Slow Returns

This morning, I feel more off-schedule than most mornings. That may be because I am off schedule.  Last night, I didn't get to bed until 10 p.m. (very late for me), although I did have a nap.  I didn't sleep well, but I did sleep until 5:15 a.m., which is late for me.  Let me collect a few thoughts here.

--Before sunrise this morning, it was 65 degrees in the mountains of Asheville.  Very strange.  It was warm enough yesterday to be out and about in shorts in Washington, D.C.  In fact, I was tempted to turn on the AC, but I didn't.  This week is unseasonably warm, while last week, it was unseasonably cold.  I do realize that using the word unseasonably implies that we can predict these things, but in a world of rapid climate change, past seasons won't look like current seasons, which won't look like future seasons.

--Long ago, I got a Kindle Fire 7, because I needed to be able to take videos of students to support the social media person's efforts at the school where I worked.  I never was able to make it work as a video camera, but I kept it, thinking that at some point in the future, I might want a reader of some sort.  A few days ago, when my spouse expressed a wish for a reader, I handed him the Kindle.  He's spent some time trying to figure out if it can be the kind of reader he wants.  I'm not sure how it will all turn out, but it does make me glad I kept it--even though I realize it may result in us buying something more flexible, like an iPad.

--My spouse and I have had a very good time together during this time of his visit.  I'm trying not to feel sad that he's not living here with me, full-time, the way we had planned when I was severed from my job.  It's good to have a house that is ours, in a place near Asheville where I want to live long term. And these past weeks have not been my usual seminary life, since he arrived once my Fall 2022 classes were over.

--We've done a bit of exploring of the neighborhoods that border the seminary.  Yesterday, we decided to get a pizza from a local chain, Pizza Boli--it was one of the best Greek pizzas we've ever gotten.  We've made several trips to Wegmans, including one last night.  I felt very grown up, driving after dark.  I don't drive much these days, except for longer trips.  It's a very strange turn of events, especially when I consider distant days of on ground teaching, where I would drive from location to location to location.

--It's also strange in that I don't return to class (the ones I'm taking and the ones I'm teaching) until late January.  In past years, I've leapt right back into working life in the first week of January.  I have never had this much time off for Christmas break.  I could get used to this.

--As we've watched T.V. (by which I mean we're streaming stuff and watching it on the T.V.), I've stitched smaller and smaller scraps together.  It's too hot to have my other project draped over me as I quilt.  The small stitching reminds me of the counted cross stitch that I used to do.  My plan for these small scraps stitched together is to end up with 12-16 panels that are roughly 12 inches square.  And then I'll fashion them into a quilt top--and then, a quilt.

--As in the past, I've read more fiction during the break than I usually have time to read.  And I can look forward to a few more weeks of reading fiction.  What a joy!

--In the next few days, I want to do some serious thinking about my approach to mornings.  For a long time, I've been aware that I spend too much time internet surfing first thing in the morning, and it's usually not nourishing.  I know that I wrote more and read more in the past, before I had a laptop that went with me everywhere.  I submitted more creative work and was more widely published back then too.  Let me think about realistic ways to replicate that setting.