Lent 2014 has not had a very good start, I think. Although we did get to Ash Wednesday service at the cathedral--very grand this year--big congregations, and the Dean and Archdeacon were the presiders. But I've decided not to give anything up this year, but to take something on, instead. Last year I went vegetarian for the 40 days, and got bored silly with the Jenny Craig selections that had no meat. Pasta & cheese dishes ad nauseum. So, this year, I want to work on that psalm project I've started but have been avoiding for the past couple of years. Wouldn't it be nice to complete that? Not much done so far. I might do better with it if I went back to the blogsite I started some time ago, and used that rather than fill all the various notebooks I've started. So why do I say Lent has not had a good start? Because I have done precious little about the psalms.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Missed February! Already we're in the second week of March!
Oh dear! Where does the time go? February is already a blur. The weather has been most unVancouver-like. Snow! Repeated snow days. Snow lasting for days on end. At last the rain has returned, and the temperature is almost spring-like. Almost. Not yet.
So what have I done with my month-and-a-half of nonBlogging?
Monday mornings are filled with sandwich-making followed by noontime Mass at the cathedral. Then in the evenings, it's Welsh class. I've started a Welsh study group. Initially it was to be once a month, but then it was confusing as to which Monday night it would be. So, I've increased it to "the Monday after Welsh class"--but February Mondays were filled with other events at the Welsh Hall, so we haven't had a study group since the first one. Best laid plans.... So, next Monday evening should be our second study session.
Tuesday & Thursday mornings are spent volunteering at the elementary school and afternoons at UBC studying creative writing. An hour and a half at school, an hour and a half on the bus, an hour and a half in the university classroom. I get home about 3:30 or so, and am exhausted.
Wednesdays and Fridays are more or less free, as is Saturday most of the time. (Friday evenings it's
back to the Welsh Hall for choir practice.)
March is shaping up to be much the same so far. See next entry, I guess.
So what have I done with my month-and-a-half of nonBlogging?
Monday mornings are filled with sandwich-making followed by noontime Mass at the cathedral. Then in the evenings, it's Welsh class. I've started a Welsh study group. Initially it was to be once a month, but then it was confusing as to which Monday night it would be. So, I've increased it to "the Monday after Welsh class"--but February Mondays were filled with other events at the Welsh Hall, so we haven't had a study group since the first one. Best laid plans.... So, next Monday evening should be our second study session.
Tuesday & Thursday mornings are spent volunteering at the elementary school and afternoons at UBC studying creative writing. An hour and a half at school, an hour and a half on the bus, an hour and a half in the university classroom. I get home about 3:30 or so, and am exhausted.
Wednesdays and Fridays are more or less free, as is Saturday most of the time. (Friday evenings it's
back to the Welsh Hall for choir practice.)
March is shaping up to be much the same so far. See next entry, I guess.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
January 2014 some more
The creative writing course is keeping me quite busy. It is offered on Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12:30 to 2pm. As those mornings are already occupied by my volunteering in an elementary school, located near the PNE, I have to rush out of the school at recess (10:30am) and hurry to the bus stop on Hastings Street. The #14 UBC bus is reasonably frequent, so if I miss one, the second is not too far behind it. It takes an hour and twenty minutes to get to the bus loop, end of the line, at the university, but I still have about a 10 minute walk to get to the Geography building where the lessons are held. If I'm lucky, I can stop for a quick coffee before class, and maybe eat my lunch. If I've missed a bus, however, I have to skip that and just rush to class. Being on the Jenny Craig program is very helpful. I carry a Jenny bar and a Jenny snack and a Jenny salad kit (all prepared in neat containers, complete with a fork), and a bottle of water. It's a busy schedule on paper, but not as exhausting as you might think. Eighty minutes sitting on a bus is very restful--sometimes I get ten or fifteen minutes catnap. I'm only sorry that my time at the elementary school is so short--just an hour and a half--equal to the bus trip. I try to make myself useful there, though.
All in all, with the variety of activity, the healthy diet and extra walking, and the resting (catnaps), it's a good way to spend the day, and I get to do it twice a week.
All in all, with the variety of activity, the healthy diet and extra walking, and the resting (catnaps), it's a good way to spend the day, and I get to do it twice a week.
