There's No Place Like Home

I’m thinking…

My thoughts are, at the moment, focused with some slight frustration at the header to this page. For some reason the font I have chosen isn’t looking right to me this morning. Which is quite ridiculous, I know. I often use this font without a thought of its uninteresting qualities. In fact, it is because it is the most uninteresting, staid, font that I choose it. Often having a rather boring font helps me to focus away from the appearance of the type to the actual words that I am typing. I am easily distracted, I know.

You ask why I am not instantly switching fonts if it is a feature of frustration to me? Well, you see, I’m trying to be a good little writer and not so easily distracted. I know that the instant I start critiquing the font I shall feel that the words I have thus far written are all wrong and that I should fiddle with commas and sentence flow and in the end I shall never get anything written at all.

I was thinking the other day of different places you could go to write; coffee shops and libraries and parks. I would rather like going to a coffee shop to write I think. There is something about the smell of coffee flouting around on the air that simply asks for words, words already written by someone, or words asking to be written down by you.

The funny thing about writing in places like those is that the attraction is also the drawback. What I mean of course is being out and about amongst people.

On the one hand there’s nothing that sparks inspiration so much as “people watching.” Just sitting in your chair watching the people go by, wondering who they are and what they are like. Story ideas just seem to come from nowhere and suddenly you are writing out thoughts that have been in the back of your mind for years and years but you’ve never yet put them into words.

Then again on the other hand there’s nothing so distracting. You think of those moments when you are trying to read, say in the library, and you desperately wish to get back to the lovely scene in your book, but you just can’t focus. That happens to me all of the time in the library. I end up sitting back in my chair and staring dazedly around the bookshelves thinking thoughts of great weight, or perhaps no weight at all.

I think, really, there is no place to write like home. No place where you can settle down properly with your inspiration and make something of it. My favorite place to write is of course, my bedroom. I will settle down on the chair in the corner or perched atop my bed and write wildly into the night. The hours slip by like minutes and the light fades from the room. My word document goes from a blank page with a few scattered words to a thing of several thousand words, and I go from being calm and happy to feverish and excited to sleepy and contented.

I suppose those other places are the places you go to when you are looking for inspiration, and home is the place you go to when you wish to make something of that inspiration.

In the end, there’s no place like home.

 

From the kitchen…

The coffee pot just gave its final noise, showing that it was turning off and the coffee was about to begin to grow cold. Of course I had to dash across the wood floor as quick as my feet could scamper to refill my red coffee cup with steaming coffee before it all grew cold. Law of nature, one must always do that when they hear the coffeepot alarm going off.

 
Outside my window…

The first thing my eyes settle upon as I glance out the window are the little baby daisies still all closed up in tight little buds. Is there a proper name for those daisies? I’ve always just called them the “baby daisies” they are the little ones with all of the small white petals just tipped with pink. I like them much  better than the big daisies that you see sometimes. My favorites are these little ones that cluster in the yard in little clumps. I love how they close up in the evening time and open up again as soon as the sunlight hits them. It’s so sweet, as if they are bidding you goodnight and then sleepily waking up in the morning. *beams* and yes, I did make up stories about the little daisy fairies when I was little.

 
I’m wearing…

 A deep blue peasant blouse with white beading all around the neckline, jeans, and black ballet flats.

 
I’m reading…

 I’ve just started reading ‘The Three Musketeers.’ I was going to start that one as soon as I finished reading the Sherlock Holmes but I was distracted by some fairytales by George MacDonald. I didn’t remember how absolutely funny his writing is from when I read it when I was much younger. I remember the ‘Light Princess’ always rather frightened me for some reason. I think it was how well I visualized the prince almost getting drowned and I was at a point close to tears, but dear me, his writing is just hilarious. I was stitches. I suppose it’s the sort of humor that a child doesn’t quite get at first and then when you read it years and years later you are just giggling and chortling with every sentence.

 Quotes that I like today…

 “Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.”

Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh

“It’s all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it’s not so nice when you really have them, is it?”

Anne of Green Gables- L. M. Montgomery

 “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.”

