I have nothing to say.

I remembered, it is Santa in Twas the Night Before Chrismas

Senility is a terrible thing.

I printed out the help stuff on the group blog. Thankyou so much! No more stuff will get done tonight. My brain is fried...the body gave out decades ago. I did buy tennis shoes though so at least I am thinking about changing the error of my ways. I am thinking and thinking and thinking and...

It is to darn cold in this office to work on the computer. I have the heater going but the only thing warm is my feet. My backside is freezing being less then a foot from an inefficient window. I should count my blessings I am not in Russia. I saw on the news within the last couple of weeks that in Moscow the state run infrastructure (heating plants) are in such poor condition that people have no heat or very little heat in their homes. In my home on the Bigfork we heat with a big woodboiler and my husband cuts our firewood from our property. We have a soapstone woodstove inside the house though for the times when we loose our power. It is a beautiful looking little stove, with a glass window so you get the same feeling as a fireplace. It takes small pieces of firewood so I can handle loading it if O isn't around. It will burn and then radiate the heat for up to twelve hours and can heat our large space enough to keep us comfortable as well as safe except the crawl space isn't heated by it so slippers and long pants are required. I am pretty sure we couldn't have stayed in the house the first winter if we hadn't had that wood stove. My fingers wont work anymore, so goodnight to all and to all a goodnight. (can't remember who says that)

Well that is interesting. I noticed the lack of scroll type bar for this blog. I will have to figure out how to fix this for certain. This (upside down?) piece of work was just a writing exercise I had done a while back ago. Two minutes to write of " a place or a time we know well" I was reading Juanita's blog and about her children. Of course it made me think of my own. I am slowly loosing my daughter to life at the same time I am loosing my mother to death.
Each of them have been the anchors, the two poles upon which my reality has been defined. I do not want to let either of them go. I search their faces when they aren't aware of my scrutiny (I hope) wondering if I will be strong enough when the time comes to let them have their "freedom winged."

all the barriers of my heart?
Outside the birds sing
In their glorious freedom
winged.
I turn the pages of my
forgotten book
and grieve silently
for the not far off
goodbye.

as she is want to do.
My breath pauses
as hers do
synchronized, unconsciously
our heartbeats,
are they too?
How did this child
formed beneath my breast
break through

I watched my daughter frown,
the corner of her lip curled up in concentration
as her slender fingers
raced across the keyboards face.
Shoulders hunched
a knot
just forming
and slender childish ankle,
flexing, twisting

The country gets wilder the further north you go and the woods close in on you. It is simply home. One day this winter if I can get a day that it is warmer I will take my camera out for some winter photo shoots. I don't do it very often because of limited time but also because my eyes water so bad in the cold it makes it diffcult to do out door winter shots.

So many ideas, so little time.

Drove back this am very early and bitter cold. My husband and daughter very cranky because of arguing what constitutes cold weather emergency supplies for in the car. God forbid a teen would consent to err on the side of caution or at the least just keep her mouth closed and go through the parental ritual. It is his way of thinking he has a little bit of control over events and hers of asserting her independence. I just have a headache. And wouldn't you know, my car is the one that is running odd as I pulled in the driveway, very low on oil which is not good.

I hope my car is not going bad. I have another year and a half of commuting two hours each way in some very isolated country. It is hard commuting like that though I only have to on weekends since I stay here during the week. I love that drive home though. I turn up the music very loud and play what ever suits my mood.

It is very cold today. The smoke coming out of the top of the woodboiler is condensed down almost onto it's roof. Usually you can't see it that well and there is just a hint of a smell of woodsmoke in the air. When O goes out to stoke the stove tonight though he will have a hard time if the wind doesn't shift. That is one of my favorite smells. The smell that clings to him in the winter when he has been working outside, woodsmoke, pine, wool and soap. It is a northern smell.

Went to buy a water heater element today at one of the big outfits. No luck. So went out of my way (ON a Sunday) no less to a little old fashioned hardware store in a near by community. It was open, they had what we needed and as usual the owner was pleasant and courteous. I love the small time old time ways most of the time. You know the kind of place where every body really does know your name. For some people living in such a rural area would be quite distressing. I find it comforting. Not because I can't cope with the "real world" but because I have seen it, and don't want it.

Today I will make chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and a big pot of chicken vegetable soup with hard egg drop dumplings. When I work in my kichen I am soothed by memories of my mother doing the same thing, and my grandmother also. The butcher block table is worn down completely on one side, eighty years of chopping have taken place on this table. I wonder how many times troubles have been mulled over, decisions made and comfort found in the simple act of chopping one more onion or half a dozen more carrots. My family thinks I like to cook and to a certain extent that is true. Mostly though, I like to cook because everyone will leave you alone with your thoughts if they think you are working on something. Habits left over from growing up with to many people in to small of an area.