I’m happiest when………

Posted on 2012 Jan 02 by Kat
i'm happiest when

Photo: M. Reza Faisal, from thoughtquestions.com

This was harder than I expected it to be. There are so many things that make me happy.

  • Singing. Singing almost anything. Singing keeps me sane.
  • Seeing a flock of goldfinches at our bird feeders (finally, after years of having the seed eaten and scattered by sparrows and squirrels).
  • Writing something that really nails what I think and feel.
  • Sunlight streaming in the window, perfectly highlighting my peaches-and-cream tiger cat.
  • Seeing a beautiful landscape out the car window as we round a curve. “Hark! A vista!”
  • Having dinner with my husband—delicious food plus delicious conversation.
  • Petting a purring cat.
  • Solving a problem, especially a sticky problem that seemed insoluble.
  • Listening and watching a live early music performance by superb musicians.
  • Launching a website I’ve designed and hearing the client say “Oh, WOW!”

So…what makes me happiest?

Learning. Encountering a new idea or concept or technique and making it mine. Streeeeetching my brain so I can feel it expand.

As a kid, my favorite day of the year was the first day of school. Trips to the library made me ecstatic, because I knew I would come home with a book about something new, a topic I didn’t know anything about yet. In college, I always tried to make time in my schedule for a new course, a subject I hadn’t studied yet. At work, I was always volunteering for new projects, or asking a more experienced colleague to show me a new technique.

Learning makes me happy. It doesn’t have to be anything profound, although that’s always fun. It doesn’t have to be anything useful, although I’m always grateful for that. But a day when I haven’t learned anything feels incomplete, unfinished, wasted.

Last month, I learned that one of my cats likes key lime yoghurt.
Not profound.
Not useful.
Just interesting.

Last week, I learned a new technique for incorporating a Twitter feed into a blog.
Not profound, but quite useful.

Today, I learned that the waterproof mat that I put under the poinsettia plant on the piano isn’t really waterproof, and the moisture raised and warped the finish on our 1903 Steinway.

Sigh.

Learning isn’t always pleasant, but it still makes me happy to know something today that I didn’t know yesterday.

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Sunpuddle

Posted on 2012 Jan 02 by Kat

Sunlight streaming in the window, perfectly highlighting the peaches-and-cream tiger cat who lies, sprawling, on the edge of the sunpuddle.

 

 

Posted in River of Stones | Leave a comment

Beginning

Posted on 2012 Jan 01 by Kat

Candles. Light streaming in through stained glass windows. Gentle sounds of breathing, soft footsteps, rustling clothes. Then, music! Bach first, followed by hymns and my two solos. I started the day singing—perfect beginning for a day, or a year.

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Posted on 2012 Jan 01 by Kat

The NaBloPoMo theme for February 2012 is “Relative.”
“[O]ur relationships define us and support us. Use the month to not only explore your connections to the obvious relatives…but your ancestors, the people who are no longer part of your family, and the ones that you wish were related to you. This is also a month to look for connections between two unrelated concepts or objects.”

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Taking stock of December

Posted on 2011 Dec 31 by Kat

The last day of the year is a traditional time to take stock of the successes and failures of the previous year.

How depressing!

I’m going to make it a little easier on myself by limiting the discussion to one category (blogging) and a shorter time period (December).

Taking stock of December

Back on November 29, I wrote about my blogging goals for the month of December. I intended to participate in one writing challenge (NaBloPoMo) and one photo challenge (Cricket Walker’s December V7N Photo Challenge). Results were mixed.

I succeeded in writing a blog post every day for the whole month. Yay, me!

I was less successful with the photo challenge, bailing after little more than a week. It wasn’t lack of desire, it was a combination of the unusual hectic holiday singing schedule, a run of unsafe-for-the-camera weather, and recurrent back pain that kept me inside in the recliner with my laptop instead of outside searching for interesting shots to match the photo challenge prompts.

Looking ahead to January

Writing every day wasn’t easy but, now that I’m in the habit, I’d like to keep going.

  • I’ve signed up for BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo again for the month of January.

To spice things up a bit, I’m going to use a variety of sources for writing prompts. Most days, I expect I will be driven to write about something I read, some new bureaucratic idiocy, or something in the news. For days when nothing inspires me, or when there are too many ideas and not enough time to write about them all, I’m going to use these resources:

  • NaBLoPoMo has its own set of daily writing prompts.
  • Thursdays seem to be my brain-dead days. Since I plan to work through a rather long reading list this year, Third Sentence Thursday seems like a good way to combine the two goals.
  • I’m intrigues by the possibilities of A River of Stones. I like the idea of mindfulness, of noticing one small thing each day. I may not write about each daily stone, but I’m going to keep eyes and mind and heart open to find them, and I’m going to spend at least a bit of time thinking about the stones I see.
  • Some of the picture+question prompts  at Thought Questions look interesting. I may use a few of them.
  • Warning:  When all else fails, I’ll tell cat stories.
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Resolved, part 2

Posted on 2011 Dec 31 by Kat

Last Monday I wrote that I wasn’t going to write any traditional-style New Year’s resolutions. I’ve changed my mind.

