Monday, January 02, 2022

Well, we’re off to the next twelve months. And with a clean start or wishing that could be so. Today’s news is full of ideas we can incorporate for happiness, sociability, and productivity. We can improve our ways of eating, can start exercising happily, can employ more useful better and good habits. That’s only the beginning. There are books to read, movies to see, music not-to-miss, and travel experiences for world-broadening and sightseeing.

Here at home in Central Oregon, I welcome the new year. My first notion of this year’s clean slate is wrapped to this winter’s ending: more sunshine, longer daylights, less muck for wading through to care for outside animals, and lighter outerwear easing physical movements.

My second notion is that tabula rasa evokes a mood relevant to this time of year. Longer daylights let us lengthen our sightings and we can imagine a future that’s fresh and more meaningful. Actually, that’s true, because we’re twelve months older with more experience in living. These will make the twelve months ahead different in meaningful ways. Our task as a new year begins is to reflect back, think ahead, and consider the added value of more understanding and potential.

By reflecting, assessing, and recognizing, we are preparing for action. We really never face a blank life slate, but by pausing periodically, like at the year-end, and evaluating past life experiences, we might find some areas that offer new opportunities. Most will be small with maybe a few large, but changes will add to our experience and wisdom.

Ah, we’ll replay all this next December 31st, and next January 01.

Dear Friends: Central Oregon, cold and sunshiny, invites today as a good starting point. Diana

Sunday, January 01, 2023

Here’s a typical guideline for a goal-setting road map:

Look ahead and make a plan for the future. Identify key goals and key steps for achieving them. Break down major steps into necessary earlier steps. Identify resources needed. Create a timeline, for periodically reviewing and adjusting the plan, and for completing it.

I did all that way back in my corporate career days. Almost everyone who works still must create that map. It’s a worker’s guideline, and used for coaching individuals, and measuring, evaluating their productivity, or lack thereof, over time.

Through the last days of 2022, I tried looking ahead and setting a few goals, but resisted. I’m a victim of corporate training and the road map puts me in a bad mood. It had too much presence in my working years. I recall meetings with supervisors about my performance, and how our views merged or diverged depended on how individually we each attended to details.

I could be loose about writing details, although they’re always embedded in my thought processes. What often has saved my bacon have been well-organized and detail-oriented support folks.

These days, I’m my own planner and evaluator and without outside prompting for specifics and details. I’m still too lose on details to create an effective road map. If I could, and did, it would need monitoring and attending. I still prefer to create plans on scraps of paper and have details in my head.

So as usual, this year, I’ve no written resolutions, road maps, timelines. I have resolutions in my head: Stay healthy, Take care of property and animals, Be certain to get out and among people, Play creatively with my usual interests, and above all, Keep Learning.

Dear Friends: I hope you’ve successfully planned for ’23, and will achieve your wishes. Diana

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Saying, a few hours early, “Happy New Year!”

By this year’s last day, I was planning on having created a top-level list of “happenings” over the past twelve months. I would have tried ranking them into categories like good or not-so-much. After thinking about the complexities involved in ranking and labeling, I reconsidered, wondering about what’s different that might capture my attention in 2023. Well, besides the always-important attention to caring for my property, and animals, and sustaining ordinary interests.

Daily in the past year, events roaring into our headlines have stayed as big news. Likely, all is intensified after a couple of years of a focus on avoiding covid and self-isolating. This year’s news has stretched beyond one nation’s social, political, and economic conditions. Worldwide events equally invading international headlines are ongoing concerns.

I’m a news junkie. The year’s headlines and my personal reading interests make me think deeply about current situations involving technology, population, health, and wealth. Technologies informing the world’s population contribute to ever-growing human wants and restlessness. Medical advances that sustain human lives are increasing populations. Wealth centered among a few has created the now powerful few, with many either threatening or creating chaos.

In the new year, I will begin a learning process for enlightenment about why and how our social, political, and economic worlds are evolving as they are today. I will read five classic books representing the history and development of science, the force that has created our modern world. These books were recommended by a science writer for The Economist, a widely respected news magazine:

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

A Short History of Nearly Everything

The Origin of Species

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Periodic Table

I’ll spend most of the next twelve months wading through those books. In the process, they might help me understand better what’s happening and why things are so.

Dear Friends: Have a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and with optimism ahead. Diana

Friday, December 30, 2022

Welcome to the penultimate day. Tomorrow is when this year ends. I’m thinking about what might have been good and what might not have. I’m cautiously doing so after having considered many previous twelve-month stretches. All seem to have lasted for about the blink of an eye. I recognize that assessing a period for true values, versus little or none, is like wild guessing. More time needs to pass and with longer reflection.

Off the top of my head, seemingly good occurrences, and those less so, fall into distinctive columns. Those are squishy, however, for upon reflection every happening combines pros and cons. Fairly assessing most items in either column requires both plenty of time and skillful thoughtfulness.

