mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
You can scroll the shelf using ← and → keys
#WeekendCoffeeShare Wildflower Wanderlust
February 19, 2017
— 5 Comments
desert in bloom
If we were having coffee today I would invite you to sit by the wood stove, which has been burning all night because it is cold, and raining again. This winter has been the best rainy time we have had in Arizona for years. The rain has fallen gently and steadily here this year. Erosion is minimal because the water sinks into the soil when it is not a big sudden chubasco. We are doing better than Southern California, where the terrain is steep, and the ground is saturated with water. The coast is land-sliding into the sea, which is a big freak out. For Arizona, we are recovering from major draught, but are still in it. The African daisies are in bloom in people’s yards here in the city, and the desert will soon be completely in bloom because of the wet weather.
Please sit back and let me serve you some coffee or tea to keep you warm. Tell me what is happening in your world and your writing. Are you making progress on your writing goals? I am keeping up with my once a week fiction writing, still threatening to break out into more than once a week. I wrote a dream sequence this week which was fun. I am also keeping up with my pen pal exchange in #InCoWriMo. I was happy that some of you here gave me your addresses so I can send you real snail mail. The month of February is not over, so if you want mail in your box please give me your address here. I have no reason to share it or use if for any other reason, so your secret is safe with me.
Many of my pen pals have a common interest in gardening and botanical gardens. I have received cute miniature water color of flowers, and other wonderful gardening themed correspondence. One of my fabulous pen pals is the educational director of the Buffalo, NY Botanical Garden. I am really enjoying this exchange. It has made me think about botany around the country, and the arrival of spring. Our wild flower and flowering tree season is a super quick flash of vibrant color that increases in intensity in direct proportion to the amount of rain in the winter. I have both driven through and flown in a small plane over wildflower displays that have truly taken away my breath. The California desert has some very exotic and super psychedelic plants that bloom when there has been rain, so this year will be a spectacular show of nature’s fashion. Arizona will be very colorful also. This has moved me to start checking into Air BnB availability, and think about itineraries. My favorite spa is in Desert Hot Springs, right down the hill from Joshua Tree National Park, one of the most exotic landscapes in the world. I love to be there in the spring when everything is blooming. I have not decided if I will go, but I am starting to dream about it, so chances are good that I will do at least a short wildflower trip. I could just go down the hill to Tempe, and I could catch a lot of seasonal color, as well as see what is up at the Desert Botanical Garden, which has plenty of blooms itself.
Do you go on botany excursions, for fall color, dogwoods, or wildflowers, gentle reader? You don’t have to be a botanist to enjoy them.
Our weekend coffee share has moved to Nerd In the Brain. Please join this jovial and talented group of digital beverage guzzling writers who get together on the weekend to share our thoughts. You are welcome to read, comment, or contribute to the movable feast here. Thanks for stopping by today.
#WeekendCoffeeShare
#WeekendCoffeeShare Moving The Feast
February 11, 2017
— 9 Comments
Barrio Bread
Barrio Bread
The movable feast known as weekend coffee share is itself on the move. Our gracious hostess Diana has arranged to hand off the coffee party action to Nerd in the Brain next weekend. We will still be a band of writers bonding over digital beverages and stories on the weekend. I am sure the move will not disrupt anyone. Thank you Diana, for finding us a new address to continue the party. If we were having coffee today I would invite you to taste some of the bread I just brought home from Barrio Bread. It is still warm, made from local grains, and crusty like crazy fire . I just had a smoked mozzarella sandwich, grilled, with all the trimmings. I can whip one up for you while you relax and tell me how you have been and what you have planned. We are very proud of this bakery, and would love for you to try our local organic, totally groovy food products. Our city is a UNESCO culinary heritage city because of our deep agricultural traditions and knowledge. I love to show it off to tourists.
