Fall Weather?

Fall in wine country. Overnight low: 54, daytime high: 110; that's quite a swing in 24 hours. I usually get my walk in before 9 am if I can manage it. Spent the rest of the day indoors sewing and sorting fabric. Oh, and hung a load of tee shirts on the laundry line, they were dry in 20 minutes. The video store does a good business too, almost as good as when it's raining hard. :)

Fogerty has a good take on dayz like these, love the chorus and the slow groove of this tune.
Stay cool.

Pre-dawn Walk

Lately when I step out the door to walk in the morning, the stars are still out. There's something really special about that time of day, before the sun is up and the rest of the world gets moving. I walk the private lane across the street from my house and try to slip passed the dogs that usually bark loudly. Good, they were still asleep.

On the way back I'm warmed up and start my arm, shoulder and neck exercises, trying to get all systems online for the day. I was absorbed in that when I saw this fly overhead.

credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seabamirum/3160392778/in/set-72157608295844866/

I stopped in my tracked, breathless. He was so beautiful. When he was almost out of sight he turned and came back, circled just above me; once, twice, three times. I felt like I was praying; it was that magical. I felt visited.

The Eight to Five

I was sorta keeping track of how long it's been since the accident, but as time moves on and recovery continues, I decided to let that go. Getting back to 'normal' isn't on my schedule so it doesn't do any good to say, "Well, it's been six weeks..." or whatever.

I'm working my usual eight hour day, but some days are like taking a long walk through jell-o, slogging through.

Picture from the internet

I work in County Education. The tasks are many and often complex. Most of my co-workers are understanding, but the work still needs to get done. I make mistakes, I forget things, I put down important papers, only to find them much later in the wrong place. I go home worn out and fuzzy-headed, more than the usual end-of-the-day fatigue.

But I encourage myself. I'm doing more than I did last week and more than the week before, so I must be getting better. I still get terrific relief from symptoms when I see the physiotherapist or the Chiropractor. I'm just hoping for clearer thinking for more than a few hours at a time.

It'll come. I can't be this way forever.

Under the Redwoods

My husband and I drove to a nearby redwood grove yesterday, part of a State Park.

There's a short hike to the grove and it's wonderful to listen to the quiet. Bird song is subtle and human voices sound distant and hushed.

They are so stately and majestic.

I was glad we came.

Needle Case

My supervisor brought this into work recently; it looks like a promotional item from the Fort Bragg Drug store. Click any image to enlarge.

1904 ... The card inventories the 12 needles included.

And Baum's Celery, Beef, Iron and Wine is toted as being good for Nerves, Blood, Brain and Muscles. I think that just about covers it.

My husband's grandfather used to talk about driving a mule train for pennies a day at the turn of the last century.

And that works out to dollars a *week*. It seems to me that a dollar a bottle was asking a small forture. I wondered what the equivalent would be, so using the calculator at Measureworth I found out it's equal to $110.00 of an unskilled laborer's wages. That's a lot of sweat from one's brow for a bottle of snake oil!

Knitting

Following the accident I didn't have much head for sewing, reading, music or videos. But I could sit and knit, so I worked on my tank. It was very comforting to have something I could do despite the mental fog. I guess the hands just know what to do. :D

I completed the front and got six inches up the back before my thumb locked up. Have you ever had that happen? It doesn't hurt, it just gets *stuck* when I try to bend the first knuckle. Haven't knitted in three weeks and I think it's getting better. I sure hope so.

A Few Weeks Back

Thank you for writing and asking how I'm doing. I'm continuing to improve each day. Morning's are the worst with dizziness, foggy thinking and fatigue. But I have a physical therapy routine I do for my neck and the symptoms usually lessen as the day goes on. I'm so ready to be well again. I want to sew and stitch and knit. I want *life* again. :D

Back around the second week of August, Frank told me meteor showers were expected during the next two nights. We waited for it to get dark, about 9:15 and then took quilts and lawn chairs and sat out under the stars in the backyard. We didn't have to wait long for the show to start.

It was amazing. They weren't like 'falling stars', they were more like jets of light down or across the sky, some lasting for several seconds; sometimes long enough for one of us to point it out to the other. We must've seen 12 in half an hour.

We sat and talked for about an hour, enjoying the light show. It was *awesome* in the Biblical sense of the word. We talked about stars and gravity and space. We talked about the speed of light and other remote ideas. It's hard to grasp some things that after awhile we've come to take for granted. We got a little chilled and decide to go in, but it had been a magical night.