I used to

I used to blog. I used to find time in a thoroughly busy schedule to write. It might have been a few paragraphs a day to over 3000 words over the same span of time but I actually wrote. I had proof of my writing by the many posts I published and the documents in my files.

That isn't and hasn't been the case for a while and my guess of  how long 'a while' might be is at least two years. It seems I should have more time to write since I retired as of the end of March 2017. I no longer hold a full time job. I have no alarm clock in the morning to get in a workout before sitting in  front of my computer desk for eight hours, five days a week. I have time to cook, do laundry, or write. All of my day is time off.

But I've managed to push all my writing aside. This used to be something I couldn't stop doing no matter how poor the content. It was a routine that wasn't let to go for more than a few days and never a matter of a week or months. Years without an idea pounded out was unthinkable. But here I am with nothing.

No fault. Life was harder to transition that I ever would have thought. I didn't do a good job of moving from extremely busy to having time to fill. I didn't fill it well. Or not well enough. Not well enough from a writing standpoint.

So in between all my other recent activities, I realized there was a moment that all I wanted to do was type on a page. I wanted to put some words down that were going through my head and see where it might end up. It started with a blog post because that was where I originally started with a few paragraphs a day. Then I went one step further and stopped thinking and started to write it down. Now I'm writing again. I'm not making any promises about volume or quantity but it's here.

It has to start with putting the words down on a page and not thinking about how long it's been since you did it.
TT

Step One

It's been a year. I've neglected writing that long and it's verified by dates here. I haven't bothered to re-read that last post from a year ago. I don't think it matters as I've left it as far behind me as all the days since then until now. Let's keep moving ahead where each new day is a clean slate.

I'll be a year older tomorrow. Sixty-three is as good a number as any and it really doesn't happen from one day to the next so I've had a year to warm up to it. It's been a good year and I can see many new trails to follow in the year coming next.

I signed up for a 5K on January 1, 2019. I have to start somewhere again. I didn't run any official races last year at all and I think it's time to get back on track. No. I 'think' too much. It is time and that's the reason I signed up even with my inner voice trying to persuade me it will be cold and I hate that and all the other reasons, like, I haven't had a decent run in weeks. I can do a 5K. I've run a January race in colder temperatures and won 1st place my age category. I think it was because I was so cold I just sped up to finish and get it over with. So this will be a start. Step into square one.

I've been commissioned to make another quilt. This will be the third tee-shirt quilt I have made for someone. This time it's mostly baby clothes. I have some ideas to make it special and I will be grabbing my scissors soon. Maybe after I finish this post, or I make breakfast. My time is pretty well spent whichever way I like now-a-days and I like that. Lots.

I took two levels of acrylic painting courses at the local adult community education class. I found I really enjoy doing that and have completed three paintings. I posted a picture of the last one I finished recently below that some might recognize. I took the original photo in Rockport, Tx in 2011 after a run. It really has a special meaning to me and holds many great memories. It's really nice to have it up on my wall in this very room I'm in right now.

So many things going on. So many things to pick and choose to do. Step into square one and move forward from there.
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Warm Gratitude

I believe today will be the warmest out of a week of a very cold bit of weather. I try not to make too big a deal out of the fact I wish I could bypass winter every year since I don't enjoy it. When I see pictures of softly falling snow and white capped branches I shudder in horror. I know it isn't the reaction most would have to these supposedly wonderful landscapes but my logical mind knows I would be in total panic of the freezing temperatures. Zero tolerance for me.

But there is so much more I have to be grateful about than to worry over a few days of blistering cold weather. For one thing I don't have to venture far out of my home. There is plenty to do and celebrate without moving outside my front door. I take advantage of that as much as I can. This year might end damp and freezing but I look toward another and am thankful. 

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Landmark

A few posts back I actually hit a landmark for this blog. It seems I've been sputtering, mumbling, rambling on and on enough here to come up with over 2000 posts. Published posts, posts that are here and still available.

I'm not sure it's good, bad, or indifferent, but the sheer number alone is higher than I anticipated. I should celebrate in some way by hmmm, maybe posting again.

