I've been home for the past two weeks on vacation. I think I mentioned that Fiona and I had planned to take a trip to England, but that got put on ice when Fiona got her new job. So I've taken the time off (use it or lose it) and I have...not been in England.

I'm trying not to sulk too much, but that's been a bit of a challenge.

I've taken a few little day trips, as depicted in last week's card. This past weekend, Eric and I went to a bed and breakfast, and I did a half-day trip to Stillwater. But of course, my inner Puritan has looked at the fact that two weeks has been cleared on my calendar and reasoned, "Excellent, you can get to WORK and get things done. SO MANY THINGS."

But there's the heat and the fact that there is such a plethora of projects. And my inner sulk because, as noted, Not in England. Ongoing sleep issues. So my attempt to move things forward has been inching along at best.

I have continued working on clearing Rob's stuff out of the house, which is, as always, emotionally difficult. I've binned a number of books (library books so not worth anything to anyone) and I pulled out Rob's ties and sorted through them for donation (and had a good, hard cry before driving to drop them off at ARC Value Village).

I've been calling contractors trying to figure out how to get my foundation repaired (one of the contractors has the distinction of standing me up twice in one day. I will not be hiring them). I've been doing financial bookkeeping in preparation for updating my will. I've been working on the Special Project--oh, what the heck. My employer doesn't read this.

I'm job hunting.

So that's what I've been doing for the past two weeks. Inching along in various attempts to make my life better. But it feels as though progress, collectively, is so slow that it's hard to see any forward momentum without squinting hard.

Lower half: neckties on a bed. Upper half: the side of a house with a gap in the foundation facade by a door. Center right: an inchworm inches its way on a stem. Just underneath the stem is the logo for the website JibberJobber. Center left: a box packed with books. Upper right: the words "Last Will and Testament." Upper left: the logo for the website Angi.

Inching

25 Inching

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Sometimes I'm really pleased with my collages, as I was with last week's offering, Fragile.

This week's effort, however, is one of the ones where the collage seems so lame, so bereft of imagination or creativity or anything interesting to contribute that I'm actually embarrassed to post it. But I've spent much too much time tinkering with this one trying to get it right, and although I perceive it as a failure (or at the very least uninspiring), I'm not willing to spend any more time on it. As I pointed out last week, I have very little margin right now for expending extra effort.

Fiona and Alona along with someone I met for the first time, Jake, came over last weekend to help spackle and paint my staircase and upper hallway. Jake is 6'8", which turned out to be exceedingly handy for a project like this. I've barely ever done any wall repair or painting in my house in the thirty-plus years that I've lived in it for the simple reason that for most walls, there are bookcases in the way. Not, however, in the staircase or hallway, and the shabby peeling paint gave me almost physical pain every time I passed by. Everything now looks MUCH better.

(I also realize that part of the problem was that I was so busy spackling and painting that I didn't stop to take pictures, so I have less material to work with).

Many thanks to Jake and the Onas. They deserved a better collage for their efforts, but alas, I cannot deliver. Sorry.

Image description: Two photographs of a staircase from two different angles are superimposed over each other. Foreground shows the staircase from the side. A woman (Fiona) stands on the stairs behind the railing. Background shows the view looking up the staircase. Lower right corner: a can of spackle, a can of paint, and a paintbrush.

Staircase

23 Staircase

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I could do another post about the unnamed life overhaul project that has been preoccupying me lately, but I'm not interested in yet another annoyingly cryptic post this week. Yes, I'm still working on this, but instead, this week's collage project is about the trip that Alona, Fiona, and I took to a tea shop to belatedly celebrate my birthday. Ordinarily, we would go to Cafe Latte in St. Paul, but alas, they discontinued their afternoon tea when the pandemic hit, and they do not plan to resume. So we took a drive to Northfield, MN, where we tried Cottage Tea Room and Fare and we were entirely pleased with the experience.

Image description: The image is surrounded by a gold flourish frame. At the top are the words "Cottage Tea Room and Fare." Three smiling women are gathered around a tea table. A three-tier stand in the center carries flower-decked foods for afternoon tea (scones, tea sandwiches, cake). Lower left corner: a rack of glass canisters labeled with various tea blends.

Teashop

19 Teashop

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Current Mood: happy

I had a much more complex vision for this collage and am frustrated by my inability to capture it. I don't have time to try to mess with it anymore, so I am finishing with something simpler. Actually, this is one of the first times that in reality, I wanted to create a collage in video.

I have been thinking about all the connections I have--to people, to businesses, to groups, to communities. This week, I have been thinking about how so many of those connections that supported me have felt as though they have been frayed, damaged, or even cut.

My vision for this collage was a woman's hands holding a bunch of ropes, which would be labeled. Some ropes would be fraying. Two of the thickest ropes would be cut: Rob. Kij. There would be shears attacking some of the ropes, also labeled (Death. Aging. Indifference. Pandemic.) I even wanted to put in a flaming torch burning some of the ropes, labeled Murder of George Floyd.

I've been thinking about this as I've been readying to go to Minicon, feeling in my gut that it's just not the same. Rob isn't there. The girls aren't coming anymore. Many friends have fallen away. It just isn't what it used to be in the glory days.

This sounds depressing, I know. But the reason I felt the impulse to create this collage in video is that I also saw new ropes coming in to add support to the dangling woman. Eric. Chris (Delia's boyfriend). Alona (Fiona's fiancé). Zoom coffee group. New rituals. New community. New adventures. New joys. The hope of grandchildren.

