This really is not homework

 Almost every day I think about writing here and then I don't.  Somehow I have made myself feel as though this is homework and I "have to" do it. 

That was certainly not my intention when I started this blog.   I used to journal a lot.  All through high school I did and after too.  I journaled pretty regularly until I had kids.   Then I just found it too challenging at times to sit and write.

I wrote letters of course.  I have always been a big letter writer.  At least until we started to use email.   Our last overseas post as a family was Perth, Western Australia.  We did have the internet, but I still mainly wrote actual letters.    I have saved many of the letters we received and many of the letters I wrote to family have been returned to me and I have filed many of them in binders.  There are always more to do.  I don't know what I will do with all of the binders.   Perhaps the contents can be scanned and saved or published.  We'll see.

Recently, Courtney posted the question "where do you see yourself in ten years"   Actually, I am going to lift her words off of Facebook:

"Facebook memories are so weird.

Fourteen years ago today I was reading Faulkner and loving his way with language.

Ten years ago today I had a terrible homemade pistachio-kale smoothie, and helped a Burning Man artist with a write-up about his project.

Eight years ago today I was in the Dominican Republic with Ben, struggling to relax as a person who is not a natural at the resort approach to vacation. A hike to a lagoon helped some.

Three years ago today I was freaking out about a fast-spreading new virus and wondering if Oregon might impose restrictions soon.

One year ago today I attended a Meow Wolf pop-up mini-museum, saw an unauthorized Banksy exhibit, and danced on stage with Wyclef Jean, while at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

For the record, on this day in 2023 I'll be taking out the trash and recycling, putting away clean laundry, snuggling with cats and Zach, and I may or may not buy groceries and/or watch the Oscars."

 

This got me thinking about the future.  In ten years, Nick and my sister will both be 85.  Yikes!   I will be almost 79!  Yikes.  Who will we be in those ten years?   How many more friends will we have lost?  And family members- cousins?

I think for now I will just try to plan a week or a month or a few months ahead.

 

Last time I wrote here I mentioned my plan to make a temperature blanket.  Well, I have started it.   So far, in the week since starting it there have not been any great variations in the temperature.   I plan to take it with me on the Alaska cruise Courtney and I are going on in July.  It will be interesting to go from July in Virginia to July in Alaska.  Can't wait!

 

It is not going to be a circular blanket.  Rather, this is the kind of needle it is knitted on because it is too wide for a regular knitting needle

This is how much I have knitted so far