Thought for the Week: Sleep is a Good Thing

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast.

~William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Like many women, I have demands upon my time...demands that often pull me in many directions, demands that often chip away at recreation, demands that leave me feeling...sometimes...very. very tired and burned out. It seems that I may be very good about setting some boundaries...but not boundaries that protect my own time to recreate, to refresh, to renew. Who do I think I am...Superwoman? As my sweeties likes to remind me when I pull yet another overnighter working on a publishing deadline, "honey, you're not 20...your not a spring chicken...now get some sleep!"

Ahhh...sleeep! Sleep is something I tend to chronically deprive myself of...not like new-mother-baby-awake-every-two-hours sort of deprive...more like, "Just one more chapter," or "Sure, I'll stay an extra few hours at the office," or "Hmmm, we're out of bread dough - why don't I start a batch now...at 11pm....after all, morning doesn't come that early!"

I know all the reasons why proper sleep is important - and I know that when I get it, I feel so much better and my skin looks amazing So why oh why am I once again working off a sleep deficit? This week, my focus is on healthier sleep habits...starting tonight...and that means starting with unplugging my time-bandit laptop!

Good night all!

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late. ~Charles Caleb Colton

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. ~Irish Proverb

Midwinter Reverie

This winter is passing slowly...chill winds, softly drifting snow, grey-white skies...kettles of soup, pots of tea, warm scones...this winter is passing slowly, in its own time.

So often in the past few years, the winter weather has simply been an inconvenience...snow and ice just a reason to grumble and don boots and heavier layers as I rushed to the office, with train delays and miserable slushy subway platforms adding to the bleakness. I recall uncomfortable nights curled on an office sofa, knees bent, shivering under my coat - sleeping at the office so the snows wouldn't interfere with my work.

This winter has been so very different! I am working mostly from home, and when I am not at home I am in my local library or cafe...and my attitude towards the weather is no longer combative. I no longer grumble and worry about being stuck with soggy toes for 10 hours. I no longer check weather reports and determine if I can make it home and back. 

Now, I relish...

I delight in following puffs of soft snow with my eyes as they lazily drift down from white skies...

I shiver and wrap up in soft, warm shawls and sip steaming hot tea and anticipate walking in the woods to admire dark trees lined in silvery frost...

I listen to the muffled silence, the soft crunch of footsteps, the whispering wind...

I admire the ever so soft shadings of shell pink and pearl grey in the overcast skies...

I stand transfixed as strobes of white streak across the night skies, tossed in the winds, and flicker in our house light...

This winter is passing slowly...it is now only early February, and we have had numerous snowfalls and below-freezing evenings...and numerous cracking fires and pots of tea. I say time is passing slowly, but I think it is really that I have simply slowed down to enjoy its pace, to live within an older, bigger rhythm.  

Awaiting the New Year

Our Christmas decorations are still up (til 12th Night)...we are still munching on fruitcake and other holiday goodies... I've made turkey pies with leftovers...and tonight, we are celebrate the turning of the years.

When I was younger, New Year's Eve was a "party night" - and often one I worked! The excitement, the crowds, the champagne, the cold...

Nowadays, New Year's Eve is generally a quiet night - and evening of snuggling with sweetie before the fire, sharing fond remembrances of the passing year, sharing hopes and plans for the new year, while nibbling fancy snacks.

2013 brought a lot of changes for our home...and we are very, very fortunate that most were good. We've had ups (I ghost-wrote a really fun Vikings bookazine! Trips to Disney and Boston! Grandbaby was born! Grand-niece was born!) and downs (I was laid-off 2 days before Christmas...ugh).

2014 brings promise...the promise of new and exciting writing opportunities, the promise of fun times with the grandbaby, the promise of time for deepening my friendships (which I allowed to "simmer on the back burner" for too long as work-clutter got in the way), the promise of new projects heading our way!

May the New Year bring blessings to each and every one of us!

Reflecting on a decade passed

This New Year's Eve marks the ending of the "Millennial" decade. On an international level, it is the decade of 9/11 and the many consequences we feel to this very day (2 wars, Patriot Act, Gitmo, upticks in police brutality incidents, the slow corruption of civil liberties which continues unabated under Obama, etc).
On a more personal level, it is a decade of great sorrow and great joy.

(Our last photo of all four of us "kids". Dad's 60th birthday, May 2001)
My brother Tommy and his wife had their daughter, Sara, 10 years ago tonight - almost a millennium baby.

Fast-forward eighteen months and little Alyson was born. Twelve days later, and Tommy was taken from us in an act so horrific that we as a nation can only refer to it as 9/11, because to truly focus on each individual person and their individual deaths would be too much to bear.

But time goes on, and heals our broken hearts. Sometimes in fits and starts, sometimes in a slow and steady stream.
My brother, Paul, married his lovely Leah and they went on to bring Madison and Kaylyn into the world. New joys to savor, new loves to share.

My brother Jim sadly divorced, and his sweet daughter Audie moved away to Florida - but she comes "up North" a lot to visit with us and my other wee nieces, who adore her.

My grandmother, Ada, passed away just shy of her 94th birthday. We said a sad goodbye, but at the same time we rejoiced in the life she led - she spent her last years in her own home surrounded by four generations of loving family - a blessing indeed!

My dear sister in law married a lovely man, and we welcomed him into the fold as our new brother.
My son, Matthew, graduated high school, turned 18 and then 21 in this decade - milestones along his path, as I watch him grow into a handsome and interesting young man.

My nephews, Paul and Robert, were accepted into Harvard and started attending this past September - a wonderful recognition of their talents.