I think that our challenge as we age is that we grieve the connections that are naturally lost with the passage of time. Some people don't manage to move beyond this, and so their lives get smaller and smaller as they grow older. My mom and my late dad, on the other hand, have been superb role models for me because they kept reaching out for new experiences as they aged.

They showed me that we have to resist apathy and make genuine efforts to keep reaching out and making new connections. New friends. New families connections. New rituals.

I am going to Minicon this weekend. I will see old friends, even though I will miss certain faces.

Background: sky at sunset overlaid with a net. left: a cut rope tied off with a knot. Center: a woman's hands hanging onto a rope. Right: a rope nearly cut through (a pair of shears is poised at the frayed portion)

Tether

14 Tether

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This past Sunday at church, the first Sunday of Epiphany, our pastor handed out stickers with stars, each with a word superimposed over it. "These are Epiphany star words, which is a new tradition that some churches are beginning to do during this season. Take this word and meditate upon it this week. What does it mean to you?"

I perked up as I accepted my star sticker, 'Loyal.' Oh, cool, I thought, pleased. I won't have to struggle to come up with something for my digital collage theme for the week.

A yellow star with the word 'Loyal' superimposed over it

A yellow star with the word 'Loyal' superimposed over it

You will note, however, that this didn't turn out to be the theme of the week that I chose. Instead I chose the word 'Rumphy.'

Please note: This post will be slightly longer than usual and perhaps a touch whiny. You have been warned.

'Rumphy' is a family neologism that Rob, the girls, and I have used for years. Eric looked extremely baffled the first time I told him that I was feeling rumphy. "What on earth does THAT mean?"

I had to think back hard to re-uncover the meaning.

Here's the dictionary definition of the word 'harrumph':

verb: harrumph; 3rd person present: harrumphs; past tense: harrumphed; past participle: harrumphed; gerund or present participle: harrumphing

1) clear the throat noisily.
"he harrumphed and said, 'I am deeply obliged.'"

2) grumpily express dissatisfaction or disapproval.
"skeptics tend to harrumph at case histories like this"

Whenever Rob was in a certain mood where he got disgruntled about something, he would put on an old codger aspect and grumble 'harrumph.' Have to do too many phone calls to fix a problem? Harrumph. Stuck in traffic? Harrumph! Did your dinner get burned? Harrumph!

Eventually (as best as I can remember) we identified the underlying mood that makes you say the word 'harrumph' as 'rumphy.' It became an exceedingly useful word that we all used. When someone said they were feeling rumphy, everyone knew that some sympathy, kindness, and coddling (and perhaps gentle teasing) was the best response.

These are the reasons I'm feeling rumphy this week:

• Immediately after that church service, I went home expecting to see Fiona for her weekly visit. But she called to let me know that she had come down with the flu (with gross digestive symptoms). So instead of a pleasant visit with my beloved daughter, I just got a fleeting glimpse of her looking pale and miserable as I handed off some Gatorade to her on her front porch.

This only served to remind me that I was missing seeing Delia, too. Delia had not come to see me over the Christmas holidays because someone had hit her car during the snowstorm the week before, and she can't drive to the Cities until she gets it repaired.

• I've just discovered that apparently, I've developed high blood pressure. I was surprised by a high reading taken by the dental hygienist when I went in to have my teeth cleaned in October. I went into a CVS this week to check my blood pressure at the machine near the pharmacy, only to discover that apparently, the October reading was not a fluke. As I have been working hard to get healthier and have in fact lost fifteen pounds since July, this seems especially aggravating. It feels like my body is doing something that is totally uncalled for, not to mention unauthorized. I will have to go to the doctor and perhaps go on medication. My sister, brother, and both of my parents have a history of high blood pressure, too. Apparently, it's something probably genetically based that just shows up at this age.

• My sleep disorder has been acting up horribly. I am so groggy in the evening, but after I go to bed, I will wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling, unable to sleep, for hours. On top of that, I'm getting really fed up with using the CPAP machine. If I'm going to have to put up with the thing, at least it should WORK to make me sleep better, you know?

• I'm keeping my house extra cold this year, to try to lower my heating costs. I'm keeping the thermostat at 65 degrees during the day and turning it down to 60 at night. I find that keeping the house so cold puts me into a sort of torpor--I sit huddled up in blankets on the couch and don't want to do much of anything.

• Scam phone calls and scam emails--I wasted time dealing with both this week. People, just leave me ALONE.

• My employer gets its money from donations, and donations are down. There is a lot of worried talk at the office that the churches that pay our salaries with mission support have not sent in their pledged contributions. Understandable, because people are cutting back their charitable giving due to inflation--but conversely, inflation makes the prospect of not getting a raise this year even more appalling.

• The weather has been cold, gray, and miserable. The air quality was terrible this week, and the streets are badly plowed. The snow melted partially and then refroze, leaving a thick layer of ice over everything. This was worsened by freezing rain that fell Wednesday morning.

• On Wednesday, I fell on the icy steps trying to walk down three steps to get my newspaper. I wasn’t in any kind of hurry, and I was even holding the railing. I didn’t hit my head, thank god, so I don’t have another concussion. But I banged up my back and arm pretty good, and I am sure I will have bruises tomorrow.

