Waiting for my muse

This new year is off to a slow start. I keep thinking, “Any minute now I’m going to get inspired and get busy.” I’ve just been mucking around and I don’t have much to blog about. I’ve been reading. I read my old journals from 1979 through 1999.

 Talk about a story with no plot! I have a complete log of the weather, details of house cleaning, gardening, and good meals that Robert cooked. There were some highlights, of course, but they are not for publication. If my children ever read them they might be surprised. The journals start with our arrival on the island and starting the Bethel Island Beacon weekly newspaper. They skip six years (because you don’t need a journal when you have a newspaper) and start up again in 1990 when we sold the newspaper and opened our bookstore, the Island Book Galley. After that, they cover my years at the island levee district and my excitement discovering quilting – page after page after page about quilting. They stop abruptly in March, 1999. It was really strange to read the journals all in one sitting.

I’ve also read some books: Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, Threadbare by Monica Ferris, Alpine Vengeance and Alpine Winter by Mary Daheim, The Table Comes First by Adam Gopnik. I’m reading The Obamas by Jodi Kantor right now (about 1/3 of the way through and nothing exciting so far).

 I’ve cooked some delicious things.

And I’m finally binding the little quilt pad. My daughter-in-law Toni quilted the hearts way back in October. I’m feeling a little guilty.