nope, not yet

no,
i am not crawling under a rock.
I am active,
i am doing things.
I am living,
but there are times memory is my enemy.
So i am alive
and will continue to do.
There is still sorrow i face,
but it is only because we are here,
in this sad place,
where we must struggle each day to see the beauty.
We should never stop that struggle
because this place is but a shadow of what is to come.
For this i am grateful.

Crawling under a rock

yes, that is me.
things that are good,
are still good,
but i am blah.
I expected this...
too much on my mind,
 too much in my heart.
There seems to be great problems with everyone around,
but not me.
Me, mine is simple,
I am still resolving that end that happened 2 years ago.
The one that separated my mom and i.
An email from a cousin in France -
 her mom, an aunt for me, just passed.
I give sympathy,
but it is not much.
What can one say?
The losses are too great for us to know.
They are not unusual,
they are not tragic,
but they are loss
and we feel them many years down the road.

time to remember

my themes have seemed to be stuck,
but this is important,
for the the next few weeks the memories are good, but hard.
My Dad has been coming to me in dreams,
helping me with "projects".
I believe this, but his birthday was on the 18th.
My mom passed, now 2 years ago, on the 26th.
I am torn, because the memories are good,
but i miss the separation.
I would that i was with them.
This confuses some of my closes friends,
who are like brother and sisters and daughters,
but it stands in my heart nevertheless.
The time will pass
and the world will continue to turn
and i will go one...
remembering that which is good.

Time

It seems now i have time,
time to do all those things that need doing.
Time to enjoy things,
The ideas of a new kitchen is delayed,
i am okay with this,
i have time.
I can live,
and breath
and be.

those darn visions and dreams

Yesterday,
i praised them,
but today,
i am unsure.
For when i "see" something,,
i am driven to really see it,
but one must take time.
Each ending has many steps.
Did i tell you before,
this is why i paint in water color
and no other.
i still do not have patience.
I want to see that thing in my head so bad...
but i digress,
for yesterday,
the day was fair.
I stopped and went to the garden.
It was a good thing
or else i would have continued a project indoors,
that was not ready for completion.
Today, having been distracted,
i saw the things that needed doing first
and proceeded with them.
Those things that push me are good,
i will never be bored,
but i am still learning to take it easy,
just like the old song says...

Dreams of remembrance and love

Today,

while continuing a project of cleaning and clearing,

I came upon a painting.

this was a painting that i had done

and given to one that is now passed.

It came back to me,

with memories that are strong and heart felt.
The places was a quiet seashore in Maryland,

in the early morning.

A placed her grandfather and i had visited.

A place that reflected peace,

which is what she wanted ,

before she passed.

So strong these feeling that hang to a simple painting
Love that some so easily trow around,
love that is strongerthan eath.
Love that is never reserved for just one other person.
It is strong!

Dreams and Visions

"Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams"
A quote from the the book of Acts, chapter 2 and in the book of the prophet Joel, 2nd chapter.

This is what i have been doing lately, but perhaps not in a biblical sense.

For dreaming a dream,

does not make it a reality.

It takes time,

and decisions,

and hard work

to bring some dreams to pass.

A vision

or direction is not much different,

it takes hard work,

persistence

and endurance to see a vision come to pass.

I have been doing both lately.
I have a lot of hard work ahead of me!

a bit of fun

cleaning out the office area has yielded many surprises,
but not so delightful as this one!

a bit damaged, but my brain nevertheless!

to sachet? or no?

Putting a clend of spices in a tied up spice sachet is fairly common way of keeping wonderful spices that flavor food, but are not edible in the cooking process.
Of course, as a chemist, whn doing analysis, such a thing was not eard of.
What usually happened was an extraction of what i wanted and that was used in whatever process that needed to happen.
Things can go wrong otherwise.
Applied to cooking means that those flavorful items that you which to add to your cooking,
usually things like bay leaf, pickling spice, pepper corns, etc., etc., can have those flavors extracted.
Most of the intense flavors are water soluble (disolve in water) and even more so in hot or boiling water, so...
what i do is boil those spices i do not wish to remain in the dish when i serve and then add the liquid to what i am cooking.
Simply porung the boiling liquid through a strainer and you have the flavor, but not the unedible bulk.
No more sachets for me!

how things are done

as you realize my posting is more sporadic,
partially this is because my spirit is definitely up
and of course i am tackling "projects".
My normal approach is to tackle the hardness and least enjoyable first.
So first i moved from an "office" on the first floor to a bedroom upstairs.
The reasons i was on the first floor were many,
but the most significant one was i had a hard time negotiating stairs with my eye sight and balance.
The difference in me is remarkable because even though, without the prism glasses, i still see double strongly, i am confident enough without the glasses that i can take the stairs.
I drove a good distance in Stamford yesterday afternoon, it was a challenge and an event.
i wanted to go the the Stamford Nature Museum's Maple sugar festival and i was with a non-driver, who enjoyed immensely.
So the though thing was to move and arrange a bedroom upstairs in what had become a storage area.
Last week i moved and then the struggle is to restore the office area to something functional.
I do not shrink from difficult things, but i get a "vision" in my head of what needs to be done and proceed.
many times it must be revised, but a challenge is good for me.
The slow process of sorting junk from treasure will be time consuming and sometimes emotional.
That is next on he list.