Morning notes

Waiting for toast, I stretch my hamstrings as I bend over the edge of the counter. The living area and kitchen doors are open to nice cool air...but I don't know how much Sahara Desert dust is still in the air. It rained recently, the porch and sidewalks are all wet still, so I think any dust might have been defused for a while.

I spread my 40% vegetable oil spread on my "light seven grain" toast and wonder what the other 60% is. Then I sprinkle some good tasting nutritional yeast on top...which is my go-to seasoning these days. Ah, having heart disease is changing my diet drastically. I didn't realize how many things I ate that weren't good for me. Today I'm tossing all those saved little tubes and envelopes of condiments. A lot of them have dried up anyway. Goodbye ketchup and sweet and sour sauce.

Today I am fixing the toast early in my morning routine because I took my pills early, and they upset my stomach. Of course I didn't remember that would happen, until it did. I've already made my coffee and took my morning blood pressure. It's nice and low.

I changed the food in the hummingbird feeder first thing, scrubbing it clean of any little dark areas first. I scared one of the wrens when I opened the door to the balcony. She sat there with a worm in her mouth just chirping away at me, while her babies waited inside the little spirit house. I finally closed the door a bit so they could be fed, and waited till she'd gone off to hunt some more before taking down the hummer's feeder. I put it back up without seeing her.

Today (written Monday) I will send the newsletter that I edit off to a proof-reader. I like having someone else eye it and see if there are any mistakes (grammar or punctuation usually.) Since I cut and paste most of the articles, I often miss what an author has written. I need to add a few more photos and then I'll do that.

I've got a pile of paperwork on the table/desk waiting for my attention. That will be my next task. I haven't had the table set for eating in weeks/months. I just push the papers aside and put my plate and mug in the space when I want to eat there. Usually just for drippy foods, otherwise I'll hold it on my lap while watching TV or reading a book on the mini-iPad.

I hope you have a good day, and week. Summer is here and we're still living! It's my ex-husband's 81st birthday. He's doing pretty well!

Here's a link to a good article about a writer, Octavia Butler. I know I don't usually take the time to follow links...but Open Culture is part of my daily news emails. I highly recommend it!

Being female, or male

Yes, rainy mornings when I just have no incentive to get out of bed, I think of silly things.

What if I'd been born the other sex? I heard sometime or another that I'd have been named
George E Rogers III, rather than Barbara...

But of course my sister had a second chance at being George III. She also missed out.

So among my musings, I thought how my life would have been different if I'd had a brother instead of a sister. Oh my...he would have been treated with differential airs. I had 2 female cousins older than myself, and I know a male heir was something that the family looked forward to having.

Then my younger 2 girl cousins were born after me and my sister. Oh woe was the Rogers name...no one to carry it on. But wait, later in life, there actually was a boy born to Uncle James and Aunt Dotty. (James was the youngest of the 4 Rogers boys.) And then they had another girl as well.  That just beat all!

And they named the boy after the first Rogers who came to America, John Fitz Rogers. I hope my grandparents were satisfied in that.

I've enjoyed being part of the women's movement, from the 1960s to today. I would have missed this if I'd been born George...

But back to thinking of my life if I'd been male.

It would have meant wearing different clothes as a kid. I don't remember any knowledge of boys (besides my father) as I grew up. I was surrounded by girls who I played with. It wasn't until I was in high school that I started dating.

Would I have had my own personality if I were male? I wondered. I wouldn't have had the flirtatious girly attitude as a young woman, that's for sure. Make up and hair styles...oh I would not have missed that part of femininity at all. Would I have been an artist? I think so. But I wouldn't have looked for approval from parents and teachers all my young life...I hope.

I think I would have enjoyed sports more, and being comfortable in my own body. That's what I think men have physically.  I remember how amazed I was to have my first child, to see that my body as a woman could do such a miraculous thing as give another life birth.

Well, eventually I rolled over and figured out what I'd have for breakfast.

Today's (second, or third) quote:

Don't go back to sleep.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the
doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

—Rumi

Morning musings...

Up I am at dawn again. And grateful for this day...and as I swung my feet to the floor, I noticed that there is a speck of sunlight hitting the highest peak across the valley.

I smiled and said to meself, "The dark times are past."  Meaning of course, that there are now 10 hours of daylight each day, which is much improved from the solstice on Dec. 21.

