Howdy, Stranger

It has been over a year since I updated this blog.  I apologize to those who were following along.  There's so much static on the internet these days, so many things competing for people's attention,  and with bite-sized content seeming to be the desired fare, I've often felt like I'm writing to no one at all.  I hate though, when I come across a blog that tells an interesting story about someone's life, and then, for no apparent reason, it just ends, no good byes, just nothing.  I'm left wondering what happened to that person and the others they wrote about.   I don't want to do that to anyone. So here I am.

What's new?  A few things of large significance, others rather ordinary. I'll fill in the gaps in upcoming entries.

The most significant thing to me is that my mother died of lung cancer in January of 2019.  I was able to be in Maine to spend some time with her before she died.  In a week or so, I'm heading back to Maine, this time to visit my dad and brother on Mt. Desert Island.

Another significant event in my life concerns our blind dog.  While I was in Maine with my mother, he got very sick and was close to death.  I had a hard time leaving him for that trip, I'd never been away from him for more than a few days before. Even though I knew my husband would take excellent care of him, it broke my heart to leave him for a week.  For him to be that sick while I wasn't there tore me apart.  It turned out that he had diabetes and his blood sugar was over 600--he was close to a diabetic coma.  With iv fluids and insulin, he recovered from the diabetic crisis, and his blood sugar levels are under control now with two shots of insulin a day.  Still he's getting old (10 years or so) and it hurts to hear him groan when he lies down and to see how slow he's getting on our walks. 

In the doldrums of this past winter, as the days seemed to drag on and on, I was feeling pretty disheartened, and I realized I needed to do a deep self-examination and figure out what I wanted to be doing with my life, such as it is.  My old life as a professor ended more than five years ago, with the advent of disability, and during that time I had transitioned into this new life here off grid in rural Northern New Mexico; this life is hugely satisfying to me, even though the adjustment has been difficult at times.

In the winter, though, I'm stuck inside for longer hours and the world seems to close in on me when I can't be outside.  To pull myself out of it, I looked back at old goal lists I'd made, and this motivated me to start thinking about my values and what I want (and am able) to do.  I decided to focus on art---to learn more about art in its many aspects, and to make my own art everyday.  More about this in future posts. 

The garden has developed some since I last posted.  I also remade the flower beds in the front of the house.  I'm about to plant some cool weather crops in the garden.  Yesterday I planted spinach.

You can tell that fall is approaching but the days are still hot here--mid 80s today.   I'm relishing shorts and tank top weather while I can.