Restless

When I began blogging, oh, about 6 years ago, my intent was to chronicle my creative journey and projects, and to connect with like-minded people. It was a tentative peek over the mountain to "see what I could see." The experiment resulted in connecting with people around the world, with meeting a few bloggers in person, and in finding an outlet for some of my thoughts.

For the past few months, however, I've been restless, wanting another purpose to blogging. I feel stagnant creatively, and the things I do create, I feel hesitant to show to you. There are so many creative, artistic people out there, filling posts with things I only wish I could dream up. I've thought about quitting blogging, but I enjoy it too much. I don't want to lose the cyber friends I've made. 

These stagnant feelings are not confined to blogging - they extend to my cooking, my needlework, my decorating, and even my reading. It's time for me to create new challenges for myself, to continue to grow.  I wish to be braver. To cease comparing myself to others. To be fully confident in being the woman God created me to be.

Tell me, do ever feel like this? What do you do to challenge yourself to move out of stagnation? 

A First Time for Everything

As I was closing the blinds in the living room yesterday afternoon, I noticed this most amazing colour in the sky. As any good blogger would do, I grabbed my camera and snapped a photo. 

My dining room table is piled with Christmas stuff - decorations mostly. I was planning to clean it all up last Thursday before going to the mainland for the weekend. However, I was called in to teach that day. I rushed home from teaching, packed my bags and we headed to the ferry. On Sunday, I arrived home to find a message on the phone asking me to teach Monday, and now today. I'm glad for the work, and trying to not let the stuff I want to do at home overwhelm me with urgency. What needs to get done, will get done.
 

We have the most Charlie Brown-est of Charlie Brown trees this year. The plan was to have it up last week, before going away. But natural trees (that's what they are called) didn't arrive until Thursday, the day we left. 

This year was a first for me - buying the tree ALL BY MYSELF. It was weird. When our children were young, going to get the tree was a special outing. Since they've grown up and left home, Tim and I go together. Not this year. The nursery closed at 5:30 and Tim couldn't get away from work. We did decorate it together, while Christmas music played. There were once 5 of those little felt angels. Three have gone to other homes. So Tim and I placed these two remaining ones close together on the tree for company.

Memories surge at this time of year, don't they?

So I ask you, what have you done recently for the first time? And is your house all decorated for Christmas and are you totally organized?

Breathing Time

When I arrive home from school around 4 pm, the first thing I do is put the kettle on and make myself a mug of tea or hot chocolate. I sit and savour the drink, drawing warmth from sipping and from wrapping my hands around the mug. A little snack, like these gluten and dairy-free cookies is a nice treat, too.

I find I need a little bit of breathing time to transition into the busy-ness of making dinner and evening activities. 
 

We've had a fair bit of rain lately, accompanied by pelting wind.  When the sun does shine, it's for a short time and noticeable enough that students and teachers alike comment on it when coming into the library. The other day, around 4:30 pm, I noticed the long slant of shadows on my dining room wall making my plates into a mottled landscape.
 

Shadows of the last spikes of lavender drying in a vase cast themselves onto the wall in graceful arcs, reminding me of the pass of summer into autumn's ever-shorter days.

I admire my daughter-in-law who comes home from work every day and immediately begins caring for a hungry two-year-old. I consider myself lucky to be able to transition gradually from work to home-work.

How about you? Do you need a little breathing time between activities? How do you transition?

On the First Day of September

Although summer's official end is not for 3 more weeks, to me, the first of September signals the beginning of autumn. The sun still shines, the sky remains blue, and flowers abound. Yet summer fades. Evenings are chilly and we pull a blanket up over the sheet at night. Heavy dew carpets the brown morning grass.

A new season makes me restless. I long for new projects, a fresh start at something, different dreams big or small. How shall I face this new season?

For now, the restlessness is unfocused, causing a lot of inertia. There are spurts of activity such as dealing with garden produce and cleaning a house dusty from roofers pounding above, but I catch myself staring off into space, watching the wind blow clouds across the sky, or wandering in my garden, looking at the plantings and desultorily pulling a weed or two. 

This, too, will pass. How are you feeling these days? Energetic? Lethargic? Restless? How do you move towards productivity?

Of Rocks and Patterns

In the past two weeks I've finished two more courses. I have one left to complete my B.A. in French. And that course is more than half done. Change is in the wind. I feel uncertain. What's next? 

The routine of solitary study, of reading and essays is about to end. It's taken me a little longer than the three years I'd planned - by just a few months. I lost some time in this past tumultuous 18 months - family issues, moving, a wedding, and more. But I always returned to my desk and my computer, to a well-established routine.

Like the beach rocks in the photo, tumbled by the waves, life has a way of shaping human character. Rough and tumble, at times uncomfortable, but always with the hope of smoothing those sharp edges while preserving the essence of being. At least, I hope so. I don't know what beach, figuratively speaking, I'll be washing up on next.