Tag: Seasons

The Pinch of Winter

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

Good morning everyone.
My journal entry for today will to be “Cold, Cold, and Dry.”

The moon’s almost full but sadly gives us no warmth. The thermometer reads -27 C at 5:30 am. I woke up early from a silly dream, so decided to get up and feed the cats, finish addressing Christmas cards, and now check out internet world.

The first thing I discovered is that we have no water. Not a drop from our taps. We get our water from a local well, so did the pump freeze up? Is it afflicted with some mechanical failure? I doubt the water line has frozen overnight; that hasn’t happened yet and it’s been colder than this.

Have you ever been without water for some reason? One of the first things I notice is that I get really thirsty. I suddenly want to drink lots. Good thing we always keep a Brita-filtered pitcher of water in the fridge so I can accommodate my thirst. And a Keurig machine to supply my coffee — or hot chicken broth — needs.

It doesn’t help that I have a cold and sore throat. Brought on by my own carelessness, I’m afraid. I’ve had a jigsaw puzzle around for awhile; it’s been at my workplace for a long time and I wanted to do it here at home before passing it on. The picture on the box is really nice, a restaurant-front in some Latin land, with attractive big blue doors and a flowering vine draping over. But the puzzle, when I started it Sunday afternoon, proved to be really difficult. By bedtime we barely had the frame and part of the doors together.

I didn’t smell anything while working on it, but yesterday morning I woke up with sinus trouble and a sore throat, my usual reaction to something that carries a bit of mustiness. Slowly I’m learning that I have to be really careful and air out books, papers, fabrics, anything that could be musty. Fresh air is good for almost everything.

I set it outside awhile yesterday morning and worked on it a bit longer, but it was giving me no pleasure so I tossed it. If I were getting paid by the hour, that would be another matter, but life is too short to spend hours on a pastime project I’m not really enjoying.

So I’d best get prepared to face the day now. Unless the pump problem is fixed pronto, we’ll have to fetch water from somewhere — maybe intrude on our children’s routine.

a pale cold moon
over the frigid prairie
chicken soup morning

Sunday Scene

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

Good morning everyone! It’s 7am in my part of the world. Early, but very dark. And very white with all our snow.

I woke up just after 5 am and decided to get up and check to see if the writing prompt I’d scheduled over at Ragtag Daily Prompt had come through at the correct hour — and it had.

Then I fed my cats and let them out, but it’s quite frigid. Saskatoon registered -9 C a few minutes ago, with a wind at 20 klicks (km/hour) making it seriously chilly outdoors for indoor cats. Having my coffee now while visiting a few blogs, and decided to do a quick hello to you all.

Joe over at The Write Practice is offering a special deal for writers who want to join their group. More details here, if you’re interested. It really is a good deal, a writers-help-each-other plan; you can post one short story or chapter every week and get feedback from other writers. You must, in turn, critique at least three other writers’ pieces. I’ve been turning over in my mind whether I want to—or should—spend the bucks to join this group. (One-year member-ship paid up front.)

Trouble is, I’m so wishy-washy, inclined to get all enthused but not stay on the train. And I still have my ATCUSS sewing projects to finish. On the other hand, making this commitment to submit a chapter or story every week might actually get my book(s) edited. Quite a juicy carrot. (Or is that an archaic cliche already?)

The Critique Circle that I joined last year is the same sort of deal, only free — which means that the membership is constantly growing, almost 3000 active members now, lots of stories from new writers wanting a critique. If I recall rightly, you can only submit once every two weeks, each submission costs X number of points, which you earn by doing critiques.

Life is full of opportunities, decisions, dithers. 😉

And now it’s time to get ready for church. I will have a LONG nap this afternoon. 🙂

Fresh White World

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 3 Comments

“White, White, My World is White…”

Fandango’s one-word challenge: BECAUSE

Our world looks so different this morning because we’ve had a night of pure, fluffy snow.