It is warm here, and the peach tree is budding out. The grapefruit is still very full of fruit, although I am juicing like crazy. I hope you will help yourself to a big glass of ruby red grapefruit juice, with or without whipped vodka, as you tell me about your writing this week. Mine is rolling along, with the weekly photo prompt working for me very well. This week I wrote a short poem, still on the depressing side, a thinly veiled reference to current politics. The prompt picture was a fire, which gave lots of leeway. I wrote about pants and vanities on fire, since I feel this is our current backdrop for news in the real world. I plan to continue the once a week fiction with Sue Vincent’s prompts because it is inspirational to read all the other takes on the same picture. I do want to write more fiction someday. This is a good warm up for that day. I like taking a break from just the facts.
I am enjoying my correspondence challenge #InCoWriMo more than I imagined I would. I have gotten mail from several people I do not know, and a couple I know in on-line relationships. It is a blast to both send and receive the snail mail. Most of my pen pals have great penmanship and sealing wax, etc. I admire it, but that is not what I have to offer. My correspondence has enclosures and a little bit of art. My biggest advantage is all the cards and specialty paper I have collected around the world. I have started to enclose extra postcards so my pen pals can send them forward, and I get rid of twice as much collected choice paper. I also send a temporary tattoo and my biz card. Today I mailed some hollyhock seeds to Kentucky to a perfect stranger…Perfect!!
#InCoWriMo
I send or hand deliver more than one letter a day. I may get carried away with this and just keep mailing letters until all my paper is gone. It is so much fun, and I do have the supplies. I am meeting people and getting such a thrill out of checking my mailbox every day. I guess it is like riding a bike because I used to be a big letter writer, but not for many years. If anyone in coffee share wants to receive mail from me in February please send me your snail mail address on this secure form. I promise I have no reason to share it with anyone and will only use it to send you handwritten notes and surprise gifts from my exotic stash.
If we were having coffee today, I would recommend the grapefruit juice and invite you to stick around to go with us later to the local beer garden and metal arts village where there will be yoga with a DJ followed by live music, fire performers, stilts, acrobats on silk, and lots of hipsters. We will rock the full snow moon in our summer clothing. It is free and all in the hood. Stay and soak up Tucson before you go back home. For those of you who want to read, write, or post this week visit Diana here. See you next week at Nerd on the Brain. Cheers!
#WeekendCoffeeShare
#WeekendCoffeeShare Food Festival Fun
February 4, 2017
— 7 Comments
Savor
Savor
If we were having coffee today in Tucson I would invite you to sit back and enjoy a cup of your favorite beverage while you tell me about your week. I am drinking iced roiboos tea and relaxing after attending our favorite food party of the year. The Tucson Botanical Garden is the venue for this culinary fiesta each February. Chefs, restaurants, caterers, distillers, brewers, and food providers of every kind set up stations to offer tastings to the guests. We pay $65 per person, then roam around the gardens eating and drinking, tasting our way though the wonderful options. The quality is outstanding since the purpose is to show off and find new customers. It works well for everyone. We always find a new place or product to try that we might not otherwise have discovered. This time we found an excellent Mexican restaurant we have not tried, and much to my surprise, there is a distillery making very tasty gin downtown Tucson. Who knew? The event lasts for 4 hours, but I believe I would burst if I stayed for the whole time. We lasted for about 2 hours before we called the Uber.
I am interested in your latest news about your writing projects. Some of you have inspired me to try my hand at writing fiction. I wrote another piece this week based on a photo prompt, and once again it was dark and disturbing. I surprise myself with these eerie, haunted stories. I plan to continue if only as a form of self analysis. I am discovering a part of my brain that makes up dark stories. I hope I will be able to make it create some brighter, funnier stuff. My fiction muse is stuck on horror.
I have started to write and mail correspondence daily. The International Correspondence Writing Month, #InCoWriMo, challenge involves people from around the world who send each other mail. It is much more fun that I thought it would be. Some old friends are sending mailing addresses, and I have collected some from the website. My most ambitious pen pal choice is a professional calligraphy artist in Florence, Italy. My handwriting is not that great, but I own an amazing collection of cards and stationary from around the world to send. I am using colored markers, and may start to do little drawings or write poems to the people I have never met. I am enjoying the process and think it is a good way to prime the creativity pump.
