my life notes this week

 I think I'm going to start a weekly writing here that's more personal, to write about events in my life and some of the things I generally put in my other blog. It has been feeling like time to let that blog go. Still, I want to share the kinds of the things I shared there and perhaps I can find a way to do so here without taking from the integrity of this blog's purpose of sharing art and my creative journey.
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A difficult week.
On Tuesday my brother-in-law passed away. It was sudden and mostly a shock, though he was having some health issues.  And, as always, everyone is reminded how life can dramatically and irreversibly change in an instant.

We have to live with that in mind...and yet we must put it from our minds to live. Or we'll all be sitting around saying, what's the use...?

Death can make everything seem irrelevant.
Or it can make each moment exquisitely precious.

I'll go with the latter!

On Sunday night, our Lily slipped from her collar on a late-night walk and fled. It's a long story and we were out driving slowly through the neighborhood until 4 a.m., squeaking one of her toys at every alley beginning. Little did we know that about half an hour after her escape, someone had picked her up and taken her to the Humane Society, which is where we had adopted her.

Luckily, they microchip all their dogs and they were able to connect the collarless Lily with us. We got the call at 8 a.m., but were out posting flyers and looking and talking to people, so didn't get the message until about 9.

It was a terrible, terrible time - and for some reason evoked old trauma for me. So it has taken me some days to recover my equilibrium.
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I'm working on:
Improvisational Scarves.
my hopes for the year and the way I want to be in it.
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I'm looking forward to:

tonight's small writing group get-together.

the opening of registration for the IU Writer's Conference (this year's step in dealing with travel phobia.)

participating in Pixie Campbell's Winter SouLodge.

the Tiny Tent  -making event for Occupy Terre Haute tomorrow.

)O(