-C. S. Lewis

Picture thoughts I’m sharing…

Journaling Page

Outside my window…a cool and green and damp world. The pond ripples slightly in the breeze. The grass is shiny and slippery looking from rain. The sky is gray with brief partings into blue and then back to gray. I’m wishing for snow. Just one little bit of snow before springtime. Please?

I’m listening to…I know I say this a lot, but to the clatter of my fingers typing these words. There are many other sounds that I could go off rambling about, but I am rather fond of this one. I like listening to the click, click, clack. It brings to mind words, and black ink against white page, and paper and more words. Words and paper, is there anything better that one could be thinking about?

I’m wearing…I am feeling rather like someone from the early nineteen hundreds for whatever reason. Which brings to mind Samantha, the American Girl doll, or perhaps it is the other way around? That I am feeling like Samantha today which brings to mind her time period? I think it is the pants I am wearing at the moment, they are black pants that stretch out until there is enough material to make a skirt from them. They remind me of pantaloons that Samantha would wear if she went biking. I am also wearing a cream blouse with dark cream embroidery down the front and my hair is loose and wild at the moment.

I’m reading…Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, a book on the history of Robin Hood throughout the years (still obsessed with Robin Hood you know) and the biography on E. B. White.

I’m creating…I’m feeling in the mood to pick up knitting again. I started knitting a sweater a while back but I was feeling rather discouraged about it *cough* and so I just let it lie. I feel like starting on a new knit hat or something.

I’m thinking…I’m thinking that perhaps I should be thinking something very wise and worth thinking, however obviously I’m not. I’m thinking of instead, of what I’m thinking, which makes things quite confusing, but I’m in a confusing mood so don’t mind me.

I’m grateful for…naps. There is really nothing better than a nap. When you wake up from one the world is just so much better, and it makes everything just more so if you wake up with a little baby head curled next to your arm. I love my baby sister.

Around the house…I’m quite content sitting her typing this. There is nothing else I would rather be doing and I really don’t want to think of anything else that I should be doing. I should be writing this. It’s part of Monday schoolwork, so there we go. *grins*

From the kitchen…I’m considering getting up and going to make a cup of tea or hot chocolate in a moment or two. It’s rather that sort of day.

One of my favorite things…that happy feeling that you get for no reason in particular. Just feeling happy without rhyme nor reason. Well, there is a reason, but you haven’t considered it long enough to give an accurate reason, and are just content to be happy without searching for a reason.

A few plans for the week… waking up tomorrow more motivated for everything. Of course spend time reading, writing, drawing, what would a week be without those things? Dive into my schoolwork with motivation and drive. 

A picture thought I’m sharing…

Journaling Page

Outside my window…clouds spread thick across the sky, growing thin and letting the blue sky peep through in some areas, but mostly all that is to be seen is the white grey clouds. They hide the sunlight from view and shadows take advantage of this, casting themselves over the trees and across the yard. A dark shadowed day, with even the dandelion puff-balls still and without movement in the grass. If you look high enough in the trees, some leaves can be seen rustling gently but not many; only a few especially playful little leaves. The water on the pond is calm, calm and still, the breeze seems to have spent all its strength in playing with the leaves up high in the trees and has no more energy to send the water rippling and twirling across the pond. It is an in-between sort of day. Not summer nor yet fall, it is simply an in-between-er day, a day without warm sunshine, hinting of summer, and chill breezes, proclaiming fall.

I’m wearing…jeans, a new black and white striped top, and my new black flats wait for me at the door, along with my coat and a scarf. Whatever the weather may be like at the present moment I am ready for fall, and I shall determinedly wear warm thick sweaters, knit dresses, scarves and coats, hoping that if fall sees this open admiration of him he shall come and join me in my fall readiness.

