my black books

the return of paper

I am moving back to paper.

Since I bought my first computer 20 years ago, I have been sort of a nerd, junior grade. I was pretty sharp with DOS!

I’ve owned PDAs and a pile of computers, some state of the art, some antique. Each time my PDA bit the dust, information got lost. My old computers have died from time to time and each time something was lost. I have deleted files that I should have kept too.

My current MacBook is pretty well state of the art, this year, but long after it becomes quite ancient, I think I’ll be plodding along with her. 

Still I almost always wrote my journals on paper. For one thing, when I did go through a stage of doing journals on the computer, I think I almost forgot how to write. I took classes in calligraphy in art school, and it is so easy to forget. My writing is better now.

So back to paper, which I think I prefer anyway.

I’ve worked with every size and style of Day-Timer made, and have a box full of very nice binders. I invented my own pages and systems, but now that I am retired most of that is not important any more. Time management is not so important and since I have no clients at all, it is easy to remember.

Then I met Moleskine. Found them at a college book store. Daughter 1 had given me a gift certificate to the book store for a birthday, I lost it for a couple of years, then found it agin. The manager of the book store is an old friend and of course she would honor the certificate.

It is not a large college and not a large book store, but on the end of one aisle I found these little black books, the size that might be carried easily, and I was in love.

I have filled 3 of the pocket sized books in the last year and a half. They seem to hold around 20,000 words on those 192 pages. I am hardly ever without mine. I take it to church and make notes. I take it to meetings to help me remember. I make notes about my garden and my appointments, my doctor visits and a reminder of what questions to ask next time. It is a catch all of my activities.

It is not the easiest size to do long essays, but I have a larger book for that purpose, and it seems to work. No system is perfect, including this one, but it has become a part of my life.

I was in a church committee meeting a while back and someone asked me if I had my “little black book” with me. Of course I did, it’s grafted to my hip.

Now I have rediscovered hand made books, and a whole new art/craft thing has begun.

Thank you Arline.

change

Change is always with us, I fear.

In one way or another we are all going through periods of change. We graduate from school, change. We begin or quit a job, change. We find love, we loose love, change. Old love is good, but it changes. One of us will leave before the other, most certainly.

We put on a tough face, but some kinds of change are be rough to handle, at the least.

The worst part of change is the realization that there is not a thing we can do about much of it, and it will happen when we expect it least.

The transmission in our car goes out at the exact wrong time. The cook stove gives out, the car needs a brake job. Teeth need fixed, our eyeglasses are years old and don’t work so good any more.

And as I think of change and all of the ways it impacts all of us, I look at my beloved and wonder what changes will happen in our near future. What will she do when she gets tired of doing puzzles, or will just not do any more.

What will she do and how can I help her?

If I knew I could be a profitable prophet.

Miriam's garden

our back yard when Miriam took care of it. she did the flower garden well. the cat is jenny our cat of many years. she died a couple of years ago on our couch. jenny was a classy lady. She was 17

faith and optimism

Gardeners are the most trusting and optimistic people around.

Let me explain.

If you bought any garden stuff last year, you will be getting catalogs starting soon after Halloween. They will come from all over, and some will strangely look alike. That is because there has been a huge consolidation in the garden supply business and one guy owns a bunch of them.

I digress.

So you get these catalogs from companies you don’t know some from states you only have vague knowledge of, and you send them money, or you do the plastic thing on the internet.

Now they have your money and you don’t even know them. The good news is that they are a pretty honest bunch, who really want your business next year.

These seeds you ordered come in cute little packages, and we trust that the seeds inside indeed will produce the vegetable on the label.

At that point, we put those tiny little spendies in the ground. The moment they touch the dirt, they are basically lost. We cover them and water carefully, and most of the time they pop up in due time.

But, think about it. We trust the seed company with our money, we trust them about the seeds, then we trust that once we bury them (at $3 or more a tiny package), that we will indeed get something from them.

Farmers do somewhat the same thing, except they usually look the seed salesman right in the eye. On the other hand, farmers hand over big hunks of borrowed money (usually) for seeds and have the same faith as the rest of us.

Anyone tell you that they don’t know about faith or optimism, tell them about the garden.