"Time for Me"

Today, in the mid-morning, I climbed up the big wooden ladder to the loft. I keep my toys there: All the yoga stuff, and the music instruments and the sewing machine.

The idea with making a space up there was to get my things out of the way but still have everything accessible. In reality, though, what has happened is that while my daily life goes on, with chores and such, all those fun things are out of sight and out of mind. That's not right.

So today as I got up there I said "nothing will get me down from here for about one hour". And then I did it all. Just a little bit: Some reading, some yoga, picked up a guitar and a fife, and lastly I sewed up a seam in a shirt of mine.

It was all so good that I gave it a name: "Time for me". I hope it sticks. It's not like I have not had "time for me", but I get to feeling guilty if I think I'm slacking.

So now that this time has a name, and (sort of) a time of day, I will make the best of it.
Tomorrow, here I come!

I love my old boots

Maybe I'm getting old?  There was a time when I would buy any cute shoe, in any too small size, if I could just get my feet into them. The pain was irrelevant. I'd wear thinner socks, or none at all. Or just take the pain, grin and bear it, as they say.

It wasn't even that I have big feet. For my height, they're almost small, especially looking from up here. *pause for snickering*  OK, they are a size nine, American.

I walk. Not for a living, but for life, or whatever you'd call it. I walk because I like setting one foot in front of the other. It just feels so good.

My hiking boots are big, and very old and very, very broken in. They are, actually, full on broken, there are cracks in the leather and my toes have made such an untidy row of low spots in the front. They smell of leather and of sagebrush - and of me.

My boots will be gone soon, maybe after this winter. I will miss them. I will look forward to getting a new pair. But I want to hurry up and walk all I can walk in these wonderful old boots as long as I can.

(Also, I have been gone for weeks, from here, though not walking... Things ganged up on me - things to do.)

Early Christmas

Today, upon entering my computer, I found that behind one of the tabs there was a small gift box with a red ribbon around it, just waiting for me to hit "enter".  I'm a patient person, the type who could, if asked, save my Christmas gifts for next year, but this one was carrying a message:

 "They say to open me now", it whispered.

I'm also pretty much a person who plays by the rules, so I did open it.

Wow.  It's a Christmas greeting from many, many miles away, in a far country where once upon a time I lived. It's from a friend.  It says that I make him laugh, that my blog is awesome, that I master writing. It even says that my internet connection is amusing. (It is! It's a six foot antenna on top of a barren mountain.)  And then it ends in saying that I should remember that I'm just the best.    Just like that.

Really, with that kind of a lovely holiday present, I would not care much if I got the flu for Christmas. Or find coal in my stocking.  Though I've been trying to be good.

I did not make this illustration. I don't know who did. It's just so pretty.

Maybe Santa won't strike me down for sharing it.  Just trying to spread beauty, today.

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It's better, now. Much better.

And it wasn't all that bad to begin with, the day I wrote about in the last entry here. It was just not as perfect as a normal day in this wonderful piece of land we have been given. Or, rather, we paid for it, but somebody made this desert, and they were good to us...

It was a good chunk of the day off the ranch, and in town. It was a bit snowy, and I wanted to get some gas in my car before we got snowed in. The internet was down, and I brought the laptop to mooch on some open channel in town. It was also the last day to pay the property taxes, so I had to go to the bank. (That's part of the downed internet.)

Then all these things were nipping at me:
Line at the bank. Didn't find what I needed at the store. Laptop battery failing miserably. Gas gauge sinking low. Personal needs. Maybe an itch on my back, too, and I couldn't reach it. Nothing went right.

So it wasn't like I got rear-ended or something. But it was not comfortable. I was glad to get home.

Days later I'm looking at my post below, and realize that my writings didn't get posted, nor saved. I'm adding that to the day that was for the most part an emotional blah.

Today is cold and sunny and gorgeous, and I'm looking at the ranch chores as a wonderful gift to me. Thank you, universe.

 The picture is one I took in monsoon season, from the back of the house.  Pretty!

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One of those days.

Holiday parties galore!

It's the time to be merry and happy and jolly, and to get out of the house and shake the cabin fever with the cheerful company of family and friends. It's Christmas party time!

I do like Christmas. Being of Viking ancestry, and for nature's good reason, I like even more the brief celebration of Winter Solstice.  It's called "first day of winter" here, but more importantly, to me, it's the longest night of the year, and then it gets lighter again!   Yeay!   Sure it gets colder, but I can live with that; just give me more of the sunlight!

Meanwhile I'm just trying to find suitable clothes for parties, with cute themes, or without. There seems to be a party most every day of this month. Tomorrow there is a 1920's one. I'll post a picture. Of myself. Maybe.

What I'm trying to say, perhaps, is that there is some pressure, pressure to be cheery, and to be dressed in Santa hats or whatever, and I'm also just trying to keep up with the regular chores and trying not to freeze when I change to party clothes from my grubby but warm ranch wear.

Seeing the bright side of things.

It's about getting older. I'm already old, but I have the great luck of being alive, and also getting (even) older. See, here is a benefit already! I'm alive!

What I was thinking of, though, was the more mundane consequences of getting older. Today in the shower, I noticed that I have less leg  hair than when I was younger. Then I was musing on the fact that this has been going on for years, now.  Sort of handy.  I can skip a few days of shaving, or even all of winter, and take up the habit again in late spring.

Similarly, with housekeeping, I seem to be less reckless about what I drag inside, and the other half is more considerate than in previous years. I can't see well out the windows, especially not the small things I'm trying to spot outside, and that turn out to be small, dead insects on the inside of the glass, but other than that, it stays fairly decent inside, when it comes to clean and tidy.

Or so I thought. My reality may be much, much more frightening. Now, today I suspect it's been creeping upon me, and I might have denied this for a while because it was with such... stealth, it crept.

I think I need reading glasses. Or some kind of glasses.

Thinking back a month or several, we had some younger friends visiting for the first time, Their children were excited by all the barnyard animals, and we all had a fun visit. Once the kids had petted everybody, and gotten comfortable with true ranch living, we settled inside of the house for a spell.  I hadn't had the time to fix the bed or do the breakfast dishes, but I had no worries about being judged.

Well, the children ran about as kids do, and when they had investigated the rooms, including my yoga and sewing loft, they excitedly told the world "... and there's spider webs everywhere!"

I really didn't know what to say, so I brought them all outside to inspect the tomatoes in the greenhouse.

This is not the greenhouse, but a room in the house. I call it the library, but it's also the piano and costume room. If I put on my glasses, it might need some dusting...

Why do they have the saying "older than dirt"?.