And then, even more startling, I could actually feel myself going into traumatic shock after crawling back up to the porch. It was ten minutes in the cold on the porch, unable to move, trying not to faint, before I could get back into the house.

It’s my great fear about living alone, that I somehow get hurt or incapacitated and am unable to get help. I’m okay…but those were an awfully long ten minutes.

This is the fourth serious fall I've had in the past five years.

• I've been in a lot of pain the last couple of days from the bruises and from having my muscles wrenched so badly. Painkillers haven't been quite effective enough.

• In an attempt to make myself feel better, I took a long bath with Epsom salts yesterday. I went down to the kitchen and discovered water all over my kitchen island and floor that had apparently poured through the light fixture in the ceiling from the bathtub upstairs. So now I have to call a plumber.

• I can be prone to seasonal affective disorder in January. What's more, at the end of the month, it'll be the five-year anniversary of Rob's death. And I've been missing him. I've been missing him terribly. When I was out there lying on the porch, afraid and trying not to pass out, I just wanted to have him there beside me so desperately. And I've been missing having Eric with me, too. This week has made me all the more aware of how much I hate living alone. My relationship with Eric gives me a lot of joy--in so many ways, he's even a better match for me than Rob was--but we each have our own house, and so we're not living together. And so I'm lonely when I'm home by myself. As I've said before, I'm not meant to live alone.

It's funny--I remarked to Fiona once that being a widow and then falling in love again has helped me, a lifelong monogamist, really get polyamory in a way I never could before. I'm in love with two men at the same time--one of whom is my husband, who just happens to be dead. Eric is extraordinarily kind, gracious, and non-threatened about the fact that I still miss Rob--but I am not living with Eric either. I'm alone.

And that just sucks.

It's been a really hard week.

Background: a misty winter background of snow-covered tree branches. Over this background are a series of words in blue text: From the bottom, going up: 'Missing my boyfriend. Pain. Plumbing. Elevated blood pressure. Gloomy weather. Sleep disorder. Cold. Missing my daughters. Ice. Money worries. Taking a fall. Scammers.' Top, in semi-transparent text: 'Missing my husband.' Diagonally across the card in larger text, is the semi-transparent word 'Harrumph.'

Rumphy

2 Rumphy

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Current Mood: cranky

This is one of those weeks where I was a little bit at a loss as to what the week was about, and so what would I do the card about? This is week when I start to move the felt ornaments over, one on each day, on my Advent wall hanging. I did a card about that last year. Why bother to do the same card all over again?

I realized that this slotted nicely into something I've been mulling over, not quite consciously this week. I want to talk about rituals, and the place they have in my life, specifically, when regular rituals that have been a great comfort for a long time no longer fit or feel quite right, and in fact, start to feel almost like a burden.

As I explained last year, my sister Betsy gave me the Advent wall hanging as a gift years ago.

Advent Calendar

For the last several years, I've taken a picture every day as I've moved an ornament over and sent them as a Snapchat picture to the people I'm closest with.

But this year, as I set up the wall hanging, I wondered...should I send out the pictures every day again this year? I've done it before. Heck, I could just send out last year's pictures again, and who would know the difference? What would be different about it? Have I just become a bore? But I liked sending out a picture every day to my loved ones during Advent.

So I decided to continue to take pictures of the felt Advent tree every day, but instead of sending them to that small circle, I would post them to my story. People could look at them if they want. But I would also instead send different Advent pictures out every day to my circle of loved ones. Something I found that was lovely and Christmas-y, things I saw when I was out and about. Something different. Here are the two I sent out yesterday and today:

The first picture I took at the garden section at Home Depot, and the second was a close up of an ornament display at a local grocery store. I'll continue to send out pictures of found things like these every day until Christmas.

As I said, rituals are extremely important to me: going to the Renaissance Faire every year. Washing my face with morning dew on May Day. Lussekatter on St. Lucia's day. Eating strawberries and cream for breakfast on July 6, the day after my anniversary.

But life changes. I've lost my husband, and my children have left home. Some of the entities that supported important rituals are gone (no more May Day parade by Heart of the Beast. No more lovely lazy afternoons shopping at Sophie Jo's Emporium). And so rituals slowly have to change and adapt, too, as the people you shared them with move away, or the rituals themselves don't fit your life anymore. And that can be difficult and sometimes painful. The girls and I have agreed not to exchange holiday gifts this year. It makes sense--we're experiencing a financial pinch, I'm trying to eliminate more stuff coming into my life, and we're undergoing some stress. I am trying to keep the rituals I love, yet make them over to fit my life now and not the life I had five years ago or ten years ago. Even if that means changing the rituals or even letting beloved rituals go.

It means putting up a smaller Christmas tree, and not hanging every ornament I own on it, even the ones I love very much.

I created this card around the Wheel of the Year, a concept that gives structure to the rituals I follow. I put a ritual object in each corner for the four seasons of the year. For spring, I put the Tree of Life from the Heart of the Beast's May Day parade, an annual ritual that has ended as the Heart of the Beast could no longer survive at the same financial level. For Summer, I put in the strawberries and cream I eat each July 6, remembering the day after my anniversary. For fall: the feathered fan with the mirror at its center reflecting my face is the one I bring to the Renaissance Faire every year. For winter, I included a picture of my breakfast of lussekatter I eat every December 13 for St. Lucia day.

(It would have been nice, design-wise, if I could have found/thought of something round to represent Spring, to echo the round shapes in the other three corners and the wheel itself. But the Tree of Life still felt like the best thing to choose.)

