Some Rough Days

                                           Note Valentine tea cozy made by my friend!

 

The New Year started perfectly for me. I had tended friends and family, had house in order for winter, and was ready for writing. I wrote 9000 words furiously and had a strong beginning on a huge project, but life intervened. The next weeks were measured by dying, death, and divorce (just another type of death). Devastating days with heartbreak and exhaustion stopped all writing and reading. The only thing I managed to achieve other than support for others was a little family research here and there. Even that activity seemed circular and left me frustrated or disillusioned in what I learned.

While the distress is far from over, some events settled enough for a day away. The sun actually appeared and snow began to melt. Although it was an effort to move the Ruby Slipper another mile, I wanted to attend the Ozark Writer’s League meeting in Branson. So DH and I shoved ourselves out before dawn for one more day on the road. This time to Branson. My interest was in a critique group that was to occur in the afternoon. I was so brain dead (and so darned cold in the auditorium) that the speakers were lost to me. We ate a wonderful lunch with the most fabulous iced tea and returned for the afternoon meetings. The critique met but was shortened. However, it was a wonderful experience for me.

We left shortly after the critique group and headed home. The sun was still high and bright in the sky so we stopped in Ozark to take in a flea market. There is one special flea market there that I just love, better than most because it feels like a museum, a warm blanket of memories nicely displayed. I wandered among the housewares of a far earlier time and marveled at the stories they could tell. I saw mementoes from my childhood that conjured up memories of easier years.  A hand wrapped around a Howdy Doody glass transported me again to the year I was five!

 

I found a few tokens to tote home. One was a wicker bowl cover for picnics or outside eating. What fun since it reminded me to hope for the deck lunches that surely can’t be too far away now.  I found a cowboy handbag that was so clean and fresh yet so cheap…just for fun. Then I might have made a mistake by buying four plates. They are pretty but nothing like me at all! The colors are pretty but I have nothing coral here. How will I work these in to all my blue and whites? What shades go with these colors?  What was I thinking?

I can ponder colors and spring coming soon, but still February has to be wrapped up...only half way through the month with more winter and fate laughing at me from the wings!