If you want to prime your creativity pump, or read some interesting writing, visit Diana’s blog on the weekend. Read, comment, or submit your own post here.
#WeekendCoffeeShare
#WeekendCoffeeShare Fire Rooster Edition
January 29, 2017
— 5 Comments
Smokey Takes A Stand
Welcome to my home on this cold sunny morning in Arizona. Make yourself at home while I put the kettle on. I can serve you coffee, an assortment of teas, and a wonderful combination of grapefruit,orange,and tangerine juice that I am drinking. Citrus season is in full swing here, so we are enjoying our harvest as well as some of our friends’ fruit. I have found a recipe for red grapefruit salsa that sounds really tasty, so I plan to whip that up later today. Please take some citrus back home with you when you go, since we have a super abundance to share with you. Relax and tell me about your life and writing. Did your week turn out as planned?
The year of the Rooster is here to signal a new beginning. Fire rooster is feisty and proud by nature. We have all witnessed the political season and the wild start of the new administration and knew we had crossed some kind of Rubicon. Things have changed radically and quickly in ways nobody really anticipated when the election began. As Hill correctly observed we are more divided that we thought. Although the war with the intelligence agencies was unprecedented, it is nothing in comparison with the National Park Service movement to publish scientific facts. The forms of protest are reinvented and refined daily. The year of the cock is all about reinventing everything. We are seeing that happen, whether we like it or not. Change is here. I did support the women who marched, but I feel very passionate about supporting the scientific community freaking out on behalf of science. I am afraid of dark ages without facts. We can’t afford to wipe out any more knowledge for political expediency. I feel like we all just jumped off a very steep cliff without our flying suits. We need science more than ever.
I wrote another photo prompt piece this week. I went with a free verse. The picture was intriguing, as they always are. That is the point of using the prompt. Maybe this week I will write two pieces of fiction. It is a freeing experience to be able to just make up anything you want from your imagination. My muse will eventually get warmed up to this new way of expressing myself. In the meantime I am retweeting all the @altNationalPark accounts, and joining the army of comedy on twitter.
Baddass Park Employees
War with the Park Service
Thanks for stopping by today to share coffee and some angst. I wish you all a happy and prosperous year of the rooster. May the cock be with us. Join this coffee sharing party each weekend hosted by Diana. Please visit to read, comment, or share your own post with this diverse group of talented writers. Add your two cents here.
#WeekendCoffeeShare, Reaching Conclusions
January 15, 2017
— 4 Comments
#WeekendCoffeeShare
Welcome to a rainy cool afternoon in Tucson. Please take a seat by the wood stove and let me know if you want tea or coffee today. I have expanded my tea collection to fully enjoy and celebrate National Hot Tea Month (January) by rotating white, rioboos, green, oolong, herbal, and chai in various flavors to warm the winter mood. The chocolate chai is very stimulating for those in a spicy mood. Help yourself to some blue cornbread in the skillet, and spread one of the many jams and jellies I have set out for our tasting pleasure. Relax, take a breather with your feet up on the ottoman and your warm drink at hand. Tell me about your week and your adventures. I look forward to hearing about your news and your writing projects.
If we were having coffee today I would tell you I am pleased to have written another short piece of fiction this week. I used a photo prompt rather than one of my ancestors as the subject. I had a good time with it, and plan to continue to write at least one piece of fiction each week this year. I think eventually I might be good at either mystery stories or fantasy style fiction. To keep me going I started a bullet journal to log ideas and find new subjects for my factual posts. I enjoy this too, but have not been very prolific at posting in it. My first journal is general purpose and small enough to carry all the time. I think the size is not ideal for weekly and monthly goals and planning, so I have pulled out a new notebook to begin a larger version tomorrow to go with my portable idea notebook. The large format will help me track my writing goals and develop story lines for fictional work.