I’m making one resolution, to be repeated daily:

“Today, I will purr more and hiss less.”

I invite you to join me. If enough of us do it, the world will be a more pleasant place for all of us. Dog people may want to reword this to something like “wag more and bark less.” If you don’t identify with either dogs or cats, try “smile more and complain less.”

Happy New Year!

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Rest

Posted on 2011 Dec 30 by Kat

Yesterday was a lazy day.

We both needed a lazy day. We find it very hard to rest at home, with everything in the place whispering “deadline coming,” “clean me,” “fix me,” “organize me.”

So, Wednesday noon, we drove to Cleveland. Yes, we had friends to visit, but no actual activities on the agenda. It was a long drive, but we had a pleasant supper with our friends, good conversation, and a good night’s sleep.

Yesterday—Thursday—was lovely:

  • more good food (which we didn’t have to cook)
  • more good conversation with people we don’t see nearly often enough
  • three cats to cuddle, including an incredibly sweet elderly snowshoe siamese (but no need to scoop their litter)
  • a lovely old dog to share the couch with

The four of us talked, read books, answered email, talked, ate, read some more, sipped a variety of wonderful teas, and had a very relaxing time.

In an hour, Andy and I will drive home to Rochester, rested and refreshed, ready to face our normal life again with energy and joy.

Hello, world!

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Third Sentence Thursday: Full Dark House

Posted on 2011 Dec 29 by Kat

For some reason, Thursdays have been the hardest days for me to find a topic to blog about. On other days, the problem is usually too many ideas, and not enough time to write about all of them.

Not on Thursdays.

Third Sentence Thursday

So, when I came across Third Sentence Thursday, it seemed like a great idea!

The idea is to write down the third sentence from whatever book I’m currently reading, and blog my thoughts about it. I figure it’s a good way to get some blog mileage out of my reading list, too.

In a few minutes, when I finally put down the computer and go to bed, I expect to finish the final Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. It’s a mystery novel, fifth in a series about the [totally fictional] North London Peculiar Crimes Unit.

The third sentence:

“It detonated car alarms, hurled house bricks across the street, blew a chimney stack forty feet into the sky, ruptured the eardrums of several tramps, denuded over two dozen pigeons, catapulted a surprised ginger tom through the window of a kebab shop and fired several roofing tiles into the forehead of the Pope, who was featured on a poster for condoms opposite the tube station.”

Now, THAT’s a sentence!

It was a bomb, of course, a left-over relic from the London blitz 40 years before. The blast begins a rollicking romp of a mystery with interesting characters and a twisty plot line…line? Who am I kidding? It’s a plot helix, maybe even a double helix, with twists and turns and flashbacks and leapforwards and odd architectural features and…well…you get the idea. It was a fun read, and I’m going to put the rest of the books in the series on my reading list ASAP.

PS. I felt really sorry for those two dozen denuded pigeons.

Posted in 2011-12 Gift, 3rdSentenceThurs, Ideas | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

I R Famous!

Posted on 2011 Dec 28 by Kat

Well, not exactly famous. I was interviewed for a column in the Wall Street Journal, and it was published today. I’ve gotten about a dozen phone calls, more emails, and even some Twitter mentions. Cool! Never realized I had so many WSJ-reading friends.

Kudos to Sue Shellenbarger, the WSJ columnist. I’ve been interviewed before, but this was one of the most enjoyable hours I’ve spent in a long time. Sue had a clear idea of where she wanted to go, and asked excellent questions to get the discussion going in the right direction. Then, she actually listened to my answers—something many interviewers don’t bother doing—and did a thorough job of following up details that would interest her readers.

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Mythology

Posted on 2011 Dec 28 by Kat

Like resolutions, predictions flood the media around the beginning of the new year. Whether it’s a misreading of ancient manuscripts, half-baked interpretations of astronomical events, or the work of sensation-seeking conspiracy theorists, everybody gets into the act, predicting drama and disaster.

2012 has attracted a bumper crop of disaster predictions. Those and other, less disastrous predictions are catalogued at the 2012 Predictions website.

Half the news stories and columns stress the horrors to come. Most of the others just ridicule the first half, without actually explaining what is or isn’t happening. Among the few to serve up facts along with sensational fiction, these two stand out:

NASA
2012: The Beginning of the End, or Why the World Won’t End?

ScienceDaily
2012: Shadow of the Dark Rift

Both sites give links and references to further information on the real science behind the hype and hysteria. Please read them. Please tell your friends. Please don’t spread the mythology.

Posted in 2011-12 Gift, Ideas, Nature | Leave a comment