January 2014 before it's over
Today I learned something about writing these posts: can't use the tab key! I did that and lost what I'd started to write. I wonder if it will turn up again somewhere. If it does, I have to edit it!
I started to say that one of the most important things happening in my life this month is the beginning of a course at UBC: Creative Writing 200. Yesterday, we had a lesson on writing poetry. I love poetry, but rarely attempt to write it. Yesterday, we were given a short exercise to write a poem (essentially just a list of things) as suggested by one of the examples the instructor offered. This is what I wrote:
"Please Take These Things Back"
Gloomy, drizzly, teary days;
Hot, humid, nights with sweaty sheets;
Tasteless food;
Nausea
Pain
Fear
Need to tell loved ones bad news
Need to ask for help
Dependence on everyone and everything
Hospital noises
Death.
~~~~~~I offer this in memory of Ken, who inspired it.
I started to say that one of the most important things happening in my life this month is the beginning of a course at UBC: Creative Writing 200. Yesterday, we had a lesson on writing poetry. I love poetry, but rarely attempt to write it. Yesterday, we were given a short exercise to write a poem (essentially just a list of things) as suggested by one of the examples the instructor offered. This is what I wrote:
"Please Take These Things Back"
Gloomy, drizzly, teary days;
Hot, humid, nights with sweaty sheets;
Tasteless food;
Nausea
Pain
Fear
Need to tell loved ones bad news
Need to ask for help
Dependence on everyone and everything
Hospital noises
Death.
~~~~~~I offer this in memory of Ken, who inspired it.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
October and November
November swept by so fast this year that I hardly remember any of it. I recall that the weather was generally nice here in Vancouver.
It began with my visit to the Okanagan to see my kids and their families. I had only a few days, beginning on October 28th and returning home on November 2nd, but that would be the last full week with no "optional" meetings that could be cancelled. The next time I'll have a full week free will be in April or May of 2014.
Monday mornings are spent at Christ Church Cathedral, making sandwiches for the street people. After sandwiches, I walk to the library for a brief browse and then back to the cathedral for the noon Mass. The afternoon is supposed to be for writing, but I usually find myself too drowsy to focus. Then on alternate Monday evenings, my husband and I attend Welsh language lessons!
Tuesday mornings are spent at an elementary school, reading with the children (grade 2/3 split) or helping the teacher with marking, etc. Again, afternoons are not well used, unless napping is considered a virtue.
Wednesdays are generally free. I call it my writing day, but ... my heart isn't in it as much as it should be. Tell the truth, I'm still grieving for my sons and grandson. "Getting over it" isn't as easy as it seems to other people who haven't walked in my moccassins. But I do try.
Thursdays and Fridays seem to fill up with appointments or chores, and Saturdays generally have some sort of meetings or workshops that need to be attended.
Sundays, of course, begin with church, and end with visiting and social interaction of some sort.
October and November had some evening activity: I think it was four Tuesday evenings we went to the cathedral for lectures on St. Paul. The first was the most interesting because it was presented by a rabbi!!!! He was extraordinarily well-versed in the New Testament.
And on Thursday evenings, 6 of them, I think, my husband and I decided to confuse our Welsh language studies by taking on New Testament Greek! This was taught by a professor whose first language was modern Greek, but studied Koine Greek (not ancient Greek, spoken by Socrates and the boys, but about 500 years newer, Koine--which is already 2000 years old now and not the same at all as the modern version currently used in Greece--any more than the languages of Shakespeare or Chaucer or as found in Beowulf is used now by us).
It began with my visit to the Okanagan to see my kids and their families. I had only a few days, beginning on October 28th and returning home on November 2nd, but that would be the last full week with no "optional" meetings that could be cancelled. The next time I'll have a full week free will be in April or May of 2014.
Monday mornings are spent at Christ Church Cathedral, making sandwiches for the street people. After sandwiches, I walk to the library for a brief browse and then back to the cathedral for the noon Mass. The afternoon is supposed to be for writing, but I usually find myself too drowsy to focus. Then on alternate Monday evenings, my husband and I attend Welsh language lessons!
Tuesday mornings are spent at an elementary school, reading with the children (grade 2/3 split) or helping the teacher with marking, etc. Again, afternoons are not well used, unless napping is considered a virtue.