This is a special time of year and with traditions. This distinctive period of stopping and restarting is an opportunity to reflect and evaluate. It’s worthwhile today and tomorrow to imagine the past year’s reasonable goods versus its less-so. That would provide a renewal basis for self-guidance in 2023.

Dear Friends: These years, so very different from the past, mightily challenge our personal visions. Diana

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Shoot! There’s just enough new snow on the ground to make tough work of dragging a couple of heavy trash cans to the curb. That’ll be a must, for tomorrow’s takeaway truck will arrive early in my neighborhood.

I blame my heavy trash on throwaways. That’s because I had my home’s entire floor coverings changed.

This changeover forced moving everything inside the house, and twice. First, moving furniture, bookcases, and old scrapbooks and filling cabinets, art supplies, and electronics, from their original spots. Second, moving and arranging items into their original or new spaces. It’s been an unending process of deciding what I cannot live without and what I can let go of.

It’s a no-brainer, electing to toss something that for years has been unneeded and stored away. And there’s the surprise of discovering items forgotten completely. Nonetheless, tossing isn’t easy. I’ve had to be more disciplined, making tomorrow’s trash extra heavy.

Today’s new challenge, of dragging heavy receptacles through snow, is poetic justice. It’s been painful to throw away items with memories attached or having monetary value. I can’t rid myself of a nagging worry, that the odds favor my needing at least a few of those things again someday.

Dear Friends: The problem with making changes is that one change nearly always forces others. Diana

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

I’ve begun reading Sister Novelists and am in a bit of shock. Years ago, My reading had turned to English novelists, particularly Charlotte Bronte who became my favorite, and Jane Austin who wrote delightfully. I studied the lives and writings of those incredibly creative, talented Bronte siblings. To understand the influences on those writers and how they generated fiction, I studied both earlier and contemporary story-tellers like Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. My explorations led me to obscure good writers who have remained less known. My passions made me an armchair expert on early English novels.

Now here’s what’s shocking: I’d never heard of the Porter Sisters.

Devoney Looser, the author of Sister Novelists reveals the Porters as trailblazers. They published under their own names way back when English “authoresses” typically hid behind gender-ambiguous pseudonyms or remained anonymous. The eldest Porter, Jane, was born in 1776, and Maria two years later. The family was genteel, for the father was a military surgeon. He died in 1779, leaving his family with scant means.

Their mother supplemented a scant military pension by running a boardinghouse. The girls received little schooling but were avid readers and precocious writers. Maria’s first story collection, published when she was 14, encouraged the girls to hope for writing to become a means of survival.

Jane’s writing evolved slower than Marie’s. Jane essentially “created” the historical novel. In 1803, her tale about a Polish war hero, who becomes a refugee in England, mingled historical events, biography, and romance. Considered “a work of genius,” it was a bestseller. Afterward, both sisters wrote historical novels, and were the premier historical novelists of their day.

Looser theorizes that the sisters became obscure after the 1814 publication of Sir Walter Scott’s, Waverly, an historical novel. It became wildly popular. Scott refused to credit the sisters for inspiring his way of composing a historical novel. He was applauded for writing history in an excellent masculine way. The sisters’ approach to history became considered as feminine and thus faulty.

Well, a New Year’s gift to myself. Re-diving into then-times of emerging, wonderfully creative English novelists.

Dear Friends: All the way through it, I loved Lessons in Chemistry. Diana

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

All night, rains and winds have pummeled and swirled. Hopefully, my home’s roofing and gutters are withstanding those continuing onslaughts. Each winter brings to this area at least one big wet/windy barrage, like the current one. So much for my hopes to hike with the dogs and go horseback riding.

It’ll be all right because I am reading books again and loving the portability of a basic Kindle device. Here and there with it, I grab moments and read–while an attendant fills my vehicle with gasoline; while automation moves my vehicle through a car wash; while awaiting my turn at a cash register check-out; while pausing between ranching and housekeeping chores; and anytime I’m sleepless in bed. This device fits neatly in my pocket, it opens immediately and exactly where I last read.

I’m close to finishing Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus. I love this story. It’s fun, creative, superbly written, and teaches! Ten Stars from me, or in other words, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Approaching the upcoming year-end, I’m reflecting on the past very complicated twelve months. On a massive scale, they have revealed significant changes in populations, economics, and politics. They have renewed “nation-speaking,” with noisier and seriously-conflicting leaderships. Absorbing what’s going on involves attempting to categorize what in those busy months might have been best and what certainly wasn’t. There are lots of both.

On a personal level, the last year often has amazed me. It has increased my awareness, heightened my sensitivity, and now hints at altering my path. Any alterations, if indeed they’re to occur, won’t until after we’re well migrated into a new year.

As this year ends, let’s join and reflect both backward and forward. Let’s seriously consider both world and local conditions and situations. Let’s establish a common goal, to live together and individually, all the best possible.

