Hello again.

I have been reading: Obama’s beautiful prose - a chunk at a time, John Grisham’s A Time for Mercy, Ursula Le Guin’s No Time to Spare, John Sanford’s Ocean Prey (with my favorite agent Virgil!), Ruth Ware’s One by One, and Elizabeth Berg’s memoir, I’ll Be Seeing You. And I am listening to Donna Leon’s latest Brunetti-in-Venice.

Where I Come From

We didn’t say fireflies
but lightning bugs.
We didn’t say carousel
but merry-go-round.
Not seesaw,
teeter-totter
not lollipop,
sucker.
We didn’t say pasta, but
spaghetti, macaroni, noodles:
the three kinds.
We didn’t get angry:
we got mad.
And we never felt depressed
dismayed, disappointed
disheartened, discouraged
disillusioned or anything,
even unhappy:
just sad.

Sally Fisher

(I’ve borrowed this from Vita’s newsletter.) We also, by the way, sat on davenports.

Watch this fellow at work for awhile. I think you’ll like it.

I have been busy planting in the garden, painting a house (that is, painting a picture of a house), learning from a master the ins and outs of photography and Photoshop, making and selling notecards of my artwork (they’re at the shop!), playing games with our pals in Arizona, visiting old friends in California, creating collage papers for some whimsical projects, holding on tight to my vaccination card, and anticipating the day that Canada opens its border to us again. And waiting for summer through a few recent days that felt like winter.

The photography/Photoshop online community I am in is run by Kim Klassen, a most lovely and talented Canadian artist and photographer. One of my projects within this group is “5 Things I Love,” where we are practicing minimalist type and design. Minimalist is not my forté, though I often wish it was. My plan is to run through the alphabet with this. It’s fun to think of favorite things, but hard to limit them! Told ya, I am NOT a minimalist.