Wooden carved Wheel of the Year. Lower right corner: a red bowl of strawberries and cream. Lower left: lussekatter (saffron bun) on green holly plan, two taper candles, and a cup of hot chocolate. Upper right corner: Heart of the Beast Tree of Life (a giant puppet with outstretched arms, crowned with birds). Upper left: a feathered fan with a mirror inset. A woman's face (Peg) looks back at the viewer, reflected in the mirror.

Rituals

48 Rituals

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One of the running topics of conversation I've had with my friend Pat during our walks is computer gaming. It's very odd in a way: I lived for years in a household with two dedicated gamers (Fiona and Rob). I socialize in a community (science fiction and fantasy fandom) where I know dozens of fanatical gamers.

Yet, aside from one attempt about thirty years ago when I spent about a week playing Myst, only to give up, I have never been a gamer. Which is really peculiar, considering the people I have spent most of my time with.

Why have I never played games?

Well, there was severe competition in the household for the one gaming computer we had--either Fiona or Rob was parked in front of it most of the time. I was trying to write fiction, and I was perfectly happy to read for my entertainment. I was afraid of developing yet another time sink in my life.

But my conversations with Pat were...intriguing, as she described the fun she had playing Skyrim. Gaming, she pointed out to me, is our competition as fantasy writers, because gaming is about story.

And I certainly love stories.

Fiona got quite excited when I told her I was thinking of trying Skyrim, and she generously bought me a copy of the game. Pat, too, was pleased, and kindly passed along an old Windows machine to me to use when Fiona and I realized that I couldn't play my shiny new copy of Skyrim on my Macbook Plus. Fiona came over this past weekend to sit down with me as I tried to play it for the first time.

It seems odd to talk about the experience, as the game has been out for over ten years, and so anything I say about it probably won't be news to many of the people reading this. I've just played for a couple of hours, but I'm intrigued and ready to play some more although (still) wary of, as I said, making it into too much of a time suck.

I am still picking up the technique of playing and somewhat flummoxed by the keyboard commands. (I'm using a keyboard rather than a controller). Hilariously, I kept making the mistake of clicking the mouse rather than using the keyboard commands when trying to claim items in the game, which meant I kept whacking at the potion bottles with my sword and knocking them to the floor when I meant to pick them up and stow them in my knapsack instead. Fiona kindly refrained from laughing at me too much.

It was great fun to share the experience with Fiona--she is an excellent coach for a brand-new novice gamer. It's hugely enjoyable to switch roles with my daughter and have her teach me something about which she is an expert. (An example I will cherish is hearing my daughter primly inform me, "I ALWAYS search the bodies.")

I'm willing to keep going. As I said, I'm trying to add more fun to my life.

And I can't help but think that Rob would be rather proud of me. I haven't even been killed yet!

Image description: Foreground: a computer and keyboard with glowing purple keys, with the Skyrim splash screen on the computer display. Radiating out from the computer display are a semicircle of swords. Behind the computer stand two full-length computer-generated characters: Hadvar (left) and Ralof (right). Upper center: title in black lettering: The Elder Scrolls V [next line] SKYRIM. Background: map of Skyrim, semi-transparent.

Skyrim

41 Skyrim

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So, I have big, happy news:

Fiona is engaged!!!

I knew that this has been in the works for a while--they told me when they got the rings together, a couple of weeks ago. They chose puzzle rings, from a vendor at the Renaissance Festival (Fiona's has a diamond, and Alona's is plain).

"So are you officially engaged now?" I asked Fiona.

"I know Alona is scheming," she replied.

Her partner Alona proposed this past Sunday evening on her (Alona's) birthday. I highly approved of the results of Alona's scheming: it was the most adorable fannish proposal ever. Alona commissioned a hoodie for Fiona (Fiona LOVES hoodies) with the AO3 tags that apply to their relationship. Fiona, of course, said yes! (Alona got the same hoodie for herself, so they can match. Adorable.)

Their collective name for themselves is "the Onas." More adorableness.

I love my new daughter-in-law to be, and I am absolutely convinced that Rob would have loved her, too (unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to meet her).

Image description: Bottom center, headshot of two smiling women (Fiona, left, Alona right) facing the camera, heads tilted toward one another. Center: Alona (left) and Fiona (right) sit facing each other, holding hands. Alona looks a little nervous and Fiona is smiling [this is the actual proposal. Thanks to Drew for recording it for posterity]. Between their heads is a close-up of a diamond puzzle ring on a hand. Top center: white lowercase letters on a red background read "u-haul lesbians, mutual pining, and they were roommates, fake dating, there was only one bed, slow burn, idiots to wives."

Engaged!

40 Engaged

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My attempts to add fun to my life have been a big success. This week has been an absolute delight.

As a belated celebration of Delia's birthday, Fiona, a friend of Delia's (Anna) and I carpooled to Eau Claire where we met Delia, her boyfriend Chris, Chris' two brothers, and another friend of Delia's (Morgan). The eight of us then carpooled the next day to Wisconsin Dells, where we had a hugely enjoyable time eating lunch together and then exploring Wizard Quest. We ended the day with a ride on the Duck Boats. Seven young people in their 20s and me, which felt a little surreal but such fun. During the driving, many Jax songs were sung aloud, as well as the entire soundtrack to Hamilton. Both Morgan and Fiona handled driving through torrential rain with total aplomb.

