Category Archives: New Year

January Reading plus Red

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I charged up my Bird Buddy AI feeder this past weekend. It hasn’t been outside since last Spring. It doesn’t survive the desert heat of summer, so I retired it for awhile.Then I started taking my own photos of birds and forgot about it. I hadn’t seen Red since our Christmas vacation, so I thought maybe he’d like the feeder, where I used to see Red and Mrs. all the time. So, the first day I put Bird Buddy outside, look who showed up?

I’m late posting the January reading list from my Daughter-In-Law’s AP English class. I got sidetracked earlier in January. After Christmas vacation, my husband and I both got sick. I was in bed for more than a week. Then I had other business to deal with that was a nightmare. Better late than never. Plus the reading can be done anytime. It’s fun to see what we’ve read and find new things to read.

Each month goes back in time periods. The syllabus started with today’s literature. In January, we’re reading 1865 to 1905.

Here’s the syllabus for January:

FYI, my surgery Monday went well. Tuesday I was up and walking wearing my boot. I even went outside for a short neighborhood walk with hubby.

Here’s a photo I took of Red since his first appearance at the Bird Buddy. It’s a little blurry because he wouldn’t sit still for me and he was clear across the yard. My photos of Mrs. weren’t worth sharing. She’s a flighty little thing.

What have you read on January’s Reading List?

Is there anything on the list you’ve wanted to read but never have?

The Gift of a New Year

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I got another visit from my javelina friends. I was taking out recycling when I smelled something nasty and skunky. Then I looked outside the fence and there they were! Yes, they smell. They also seem to use their sense of smell to figure out where I was and don’t seem to see that well. Their snouts are very active!

Now back to my topic: The New Year is a Gift

With January slowly slipping away, I’m making a conscious effort to make the most of it. Each new year does feel like a gift. There’s a chance to be better, make changes to be healthier and focus on new goals.

How am I doing that? First, by re-reading Julia Cameron’s book “Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance.”

From Amazon’s description:

The third book in Julia Cameron’s groundbreaking trilogy on creative self-renewal, now for the first time in paperback. In this inspiring twelve-week program, the third in Julia Cameron’s beloved body of work on the creative process, Cameron offers guidance on weathering the periods in an artist’s life when inspiration has run dry. This book provides wisdom and tools for tackling some of the greatest challenges that artists face.

The second thing I did this weekend was renew my membership to SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators) and downloaded “The Essential Guide to Publishing for Children.”

The guide covers all aspects of the publishing process, including finding an agent, writing a query letter, writing a book proposal, understanding contracts, and more.

I also watched a video of marketing trends in children’s literature which was on SCBWI’s resource page. I have several children’s manuscripts that I’d love to get published. I’m going to give it another try!

One of them is a story about growing up with my mom with her quirky and eccentric ways. I wrote it at least 20 years ago and got an offer from a small publisher. At the time, I was on contract with the Los Angeles Times Kids’ Reading Room to write children’s stories and was published in children’s magazines like Ladybug. I thought the publisher’s contract was too small! Of course, I never got another offer and quickly learned getting published is not that easy.

The other manuscript won first place in a Writer’s Digest competition as well as my local SCBWI chapter. It was also picked up by the most adorable website in the UK called S’mories where young British kids were recorded reading stories. The website was taken down for some unknown reason. Perhaps the parents no longer wanted their children broadcast in public all around the world.

I’m going to start with those two projects and will work on new projects, too.

Momma with two babies.

A video of Javelina with babies eating birdseed.

Do you feel like a New Year is a gift?

What plans or goals do you have for 2026?

Germinating New Year’s Ideas

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I took this photo the other morning as the sun began peaking over the horizon in our backyard. I don’t know why it took a blueish tint, but I kind of like it.

I’m not doing New Year’s Resolution this year. I have some ideas of what I’d like to do. They are closer to goals than resolutions, but more in the germination stage of seedlings.

I went for a walk the other morning with a neighbor. She said she and her husband are focusing on health for 2025. I told her that’s something my husband and I are doing, too. I’m sure it’s a reflection of what I wrote in What Would You Do? last Monday. (If you missed this post, please take a look.)

Another idea I thought of the other night, after waking up every two hours for some unknown reason, was putting together a list of classics. When I can’t sleep, I turn on podcasts. (I have headphones that rest around my neck. Connecting them to my laptop via bluetooth, I don’t wake up my husband.)

I thought it would be better for me to listen to classic literature, rather than current podcasts. I’m not giving up podcasts, just when I’m trying to sleep. The podcasts obviously aren’t working.

I looked online for lists of classics and discovered that I have read a lot of them through school and life. Ones like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “East of Eden,” “Secret Garden,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Great Gatsby.” Also, “Jane Eyre,” “Brave New World,” “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “The Iliad.” And the list goes on.

I discovered two that sparked my interest that I have never read. Well, more than two, but I decided to start with:

“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote.

I’ve always wanted to read this because Dill in “To Kill a Mockingbird” is based on Capote.

The other book I chose is John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley in Search of America.”

Here’s the description from Amazon: “With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.”

Who wouldn’t want to join Steinbeck and Charley on a road trip across America?

What are your favorite classic books?

What classics would you like to read that you haven’t yet?

Backyard Bird Buddies

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What a start to the New Year! New Orleans. Las Vegas. Queens. All on day one.

I’ve heard that our country is most vulnerable during a transition of power. I’m not sure if that’s why all this happened or not, but I’m hoping and praying for quieter and peaceful days ahead.

The last couple days, I’ve taken photos of birds and plants in my backyard. What a good time to share my bird buddies, and to reflect and enjoy nature.