I guess our story this week is our birthday month. Both my partner and I have January birthdays. His is in Capricorn and mine at the end of the month in Aquarius. We are downsizing our possessions, so no gift giving is in order for either of us. We like to go out for fine dining when we have an occasion to fête. Bob chose Feast, one of our favorite restaurants, for his lunch party yesterday. It was perfect. I tried to coax him into trying a new place, but he is the Capricorn, and was not into change at this time (or any time, for that matter). He pointed out that I can choose a place new to us for my birthday dining experience. I have a couple of weeks to decide between a few trendy places I have wanted to try.
There is a small gremlin attacking various working parts of my life. The filtered water spout the kitchen sink broke off and needs to be replaced, as does the filter itself. My vacuum cleaner dumped all the dirt on the floor when I started to empty it. The latch is broken, so when I take the canister out I must now always hold the bottom so it will not leak all over the floor I just cleaned. My Triberr feed has lost its mind and forgot to tweet for a couple of days. This digital tragedy is now being averted by manual tweeting of my tribe members posts. I hope this will be resolved quickly because the manual stuff is taking a load of time. Last, but not at all least, my car started saying service engine soon on the dash when we drove to lunch yesterday. It may have an electronic glitch, or a real need to be serviced. Sadly, this is not something I can jerry rig or do myself. The car has not been to the mechanic since last February, so I just hope it is not suffering from some major (expensive) ailment. My mechanic is located very near my home, so I pack my bike and drive home when I drop it off for service. I have my pressing business and shopping done, so I can live without the car for a few days if I must. I consider myself lucky, but still have my fingers crossed that this will be a minor repair, and the little demon who breaks stuff will leave my life of his own accord.
I have reached several conclusions about our national politics and my mission in life. I can contribute to and support change and justice best by doing it in my immediate vicinity. The inauguration ceremony may offer the perfect time to go out to a restaurant to enjoy off peak dining. I don’t plan to watch it, but will probably live tweet it for the comedy involved. The future will be a mixed, highly unpredictable bag. My place as a citizen and tax payer is not to jump to any conclusions, but to pay close attention to what happens now. At the conclusion of Trump’s presidency we can analyze how history is altered. Now we can only guess. We need to tune in and not tune out. Discernment has never been so important.
Stop by Diana’s blog to take part in the coffee share this week. Share your thoughts, your personal stories, with writers from across the globe who enjoy a digital hot beverage. Thanks for visiting with us today, gentle reader.
blue cornbread
#WeekendCoffeeShare Transformation Time
January 7, 2017
— 3 Comments
#WeekendCoffeeShare
If we were having coffee this weekend I would tell you my life is healthy and happy with few exceptions. I had a quiet week experimenting with historical fiction and multi camera live streaming on Facebook. I produced nothing of great artistic import, but have challenged myself to develop these skills in order to do so. I wrote one very undeveloped story in which I mixed some outrageous truths about my paternal great-grandfather with some embellishment I created. It was short and kind of silly, but I feel happy to have started down this path. I published it. I have studied my genealogy for a long time, and have many factual stories on which to base my future efforts. I believe in time I will write longer and more involved stories, but also have been reading and studying flash fiction. This burning hot brief format insists on an outstanding title, a perfect last line, and usually the events presented out of chronological order. I want to work up to that too. I started a bullet journal and joined a Facebook group on the subject. This calendar system is a brilliant way for me to incorporate my new writing styles into my regular blogging. I have much to learn from the Bu-Jo peeps, as they call themselves. They are inspiring and highly educational, much like the food preppers.
If you are here in Tucson at my home today I will invite you to drink a hot cup of coffee or tea of your choice. I had a big fire in the stove last night so the house is staying warm this morning. We have not had our first real freeze, so the flowers are still in bloom. Help yourself to fresh grapefruit juice from the giant crop I am harvesting in the garden this year. I am serving a large fruit salad with berries and watermelon. Enjoy our sunny day and some fresh fruit flavors while you tell me how your week has been. I so appreciate sharing this time will all of you on the weekends. In fact, many of my new efforts as a writer have been inspired by all of you. I love to learn about your writing studios, the writing challenges you accept, and the way you make it work with daily life. I admire the fiction writers and poets who tell stories from imagination. I also love to see the photography from your own environments. I get to travel without leaving my office. I look forward to your visits. You have encouraged and inspired me to transform and expand my writing skills. It reminds me of being in beginners’ ski school, where you see that everyone falls down, but with practice they get better. You fiction writers are like the intermediate skiers who make me want to be that good someday. Starting is key.