I went out on Wednesday with some friends from my church to see Everything Everywhere All at Once, and then out to dinner at Buster's. Really loved the movie, which I heartily recommend.

My brother Chet is here from New York as yesterday was my Mom's 94th birthday. Mom, Chet and I went out for a lovely brunch, and then we had a few other family members (and Eric) join us for cocktails and a delicious dinner.

It was a week of celebrations, and I loved it.

Image description: Bottom: Eric, Peg, and Peg's Mom Char smile at the camera. Peg holds a candle flare in a bowl of ice cream. Center/right: Chris and Delia (on the Duck Boats) smile off to the left. Upper right: Delia blows out candles on a birthday cake. Upper left: against a background of Wizard's Quest t-shirts, Morgan, Fiona, Anna and Peg smile at the camera.

52 Card Project 2022: Week 35: Celebration.

Celebration

35 Celebration

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I went alone to the Renaissance Festival. It wasn't quite the same as when I go with Fiona (the other RenFest fan in our family), although I stuck to the expected rituals--I started the day with a popover with cinnamon butter, visited some of our favorite booths, and swung by the vendor selling apple dumplings when I was ready to leave.

It felt both familiar and unfamiliar. It felt as if it has been so long since I did something like that. Something purely for fun.

As I was pondering this, I ran across a New York Times article "What Is Fun? Can I Have It? Will We Ever Have It Again?" (you can also read it here, where it isn't behind a paywall). I found this to be the food for much interesting reflection:

In his book Fun!: What Entertainment Tells Us About Living a Good Life, Alan McKee, an Australian media studies professor, defines fun thus: “Fun is pleasure without purpose.” In other words, the same qualities that seem to make it so hard for me to have pure fun — I need purpose! — make it hard to optimize for; put it under a brain scanner, and it has a tendency to disappear.

My experiment, in other words, was fundamentally flawed. Fun is supposed to get you out of your head. I was trying to think my way into fun.

In researching this story, I spent weeks cataloging different ways that people in my city had fun — barbecuing, block partying, riding motorbikes, playing dominoes in the park, dancing, hula hooping, stargazing, picnicking in the nude. All of these people were just out living their lives and having fun while I sat at home reading essays and self-help books, dissecting how to have it.

She has some thoughts about the impact of the pandemic on fun, as well as the squelching effect of the constant cavalcade of unsettling news (she noted that her attempt to keep a fun diary fell apart when Roe vs. Wade was overturned).

While pondering this, I thought back to a couple of Christmas gifts exchanged in our family right before the pandemic started: Fiona and Delia and I gave each other the Adventure Challenge Friends edition and I gave Eric the Couples edition. We'd looked forward working our way through the books, laughing a lot, and experiencing tons of fun.

Then Covid hit. The books are still in their shrink wrap.

I want to get back to having fun. Figuring out how to accomplish it. Doing it with other people.

Fiona and I plan to go to the Renaissance Festival together, sometime in September. And I am going to be traveling soon to Eau Claire to pick up Delia and her boyfriend Chris. From there, in company of a bunch of twenty-somethings (they are graciously allowing this sixtyish mom to tag along), we are going to spend a day at Wisconsin Dells, where we'll ride the Duck Boats and look in on Wizard's Quest, something that our family did together years ago. It's a cooperative quest/exploration game, and it was one of the most fun days we ever had together as a family.

What are some of your favorite things to do for fun? How has that changed with the pandemic? Has fun been missing from your life? What are you doing to get it back?

Image description: Background: semi-opaque pink confetti. upper center: a swing carousel carnival ride (people suspended from chairs on chains). Lower right: Peg in Renaissance Festival costume. Left center: apple dumpling. Lower right: the word 'Squee!' in hot pink.

Fun

34 Fun

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I have been thinking about how one goes about changing one's circumstances and one's life in order to make it better.

I played with several possible themes for this week's card, including "Goals" or "Determination" or "Consistency."

I settled on "Motivation."

I don't want to annoy or trigger anyone. I'm also keenly aware that I have had members of my family who have gone through eating disorder treatment, and so I have spent years culling statements like "~~I'm so FAAAAATTTTT and I gotta do something about it~~" from my vocabulary. That is not what this post is about.

But I have been thinking about how I want to get healthier. Certainly my general health and fitness have been a preoccupation between the pandemic, my sleep disorder, and the concussion I had earlier this spring. Moreover, this has honestly been an interest of mine for years. (I did, I remind you, get a black belt in karate at the age of 51). I am interested in aging gracefully, sleeping better, and having years of life to enjoy my beautiful daughters (and perhaps grandchildren someday). I am also keenly aware that this is something Rob didn't get, that he wanted desperately. In a way, I feel like I want to get to do all the things he did not get to do.

Plus, I'll admit it. I'm vain. I'm about to go back to the Renaissance Faire for the first time in three years, and I want to still be able to fit into my Felix Needleworthy bodice instead of being forced to buy another one because I have to size up.

There are other things I want for my life that need motivation besides generally getting more fit and healthy--like picking up (and finishing!) writing another book. Or continuing to clean out the house and determine what the next stage of my life will be. I want it to be a good life.

I've been using a couple of fitness websites to track my fitness and food, and one talks a lot about goal setting and motivation.