Ragtag Daily Prompt : WINTER

After a week of spring-like weather, with temperatures descending for the last couple of days, Winter has returned to our land in all its glory. If it were sunny today, we could almost go snow-blind; instead, the sky is almost as white as the blanket of snow.

Your Daily Word prompt: OPTIMUM

Snowfalls like this afford our son-in-law some optimum earning opportunities. He has some contracts for clearing snow, so I imagine he’ll have risen early this morning and gotten his snow-removal equipment on the road.

Word of the Day prompt: RADICAL

When I got up this morning, instead of having my first cup of coffee and keeping warm inside, I responded radically: I threw on my housecoat and went out to sweep off the decks and stairs. You see, we have two cats that are eager to go outside and look around first thing every morning and they need a snow-free place to sit. Guess you could call me a super-indulgent pet owner.

Speaking of radical, have you noticed the drastic change in my blog header and background? The world was white before I signed off last night, plus US Thanksgiving is officially over, so I changed — seasonalized, if that’s a word — the appearance of my blog. What do you think of my new look?

And when I saw the various prompt words this morning, I decided that they’d all fit in a prompt about our weather, except…

Your Daily Word Prompt: WREN

There are NO wrens anywhere in this land. Every wren with a brain in his tiny little skull will be passing the next five months in some sunny clime, along with almost every other small nesting bird that spends summer here. We’re stuck with the dull English sparrows and the magpies, whose bold black & white doesn’t do much to cheer up our landscape. Maybe several blue jays will come back again this winter?

Blue Jay.cropped.jpg
Pixabay

Now I shall take optimum advantage of this winter morning by addressing some Christmas cards because that season is almost upon us. This will be a radical departure from my usual Dec 20th mailing. 🙂

I hope you’re all enjoying your day, whatever your weather.

Lovers Love Leaves

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

Zephyrs

zephyrs rustle
the fallen leaves
around our feet–
your laughter
my stale jokes
two lovers loving
autumn leaves
Flourish.Gordon Johnson

If you enjoy my poems you may be interested in my anthology of stories and poems. The e-book sells on Amazon for $3.99 US, the paperback for $10.99. This collection would make a great home-and-family type Christmas gift, especially for a nature lover.

cover page

I’ve  just checked the status of this book on Amazon’s KINDLE SELECT and I appear to have missed the cancellation date. Consequently SILVER MORNING SONG will be free to read, for subscribers of Kindle Select, until Feb 8th, 2020.

PS: The little flourish under my poem was done by Gordon Johnson and is one of the free images at Pixabay.

Light Laughter

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 13 Comments

I regret that I missed doing Crimson’s challenge last week. I even had a good little tale…but may get to use it some other time. And my response this week will be a light verse, as I’m still deep in my ATCUSS project. (A Total Clean-Up of my Sewing Space.)

I’m keeping tract of everything I do so when the end of the month comes I’ll have a record to show for my efforts. So far I’m pleased with what I’ve accomplished. I’ve cleaned up drawers, pieced two blanket tops for our Sewing Circle (which is cheating, as it’s not exactly MY sewing but they’ll be happy), did minor mends on 3 garments, and turned four fraying collars on hubby’s shirts. (Does anyone else do that any more?) Then he decided to catch the flow and bought two more pairs of pants I needed to hem, and now a suit, of which the pants need some adjusting. Today’s project.

It’s been really cold here this week: -20 C this morning and we have a light dusting of snow. Two evenings ago I had a treat: looking out the west window I saw the great horned owl perched in a tree just back of our garage. All puffed up — one HUGE bird! When I see him around I make sure both our cats are inside. I’ve heard rumors…

Now back to the prompts. The Word-of-the-Day prompt this morning is LIGHT, and Crimson’s Challenge #52 is the following photo:
https://crimsonprose.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/flixton.jpg

My response:

zephyrs rustle
the fallen leaves — your light laughter
my stale jokes