I grew up in this old famhouse. Here I stumble over memories Stub my toe on them even Sorting is quite daunting This house is haunting Daily I try To get one More box Done
The W3 prompt is: Write a Nonet about the new year — 2026. How does this year feel to you so far? Are you hopeful, uncertain, energized, reflective? Have you set any goals or intentions? Are there resolutions you’re excited (or nervous) about? My goal for the new year is to wrap up dealing with my parents’ estate.
It certainly sounds more realistic for people in darkness to dream of God’s day of vengeance, finding satisfaction in the hope that at the Last Judgment all the godless enemies who oppress us here will be cast into hellfire. But what kind of blessedness is it that luxuriates in revenge and needs the groans of the damned as background to its own joy? To us a child is born, not an embittered old man.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Power of the Powerless
Okay, it’s not one, not two, but three lines that I’m using for One-Liner Wednesday. I read these words this morning and they spoke to me.
My faith is a struggle these days, what with all that’s going on with our government and the focus on retribution, and the callousness towards humt
Still, I read every morning, trying to start my day off with the right mindset.
To us a child is born. To us a child is born. To us a child is born.
God didn’t come in wrath, seeing to punish. He came as a helpless baby.
Once upon a time I did a whole bunch of research on my hometown, Cooperstown, which is also the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Tourists come here in droves in the summer for baseball stuff — but the village is so much more than baseball.
Years ago, when I was taking care of my father, the home health aide came and shoo me out of the house. “Go do something for yourself,” she would say.
So I would go to the research library. I mean, isn’t that where everyone would want to go?
I researched the town, the old homes, the founders, etc. I made up a walking tour of the village and walked it a gazillion times with one of my daughter. She knew the tour better than I did, I think.
Then I was talking with one of my sons and asked what he would call a non-baseball tour of Cooperstown. He thought about it, and then said, “An Intentional Walk.”
I loved it.
(For those who don’t know, an intentional walk IS a baseball term for when the pitcher decides to throw four balls and intentionally walk the batter because he would rather face the next guy in the line-up. These days, the pitcher doesn’t even have to throw the four balls. They can just declare it. Where’s the fun in that?)
But life happened.
My father died.
We had a pandemic.
I took a full-time job.
The Intentional Walk fell by the wayside. Maybe I should resurrect it.
James Fenimore Cooper, part of the tour. This photo shows him avoiding the pandemic.
This post is brought to you by the JusJoJan prompt: Intentional
I fell asleep last night thinking about the word “fast” because I had seen that fast/slow was the Stream of Consciousness prompt for today. I know, I know – maybe pondering the words at bedtime makes it less true stream-of-consciousness but whatever.
Fast is such a funny word. We use it to describe abstaining from eating. That seems like the opposite of fast. No eating equals fast. Slow eating means enjoying a meal. Go figure.
Then I woke up this morning and saw the news. We’ve attacked Venezuela and captured their president. Well, that happened fast.
And it’s scary.
So I sent an email to my congressman and both senators at 5:30 AM.
Supposedly, Maduro has ties to drug cartels.
But didn’t Trump pardon a convicted drug trafficker who had been the president of Honduras?
He is inconsistent at best.
And waaaaay too impulsive.
Where are the checks and balances?
It’s moving too fast. Someone needs to slow him down.
I read this quote this morning while looking for something to write about “magnify” — the JusJoJan prompt for the day:
If you stare at suds, you’ll go crazy. But in soap suds, you’ll find bubble cubes and many other forms. I just take those things, magnify them and sometimes blow smoke inside it so you can see it better. ~~Tom Noddy
Who is Tom Noddy, you ask? According to Wikipedia, “Tom Noddy is the stage name of Tom McAllister, an American entertainer whose television performances of “Bubble Magic” with soap bubbles in the early 1980s led to a book deal and “Bubble Festivals” at science centers across America. He is the originator of a large number of bubble magic tricks now performed by entertainers around the world.“
He found something that fascinated him and he looked at it every which way. It’s funny because just the other day, I had said to someone that I didn’t need to travel the world for a vacation. I could spend a whole day or week even staring at one tidal pool.