If you want to share some digital coffee and some relaxation with a group of writers go to Diana’s weekend party link. She holds this regular gathering of inspiring individuals from her home in New Orleans. Please join us to read, write, or comment on your week. Thank you all for stopping by today.
poet
#WeekendCoffeeShare No Regrets
December 31, 2016
— 4 Comments
fairy duster
Welcome to my home this 31 December, 2016. May I offer you some coffee, tea, or a cocktail? We have a lavish buffet of fruits and nuts to tickle your taste buds while you tickle my imagination. Do tell what your Christmas, or last week, was like for you. If you are visiting Tucson from a cold climate you will enjoy seeing all the flowers still blooming in my yard, and the grapefruit tree loaded with fruit. We had a good rain storm last night so the air is clear and fresh. Stay for a while before you have to go back to winter.
Our holiday decorations have been taken down and stored in the barn. I keep it simple, so striking the set takes little effort and time. The days are quickly lengthening again, and the narcissus is blooming in my garden. In a way we have a two-phase spring, and not much of a winter here. It is almost always sunny, a blessing and a curse. I went to my dermatologist for a light treatment for all my sun damage. This painless procedure requires 3 days in darkness to recover. I fully indulged in my 3 dark days, which fell between 18 and 21 Dec, the darkest days of the year. I hibernated, emerged for a party weekend, then went back in my hobbit hole at home this week. I have been at the gym or at home all week, and it has been divine. I have been reading a lot of new books and generally soaking in the season. I may have also watched a little too much TV, since we have a few free trial channels going now.
For 2017 I look forward to by every day life, which I find to be very pleasurable. I make no resolutions, and so far have not chosen three words for next year, as I have done for a while. I may choose three before the end of the day, but my basic philosophy is to be as helpful to others as I can with the talents I have. In order to be of service I need to accurately assess by own self efficacy, then improve on it. I am going to try writing fiction in 2017. I see a lot of flash fiction that fascinates me, and I have not given fiction much focus. I think if I use a journal to stimulate fictional stories I can get that engine started. I will do NaPoWriMo in April, writing a poem a day for 30 days. This gets easier each year, but I wonder when I will turn into a poet.
I appreciate the coffee sharing community and the diverse cultures and views we represent. May we all party on in good health in 2017 and release all our petty regrets from the past. To join this weekly party check in with Diana. Comment, read, or add your own two cents. Thanks for being such good company, my coffee sharing friends. May the force be with us. I wish you all health and happiness.
pyracantha
red chiles
Weekend Coffee Share, Embracing Darkness
December 10, 2016
— 7 Comments
#WeekendCoffeeShare
Welcome to the coffee party. I am glad you have the time to drop in for a cup of coffee, tea, or good cheer. If we were having coffee today I would invite you to stay for a while to tell me what is up in your life. We have a very festive table set for your visit today. I just whipped up some cranberry rhubarb sauce, and am sipping on my new favorite tea, roiboos lemon cloud. In the back yard I am grilling up eggplants and a very large batch of green chiles I picked up at the produce bonanza this morning. The selection this week ( We get 60 pounds of produce for $10) was small, but the quality very high. Nothing says Christmas in Tucson like perfect green chile, so I filled the box to the brim. We brought home watermelons, green peppers and eggplant too. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to use/ and or give away all the fresh vegetables before they rot. There will be sour cream enchiladas, chiles rellenos, and some chilaquiles later today. Stick around if you like Mexican food. I made great tomatillo/jalapeño salsa last week that is outstanding. We like it spicy around here.