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Holiday Week

Time is blowing through fast. If it wasn't for the few pictures I took I might not have evidence of the just past Thanksgiving holiday or any of the other great things that happened just this past week.

There was tremendous planning that went into the great feast on Thursday but before that happened, I managed to make a trip out to hike at Lost Maples. It was a glorious way to spend the day even if it was steeper than I remember.

 

Then it was time to get into the kitchen and make our usual spread for Thanksgiving dinner. I got everything cooked and it turned out very well. Turkey was moist and that's a sign of success!

 After all the food was taken care of - given away, put away, munched on the next day, I got busy and finished my third quilt!

It's a Christmas throw that I wanted to try with triangles, which also look like trees, and there are twelve rows of trees in different holiday materials. I think it turned out quite nice.

So a busy week it has been. Lot's of things going on. And my 20 workouts for November got stuck at 17. I still have a few days left so I will need to get those last three days out of the way. If I can find the time.

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8 down

I have managed to score a run every day since November started. I have eight runs under my belt for a total of 40 miles. It's been a nice start to the month and I am trying to figure out if I will wait until the weather warms a bit this morning or just drive myself to the gym.

I would rather wait and get outside if at all possible. I guess it would be safe to wait and if the weather doesn't straighten out I will bear the trip to the gym. Let's get 20 workouts this month. So far so good.
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Day one, step one

Good Morning, November.

There's a promise of new things to come. A misty, cooler end of October cleared the air for some fresh ideas. Plans to make and break, change and re-negotiate, and come around to the newer, better, bigger things that make it real.

Step one: Start.
Step two: Do it again
Step three: Make adjustments
Step four: Repeat improved process

I'm going to give it a go. Today is Day one, step one, start.
TT

Pan de Muerto

I got myself into a baking streak. I'm not sure what brings these spells on but I was under one the past two days. I guess the cooler weather blowing in might have prompted my urging to warm the house by putting baked goods into the oven.

It started simply enough. I made some basic pineapple turnovers. I made a regular pie crust dough. Rolled it out, cut into circles and filled with some pineapple tidbits that I thickened with a little corn starch and a sprinkle of sugar. They came out better than expected.

 Then came the larger project. I found a great recipe for Pan de Muerto. This time I had already found the illusive ingredient of Orange Blossom Water. I knew I could get it online but I finally snatched it up when I saw it at a store and kept it waiting until I was ready. Now I was ready.

I made a simple starter. It worked beautifully so I went along and added it to the six eggs, flour, butter, sugar, anise, salt and a teaspoon of the orange water. It already smelled delicious but needed two hours to rise and double. It did and then I formed it and let it rise another two hours. Baking took an additional 40 minutes and cooling on a rack another hour. It's quite the process but, for me, worth every waiting period in between.

For a first attempt it came out very well. Brown and crisp on the outside and soft and flavorful on the inside. It was the original tastes of the traditional Mexican pastry breads and that's what I wanted to achieve. It worked. It was right. Taste the tradition.

I hope you enjoy the short video. It was more fun than posting picture after picture of what I made and it keeps me busy and my mind off of eating all the baked goods!

TT

Nice weather

It's a little brisk this morning. Cooler than it's been in a long while. It also seems darker than usual for this time of the morning but I might have that mixed up. I haven't been paying all that much attention to clocks so to make a comparison with time involved might be incorrect. I don't really remember how light or dark it's been at any given early morning hour. It just seems darker, I guess.

I have a dental appointment at 11am so I will have a run this afternoon. No rushing around. Take my time but still get it done. The weather will wait for me today.
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Bag of Ties

What started as a quiet, easy morning produced a finished product I have been working on for a while.

I had a bag of my Dad's ties stuck away in my attic. It was a month ago I went searching for them and retrieved them from their forgotten storage. There were twelve ties, Dad's ties, and what was I going to do with them?

I took a chance and scribbled an idea on a blank notepad.

I took a brave step and washed all the ties. They all turned out fine and I went about deconstructing them. I took them all apart one by one, removing seams and linings and tags. I had to see how much material I had to work with.

