1/31: the luxury

...of a light.  Chris got the overhead light in our carport fixed recently, and tonight I enjoyed being able to turn it on when I did some organizing of the trash bins after dark.

1/29: returning

...to a short essay I had begun writing last March.  I finally finished a full draft of it today.

1/28: looking at picturebooks

...to decide which ones to send to a friend and her family.

1/27: pausing

...to appreciate and take a picture of this roadside plant.  I think people would call it a "weed," but I don't want to!  Its colors were oh-so-welcome on a grey day.

1/26: clear skies

I thought it was supposed to be rainy all day, but the afternoon was bright, blue, and wonderful.

1/25: getting an idea

...this morning for a pamphlet to celebrate Burns Night, and going with it.

1/24: unexpectedly

...receiving a recording of the workshop I missed on Friday!  So I got to do myself this evening.

1/23: three done

Three more of my students finished their creative projects this week and filed the paperwork online today.  Hurray!  Two more to go, and they're schedule to be done in the coming week.  It's been very interesting to see their work and hear their thoughts as they reflect on their pieces and process. 

1/22: getting so absorbed

...in some work that I missed an online art workshop I had signed up for.  On the one hand, that's a bit of a bummer.  On the other hand, it was good to be so into what I was doing that I wanted to be doing only it.

1/21: being grateful for

...our recently repaired driveway.  It's steep and curvy, and it had been getting a little unsafe for folks to navigate, with holes, cracks, buckling, and crumbling.  Now it's a fresh surface.  I'm also grateful for Chris, who arranged to have the work done.

1/20: trio

Morning:  smelling the first of the winter honeysuckle.

Afternoon:  getting my students organized for finishing their projects.  

Evening:  reading poems with Chris.

1/19: lots

...of other people's words today!  In the morning I finished Joe Moran's First You Write a Sentence and Mackenzi Lee's Gentleman's Guide to Virtue and Vice, and I listened to more of Marissa Meyer's Cinder while walking.  In the afternoon I received Gregory Betts' Sweet Forme: Shake-Speare's Perfect Sonnets, read the introduction, and looked through Betts' chromatic translation of syllable rhymes into colors.  I also posted one of my students' Odyssey remixes in our online gallery, which gave me a chance to spend time with each word.  This evening I looked at another student's Odyssey alteration pieces and readied the first of this year's poems for Heron Tree.

1/18: glad to see

...speedwell, honeybees, and crocuses when I went out for my morning walk.

1/17: concocting

...a very pink cocktail:  "rosé" sparkling grape juice, Uncle Val's botanical gin, and strawberry purée (left over from making the strawberry cake a few days ago).  It's not a drink I'd want every day (and, in general, I think I should get out of the habit of having a drink almost every day), but its pinkness, fizziness, and floral hints tickled me.

1/16: seeing

...the bluebirds on an afternoon walk.

1/15: the smell of strawberries

...filled the house as I made a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting.

1/14: listening to

...the trumpeting of the migrating swans at Magness Lake.

1/13: Emma the Cat

...purring as I type.  He's lying on my desk, between me and my computer, across one of my arms; I can hear and feel his "motor."

1/12: seeing

...ice crystals on fallen leaves this morning.

1/11: making a new connection

...between a boardbook (Please Share, Aphrodite!) and the Free to Be...You and Me video of Atalanta:  both enact a movement away from patriarchy.  It made me happy to notice this.

1/10: celebrating

...the end of my digital conference by walking with Chris at Cadron Settlement Park.  There's a lot of painting on one of the bluffs.

1/9: calling

...a friend of mine, who is attending the same Zoom conference, during sessions to gain some intersubjectivity.  She was so nice about reassuring me.

1/8: finishing

...my to-do list for the second day in a row.  (I know, not exactly an amazing trend, but it's better than I've been doing!)

1/7: morning, afternoon, evening

A morning good thing:  I Zoomed into the Society for Classical Studies conference and heard some interesting talks about Ovid.

An afternoon good thing:  I got the news that my biopsy from yesterday came back negative.

An evening good thing:  I looked at and wrote an ekphrastic sentence about Yellow Tulips, a watercolor by Charles Rennie Mackinstosh.

1/6: making

...teaberry sugar cookies with a little pig cookie cutter.

...text into images in an online workshop.

1/5: learning

...a little about Tim Ingold's work on lines and line-making as fundamental to life. 

1/4: writing

...some ekphrastic sentences using my page-a-day art calendar as a prompt.  Maybe it'll become a practice this year? 

1/3: talking & walking

I talked with my brother this morning, and that was good.

We drove to Woolly Hollow in the afternoon to walk through the woods to Gold Creek, and that was also good.

1/2: taking a long drive

...through the countryside with Chris and starting to listen to the audiobook of John Le Carré's Russia House.

1/1: hearing

...that a friend of mine read Victoria Turnbull's Pandora (which I recommended to her) and really loved it.