are used to doing. I've been trying to increase my exercise for all that heart healthy 'stuff'.  Besides walking, I'm either strength training or doing yoga in the mornings. It's felt really good getting back into the groove and I'm sure my body appreciates it. Around here, there's been lots of journalling, sketching, haiku writing and reading. The knitting, well

  Right now I'm sitting in the kitchen before dawn writing this post. I've been reading many books at the same time about mindfulness and taking notes. My sister and I are reading together Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Since October, I've been reading and learning about being mindful in my everyday movements and meditating daily. I'm learning I have a lot to learn.  My husband and I were discussing that this new house does not feel like home ... yet. We feel like we are on an extended vacation. He thinks it's because we eat lunch on the patio daily weather permitting and that's something we would do on vacation. I think it's like a condo rental with all of my 'stuff' in it. When I go to cook it's weird trying to remember where everything is, just like vacation. Yesterday the electrician was here updating the original electrical panel (eep!) and the electricity was turned off for five hours. That then felt like we were at camp. We are

  I have exciting news! I FOUND THE CANDLE REMOTE. This is me shouting from the rooftops and it was in the weirdest of places - the battery box. Why I placed it there is beyond my comprehension and just so you know, I've been in that box many times since moving but haven't looked at what was in there. We both were really excited because now we are officially unpacked.  My husband unpacked the garage and did another cardboard box recycling run. All of our spaces look put together now. Storage space remains tight in this older home but I'm so glad we did the major decluttering before the move because we would not be unpacked like we are now. My husband and I went on an outing to the south part of Pittsburgh to a new to him record store. I tried to be patient in there but ended up popping into the adjacent stationery store. After a yarn store, I do love to look at paper. We had lunch at a pizza shop then headed back home. The outing was fun but the high heat and humidity were