Which I did one day in August at the Bay of Fundy.
Every Monday, a group of people gather at Connections for “Mindfulness Monday.”
What’s Connections, you ask? Connections is the part of my job I love most. It’s a program for people who are actively aging well, a.k.a. seniors.
Let me take a step back to explain. I work at a gym-sports facility-community center. It’s hard to define what it is. It includes
a “gym” with cardio equipment, weight machines, free weights, etc.
4 studios for classes such as yoga, zumba, fitness, and cycling
a gym floor, where people play basketball, futsal, volleyball, pickleball (in the winter), and more
an indoor track
three swimming pools: an 8 lane 25-yd lap pool, a diving well, and a warm shallow pool that we use for teaching lessons and share with physical therapy where they do aqua-therapy
an 8 lane bowling alley
a golf simulator
a high climbing wall
racquetball and squash courts
2 ping-pong tables
meeting rooms that can be used by community groups
Outside tennis courts, soccer fields, a little league field, and a high ropes course.
Also, in the building the local medical center has their out-patient physical therapy department so they can share the gym equipment and the pools.
This facility now hosts Connections, a senior program, and I get to be involved.
Two days a week Connections offers studio fitness classes, aqua classes, Tai Chi, games such pitch, cribbage, and Mah Jongg, lunch, community talks, two different supports groups (grief and Alzheimer’s), book groups, and Mindfulness.
Yes, at Connections, we have Mindfulness Monday.
Like many of the programs that have grown in Connections, it’s because a few people asked about trying it and someone volunteered to lead.
The mindfulness group, however, has taken root and grown. They expanded from 45 minutes to an hour to an hour and a half. They wanted time just to talk. They encourage each other.
Honestly, I’m not a 100% sure what they do during the mindfulness time, but I know they have readings and a singing bowl.
I apologize. This is so much more than a Just-Jot-It (JusJoJan) which I’m going to attempt to do for January (a blog challenge sponsored by Linda Hill), but today’s word was “mindfulness.”
Mindfulness Monday makes me happy and I don’t even go to it. Seeing people come together and find commonality not based in anger is nice. Really nice.
I started a second job a couple of weeks ago working at a church. I have my own office and desk. It’s there that I realized how much I need to be surrounded by clutter to work efficiently.
Crazy, isn’t it?
There are Tidies in the world — who have clean, clear spaces in which to work. They work hard to create those spaces, and I’m sure those spaces allow them to focus on what it is they’re trying to write.
It’s refreshing for me to know that there are also Messies — who are surrounded by papers and books that aren’t in neat little stack. Even the books on the shelves behind them are in a bit of disarray.
There were over 100 authors on the list and I wrote down 21 names of writers whose workspaces warmed my heart.
Albert Einstein was the first I came to. Is he a writer? I think of him as a scientist. Anyway, I saw the photo, and laughed. How did he get my desk?!
Albert Einstein’s office just hours after his death on April 18, 1955. (Photographer: Ralph Morse. Image Source: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.)
Carl Sandburg, one of my favorite poets, was a Messy.
Carl Sandburg Typing in His Upstairs Office at Connemara Photograph by June Glenn
Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, Edward Gorey — I kept working my way through the list, scribbling down writers whose workspace mirrored mine.
Eric Carle delighted me with his. Granted, he is both writer and artist for his books, but I LOVE his space.
My list continued. I won’t bore you with every name. Jack London, J.D. Salinger (sitting naked on an upturned suitcase, writing on the open tailgate of a station wagon — not exactly how I would do it, but his space was definitely a messy space), Ray Bradbury (I went through a serious Ray Bradbury binge when I was in high school so was happy to see that we had a common bond), Truman Capote, and William F. Buckley, Jr.
I’ve never read anything by William F. Buckley, Jr — I think of him as a politician and political commentator — but I’m intrigued.
William F Buckley in his converted garage office
Somehow seeing other people’s messes makes me feel better about my own.
When I show up at my new job,i get out some notebooks and papers to which I may need to refer and spread them on the desk.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 