But then a very dear friend lost all of her children in a tragic accident to heartbreaking to comprehend. I still weep to think of that day...

(We will always remember Emma, Alyson and Katie)
And then finally long-awaited reunion with Lorna, lovely young woman dear to my heart.

This decade is a tapestry of many shades. Births and deaths. Weddings and divorces. Reunions. The all lend their color. My "millennial" decade has been about FAMILY, and rediscovering over and again why family is so important.
What has this decade meant to you

10 Little Things to Love about Christmas Preparations

1 - Baking cookies, and having that wonderful aroma wafting thru the house

2 - Deciding which candy recipes to make (and which to save for another time) and then being immersed in rich chocolate, peppermint, spicy cinnamon, tangy orange, and other yummy flavors and scents!

3 - The tree! The smell of fresh pine, the thrill of propping the tree into the stand (will it or won't it fall?), and stringing fairy lights

4 - Sorting through boxes of ornaments - mine and my grandmother's - to pick exactly the right ones for THIS tree!

5 - Sorting through the memories the ornaments carry with them: Christmases past, births, deaths, marriages, baby's 1st Christmas, kindergarten crafts, and more!

6 - Carefully unpacking my Santa Village, laying out the "snow" and arranging the shops and houses

7 - Carols and other Christmas music - a continual soundtrack to my days and nights

8 - Crafting wee gifts for family members - sachets and potpourris and more!

9 - Advent, and the peace that this daily meditation brings

10 - The ever-traditional photo with Santa!!

10 Little Things to Love about a Snowstorm

1 - Hot muffins from the oven first thing in the morning

2 - Steaming mugs of cocoa and tea

3 - Snow men, snow women, snow families!

4 - Having a really good reason to wear those comfy (but perhaps not as fashionable) boots

5 - Mittens!

6 - Tossing out seed and berries to uber-appreciative birds and squirrels

7 - The wonderful blanketed silence of late night snowfall

8 - Savoury stews and soups after a morning of sweeping, shoveling and playing with the snow

9 - Having a great excuse to lie-in under the blankets and read a good book

10 - Watching the children play!!

10 Little Things to Love about Autumn

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. - Camus

I adore the changes of the season, and I find much to celebrate about what each brings to me. And now that October has settled in I welcome autumn with a little list of favorites:

1 - A crackling fire in the fireplace

2 - Warm and fluffy down comforters paired with flannel sheets

3 - The swirling red-gold carpet of leaves crunching underfoot

4 - Warm apple pie, candy apples, apple butter

5 - Candles of all shapes and sizes casting a soft, glowing light

6 - Scents of cinnamon and cloves and oranges

7 - The annual return of plaids, cashmere and shetland sweaters, suede

8 - Gathering pine cones and kindling into fireside baskets

9 - The amusing antics of the squirrels as they gather and hide their treasures

10- Pumpkins and haystacks and cheery chrysanthemums

There is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been! - Percy Shelley

What are your favorites things?

Unadulterated

This is the unadulterated Kathy: early in the morning, before any makeup or primping, before my first cup of tea has is done (but after my contact lenses are in!), and before the last remnants of sleepiness are banished.

This is the me that my family and bestest friends know and love. The me that isn't cool or professional in any way. The me that sings around the house and digs in the garden with toddlers. The me that cries over Hallmark commercials.

This is the me I love and they love, and yet it is also the me I am least likely to share. Why? Well, in all honesty I have to say that vanity is one reason. Going out into the world barefaced and fully open-hearted opens one up to a possible rejection of the cruelest kind - that of one's truest self. Makeup and clothes and primping and "attitude" - and the rest - are a sort of armor in that respect. And why not look one's best, after all...

So why post unadulterated Kathy? As a lesson to myself, to remind myself that even tho I work in a field that is obsessed with physical perfection, the people who love me do so because of who I truly am, and not because I can rock a great pair of sunglasses! They don't despise my "physical imperfections" because they see beyond the lines and stray grey hairs.

So even tho my son will still roll his eyes when I sing U2 songs at the top of my lungs whilst dancing about and cleaning his room, apparently he also wouldn't have me any other way :)

My cozy reading corner

As a bookworm extraordinaire, I have many "favorite" reading spots - they shift with the weather and the reading material. Right now, this is my favorite - in our living room, which has lots of shaded windows and so catches even the slightest breeze.

This room was the reason we took this apartment - it has the feeling of being inside a treehouse - a treehouse with a fireplace, that is! When we took this on, it required a great deal of work: the windows had not been cleaned in at least 20 years and had soot buildup (the landlord thought they were smoked glass!!), the prior tenant had not kept the fire doors cleaned or had the walls painted, and there were old paint drips and some scratches on the wide pine plank floors!

But now, after scrubbing and painting the walls a pale and soft buttery yellow, scrubbing 96 panes of glass (on 2 sides!!) and carefully painting all the trim a rich and creamy white, and finally gently scrubbing the floor and oiling it, we have a beautiful and (more importantly) comfortable living space. This is where we read, listen to music, watch television, and eat dinner by the fire. This is the room I snuggle in on sick days after I cannot bear another moment in bed.

Of course, when it is bitter cold outside, the toasty warm kitchen desk moves into prime position!

Mental health day

Today was my "mental health" day. I slept in, had a leisurely cup of tea whilst puttering, had a lovely walk in the rain, a long cozy browse in the library, and am now snuggled in bed with a good book.
I find having these "do nothing" days to be vital to my well-being and creativity. After all, I have the weekend for chores!