If you are not fond of Mexican food we have great leftovers from an impromptu party we threw this week. I made an English Christmas Pudding, which created discussion, which in turn lead to a weeknight party with great old friends. One of our guests lives close enough to walk over, and has vast experience with pudding like this. His family has a traditional holiday pudding called a puzzle pudding, which they inherited from their ancestors in Wales. I made one with apples and rum raisins, and served it with great quantities of whipped cream. We partied on homemade spinach artichoke dip, crudités, olives, and cheese fondue while sipping hot spiced cider. It was perfect for our low key style. We had a great time catching up with our friends, and the effort was minimal.
As we head into the darkest days of the year I am going extra dark next week. I have an appointment to receive a light treatment at my dermatologist’s office that is kind of tedious. It requires that I stay at the office for about 2 hours, which is not so severe. After the treatment I must avoid light of all kinds for about 3 days to ensure proper healing. It is even contraindicated to sit by a window inside the house. I have rolling shutters downstairs, so I can effectively create a black out inside. While the rest of the world rolls by I will spend three days 18-21 December in total darkness binging on television and hopefully doing some writing and art. I may do some cooking, but am feeling kind of finished with holiday meal preparation. I am accentuating the winter solstice for full effect. I have candles, essential oils, and fancy red robe to dress up like Mrs. Santa Claus. I will be going into deep cover. I hope to emerge refreshed and ready for a brand new year. I wish you all a happy Saturnalia.
I appreciate the chance to share coffee and more with this group of talented writers. Stop by Diana’s blog to read, comment, or post your own coffee stories. The group is welcoming and intelligent. We welcome your point of view.
Green Chiles
#WeekendCoffeeShare Set For The Season
December 4, 2016
— 10 Comments
high notes
front yard decorated
candles
front yard decorated
If we were having coffee this morning I would serve you any hot or iced tea you might like or a cup of medium roast coffee. For those of you arriving at cocktail hour from other continents I have some cranberry vodka for cocktails. It is pretty and tasty at the same time. Have a seat, put up your feet on the fireside ottoman and tell me what is happening with you. I have the room seriously scented with lavender and citrus essential oils. The wood stove is a perfect diffuser. I need to replenish the moisture it sucks out of the air, so I position two containers of water on top to continually evaporate. It is a little bit shocking to see how much goes into the air. I dump substantial amounts of essential oils in those vessels, which become my giant air fresheners all winter.
Citrus is the scent of the season for me. I have purchased a full set of citrus essential oils for December which are going quickly because I love using them liberally. Now I am rocking sweet orange and mandarin, mixed with a lot of lavender. These are all high notes in aromatherapy, or uppers if you will. The idea is to extend comfort and joy in the atmosphere. I have my ceramic gingerbread diffuser rocking the scent with a scented candle as the heat. This is the only time of year when I burn wax candles in my house because it does pollute the air inside that we breathe. I am not worried about the amount of pollution a few tiny tea lights will emit. I also have my digital candles with remote control LED lights that change color. They make me very happy. My decorating theme is not exactly geared to a modern religious holiday but to the winter solstice, and a celebration of light that seemed to happen universally in ancient times around the darkest night of the year. I am fully ready of Old Man Winter. We are stocked with wood for the fire and I have mounted all manner of solar twinkle lights in the front and back yard. We are warm and, if I do say so myself, lit.
