Archive for ‘March, 2009’

Procrastination

Yesterday morning started at barely 3F. It was gusty and the 4-5 inches of snow that had fallen since I last cleared the driveway was blowing around. I didn’t have to go anywhere and no deliveries were expected so I decided to wait for the wind to die down and hopefully a bit more warmth before playing with the snowblower again.

The sun came out, the wind quit and it did warm up to about 14F – by 4 p.m. Karl and I set out on a snowshoe/walk – too nice to be snowblowing!

We had taken a short walk in the morning, but it was overcast and blustery. This afternoon walk was wonderful. The wind had blown the new snow into such smooth contours that it looked like a painting of snow. It was such a soft, pretty look to the landscape that I hated to make tracks through it.

We dawdled. Karl took a break to clean ice balls from between his toes…it’s a problem! Often, he will stop and hold one paw piteously in the air and wait for me to get to him and fix it. Today, though, he decided he would do it all by himself!

Back at the house, I took a look at the driveway and thought that I should probably fire up the snowblower and clean things up. So I fired up the grill and cooked some hamburgers for my dinner…

About the time I was thinking that the snowblowing could wait until morning, my neighbor arrived…in his tractor-backhoe! He had emailed me the night before saying he was going to work on his and his adjoining neighbor’s drives and did I want a clean up. Thinking I was going to clear my own drive in the morning, I emailed that back but asked if he could clear the end of my drive if the county plow had been by and blocked it in.

Mike works for the county road department and up until this year not only was our road on his plowing route, but the county sent him home with the plow so he plowed the road on his way out, i.e. first thing. This year his route was changed, some “stranger” is plowing our road and the county is low on funds after last summer’s gas prices. Plowing all over the valley is not what it was.

All to say, that Mike KNOWS how to run a plow – tractor – backhoe (see the great garden trade ) and as he came up the driveway, I congratulated myself on my uncharacteristic procrastination.

As I’m preparing this post, Wednesday morning … it is 2 below zero. Bundling up to go out with Karl on a short walk is one thing. Flinging powdery snow around that has a tendency to drift back on me is quite another – thanks Neighbor!!

It ain’t over yet…

Winter, it is not over yet. We’ve had three nights of snowing and blowing – the blowing being not so bad at my home as I am again in a bit of a wind shadow. Arctic cold spilled over the Continental Divide as forecast and it is considerably colder – at 3F – this morning than is usual for March 10.

Yesterday after a snowy, windy start, the sun came out and made for a brilliantly, beautiful walk.

Karl waited…

I cleaned up…

It was not windy when I was snowblowing, but when the snow is so light and powdery it “drifts” everywhere, mostly on to the snowblower and the snowblower operator – that is my new black hat and the snowblower is mostly black. It was as cold as it looks at about 17F.

We will reprise this operation later today – hopefully it will be above 10.

This Winter, it ain’t over yet!

What I dreamed up

There is a link in my twitter (Snippets of Life) to my entry in a kind of photography contest. The contest is called Name Your Dream Assignment.

The idea is to pitch your dream photo shoot and then get people to vote for you. The top 20 popular vote ideas will go before a panel of judges. The panel will decide the ultimate winner.

I’m sitting at 103 as I write this… My Entry

Oh, there is a $50,000 prize to enable the dream shoot. The winner has to agree to share photos, but retains the ownership and copyright.

You have to sign in to vote which takes a minute or so. The reason for the sign in is to allow them to make sure you don’t vote more than once for an entry. You CAN vote for as many entries as you’d like. They say they will not use sign-in info for marketing. This is a Microsoft/Lenovo jointly sponsored contest. I believe them. I am a registered user of many Microsoft products as well as in the pool of professional technical people and I don’t get anything other than what I’ve asked for as far as communication from Microsoft.

Naturally, I’d love your vote and from any of your friends and family and even people you can wrangle in the street!

But mostly, what I’d like you to do is think about your dream – your dream of something you’d like to do, to see, to accomplish, where and how you’d like to live if it is not where and how you are doing it now. And write it down. Don’t worry about the words or grammar or spelling – just start and see where it goes.

Writing down a vision for anything is powerful. Writing down the dream, clarifies what is really important to you. Once written, the words have a way of honing your daily decisions – keeping you on track towards that thing that is important enough to you that you wrote it down. The words help you say no to some of those requests for your time that don’t help you along the way – I don’t mean things like laundry, feeding your kids, going to work – and I’m talking “some”…you will think before automatically saying yes. And you will be happier for it!

It is funny how things happen. A post from a blogging friend about the current state of affairs in the United States and concern about the direction things are going got me thinking. There are a couple of young women – self employed making various items – their blogs share how things are going with them. One thought she might need to take a “real” job, but her online shop continues to expand. There is a lot of cheering going on in her comment section as well as the others. They are doing well – on their own, doing what they love.

I got thinking about the many positive things that could come out of this time. Perspective. A need to move in with family, while possibly horrifying to contemplate initially, might turn into an opportunity to be closer. A loss of job might be the opportunity to change careers, thinking about what you really want to do. The need for a simpler existence with less stuff, less going out, might evolve into a long term way of living – more joy, less stress – simple, real values – what we all say we want.

Back to dreaming… Even if you don’t want to sign in and vote, I encourage you to go to the contest site and read some of the dream assignment entries. Many are interesting and some are inspirational. And then go write down your own dream…and see what happens.

Name Your Dream Assignment.

My Entry

Go! – and Write! It is a new day – Dream big!

Edited 3/14/2009. Although I absolutely believe in being clear on our dreams and hopes, I withdrew from this contest. Not many voted for one thing and I am not willing to mount a serious “campaign for votes”. The project is something I’m capable of doing on my own, something I really have been doing although not with much focus on other’s stories. I’ll continue.

Bob, sun, fire

Thursday – late afternoon – the temperature dropped from above freezing to the low 20’s. Friday morning we woke to a brisk 14F. I “closed down” the wood burning stove which makes for a long, slow burn and lots of radiant heat – too much heat for this little house when it is not so cold. Bob took advantage of both sun and stove.

In Joyful remembrance

Carole Davis, my friend and a fellow rvr passed from this life to the next yesterday afternoon. From her daughter:

It is with both sadness and joy that I write to you today. My mother, Carole Davis, passed away this afternoon at 1:30 after struggling this last year with a terminal illness, ALS. She went in for a tracheotomy about 2 weeks ago to help with her breathing and, while there, found that she also had an advanced form of lung cancer. She held on until she was transported to a beautiful, warm nursing home at which time she took her last breath and died peacefully.

Please join me in rejoicing in her life and in all the wonderful ways in which she touched us all.

I had the privilege and fun of meeting Carole a little over a year ago at an rv gathering. We had “met” in our group chat room and via bulletin board posts prior. Carole was as much fun in person as she was through her posts. After the gathering we remained in touch via email. She was a strong and honest encourager of my photography, writing and my life in Montana. She also shared the difficulty of this last year as her health deteriorated. I am thankful that her passing was peaceful and thankful for the ways she touched my life.

Truly, in joyful remembrance.

***The main photo was taken in Rockport, Texas, from the dock at the RV Park where we gathered. The superimposed photo of Carole was taken one night when we were all together for dinner. January, 2008.