Today’s news: SNOW DAY. All the kids that come into the nursery are staying home, and so am I. In Bakersfield, I would roll over and listen to the alarm clock say, “All schools in the greater Bakersfield area have a two hour fog delay….” Tule fog = a great feature of Central Valley high school winter experience.

I’m spending my winter days staying warm, wearing glittens, having hot drinks, wearing at least four layers of shirt/jacket and two pairs of socks always, playing cards, walking, and fantasy basketball stat tracking.

Pretty major part of being home.

Found this in an old notebook today while I was rummaging. The answer is, of course, C, but my creative options must have fooled Micah when put to the test.

Merry Christmas ‘86, everyone!

A Young Angels Fan Meets Strange Snotty Dog

Christmas 2005!

Thanksgiving wreath with the family. (not pictured: you!)

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver

Baynton Street Home.

Good-bye October, see ya next year

I want to tell you what hills are like in October
when colors gush down mountainsides
and little streams are freighted with a caravan of leaves,
I want to tell you how they blush and turn in fiery shame
and joy,
how their love burns with flames consuming and terrible
until we wake one morning and woods are like a smoldering
plain —

a glowing caldron full of jewelled fire;
the emerald earth a dragon’s eye
the poplars drenched with yellow light
and dogwoods blazing bloody red.
Travelling southward earth changes from gray rock to green velvet.

- Margaret Walker, October Journey