Words on a Cold Day

Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m. I thought that might be too early to start 2011, and I rolled over. I did not wake up until almost 8:00 which is very late for me. I padded to the kitchen on chilly floors and flipped the tea maker switch. Thirty minutes later I was still fighting that tea maker! Since I had just replaced the electric kettle before Christmas, I did not want to face replacing the tea maker. While I use my many and varied tea pots the rest of the day, a tea maker works for dawn because can be set up the night before. One flip of the switch and I can jump into the day. It also keeps the brewed tea warm while I read, write, or use my S.A.D. lamp without my reheating things in the microwave.



The rest of the day it was robe, leftovers for meals, and pounding the keyboard. It felt good to make one online submission, prepare another for sending snail mail, to write a rough draft of a new story, and to make up an agenda for the January Writer Guild meeting. I wrote a Saturday Centus so I could “play” with Jenny on the side. Such fun to write the Centus, and it is a good exercise in tight writing!


I slept well last night. It was so cold during the night that air in the house was cool since I had turned down the furnace at bedtime. But a first tea pot of the morning was warming. Then came some inside exercise and another pot of tea with homemade egg muffins that could be warmed in the microwave. A little Sunday Morning on CBS and then back to work with words. I wrote a piece of fiction from a true story a friend had told me about his childhood dog Rusty. Thanks to tip from blogger pal Linda (http://lindaoconnell.blogspot.com) I think I will send it to the American Kennel Club fiction contest. They are looking for stories about animals this January.


I am wondering if any readers have seen or read the magazine Still Crazy. It is a publication that caters to the Baby Boomer age group. It is only published twice a year and so the reading times are May and November. If you would like to check it out yourself go to http://www.crazylitmag.com/index.php.


Between things today I read some in Moon Over Manifest, a young adult fiction by Clare Vanderpool. This book caught my eye because the writer lives in Wichita, and she set her story in 1936 Frontenac, Kansas. Can’t beat those Midwestern gals for a good tale! With familiar towns like Frontenac (by another name) and Joplin and even a mention of Erie the book is fun to read. I think I will go read a little now at the end of the day…tomorrow’s dawn is heading my way. The first Monday of 2011 is on the way!