I’m listening to…the unsteady, rather unpremeditated “click” “click” as my fingers hit the keyboards to form these words. The words come in seemingly random bursts; all will be silent for a few moments as I think about which words to use and then suddenly my fingers burst into a flying dance (which they seem to enjoy very much) then all is silent once more. Thinking, thinking, thinking, writing…

From the kitchen…I love the kitchen in the morning. I love the sounds of the coffee maker steaming and brewing on the counter, the teapot whistling merrily in a steady burst of steam, a loud smash of a knife or cupboard door rattling, and the patter of little feet running across the floor looking for something yummy for their rumbley tummies. I love the smells of toast being browned or breakfast made, the delicious smell of coffee brewing flouting everywhere, the smell of coca that my brothers are making, and the cup of coffee (yes, coffee again) warm in my hands. Such good morning sounds and smells, wafting from the depths of the kitchen.

I’m reading…I’m in a rather skip from one book to the next sort of mood. I feel like reveling in all my favorite parts of my favorite books so I will pick up an old favorite for a day, curl up with it for a happy hour enjoying it wholeheartedly then I decide to pick up a different one that this book has made me long for. So I flitter from the pages of one book to the next quite contentedly. There are a few books I would like to look up at the library when I have the time though, perhaps before I work today.

One of my favorite things… laying in bed for those first few moments after waking up. Before the thoughts of the day flood into your mind, before you think of all the things you need to do that day, or even before you think of all the things you hope to do. The best moment is that state between sleep and wake, where you really are still half asleep and yet you can feel your toes wiggle under the covers that are both warm and cool at the same time. You watch the curtains blow on the wind created by the fan, blow out in billows like sails on a ship and then ripple and fall back till they billow again. You can see the morning sunshine sneaking through the gaps in-between the curtains and you feel that you could lay here forever, and then you wake up for real and know you must get up.

Around the house…oh there are so many things I would like to do around the house right now, but most of all I should like to curl up in a comfy chair with a blanket thrown around me and a book in my hand, it is that sort of morning.

I am creating…I am rather excited to begin a new knitting project. My Mama has found a pattern for a sweater she would like me to make for Ella and I can’t wait to get started! I can’t wait to go and look at new yarns and feel how soft, to squeeze the yarn and decide which one I would like to work with. My fingers are itching to get those needles in my hands and start creating that steady rhythm of knit stitches coming down and across my needles.

I’m thinking… Oh dear this is sad, I’m trying so hard to think of what I am thinking! But thoughts come and go so fast! Have you ever thought of that? Really they do. You are listening to a song on the radio, it makes you think of a person you know, which makes you think of what they are doing, perhaps they are on vacation somewhere…which makes you think of vacation and snow, which makes you think of Advent and preparations for Christmas, which makes you think of ice-skating, which makes you think of breaking your arm ice-skating last January, which makes you think of having your arm in a cast, which makes you think of fainting. And there you are! In the course of an instant you have gone from thinking about a song you are listening to- to fainting! And it seems quite random to suddenly say, oh I was thinking about the time I fainted! How, may we ask, did you come to be thinking about that while writing a Journaling Page? I don’t know…I don’t know…

A few plans for the rest of the week…Oh so many plans! But most of all I hope to do some practice driving since I start my first class of Drivers Ed in exactly a week.

I’m pondering…(takes on solemn face) I am pondering the repercussions of over indulgence in the bedtime hours by staying up late. Too late, I mean. If you stay up late into the night you may not be able to get up in the morning…unless you never go to sleep! Yes and stay up forever on the pure power of coffee! Now there’s an idea! I think it would be a very good thing if someone invented a machine to pull you up out of your comfy bed and dumped you depressingly in the cold hard bathtub.  I should call it the “Hard Cold Reality Machine” and I should abuse it soundly during the day by every hour going in and making faces at it, but I should secretly be grateful for it, till the day I suddenly went insane and grabbed a large pillow next to me and started smacking it “you ruined my beautiful dream!” and then the robot would say “Welcome. To. Hard. Cold. Reality.” In a metallic fake voice and I would go off into hysterical laughter for no reason at all.

A picture thought I am sharing…this is an absolutely adorable photo of Ella I took yesterday! I am rather proud of it! I love taking pictures, especially close up ones where the background gets blurry but the object of your photography is sharp and clear.  

My quote for the day...

“A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.”

–Anais Nin