Hawk number one was joined by a friend.

I’ve had visits from a bright red Northern Cardinal daily. I haven’t seen his wife lately. I hope she’s okay.

Mourning Doves roosting on the fence catching the morning sun.

There are always a handful of House Finches flitting around.

It’s not very often a quail flies up into the bird feeder. They prefer the ground.

I also enjoy my two pink flamingos with their little red friend.

House Finch in action!

Here’s to an uneventful New Year!

What are your wishes for a New Year?

Clearing the way for a New Year

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I hang onto old tennis shoes, even when I get a new pair. My reasoning is this: I’ll wear them at the beach. I’ll wear them doing yard work. I’ll wear them sometime.”

Guess what? It never happens. With daily walking I need new shoes every year. Sometimes twice a year, if they don’t hold up. A collection of worn out shoes with holes on the inside line my closet shoe shelf.

To ring in the New Year, I threw these old puppies out. I looked around my closet and found lots of shoes, dresses, and random clothing that I haven’t worn in years. Or ever. I will clear it out and deliver clothing to the Phoenix Dream Center that helps victims of sex trafficking. They have a clothing closet — which is a room with donated clothing that they can browse through and take whatever they want. The residents of the Dream Center, former sex trafficking victims, rotate working and organizing the inventory. I’ve written about the Phoenix Dream Center “Where Hope Lives” HERE.

The other clearing out I’ve done the last two days has to do with paperwork. Stacks of papers that I didn’t want to file in the moment, but squirreled away in a casita kitchen cabinet. “Out of sight, out of mind.” I don’t think my kids were impressed when they opened the cabinet. Most of it can be thrown out since everything is online these days.

Now that the paperwork is taken care of, I found another category of excess to toss. Cleaning products that I don’t need in Arizona. I moved a ton from Palm Springs, December 2020.

I think because we spend a fortune on these items, like cleaning products, tennis shoes and clothing, it’s hard to get rid of them.

It feels good to start the New Year fresh with the cobwebs of my life cleared out!

What do you you hold onto that you don’t need or use?

What are you doing to start the New Year fresh?

Metamorphosis from sick to health

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Harris hawks hanging out on an Agave behind the tree in our backyard on New Year’s Eve.

I feel like I’m emerging from 11 days of cocooning. I’m not quite a butterfly yet, but I can breathe and stretch my wings after a nasty bug that kept me in bed.

The day is bright and sunny. Absolutely stunning. The past few days have been cloudy and my weather app said air quality wasn’t good.

Here’s a clear view of the perch the hawks enjoyed on New Year’s Eve. Look at that sky!

At one point, there were five Harris hawks hanging out together.

During my cocoon phase, I listened to an outstanding book. Ann Patchett’s “Tom Lake.” It was published August 2023. I enjoy reading books the old fashioned way with paper pages and spines. However, because I was laying in bed with my eyes closed, propped up on pillows for my deep cough, I chose listening to an audiobook.

Meryl Streep was the reader! I could distinguish characters, not by a big change in her voice, but by subtle rhythms and intonations. I believe her reading added to the book so the experience was better than it would have been if I had held the book in my hands and used my eyes.

Here’s a summary from Amazon:

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

“Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature.” —The Guardian

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

amazon.com

I have one major question in the story that wasn’t resolved after going to back to re-listen to certain chapters. I won’t ask that question here, because it’s a spoiler. I’m waiting for someone else to read the book so we can discuss. I wonder if Patchett left this question unanswered on purpose?

Here’s a 10-second video of the hawks leaving my yard:

Hawks.

Do you like listening to audiobooks, using a reader or old-fashioned books?

Have you read “Tom Lake?” If so, what are your thoughts?

New Year’s Resolutions Reviewed

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three swimmers

This is a photo of my daughter (center) swimming with two club teammates

I wrote this January 2015. There’s not much I’d change nine years later. As far as my New Year’s Resolution that year to swim with my kids’ club team in their Master’s program, it took me until April to get up my courage. But I did it. (Master’s is swimming with a coach for 18 year olds and older.)

Kick It up a Notch! Or How to Build on Last Year’s Resolutions

This year, I  might start swimming Masters.

I sat down to write my New Year’s Resolutions story for my blog when I got distracted by checking out FaceBook. Just for a few mintues, mind you.

What did I see? An article written by a friend of mine, Susan Murphy, published in a local wellness and health publication, called Desert Health. She wrote about New Year’s Resolutions, too. You can read her article HERE. Susan’s a Ph.D., life coach, business advisor and author of several books.

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I tried a couple of her tips last January. I made goals that were small. They weren’t overwhelming. And, they were specific.

Too many people fail at their resolutions. Last year, I managed to make four of my goals happen.

My successes: writing, exercising and reading the Bible every single day. I’m proud to say I did it!  I also started bleuwater a year ago. I posted at least one story a week. It’s rewarding to look back on my work and know that I didn’t give up.

I also have a list of failures. But, I don’t care to discuss them right now.

So what am I going to try to do this year? As Emeril would say, “Kick it up a notch!”

I write my morning pages without fail. I have several writing projects I’m consumed with. But I want to do more. Make more progress.

My exercise is very consistent, but not challenging enough. I am getting stronger, but I need to kick it up. I walk several miles every morning and then in the evening with my husband. I am thinking about either joining a gym or swimming with masters.

What are your New Year’s goals?

How did you do with your resolutions last year?

A look at a goal for 2024:

FYI, I want to revise my rough draft of my NaNoWriMo project from two years ago. I struggled with it in 2023. I took a suggestion from LA from Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50 and signed up for an online writing class. It begins in two weeks. I’ll be off and going on one of my New Year’s resolutions.