The Eve of April and NaPoWriMo – a new start!

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Mary Beth Frezon

Yes this past year was weird to the max, wasn’t it? I confess that although I was doubling up in my news aggregating and posting via social media, I couldn’t keep it going here too apparently? We were all tired for sure! And relieved when November came and went after a long stretch of pandemic isolation and all the pressures and anxieties it brought along with it.

I was painting and writing but not blogging.

But, today is the eve of April and in an effort to get “normal” back on track, let’s do this thing – blogging and NaPoWriMo. I’ve been doing some prep work for the month of poems-to-be. And, I think I’ll move something I’ve been doing over on the ol’ facebook to here since it’s all about the daily photo of something seen and enjoyed.

Welcome visitors, old and new and let the blog blossom along with the daffodils out front!

Posted in Administrivia, Do the Work, gardens and flowers, life on the web, NaPoWriMo, taking time to look | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

Here’s to getting here and finding the light and appreciating it where we find it.

Northern Exposure End Scene: More Light from Markus Avrelius on Vimeo.

Survived a night with roaring winds and rain so I might be a little droopy later but there is good everywhere. Soak it in, revel in it! Strength friends, for what’s ahead!

Posted in Do the Work, family and friends, good causes, life around us, taking time to look, the creative process, traditions | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Merry Christmas!

Sandy Hook

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

Today is the eighth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

I had gone the previous night to a midnight showing of the Hobbit in Nyack NY where there is a “real” IMAX movie theater. A group of us went and had a good time hanging out and enjoying the film.

I stopped at the Nassau Diner on my way home, thinking it was funny to be doing my day sort of in reverse, drinking coffee on the way home rather than the way to work. A news alert popped up while I was there about another shooting. Tired but caffeinated I drove home.

When I got home the news was overwhelming and unbelievable. And we live with a string of shootings now that are overwhelming and unbelievable that have happened since then. That day was Columbine all over again and now there are almost too many to recite.

There have been attempts to deny that any of this happened. How incredible is that, all by itself? But no one can deny the realty that these children died, along with others shot down by unnecessary assault-style weapons. As have many others – too many – since then.

Posted in geeky stuff, Lotr, Ripped from the headlines | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

December 2020

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

I’ve been home for a little over nine months now. You would think something would have come of that time and stuff has, just maybe not the stuff you might imagine. I’ve painted. I’ve taken photos. I’ve written. I’ve read. I’ve learned to interact to others via a plethora of online platforms.

I had gone to a lecture at the Clark and felt like I had a headache. Didn’t much enjoy the presentation, drove home and went to bed. Was sick with mildly flu-like symptoms and was more than glad to stay in bed napping for quite a number of days, long enough that for the first time in my working history I had to go to a doctor for a note in order to return to work. By then it was clear that something was going on. I had no way of knowing if I’d had the flu (yes, I’d gotten the shot), bronchitis, or whatever this new virus was. But I went to the doctor and he had nothing to offer because now, two weeks later, I was well. I seized the moment to get a test for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases which came back negative.

I got the note and sent it in and then my workplace was shut down.

So began my time at home. I stayed home a little longer, just to be sure about whatever it was I had early in March. Then work evolved and food shopping turned to delivery and pick up and life went on. I officially started doing real work-from-home stuff in early June. In September I signed up officially to do that for six months. And then another round of scheduling fuzziness ended my research into different retirement scenarios and my last working day was October 28. After that I was on “vacation” for a little over a month and now I am officially retired.

Last night I erased the computer I’d been sent to work on and packaged it up. I cleared out a little drawer that held a stack of post it notes – tallies of each day’s work. Yes our work was trackable online – so many interactions over the course of the day and all, but for me, it was a pleasure to tick each chat and perhaps note what the question was. I think the largest number of ticks was 46 or 48. Some days, due to outages or events were much lower. Thirty plus was the norm. I laughed as I quickly flipped through the stack looking at all the slashes. Each a person, for a few minutes or longer.

Now, as I have since March, I can take a few minutes to look around each morning as I go out to offer my coffee grounds to the garden or get the mail. The things to see are many. I fill the bird feeders. I look at the sky. I don’t have a long daily commute to think about things or listen to audio books, although I’ve finished several long audio books since being home. My Prius was showing 112.2 “mpg” the other day because many of my travels are within the electric range of the car. I don’t stop in a store just to look around. I took a pass on the normal Thanksgiving because it seemed like the best thing to do.

Today is 42 days away from Inauguration Day and that is good, even though the fight goes on to turn our country towards what it was before 2016 and maybe towards what we would like it to be. The fight continues to keep people healthy. The stay at home thing continues. So I look around and see what the world has to offer each morning and go from there.

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
— Joseph Chilton Pearce

Posted in birds and chickens, coffee and tea, Do the Work, In the neighborhood, overhead, photography, RESIST, taking time to look, the creative process, watercolor, work (dayjob) | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Gettysburg Address

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Mary Beth Frezon

Perhaps we could all take a moment to read this aloud, and to think of what the words meant then, and mean today.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Posted in Do the Work, note to self, RESIST, Ripped from the headlines, words | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Gettysburg Address