A New Year

Woke this morning to blue skies and sunshine and a whole new year. I imagined the earth turning this morning, the suns rays peeling off the old year and leaving a bright, clean new day of hope to begin the year.. The thought gave me a smile.

Happy Birthday, 2004!

Sun shining some today after rain yesterday. Leah and I sat in the sun for a while. She napped, I knit. Lovely to be out.

Lows in the 40's and highs in the 60's and sunny. Just doesn't get better than that in my book.

I have just a few rows on a shawl I am making for ME and then I get to decide on something new.

Memory is the second thing to go. Can't remember the first thing.

What a lovely day today! Door open and the fan on to stir the air. This is when I forget that it is winter.

Oh, so long ago, a young man of our acquaintance was curious about Mr. B's early life. As Mr. B began to describe some of the details of his Amish childhood, the eyes of the young man grew rounder and rounder. At the end, he burst forth with "Wow! That's different than normal!"

We were delighted with the very astute and understated observation. We clapped our hands, laughed, and exclaimed "Perfect!".

"Different than normal."

Those three words became the phrase to guide the often adventurous choices of our life together.

With this phrase as a beacon, we join Robert Frost in saying it has "made all the difference".

On the warm side today- 74 and we thought it was hot! Perspective is everything.

We are stretching the time between trips to town- something between laziness and not wanting to lose a day of work.

I'm knitting an Ugly Blanket these days. It is made of all the darker colored scraps and skeins of yarn that seem to accumulate in heaps. It's going to be machine washable, although I don't know that is a requirement.

The idea came from the Ugly Quilt Project. Ugly quilts made at little cost and donated free to the homeless. One quilt can save one life.

They are called Ugly Quilts because:

• each is made from clean used or no-cost fabrics.
• each should not have a market value to assure the homeless are beneficiaries.
• The name indicates the skill level needed for this tied quilt.
• The Ugly Quilt can be made in less than a day.
• A group can make one in an hour.

My Ugly Blanket will take longer than an hour to complete but it is satisfying "mindless" knitting. The kind of thing I can do for hours in an evening without need for concentrationn or pattern-watching.

Meditation in motion.

The Sleeping Bag Project

Rain has been with us for awhile. What a strange winter in the desert.

But we did see the most spectacular rainbow I have ever witnessed a couple days ago. A double- the main rainbow was so wide and the colors so vivid, I could identify every color. The second rainbow was about as bright as most singles I have seen. Will took pictures- haven't looked at them yet.

Will and I are hoping to take a weekend trip to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument next weekend. I think that is the proper name. It will be good to see something new :) Will is working so hard to get out from under his pile of "stuff" but after awhile it gets counter-productive with no breaks.

In true Bontrager fashion, we have changed our plans at the last minute. This week has been so packed full of deadlines for both of us that getting away was causing more stress than it was supposed to relieve. So we will go shopping on Saturday and meet our deadlines by Sunday nite and get away the following weekend.