If we were having coffee and American politics came up I would tell you that yesterday I attended a meeting to organize a satellite protest march to show support for the Million Women March on Washington, 21 Jan. Many American women are traveling to DC to march on the mall to protest the inauguration of the Donald. I have much sympathy for this movement, but not enough to travel to DC. I decided to find out what the Tucson group looked like, and what they planned to do. I live streamed the event to my FaceBook page. The meeting was at once very uplifting and disconcerting. The median age of the women in attendance was around 55 or 60, with very few under 40, and I saw nobody under 30. They debated the language of protest and how to best express the outrage they felt. They talked about Gandhi and Martin Luther King, which was predictable. There were 3 men over 60 in the crowd. One with his wife, one with Occupy Tucson, to convince the group to join their march, and one who had very good sense who came out of nowhere. He suggested the group use positive rather than negative language. A lot of women wanted to show off and talk about their previous political involvement and how they knew Trump supporters who were poor and underserved who needed to be converted. When I asked them if they knew how hashtags work I was told they planned to find high school girls who would instagram and hashtag the whole thing for them. These old ladies have missed the point. They can march until the world looks level and will have little sway on national politics. They need to learn how to lobby, how to hashtag, how to trend, and how to relate to the youth. The times they have been are a changin’ and they need to acknowledge that the problem here is not HOW Americans voted, but that half of Americans did not vote at all. I am in favor of their march and movement, but the medium is the message. The most efficient and effective mediums must be exploited along with the labor intensive.
If you were relaxing by the fire today I would now end my observations of politics and society in general and find out what you have been doing. I have a killer nutloaf of spinach and almond with a nice parsley sauce. Let me heat up a slice and serve it to you while you enjoy the fire. I have almost used up all the nuts from last year, but am still pitching the nuts to guests because they are so healthy and tasty. Thanks for stopping in today. You are welcome to take a nap by the stove after your snack, especially if you have a long trip home. Alexa is loaded with Amazon unlimited music, so please ask her to play your favorite music. Just say her name and tell her what you want.
Ending the year with this sophisticated group of digital coffee drinkers is a pleasure. I appreciate knowing you, sharing with you, and learning about your writing journeys. Thanks to Diana for keeping the party going from New Orleans even week. Drop in and comment, post, or just enjoy the coffee. Cheers!
Christmas cactus
Season’s decorations
scent diffuser
Weekend Coffee Share – Forging Ahead
November 19, 2016
— 5 Comments
Forge
If we were having coffee I would offer you some tasty new teas I just ordered, including a tangy cranberry flavored black tea that I am drinking. We have coffee, of course, and some cornbread to eat by the wood stove. The fire from last night is out, and today is warm, but I like to hang out next to my stove all winter. It radiates heat as well as coziness. I keep a big pot of water on top since it does zap what moisture we have out of the air. Today I am floating a large dose of lavender essential oil with a dash of frankincense to bring up the seasonal mood. My set of remote controlled LED candles arrives today from Amazon, which will complete my winter decorating. Next week I will let you play with them. I could not resist the sale on remote controlled candles. They just sound like fun.
It is my pleasure to host this diverse group, and my wish that you will all continue to visit. When the streets fill with the jolly sound of holiday traffic I stay home. It is not difficult for me, and I am not at all missing out in any reindeer games. I never go to malls, don’t like chain stores at all, and we don’t do any special gifting at holiday time. So when I am asked if I am ready for Christmas I can safely say yes because I do nothing to prepare. I like to have more lighting and scent in the home all winter, but there is no particular holiday theme. The theme is fire building, a sport I completely enjoy. I love the job of fire tender, and consider it to be one of my best skills. There is a trick to starting fires, which is allowing plenty of air to flow. I try to use as little kindling as possible to get the bigger stuff started. My partner does the wood splitting, but I like the game of doing more with less. It is a metaphor for life. We don’t need more fuel, we need more air to get started.
I consider this talented group of writers meeting for coffee to be friends, or at least allies. Forging alliances takes time and alchemy. We have a new year and new challenges. This is a time to strengthen our alliances and forge new ones. We use this phrase to mean find commonality through trial by fire. Forging requires intense heat and strong force. Once bonded the metals are inseparable, much stronger than a weld. Hephaestus, blacksmith to the gods, was the creator of both Pandora and her famous box. At the bottom of the box when all all else had escaped into the atmosphere, hope remained.
Hephaestus
Thanks to all of you who forge friendships by finding time to share coffee each weekend. I am mighty glad you came to hang out today. My week has been smooth and easy. My hope is to continue that pace and level of difficulty (very mellow) into 2017. Please visit the digital party here to comment to add your post.
mermaidcamp 