It has an app that gets me to set small, doable goals every day. Like: I'm going to exercise 10 minutes today. You try to get a streak going, even if it's only something as simple as logging in to spin the wheel on the site to accumulate points...and then once you've done that, you might read an article about keeping up your motivation or about adding more vegetables to the diet.

I've been at it faithfully and consistently for a month, and I am starting to see results that I like. It is clear to me that what I am learning on this website about setting small goals and showing up consistently can be applied to other areas of my life.

I'm starting to think of myself differently, just as I did when I was taking karate. Back then, I was proud to be able to think of myself as a 51-year-old woman who can do thirty side kicks in a row without losing her balance.

I can't quite do that anymore, and frankly, at this point in my life, I don't really want to do that. But I'm a 62 year old woman who pops "P90X Ab Ripper" into the Blue-Ray player, as I did this morning, and tries her best to go through the routine. And no, my first effort in eight years was pretty pitiful this time, but I will keep working at it until I get better. I'll bet there are a lot of other 62-year-old women to whom it doesn't even occur to try.

I'm a woman who emerged from a fog of grief, living in a seriously disordered house stuffed with junk, and now it's a beautiful home that I'm proud to have other people see.

I'm a woman who had stepped away from writing for twenty years but now has two new chapters of a book manuscript.

I am trying to learn more about the woman I am becoming, and to make my life better all the time. I am learning to use the tools to find the motivation to claim that beautiful and fulfilling life for myself.

Image description: A head and shoulders shot of Peg (left) and Fiona (right) smiling at the camera (circa 2018). Fiona has a wreath of flowers in her hair and they are both dressed in Renaissance Faire garb (chemises and bodices). Upper center are the words "SparkCoach Check-In." Lower center the words "Do Not Give Up" spelled in Scrabble tiles. Behind the scrabble tiles is a wheel with numbers.

Motivation

33 Motivation

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 gallery.

We knew this was going to happen. But I am still aghast and unmoored. More than that, I don’t really have the words today.

Except perhaps this: To my two beloved daughters: I am so sorry. For this, and for the worse still to come.

Apropos of nothing, I note in passing that that my resting heart rate reached its highest rate in a year. Purely coincidence, I’m sure.

The weather in Minneapolis is in that perfect sweet spot: not too hot, not too cold, not too humid, no need to shovel snow, ~~no need to mow~~ (I have a mowing service), garden is nicely established.

Yes. Porch season has begun. On days I work from home, I'm now taking my computer out there and working on the porch.

There was a porch in my first childhood home, and I loved it so much, that I insisted we buy a house with a porch. Didn't get the fireplace or the built-in buffet, but I got the porch.

I have a deep affection for my porch. During the years that my house was so chaotic because of all of Rob's stuff, I insisted that at least the porch must be cleaned off at all times. Sometimes when the house was driving me mad, the porch was my only oasis. I put pots of flowers out there and hung blue lanterns that I lit with candles at night, and I would take my newspaper and coffee out there to read in the morning. It is beautifully shaded by a hugely overgrown evergreen bush. Fiona used to climb the branches to get up to her haven, the porch roof. Several home contractors have told me to cut it down. Too big. Too close to the foundation.

I don't care. It shades the porch splendidly, and it's staying.

I got a beautiful flowered bamboo tray to take my plate, silverware, and coffee cup out when I go sit on the porch. It is such a simple luxury that gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure.

tray

I used an older picture for this: the seat cushions are different, and there is a different rug, blue with white stripes. I tried to cut them in with editing tools, but it didn't quite look right. So...not quite contemporaneous, but you get the idea.

Image description: Peg has her feet propped up on a glass porch table, which holds a pot of flowers, a coffee cup, and a newspaper. In the background are wildflowers from Peg's bamboo tray and two moroccan lanterns lit with candles.

Porch

23 Porch

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

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Slight edit to temper my language.

So I am sort of breaking my rule that each card should be titled with one word. SCOTUS is a very commonly recognized acronym for Supreme Court of the United States but don't come at me with any lip about it this week. In fact, don't come at me with any lip at all because I will TOTALLY SMITE YOU.

I am enraged by this week's news. Enraged. Not only Roe, but despite his protestations, Alito's reasoning would take an axe at the rights that underlie Obergefell, Griswold and even Loving.

Scrapping fifty years of jurisprudence as if it were garbage. I don't want my girls to face their reproductive lives in the world this Supreme Court wants to create. I don't want to live in a country where we do not have a right to privacy or bodily autonomy.

Image description: Lady Justice in a flowing white dress falls off a cliff. She grips the flailing scales in her left hand but her right hand has let go of her sword, which falls after her.

SCOTUS

18 SCOTUS

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 gallery.

I got an email from LiveJournal noting that April 27, 2022 is the 20th anniversary of my setting up my LiveJournal.

So I've been thinking about this, and about what starting to blog on LiveJournal and later Dreamwidth opened up in my life.

As I had noted in my very first entry, I had kept a daily personal journal for 25 years at the time I started my LiveJournal. So I was very familiar with the process of writing about my life.

What was different and what proved to be almost seductive was that for the first time in 25 years, I got reactions to what I was writing.

I wrote about my family, about parenting, about my fandom obsessions, about writing, about my struggle to cook for my family. I wrote about politics. I wrote about all our family rituals (May Day, 12th Night, etc.). I wrote about my karate journey, from white belt to black belt. I wrote about depression. I wrote about whatever I was thinking about. Eventually, I wrote about Rob's illness and death.

