Relax and Relate #WeekendCoffeeShare

Image by Lizl Bennefeld.

Taking a break from “doing” to sit back and tune out the weather and the tension and the atmosphere of “business not as normal.” Catching up on cleaning the kitchen area and cupboards, hauling out trash, and operating without format or schedule or precise goals. Moving around and doing things as they come to hand, nothing planned or organized.

The last Saturday in January marked the beginning of my newest adventures in an Artist’s Way cohort through the U of Wisconsin (via weekly one-hour Zoom meetings). I am enjoying it very much. However, it’s calling for a marked change of routine until sometime in April.

I am trying to interact with people and keep better track of what is happening, and where. Very tired, as the winter weather hangs on. Our next winter storm is to come through on Tuesday.

I enjoyed seeing friendly faces via Zoom at Meeting for Worship, this morning. I am happy with the time change that wakes me up more than an hour earlier than before Daylight Savings Time finally kicked in.

The Scampers had their annual appointments, got their rabies shots, and refilled their prescriptions. All is well with them. I must get on with the evening. Especially while I have the house to myself for a few hours and things I want to get done before bedtime.

Thank you for dropping by! I do hope that I can stay more in contact as things untangle themselves.

Hugs and much love,
Lizl

Natalie (the Explorer)’s Weekend Coffee Share post can be found HERE.

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The Midst of the Cold #WeekendCoffeeShare

Photo by Naman Nayar on Pexels.com

Welcome to another weekend! I started to write this post a day early (Thursday) in case the winter snowfall/high winds during the night might take out the electric service. Instead, I lost a week, and it’s now February! We are in the midst of a cold snap, like -21 F with a forecast high for tomorrow of 32 F degrees above zero.

The past few weeks, I have been out of focus. I have not gotten many of my two poem challenges written on time, but I’ve caught up, pretty much. I have the new-to-me computer working, for the most part. It will be less awkward to move for Zoom meetings, it has a backlit keyboard, and the audio has more volume and quality, and microphones in the headset. The downer is that I still cannot type special characters, but must the character app.

I have continued to lose weight, after my early-January appointment with the diabetes educator. They would not be happy, if they knew.

I have my second Zoom meeting for my The Artist’s Way course, tomorrow morning, and a two-hour co-working session with Liz Danforth and friends just after lunch. A lot of sitting, since I have various stuffs I should be doing and not enough exercise, and I really am not hungry and do not remember to eat when I should.

A bright spot is that my sister in New England and I have started doing weekly phone calls. Feels so good to laugh with someone who knows our backgrounds.

Natalie is the host for our Weekend Coffee Share. You will find her post for this week here: Little Norway Park Benches.

Off to get caught up, now. Best wishes for your weekend!

Hugs,
Lizl

Off Hiatus #WeekendCoffeeShare

After the disruptions of the holiday season, it’s different. Not here in this household—we are not inclined to make much of holidays—but the hurry and sometime confusion around us. It felt good to have changes of routine. Productive as well as off-putting.

I myself have decided that with outside changes with people contact on the Internet, and the repetitive, I am going to repeat the Artist’s Way course/cohort? through a regional university. The instructor is one that I have known for a while through the Artist’s Way group that some of us started in the late 1990s. I have found the repetition as a group to shake out the past and look at possible nows and futures. Unsettled is quite good in small increments.

I have enjoyed reading new books, but also rereading favorites by favorite authors. L. E. Modesitt Jr.’s The Grand Illusion series is interesting in its depiction of social economics and politics. I hope still to be alive when Book 3, Contrarian, is published. And also the arcs to follow. He’s three years older than I am. ::sigh::

Also, I’d recommend Laura Anne Gilman’s Uncanny Times. And there is to be a follow-up book. Probably more to follow.

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Now Sunday afternoon, and chores are backed up. But … in addition to 13 weeks of The Artist’s Way, I hope to write a haiku a day during February (National (?) Haiku Writing Month: short month, short poems). April I get to do the same during Global/National Poetry Writing Month, time and health permitting.

Thanks to Natalie for hosting the weekly #WeekendCoffeeShare.

Best wishes!
Lizl

A trace of winter | 25 November 2022

I have finally gotten around to doing some writing, again. Household chores to tend to, as well as relaxing to read a lot of books. I am still sleeping a lot and not spending much time at the computer(s). I have found that the Nook devices and iPhone app have a font (OpenDyslexic) that is much easier to read/focus on; using a smaller font size, I read faster and take in more at a glance.

The Thanksgiving Day gathering got moved to yesterday (Saturday) on account of an exposure to Covid (the host/cook for this year) the previous weekend. Her tests came back negative, so all was well in the end. I still could not attend because of the larger gathering, but still don’t feel comfortable after having breathing problems/time in hospital at September’s beginning.

As the tensions recede, and I am feeling more myself, I am sleeping, catching up on rest, and taking it easy for the time being.

I did head out to the front yard, where I got some photos of the leaves uncovered by the warmer days with sunshine. Soon to return to winter-like weather.