Wednesdays are generally free. I call it my writing day, but ... my heart isn't in it as much as it should be. Tell the truth, I'm still grieving for my sons and grandson. "Getting over it" isn't as easy as it seems to other people who haven't walked in my moccassins. But I do try.
Thursdays and Fridays seem to fill up with appointments or chores, and Saturdays generally have some sort of meetings or workshops that need to be attended.
Sundays, of course, begin with church, and end with visiting and social interaction of some sort.
October and November had some evening activity: I think it was four Tuesday evenings we went to the cathedral for lectures on St. Paul. The first was the most interesting because it was presented by a rabbi!!!! He was extraordinarily well-versed in the New Testament.
And on Thursday evenings, 6 of them, I think, my husband and I decided to confuse our Welsh language studies by taking on New Testament Greek! This was taught by a professor whose first language was modern Greek, but studied Koine Greek (not ancient Greek, spoken by Socrates and the boys, but about 500 years newer, Koine--which is already 2000 years old now and not the same at all as the modern version currently used in Greece--any more than the languages of Shakespeare or Chaucer or as found in Beowulf is used now by us).
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
October 22, 2013
I have a list of items I want to post about, and it gets overwhelming when I look at it. I have so many things I want to say here, but..., well, if you visit from time to time you'll have noticed that I'm not a regular blogger.
The most important item to write about this month is my 5 days at the Franciscan friary in Port Jefferson, New York. My husband has an appointed position on Chapter, as vocations coordinator (I think that's the correct title). And I was elected this year as a Chapter member. So the five days were filled with meetings with other Chapter members and visitors, and with prayers with the friars.
I've taken on a couple of jobs: I'm on an ad hoc committee on Ministry to Young Adults, with looking at the Franciscan Earth Corp group. I'm thinking about how to create retreats and pilgrimages that would appeal to people between the ages of 18--35. My other job is to minister to the isolated tertiaries in the Province of the Americas, while I pay special attention to Canadian tertiaries (many of whom are among the isolated).
The most important item to write about this month is my 5 days at the Franciscan friary in Port Jefferson, New York. My husband has an appointed position on Chapter, as vocations coordinator (I think that's the correct title). And I was elected this year as a Chapter member. So the five days were filled with meetings with other Chapter members and visitors, and with prayers with the friars.
I've taken on a couple of jobs: I'm on an ad hoc committee on Ministry to Young Adults, with looking at the Franciscan Earth Corp group. I'm thinking about how to create retreats and pilgrimages that would appeal to people between the ages of 18--35. My other job is to minister to the isolated tertiaries in the Province of the Americas, while I pay special attention to Canadian tertiaries (many of whom are among the isolated).
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Thoughts on writing
It occurs to me that even when I'm not writing, I am actually writing. Fingers may not be on the keyboard. Pen or pencil may not be touching paper. Yet I'm writing. It's my thought processes that are at work: Include this. Delete that. Try this or that angle. Then when I do start to "write" it will flow through my subconscious and find its way onto paper, perhaps via the computer or perhaps not. I like to write on paper and then copy onto the computer, even if what appears on the screen might not even resemble what is on the paper. The paper notes help combat any writer's block--if such a thing really exists. So, my notebook is growing even though my word files don't show it.
That's writing my novels (I have 2 or 3 in the works: Angels in the Flames is written but resting between trips to publishers; and the 2 I refer to as MXME and PPSQ). Other writing, like articles for example, don't get notes. They get trial and error drafts. Today I'm writing a short piece for the Franciscan Times, assigned by Chapter a year ago. I want to get it in the mail before I leave for the next Chapter meeting--and that's next Tuesday! I have a draft that I think will do, with just a bit of polishing. So, that will happen when I type it onto the computer tomorrow. Some measure of writing success, I guess.
That's writing my novels (I have 2 or 3 in the works: Angels in the Flames is written but resting between trips to publishers; and the 2 I refer to as MXME and PPSQ). Other writing, like articles for example, don't get notes. They get trial and error drafts. Today I'm writing a short piece for the Franciscan Times, assigned by Chapter a year ago. I want to get it in the mail before I leave for the next Chapter meeting--and that's next Tuesday! I have a draft that I think will do, with just a bit of polishing. So, that will happen when I type it onto the computer tomorrow. Some measure of writing success, I guess.
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