Twenty years ago was a more innocent age, and I would probably make different decisions about how frankly I spoke about things if I had known then what I know now when starting to write. But for the most point, opening my life in this way has been a blessing, and I have made so many remarkable friendships. Online friendships ARE real ones.

The background of the collage includes text from my very first entry, and the color green is the green I used in all the icons I created. Otherwise, it shows various things that have cropped up in my journal over the years. I certainly didn't have room to include them all. I think I may create a separate Soulcollage card for "Blogger." Edited to add: And I have done so, here.

Blogging

17 Blogging

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

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I had such hopes for this holiday season.

I spent it last year alone, and I was so looking forward to getting together with my family. We have had some holiday rituals that we've done for decades: my extended family gathers between Christmas and New Year's every year, and I was excited to see everyone. We are all vaccinated and many of us have received boosters, and we are all willing to wear masks. It felt like our reward for being so diligent about keeping safe all year.

My nephew Lewis flew in from New York. He tested twice before getting on the plane and was negative each time. He came home to my sister Cindy's...and then tested positive the next day (Christmas Eve). Cindy, too, had really been looking forward to Christmas: this was the first year in decades that they would have been gathering in their own home instead of going out East. But now this meant that Cindy and her husband were forced to go into isolation, and her other two sons, Mitch and Stuart, could not come home. It also meant that my brother Chet's family canceled their trip to join us--they had intended to stay with Cindy's family (although one nephew did travel separately later). Disappointment #1.

I had planned an event during this family week for the women of the family, a cream tea at Bingley's Teas, but since our group was now reduced by one-third, I regretfully canceled it. Disappointment #2.

I spent Christmas Eve with my sister Betsy and her family, including my mom. Mitch and Stuart joined that party.

Christmas day, Eric and I had intended to go over to Fiona and Alona's for breakfast--but Eric tested positive that morning and so couldn't join us. His sons subsequently tested positive over the next several days. Disappointment #3.

That evening, Christmas night, I invited over Mitch and Stuart, Cindy's two sons who hadn't been able to go home for drinks and appetizers.

Delia had planned to come to Minneapolis with her boyfriend Chris on Tuesday the 27th. All of us--Fiona, Alona, Chris, Delia, and I tested negative that morning, so I went over to Fiona's and we had our gift opening. Yay! We had planned two more days of get-togethers before Delia and Chris had to head back to Eau Claire.

The next day, yesterday (Wednesday) Mitch called me to tell me that although he had tested negative on Christmas day, he was now testing positive. So now I am in isolation and unable to get together with Fiona's household, including Delia and Chris. I will not be able to see them again before they leave town to go back to Eau Claire. Disappointment #4. I will spend New Year's Eve alone again.

I thought of making another plum pudding on New Year's Eve, as I did last year. What better way to recognize the end of a difficult year than by setting something on fire in my living room? But I have a colonoscopy scheduled for next week and have to start limiting my diet, and I have to avoid some of the ingredients in the plum pudding a week out. That also means I will have no 12th night celebration--I will be fasting that day. Disappointment #5.

I'm grateful that my family and I are all on the same page, getting vaccines and boosters and wearing masks and testing before getting together. But despite our best efforts and diligence and cooperation, people have fallen sick. Omicron is just so damned contagious.

I am trying to keep my spirits up, and I'm glad that at least I did have a few get-together's, and the girls and I got to open our presents together. I will see Eric soon again and we can exchange gifts between the two of us then. But it's still hard, and this still sucks.

Edited to add: I took a rapid test tonight, five days out from my Christmas day exposure (per CDC guidelines), and it was negative.

The background for the card is the charcuterie board I created for my nephews Mitch and Stuart on Christmas night, with a rapid Covid test in the center. Upper left: Covid virus (wearing a Scrooge hat), with a dialogue bubble that reads "Humbug." Upper right: logo for Bingley's Teas with "no" sign. Lower right corner: Fiona and Delia overlaid with "no" sign. Lower left corner: Eric overlaid with "no" sign.

Humbug

52 Humbug

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.

Woo hoo, I did it! 52 collages for the year completed!

Which one did you like the best?

I will continue the project next year, starting a new gallery with my next collage.

Fiona has been having a tough couple of months at work and needed some rest and relaxation. So the two of us decided to make a day trip to Stillwater, a town on the edge of the St. Croix river with some lovely antique shops and boutiques. The trip was extremely successful and we enjoyed ourselves hugely. It was delightful to spend the day with my beloved girl.

We stopped at an antique shop and wandered around admiring dishes and old Victorian furniture. Fiona bought a porcelain cup and saucer and I bought a Christmas teapot with matching creamer and sugar. Lunch was a place called Nacho Mama, which had delicious and generous portions. We ended up at an art gallery where Fiona dropped a generous sum on a painting that caught her heart, depicting an old-fashioned sailing ship caught in a storm at night, menaced from down below by underwater sea monsters. It was painted by the guy who has painted many of the civic murals around the city.

We came back to the Cities tired out and having dropped a respectable spot of cash, but neither of us regretted it for an instant. We haven't been able to take a vacation this summer, and we won't be able to go to the Renaissance Festival as we usually do this time of year, because of Covid. This was a fine way for us to spend a day together having fun.