Then I decided on other materials I would use to fill in where there wasn't enough to cover each square I was attempting. I found some good colors. I found some material that looked vintage enough to possibly be another of his ties. I matched them up and sorted them out. I cut, I stitched, I ripped out what I did wrong and did it again. It was becoming big and bulky and harder to work. I kept thinking I shouldn't be trying to do this on my second attempt at this sort of thing. I should wait on this precious project until I have more experience doing this. I thought that for moments throughout my working but it seemed I also heard my Dad quietly and easily saying if not now, when?

I kept at it. I pinned and bound and snipped stray threads until I had it all completed. I finished my second quilt and it's large enough to cover a full/queen size bed. It's unique and colorful and doesn't live in a bag in the attic any longer. It's different from any other bag of ties.

I even remembered to use the tags from the inside of the ties. It seemed they needed their place on the quilt, too.

So my second attempt at quilting was more than a satisfying journey for me. Dad came along to give me a few pointers when I was in doubt the way he always did. Love 'ya, Dad. Always will.
TT

Easy morning

It's starting out to be a lazy morning. That isn't the right word. Not lazy but laid-back, easy, quietly calm would be a better description. I'm having a cup of coffee or two and getting down to some things that are easy breezy. The time clicks and I don't notice.

Well spent.
TT

No Lists

What to do?

I've made plans and lists and goals. I found a list I wrote at the beginning of 2017. It was concise with well thought out elements. It was quick, easy to read and understand covering the areas of interest. It was a good example of all the things I should do in order to get myself going and accomplish everything I thought I needed to get done. I didn't get any of it done.

It wasn't the lists fault. It wasn't too far out of my range. I could have done everything on the list. I didn't make wild and crazy goals. So why didn't it work?

It isn't that it didn't work. I had real life going on to stick with any list. There were other priorities that needed immediate attention. I put the list away and did the things that happened each day. Some of the things I did included portions of what was on the list but to go back now and say I did what I wrote down wouldn't be accurate.

It's a good list. It's a good reminder of where my thoughts were back at the beginning of the year. I can still use elements of what it contained but to think it's all going to get done in any decided amount of time would be unrealistic. And it isn't really needed. I've done plenty without following a list at all.

So what do I want to do today?
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Making Order

Written.

No. I haven't. Not a paragraph, sentence, phrase. Not a word.

It's okay. It's still all in my head. There are revisions and edits and some new ideas that are barely beginning to bump around in my mind. It gets past over for all the other major changes that have crept up and managed to use all my time. There have been so many this year. Changes.

This could be some of the biggest shifts I can ever think of happening. Well, I guess there could always be more and larger adjustments but it sure seems as if there were so many this year. There were enough to throw me off, shake me up, and use the majority of my time figuring out.

It's not all figured out completely but at least at this point it's all good. It was from the start but I had to feel like everything was at least in some type of order before it felt like it was all good. It's there. It sure took a long time or at least much longer than I would have predicted.

And the writing.

Let's begin.
TT

Peace to Paradise

Right about now I would be getting ready to head out to my favorite vacation spot. I would be packing a few things to spend a few relaxing days at my personal paradise the way I have done for more years that I can even remember. We made reservations over a week ago and I was truly excited to be heading out.

We realized mid-week the weather was taking a bad turn. We didn't know until a few days later it was worse than we ever expected. Reservations cancelled, mandatory evacuation, and all plans changed as the eye of a hurricane stormed through my personal paradise.

Instead of packing this morning I've spent too much time viewing videos of the aftermath of a devastating storm. I've had to hold back the emotion every time I recognized a familiar spot that now is a pile of rubble. I can't help but wonder of the 10,000 residents and how their entire lives have been blow and drenched and scattered. I want to get out there and pick up pieces but realistically I would be caught in flood waters this way or that. So I watch and listen to the wind and rain outside my own window in respect.

I won't be heading out this morning. I'll refrain from watching too many more videos. I'll bow my head in silence as the nature around me keeps me humble. And I'll count all my many blessings.
TT

My first quilt

I decided to learn something new. At the end of July I started taking a serious look at the possibility of making a quilt. I can sew and thought I might be able to give this project a good effort without having to find and take long classes to cover the basics of sewing. I already knew that part and wanted to keep with the overall idea of quilting of not spending bunches of money to complete the task.

