Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

 

That hopeful song of spring being just around the corner has been playing this week. Tuesday the sun was shining, giving off warmth though the wind was competing with it. I walked to Uptown to catch the bus, getting a mile and a half in before classes. Yesterday, more sun, so another walk to Uptown to catch the bus to work. Such a wonderful way to start the day. This morning, sunny, warming up nicely. Ado and I walked twice before 11 am. Both of us were very happy campers. I realized today I've not blogged much this month. It's already the 22nd and this will be blog post two for February. I've been working on the piece I started quite a while back, focusing on getting at least 1000 words a day. Seeing the wordcount increasing each day is incredibly exciting. Today I spent the afternoon printing out what I have so far . . . having a hard copy, feeling the weight of it in my hands, makes me want to do nothing but sit here and keep working. I'm resisting the urge to go...

Today I moved between writing, reading, vet, landlord, more writing, and sitting in front of the fire just watching the flame while listening to the rain patter against the roof, accompanied by a favorite jazz album playing softly. It was truly the kind of day to stay inside, snuggle into comfy clothes, and sip on hot chocolate. Although, to be honest, my choice of beverage this evening was a very delicious warm and fuzzy apple cider. Just lovely to sip on. The toughest part of the day definitely had to be the writing. I have three new pieces going at the same time while trying to revise two pieces that are closer to being "finished." I had one of the pieces workshopped by members of the online site I recently joined, and the critiques have been mixed. Several readers weren't able to make the connection to the time element working, which I thought might be problematic. That being said, the last person to critique did pick up on the lapse in time. A couple of other issue...

Lately I've been having really vivid dreams, the kind that are so crystal clear when they're playing out that I remember them for days afterward. Last night, I had one such dream. When I woke up from it I was very tempted to get up to research the possible meaning behind it. One look at the clock kept me in bed; it was only 1:46 am. I still had several hours of sleep to enjoy if I pulled the covers up to snuggle under, so I did just that. No way was I going to forget the dream even if I did go back to sleep. In the dream, I was walking Neurotic, Silly Dog along a rural road. I could see up ahead of us a trio of kids in the road, walking away from us. I was faced with having to decide to continue walking straight or turn left onto another road. Right when I had decided to continue straight, a rather large, very bright pink with white stripe skunk came out of the ditch just in front of us and began to cross the road. While I marveled over its color--bright pink?--at the same ti...