Thanks for stopping by! By then I will be more able to offer more than Thanksgiving leftovers. 😀

Hugs,
Lizl

Natalie the Explorer has included the Weekend Coffee Share schedule through the remainder of the year, and she plans to do the same in the blog posts to the end of the year. This weekend coffee share post can be found here: Toronto Music Garden in Autumn

All at Sea #WeekendCoffeeShare

“Jan van Goyen (1596–1656): A Stormy Seascape / Myrskyinen merimaisema / Stormigt hav”
by Finnish National Gallery is marked with CC0 1.0 .

Welcome! I’ve both drip and Toddy coffee to offer, this Saturday evening, as well as a freshly brewed pot of English Breakfast tea. Gouda and Jarlsberg cheeses and rice or corn crackers, if you like.

I am surprised that on Day 4 of NaNoWriMo, I had finished only two poems (poem-a-day challenge among my poetry-writing cohorts), so far. I will perhaps be back on track by the end of the weekend.

I am moving back into more physical exercise, I think, but I am doing more pedaling on the elliptical machine than on the dance and dance exercises. That is because I can read and pedal at the same time. While I wait for Tuesday’s ebooks to arrive: The Laran Gambit (Deborah J Ross/Darkover) and Call Me by My True Names (Thich Nhat Hanh), I also think about the poems that I will write tomorrow.

For the time being, I am focusing as much as I can on relaxing and recovering my health. Catching my breath. And tonight, we have been watching the infrared light show across the back fences, two lots down, with enjoyment. That surveillance camera displays a ghostly panorama, ever changing with the dancing fire reflections and fickle breezes. Time to go to sleep…

Best wishes for your week!
Lizl

Natalie the Explorer – Bay of Fundy: 5 Natural Wonders is where you will find our host’s #WeekendCoffeeShare post. Also, links to other participants’ posts.

Lingering Autumn, 29 October 2022

The Fallen Leaves

It’s Saturday evening. The weather is temperate, and nobody seems to know whether we have colder/wetter stuff coming in this week or not. I have been looking forward to snowfall. The leaves have fallen from the taller trees, and my Cotoneaster trees have been turning color and the leaves began to fall. One certain harbinger of shifting seasons is the boxelder bugs hanging to the inside of the screen doors, waiting to get the rest of the way inside.

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  Copyright © 2022-10-24, by Lizl Bennefeld.

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  Copyright © 2022-10-26, by Lizl Bennefeld.

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  Copyright © 2022-10-26, by Lizl Bennefeld.

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  Copyright © 2022-10-26, by Lizl Bennefeld.

The week has been a bit of a jumble. I have been staying up until the middle of the night reading and playing with the Scampers. Charlie has been staying awake to keep me company. Then we all sleep through the morning wakeup alarm. I missed all of my online “writing dates” in Google Meet. For the Zoom co-working session today (Saturday), I concentrated on washing, drying, and putting away all available items that merited the washer/dryer. Even the quilted hotpads. I only got one poem written, a tanka for the Monday prompt, but not the Sijo for Wednesday. Instead, I looked through my library for books I hadn’t read for many years. (I found myself deleting some of those books, but set aside others so as not to lose track of them again. My tastes in subject and genre have changed a lot!)

I think that as the times come together again, late autumn, winter and into early spring, the energy flows will resonate; and I’ll relax more. I will be happy to return to Standard time, next weekend. For one thing, my Saturday Social/Co-working session will be 1 PM to 2 PM or 3 PM, respectively. More manageable in some ways.

And now I have to wind this up, because Sunday’s schedule has been beaten upon. I did visit and enjoy Natalie’s Weekend Coffee Share post earlier. Friday, I think. Loving Life in October 2022.

I am glad you stopped by, today. Even though I am talking to myself, I have in turn you to listen to. Each brightens the day.

Hugs & much love,
Lizl

Charlie Scamper, 2022-10-25

Rain and a bit of mid-October snow #weekendcoffeeshare

Soggy Morning!, by E.W. Bennefeld

Welcome to the dead leaves along the sidewalk and the browning grass. I awakened to the sound of rain on the roof and glancing against the window just behind my head. Thaddeus moved to a “safer” spot below the recliner’s extended footrest, taking the top blanket with him.

Treetops

Lower to the Ground

I seem to be out of contact with the world, for the most part, between computers that work only when they care to and a cell phone that no longer makes or receives telephone calls during ever lengthening time periods. We will be visiting the local Verizon store to see whether anything at hand is within our price range.

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The rest of the afternoon (Friday) was spent in the Verizon store at the mall. Very helpful staff, but two eateries near by, and so lots of foot traffic. I was able to try out the telephone the next morning with a call from my sister in New England. We tried the video calling, which was fun. I got to meet both a dog and a cat. Spent a lot of time visiting.

There was a thunderstorm where the host of this afternoon’s Zoom meet-up lives. And so I have the laundry in progress, but have not gotten a nap. Which I am going to take time for now. Our host Natalie’s weekend coffee share is here: Celebrating 6 Years of Blogging. With the colder weather, the skies seem clearer and the air, cleaner. I don’t know what comes with tomorrow.

Best wishes!
Lizl