After doing a one-image digital card last week, I'm back to something a little busier. The background is a washed out image of the shopfronts that line the streets of downtown Stillwater. Over that I layered a picture of Fiona enjoying our lunch at Nacho Mama's with a few other things seen that day. The stone lion guards the entrance of the Lowell Inn, one of the lovely hotels in city (we've had afternoon tea there before). No afternoon tea this time, but I still have affection for the place. The sign at the top is for the gallery where Fiona bought her painting.

Stillwater

34 Stillwater

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.

Almost everyone in my extended family is fully vaccinated, and so my brother and sister-in-law and one of my nieces came out from New York City for a visit. Delia came from Eau Claire. It was wonderful. I have missed everyone so much, especially since we have gathered for years over the holidays. This visit partially made up for how much we missed each other over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. We met over the course of three days, eating together, touring the new homes of two nephews and Fiona to admire their new digs, and finally, on the last day, gathering at my sister's lakeside home (Lake Minnetonka). Glorious weather. So much fun.

I could have jammed more into the card, but it was busy enough as it was. Just...smiling faces of family gathering together for the first time in fourteen months. Fiona and Delia are hugging in the upper center of the card. It's not a sophisticated design in the least, but I don't care. I was thinking less about the artistic effect than I was about making a card that reflected the simple joy of getting back together again.

Family

Family

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.

This past week was Easter. I missed Minicon terribly, but still, it's spring and crocuses are coming up in my yard, and it's Easter, and those are good things. To my joy, both of the girls managed to land appointments for their first vaccine shots this week.

As for me, I did a home sleep study last night. I will get the report in ten days. I am perversely a little worried because I slept pretty well last night--I'm afraid that if I have some kind of physical problem, it might not have shown up. But I am hopeful that they will be able to diagnose the problem (maybe sleep apnea? Maybe something else?) and I will GET AN ANSWER after four or five frickin' years of struggling with lack of sleep. And better yet--a treatment!

Note: in the Victorian language of the flowers, crocuses symbolize cheer, happiness, and a general spirit of positivity.

Hope

Hope

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.

This is my thirteenth collage of the year, which means that I'm 1/4 of the way through the project. Some preliminary conclusions:

I REALLY like doing this, and I have no trouble believing I will finish out the year. I had said at the beginning of the year that I planned to print the images out and paste them to cards, as I did the last time I tried this project. I started with digital collages, and although I thought at the beginning I might do some traditional ones, now I think I will do digital collages throughout the year and probably will not print them. The reason is that now that I am using digital tools, I'm playing a lot with transparency, and that just doesn't turn out well when I try to print, at least on the printers to which I have access.

As I said in my last post, I got my second Moderna shot. I don't feel great, but I am so, so happy. The conception of this card seems blindingly obvious to me: I got the shot yesterday, and today is the first day of Passover. Not a holiday I usually celebrate, but Fiona has several housemates who are Jewish, and they have very kindly invited me to join their Zoom Seder tonight, which I plan to do (although I will probably spend most of it lolling on the couch with my eyes at half-mast)

The background is taken from a still of the movie "Prince of Egypt," which the girls loved to watch as they were growing up, showing the appearance of the Angel of Death which manifests as a ghostly apparition hovering over the darkened buildings. I overlay that with a different artist's conception of the Angel of Death, and below and parallel to that, I put a Covid vaccine syringe (I'd taken a picture of the actual syringe used for my vaccine, but it did not turn out very well, so instead I used a standard stock photo). I debated placing the syringe cross-ways over the angel, (like the circle with a slash through it often placed over symbols to indicate "no...." I also debated using a picture of a doorway marked with blood on the lintel posts, with syringes overlaid over the markings of blood.

But in the end, I just placed the syringe parallel to the Angel, with the angle of the Angel's sword mimicking the placement of the syringe's needle. The meaning isn't quite parallel, because the Angel uses the sword to kill, whereas the needle protects AGAINST the Angel. But in the end, aesthetics won out. I flipped the image of the background, too, so that the Angel as represented by the mist also matches the angle of the Angel in the foreground. Edited to add: Huh, I also just noticed that (entirely coincidentally) it's at about exactly the same angle as the syringe in "Vaccine I."

I'm pretty pleased with this one.

I had decided at the beginning of the year that the cards would have one-word titles. Yes, I'm cheating by making the last vaccine shot "Vaccine I" and this one "Vaccine II." Bite me. If I hadn't decided that, the title of this card would be the caption I put at the top: "Let the angel of death pass by."

Vaccine II

Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.

Peg Kerr's Journal

The Holy Tree Grows Within the Heart

2023 52 Card Project: Week 25: Inching

2023 52 Card Project: Week 23: Staircase

2023 52 Card Project 2023: Week 19: Teashop

2023 52 Card Project: Week 14: Tether

2023 52 Card Project: Week 2: Rumphy

52 Card Project 2022: Week 48: Rituals

52 Card Project 2022: Week 41: Skyrim

52 Card Project 2022: Week 40: Engaged!

Fiona is engaged!!!

52 Card Project 2022: Week 35: Celebration

52 Card Project 2022: Week 34: Fun

52 Card Project 2022: Week 33: Motivation

Dobbs

52 Card Project 2022: Week 23: Porch

52 Card Project 2022: Week 18: SCOTUS

52 Card Project 2022: Week 17: Blogging

52 Card Project 2021: Week 52: Humbug

52 Card Project 2021: Week 34: Stillwater

52 Card Project 2021: Week 20: Family

52 Card Project 2021: Week 14: Hope

52 Card Project 2021: Week 13: Vaccine II

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June 2025

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