Fixed coffee, gathered the trash baskets for a meeting in the kitchen by the door, toasted half a bagel, put away a few dishes, turned on the oven to low heat, (left the door cloed) then the stove exhaust fan which will blow the heat back down (I think) to where I live rather than letting it sit on the ceiling while my knees are cold.  I do the same thing with the wall heater in living/dining room...with constant fan to move the hot air to my comfort zone.  It was 33 outside at 8:00 when I first looked on my WunderGround app.

Witch Hollow Farm, Boxwood MA, home of Job Tyler (ancestor)

DAR unveiling of Spencer Clack memorial Sevierville, TN (Ancestor)   

I have put on sweater and slippers...and plan to have a bit more covering when I take the trash out in a few minutes. Our apartments have trash picked up once a week, and recycles picked up every other week. But because bears are attracted to the trash with food items, we have to take that kind of trash out the morning of pick up. They usually come around 9:30-10:30...and 2 men on the truck pick up the trash bins and dump them in the back of the garbage truck. We have a corral of about 7 trash bins and maybe 4 places where the recycling stuff is piled. It's really a mess. But at least no bears.

I sip my first cuppa coffee (with a fresh brewed pot) and munch my bagel while reading emails and updating my blog publication for today (this was Friday).  I have to put it by hand to another blog to link it for Sepia Saturday.  I wonder if all those people who do "link ups" on various themes each day actually have to do the URL by hand after it comes up. I don't know any other way, to get the individual URL for that day's publication rather than the general one for the whole blog. Somewhat cumbersome, and I keep seeing fewer blogs every day. But I do enjoy a few folks who frequently comment on mine. So I'll keep bogging for now.

I just threw in a couple of pictures because nobody reads a blog without them, do they? I'm doing my nebulizer treatment as I type this...twice a day inhaling my 2 types of drugs...to help clear my lungs. Joy joy joy. Cough cough cough (it helps me cough, really, that's what they say.)

See you in the funnies.

Where I've been lately

 Like the Witty cemetery...a tangle of growth and not at all cared for by the descendants?

Well just a bit, but I'm caring for myself still, and doing much better .  I have however been focused on ancient people who are long gone...though their genes still swim along in my blood.

I look to see if he fought in the Revolutionary War if he was between 15 or 50 in the 1770s.  I question those who were born in the 60s...but perhaps they were still serving in the 1780s.

So I've been blogging about ancestors lately.  Not much working on clay.  I've had a respite from my first love (sculpting) but my brain is full of ideas that want to be modeled.  I have another week of my month off from studio work.  The side effect may well be that my lungs are healing.  If that is the case, I'll be the potter who's wearing a mask at the studio.

When talking with my son on the phone last night, he mentioned I wasn't coughing (like I usually do every few minutes.) We both were thrilled and also a bit skeptical...would this last, could we even talk about it before it came back through some kind of psycho-trigger? Nope, it lasted, even into the evening, when I usually am conscious that I probably disturb my neighbors with my loud hacking.  Ah, a peaceful evening and night.  And I woke up energized this morning.

The other result of working with those ancestors is that they kind of get into my bones...I keep thinking of them as I go about the day, and I feel sad about some of the things that happened to them.  I must distance myself from that emotion, because after all, they all have died.  I pray they didn't suffer.  I must not be sad that many died as children either.  I must let them be in those graves and celebrate that they were born, that some woman labored to give them life...and she was mother to myself as well.

There I am in the foreground at the Cleveland County Arts Council opening of "Treasures of The Earth" show...in which I actually have pottery.  I just picked up the pieces from the Black Mountain Center for the Arts gallery.  And I had a couple of small pieces at the Swannanoa Valley Fine Arts League show, "Passions of Art."  I've never been in 3 galleries at the same time before.  It takes my breath away.

I don't think I have any "vintage" photos to contribute to Sepia Saturday, so am having to post less over there.  I've enjoyed sharing my own older photos from my life, as well as a bit of my collection from older times.  But I'm not exactly a vintage photo collector like some of the sepians are.  I'll see if there's something that meets their criteria as they post the memes for each week.

So I hope to hear/read other's blogs and enjoy the sharings that they've taken time to post. And I'll be here on one of the 4 blogs almost daily if there's anything to add.