Dear Friends: The rain has stopped and the wind blows less hard; there’s a hint of sunshine. Diana

Monday, December 26, 2022

My neighbors invited me to dinner. I always enjoy their sweet companionship, and as a slurpy kicker, Frank and Annette were planning to go full steam and cook a prime rib. They would serve veggies grown in their huge greenhouse. My candid photos do their Christmas table little justice.

The evening’s companions also were Jill and Jeff, who are lifelong friends with Frank and Annette.

Those two have been (it seems forever) rebuilding their home, from scratch, and all by themselves. They described having recently moved into its first-finished section, which turned out beautifully, and they’re delighted. Like Frank and Annette, they are serious gardeners and grow much of their own food.

My friendship with Frank and Annette goes beyond our common fence over which we often chat. We share a deep love for animals. They and I have dogs and chickens. Here, Frank does his magic (treats!) for their eager puppies.

I didn’t get photos of Annette. Well, I did, but of her backside, as she was busy cooking.

Annette is a special needs teacher with a passion for her work. She’s an expert in recognizing each needy student’s individuality. She explains that assisting individuals starts with encouraging them to achieve. By gaining a student’s trust, she can help them reset their sights. Their actual “moving forward” may begin when they can identify realistic and achievable goals.

With this group, there’s never any dull conversation. We’re each unique, with long life experiences and the verbal skills to share our learnings and thoughts.

The evening and dinner were great! They offset nicely, that afterwards, I went trudging into the darkness and slippery wetness, to haul hay to my horses.

This, for my dear Cousin Mary, shows me wearing the aspen leaf she sent.

Dear Friends: A giant salute to good weather, fine companionship, and excellent cooking. Diana

Sunday, Christmas Day, December 25, 2022

Today, no “bah humbugs” from me. Our weather’s warm–as in very warm in these “darkest days” of the year. And important friends have been in touch. It’s warming to be reassured that long time friends are healthy and productive, and that they still read my blog.

Last Wednesday was the shortest day of this year. Right afterwards I began counting each new daylight’s additional seconds. I am optimistic about possible happenings in the New Year. High on my list of hopes is for the war in Ukraine to conclude, with that nation’s guaranteed independence, and a healthy renewal of its mighty ability to produce food. Ukraine’s assets help to feed this hungry world. I’ll speak again to optimism on New Year’s Day.

The header photo especially for my friend, Mary Martini, shows her fav, Chase, two days ago. He’s almost ten months old. Mary, you chose well, as usual, for he’s a love, still has a “soft-puppy” feel, is sweet, smart, and unflappable.

The PNW area should according to experts enjoy more of this unusually warm weather. My resolution before the New Year arrives to go hiking with the dogs. I’ll use a stop-action camera to record their antics and post new pictures. If truly this warmth holds on, I’ll go horseback riding.

Warm weather invites us to make the most of these shortest days.

Once again, Mr. Irresistible.

Dear Friends: Wishes to all, for a wonderful day with friends, good food, and optimism. Diana

Saturday (Christmas Eve), December 24, 2022

After Central Oregon’s string of icy cold days, through which I mostly stayed inside, today’s opening temperature is a tolerable 39 degrees. Everywhere, the weather through last week was a short wild ride. Today, if as predicted, this area’s high approaches 50 degrees, tomorrow might be a balmy Christmas Day.

At least, a hefty snowpack in our nearby mountains might provide adequate water for next season’s farming. The last couple of years, with drought conditions and water rationing, meant fewer farm yields and frighteningly high prices. We with large animals worry about finding enough (and affordable) hay. This year’s snowy wet weather might increase water availability, yield more good hay, and reduce the costs to produce and purchase.

Weather outside aside, and what’s doing inside: I’m reading a fun first novel, Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus. An ex-copywriter, Garmus is an excellent writer, creative and confident. Her novel takes place in the early sixties when women workers were unequal in every way (except for intelligence) to men. They received lesser working roles, less pay, fewer promotions; and they had to dress certain ways, not become pregnant, and were victimized by lechery.

Garmus’ character model for the book was her mother, who during the 1950’s could not write a check without her husband’s co-signature on it, had no legal right to her husband’s paycheck, could not hold a job while pregnant, and could not have her name added on the home’s title. In the book, the lead character is a productive woman scientist who manages to ignore some typical workplace restrictions. She’s helped by a male partner, a famously productive chemist with any workplace arrangement he wants.

The two leads have a mongrel dog, named “Eleven-Thirty.” I laughed aloud, and even more, on learning that Garmus’ own real-life dog is named “NinetyNine.” I happen to have a little Collie-X, named “Osix,” and for years have fielded questions about her name. Now I’m vindicated, with kudos to Garmus!

I recommend this book, a straightforward, easy read with twists and humor. Its sixties setting will remind some readers of times past and will inform others. Great cold weather, indoors entertainment.

Dear Friends: It’s good recalling times past and progress made, by women, but no ERA. Diana