White Horses and Air Logic

I'm reading White Horses, one of the few Alice Hoffman novels I have not yet read. So far I am finding it depressing, but am holding out hope that it will get better. Even when her subject matter is sad, that woman writes beautifully.

I'm also re-reading Laurie J. Marks first three Shaftal books. I sure wish her last book in the series - Air Logic - would come out! Laurie J. Marks and Rosemary Kirstein are both making me wait for YEARS for their latest. Darn it! If you want to read some thinking person's fantasies, I recommend both of these writers.

Listen to the music of the pouring rain

Yesterday after work and dog walking, I went to my second yoga nidra evening. Toni went along for her second round of yoga nidra in one day. She's working on getting extra meditative!

At this studio, the way the teacher, Vicki, handles yoga nidra is that first she has you do a round of gentle yoga, and then you settle down on a stack of mats and blankets, with whatever props you need, and you do aobut 40-45 minutes of the meditation. Well, last night our gentle yoga turned into something a little more strenuous than I was expecting. She threw something called a Moon Salutation there at the end which I just could not do. At one point I lost my balance and tumped over. Luckily, I fell from sort of a crouching position and directly onto my bolster! Lucky that, because injuring yourself at a mediation evening would not be in the spirit of the thing!

Today I mailed two quilts off to the long arm quilter.  I also washed some dishes, took a long nap, helped Thomas clean up in the yard some, clipped Dru a little, ate a hamburger, and spent an hour at the bookstore. Now I am home, wishing my ear would clear up, and listening to the rain outside in my muffled way. The earth needs this rain very badly. I heard on the radio that our area gets an average of 20 inches of rain per winter and we've gotten 2 this year. Not a good thing, so all moisture welcomed and appreciated!

Somewhere under all this fat I have a muscle!

I had a teeny tiny little bit of realization (a Revalation-ette?) at yoga today. While still very much a Large Fat Person, I have increased my fitness level noticably in the past 4.5 months. Things that I was Not Able to do in January are Do-able now. Yoga positions that left me trembling and weak-kneed in February are still challenging, but no longer wipe me out.

There is a bit less of me these days, and that's gotta help, but also (please picture me running up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum while a cheesy 80s band wails "Gotta Fly Now") I am stronger! A reasonably fit high school kid could still kick my ass, but I could probably take your 80 year old grandma. Not that I would though, because, duh, I'm doing YOGA...and I don't want to mess my chakras up or ruin my karma or anything like that. I'm sure violence against old ladies would be anti-the-spirit-of-yoga.

In other news, I just re-read Alice Hoffman's Seventh Heaven and Ice Queen. I am in a Hoffman-esque mood. I still have White Horses to get through too. I also read Sandra Dallas' latest, Whiter Than Snow. It was good, but dang, also sad. It tells the story of a bunch of people in a small mining town in CO in about 1920. Each chapter covers the sad lives and history of a bunch of people whose kids have been swept up in an avalanche. You know nine kids are missing and only four of them are going to be found. So from the git-go you are trying to figure out which sad people are going to have even MORE sadness added to their already full plate of sadness. I like Sandra Dallas, but think that if you haven't read something by her, start with The Persian Pickle Club or Prayers for Sale for a less wrenching introduction to a fine Western writer.

Monday it was 90 degrees here in Maryland, and Thomas and I slept with the ceiling fan going. Today it is about 50 and rainy and my feet are cold to the bone and I'm ready for the weather to settle into something warm and balmy. I want my month of perfect spring before the humidity shows up.

Spirit of 1812

This year is the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, which may be American's least known war. Maybe it ties with the Spanish American War, 'cause who even knows what that was about? I am assuming that we were fighting the Spanish, but I don't know why or where.

This is a picture of the group project I worked on with three other women. I made the hourglass blocks.

The center and the four corners are Broderie Perse and then the other blocks are machine pieced. One of the members of our group hand quilted the whole thing. It looks very nice, and I'm proud to have been part of the effort.

It's not that I'm not listening, it's just that I can't hear you

I finally saw the doctor today over this ear of mine.

A week ago I was watching television and my ear started hurting. By the time I went to bed I had a throbbing earache and could not hear out of my ear. Tuesday I stayed home and slept most of the day. Wednesday I was feeling better, but my hearing was still off and my ear just didn't feel "right".

Since then I've felt like my left ear was stuffed full of cotton. No, that's not quite right. It feels like first someone poured wax in my ear, THEN stuffed it full of damp cotton, and finished it off with a plug of cement. Not to get all Classical on you, but I am hearing "through a glass, darkly." I might as well be underwater considering how indistinct everything sounds.

A week of Afrin and decongestents didn't do a bit of good so I saw the doc today. I have Antibiotics to take in pill form and antibiotics to drip in my ear. I don't like to take unneccesary antibiotics, but when I need them, I am so thankful for them. I do believe in better living  through chemistry.