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.

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).

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). 

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.

September 2013 review

It's been a month.  The summer is passing so quickly--but it's not quite over yet.  Today, the weather is very hot, sunny, and I'm indoors as usual.  The garden is looking very neglected, as well it should as I haven't been near it in about a month.
I have been writing, but not as much as I should.  Not if I'm really a writer, as I claim to be.  Still, I haven't quit yet. 
So what have I been doing?  Aside from watching TV and playing Scrabble on facebook? 
Hubby & I have been studying Welsh, and singing with the Cambrian Circle Singers.  We've joined the Richard III Society (more on that later, probably). And we've sponsored a 14-year-old girl in Ecuador.  Her name is Ivonne, and she likes foreign languages and playing soccer.  More about her later, too, I hope.  I've sent her an email, but it has to go through the office in Ecuador to be translated and taken to her.  I hope we can correspond better than I have done with previously sponsored children.  This one is through World Vision, my favourite charity.

Garden in August 2013

Well, I've been trying, but my brown thumb is back.  Here's my vegetable plot in the community garden as proof: Poor wee thing.  Not really neglected, but still not producing much.  What have we eaten out of this plot?  Well, we had three radishes out of three rows of radishes (delicious, but just 3); we had one small beet and a couple of little carrots.  Oh, yes, and one leaf of spinach.  I did cook the beet leaves, and they were very good.  No sign of the cucumbers I planted, nor beans on the bean bushes.  Being in the shade of the tree all day (the tree at the foot of the garden here, is at the south end of the plot), probably doesn't do a lot for it, however in the very hot dry weather we've had this year, the ground hasn't been dry. Neglecting it isn't an option, really, as this picture was taken from the computer room window in our house.  Oh well, maybe next year will be better.

to do lists

To do lists just don't work for me.  My husband makes a list for himself every few days and seems to be able to keep to it, crossing items off regularly.  Me?  I make the list, and then sit back as though that were all I had to do.  Or, I lose the list, and find it a week later with all those items still waiting to be done. 
One of the items on my most recent lists has been to write a blog entry.  I intended to write about my garden, as I had promised.  I got as far as taking a photo of the vegetable garden plot.  Maybe I can upload the picture and get it posted.  Then I can make a new list and "blog entry" won't have to appear for a while.