2/26: walking in the rain
It was drizzling this morning, but it had been too long since I'd walked, so I headed out with an umbrella. And I loved seeing the rain-drops on leaves.
2/24: resting
...because of some side-effects from my second dose of the COVID vaccine. The joint pain is no fun (it reminds me of a time I got seriously ill in Rome), but I'm grateful to know that it is just a side-effect and will wear off, to have been able to get the vaccine, and to have the flexibility in my work to take a sick day.
2/23: leaving children's books
...at a Little Free Library as part of a family's memorial project. I feel lucky that I got to play a little part in this--they got my name and address via a mutual friend and mailed me the books, and then I placed them at the LFL near the Tucker Creek trailhead in town.
2/22: many things
I thought it was going to be a rocky day because I got so little sleep last night (around 3.5 hours), but it contained some really good things! They included:
- writing about Ovid's Atalanta story
- then writing about Ferdinand Hodler's painting "The Dream"
- and talking with Chris about the painting over a mid-morning snack
- taking a walk
- listening to an interesting Zoom lecture about the changes in children's literature in Europe around 1968
- finishing Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera
- making a new dressing for our salad at dinner time
- taking another walk
- hearing the birds chirp near sunset time
- seeing seven herons down at the lake
- having a long phone call with a friend
2/19: finishing
...a bureaucratic task that I've been putting off for a month. I've learned from the experience and won't be volunteering to do it again. It wasn't hard when I set myself to do it this afternoon; it's just not a good fit for me.
2/17: learning
...about how Marlo Thomas and others got Free to Be...You and Me off the ground in the 1970s.
2/15: more goodnesss
This morning I had a second cup of coffee while I wrote about the Judgment of Paris and discovered things about it!
Then I went for a walk in the nearly foot-deep snow. It made me feel like a kid at times.
For dinner I made a lentil and carrot salad and potato pancakes. Both used onion, and I paused in my cooking to photograph this onion slice:
2/14: an abundance!
I woke up well before dawn and read for a couple of hours before falling back to sleep. The reading was fun, but I was worried that the disrupted sleep would throw me off. It didn't seem to--hurray!--and the day was filled with good things:
- reading the NYT Book Review
- sitting with Tilde in my lap
- participating in a Zoom workshop about ekphrasis and fanfiction
- continuing to think and write about ekphrasis and fanfiction after the workshop
- taking a long walk in the falling snow
- drawing curves in the snow with my feet as I walked
- watching the ridge's puppies run around in their first experience of snow
- hearing geese piping differently in the winter storm
- having waffles with bananas, maple syrup, and whipped cream for dinner
- listening to Marissa Meyer's "Little Android," an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid"
2/13: deciding
...to drive out to Woolly Hollow to take advantage of the good weather. It was cold, but the sun was warm, and I walked along the creek above the cascade, below the bluff.
2/12: pulling myself
...out of a slumpy day by doing some quick baking after lunch and then heading to campus and town for some errands.
2/11: not as severe
The ice storm wasn't as bad as had been predicted. It still woke us (and the cats) up in the middle of the night, but the power didn't go out and the ice came down as pellets rather than in freezing sheets.
2/10: participating
...in an online ekphrastic workshop focused on contrast. At the outset we were asked to consider what the concept of "contrast" meant to us or how we feel it at work in our lives. That made me think about contrast as a phenomenon or happening (rather than a thing), an experience of difference that has time and place.
2/9: lightly revising
...my conference paper from January for posting online. I added two paragraphs, some footnotes, and a bibliography. It wasn't hard, but it was something I had been somehow to anxious to do (and hence I'd been delaying doing it). I'm glad it's done now.
2/8: receiving a gift
...for Valentine's Day from my mother. When we were growing up, each winter we'd put gumdrops, small marshmallows, and LifeSaver candies on the branches of a small, clear plastic tree (like this). In a burst of sweet nostalgia, my mother sent me and my siblings our own trees this year, along with a big bag of red cinnamon and white peppermint gumdrops with which to decorate it.
2/7: e-filing
...our federal taxes. We'd been submitting paper forms until this year, but now paper returns get process so much more slowly that we realized we should go electronic. Usually we do our taxes right before the due date; it's nice to have the federal ones at least done early.
2/6: calling
...today a "rest day." I had said to Chris that it was a "lazy day," but he said that "rest day" was more accurate. And it's less judgmental, too.
2/5: taking a trip
...into the Ozarks for a walk with Chris at Alum Cove.
The view from inside a cave on the trail:
We stopped at an overlook on the way back; smoke was in the air.
2/4: enthusing
...with a colleague about Christopher Myers' Wings. I was so excited that she's read it and likes it a lot!
2/3: readying
...valentines for tomorrow's mail. My card this year is a kind of paper sculpture, involving a good deal of complicated folding. It's been fun to notice how, through practice, my fingers have learned to do the folding efficiently and crisply.
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