I started doing a little internet research. It didn't take long to find blogs that went step-by-step of each part of the process with pictures. I was able to get the general idea of what supplies I needed and how to take the first steps in getting it all together. I also checked out some YouTube videos for specific items like the proper way to cut these small pieces of fabric evenly. The research was easy to find and very specific, loaded with free tips.

So I started with a few new supplies, like my pizza fabric cutter and clear rulers. A few bits of fabric and I was on my way.

 

I didn't realize I picked the smallest squares to try. I cut 2 1/2" squares when they could have been larger. Now I know. Those small squares were sewn into blocks of nine squares each. I ended up with 101 blocks which means it took 909 small squares. But that was good and when I was done I had the top of my quilt.

I went on to the next steps and padded it and as the blog suggested, I used a flat sheet I never use as the back. So I had a sandwich of top squares, cotton padding, and flat sheet to pin and start sewing together. This is what makes the quilting. I sewed along each seam line of each square in long rows one way and then the other.

This was a first try and considering I was using only blogs and a few videos as instruction, I think it turned out pretty well. I now have an idea of how this is supposed to work and excited to start another that I will put more thought into the design.

This one is 68" x 55" which is a good size. It covers the top of a queen size bed but I would like another larger. I will use larger squares for that and pick fabric with a more thought out pattern.

 



It's not too bad for a first attempt. I could do this again!
TT

Change of plan

I completed my challenge of 5 days of 5Ks.

That was a day or so ago. I skipped out yesterday and somehow the morning time got away from me today and I didn't get out again. I might need to re-think plans to rearrange time.

Wouldn't that be an amazing and complex concept to try to take on. The idea of rearranging time could and is daunting. I will give it some thought but I'm sure I won't be able to give it any justice.
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This or that

I've completed three days of my 5 days of 5Ks. Just a status update.

It's going to be another scorching day with temperatures over 100 degrees again. There is a small window in the morning I like to take advantage of before it gets too hot. Afternoon is not the time to be doing much outside. But it's summer and I wouldn't expect any different.

I have a flexible agenda today. Do this or that or not that or this. But I got another run in.
TT

Two days

I took my own words to heart yesterday and decided I would give myself a goal or a self-inflicted way to move myself out the door for a slightly more consistent basis.

I decided to run a 5K for 5 days. It's nothing too dramatic. It isn't a horribly high goal to reach but it will serve the purpose of getting myself out the door each morning. I started yesterday and have already run another 3.1 miles this morning.

I've already completed two days out of five. I've already run 6 miles more than last week. It isn't a lot but it's more and consistent. I don't think I will have any trouble doing it again tomorrow and even if I stopped there I would be ahead of the game.

But I won't stop there. No. Five days it is.
TT

And running

And what about running.

I have been doing well with my consistency of running until it stopped. I have been able to get out almost every day and get a 3 or 4 mile run completed before the day got too deep into itself. I was on a firm and consistent daily routine until I wasn't.

It's only been about a week and a half since I suddenly seemed to fall off and stop. I'm not sure what prompted the end of such a good, long, consistent running streak. Maybe it was the weather but that is too easily blamed. I'm sure it was something I thought up or analyzed to it's death about why or how it needed to be curtailed. It doesn't but it stopped for a recent while now.

Time to get back out again. Build it up and take it slow. Make it persistent and consistent and fun.
A break doesn't a quitter make.
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Distractions

I'm getting distracted and it's still early morning. This is the normal time I would try to get organized and I'm having a bit of start this and then do that until that other thing comes along and I decide to move to yet another thing to do. I guess it isn't a bad thing except I'm sure I will forget to do some of the things I should be doing.

I might have to start a list of things I don't want to forget while I'm hopping from one thing to another. It will need to be fast because these thoughts are piling up pretty quickly. By the time I think to do one thing another pops up and then another and I forget the first or second and then remember much later after it should have been done.

I guess I need to take a break and think Zen or meditate or just have another cup of coffee while I mull over all the lovely things I get to pick and choose to do or not.
Coffee it is.
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