a piddly couple of days

Friday dawned overcast but it did clear up and Marc beat me to unloading the truck onto the burn pile. I didn't sleep well Thursday night, was awake for about 3 hours and feeling a little nauseous. When Marc came in to make sure I was awake to take Robin to work he woke me from a deep REM sleep. I don't know what I was dreaming about, it was gone in a flash in the sudden awakening but it took a while to make the transition from dream to awake. I got Robin to work, came home and fixed breakfast and I could have gone right back to bed and back to sleep after but I didn't. And so I felt funky and sleepy all day and even wondered if I was getting sick (and if I was was it covid?) but it was just a funky stomach and I started feeling better as I made green salads and heated up another version of leftover soup for dinner and I'm fine today. The only thing I got accomplished Friday was I finally cleaned off the big work table in the house, cleared it of all the pictures and variations of sketches for the last three pate de verre pieces and notes and stuff that gets dumped on it when we walk in the house with our hands full.

My sister and I also went to the open house for the new main house for Hesed House last night. I've mentioned Hesed House before, it's where I go to yoga on Thursday nights and where I took the watercolor class. It was established after the flood in 2017 to provide a place for counseling, wellness, and other community activities (like yoga, art/craft classes, outreach to the schools, community garden, lecture series, and just a general safe place to hang out) and where everything is free and is funded by grants and donations and supported by volunteers. It started with one house the town owned in one of the parks that back up to the river which was empty and unused. Next to the park are three other houses the city bought out for the flood remediation and levy building along the river but Stephanie came up with a plan to utilize the houses and expand the concept of Hesed House and the park and expand the resource for the community. So the first of the three new houses is completed and they moved in over the holidays. The original house will be devoted to wellness activities like yoga, mindfulness, and stress management. The new main house has Stefanie's office, a conference room for community use, a small intimate 'living room', a full kitchen, and a large space for social gatherings with a big covered deck out back. The next third house will be devoted to arts and crafts with a big outdoor pavilion in between. The last fourth house will be for club meetings and seminars I think. They have a website but it's not functioning very well at the moment but here's a link to their FB page if you're interested in learning more. Scroll through the pictures to get a feel for it.  I've signed up for the watercolor class again which starts next Tuesday.

I found out yesterday that the 12.5 acre pasture behind us which has been back on the market for months has a contract on it. We noticed new surveyor stakes on Thursday so I looked it up on a real estate site. The group of people who bought it the last time it went on the market had thought to put a home on it and a food garden and fruit trees to sell the produce but nothing ever materialized. They kept wanting access to the property through people's yards on my side of the street and couldn't understand why no one would allow it. That property is bordered by streets on the two short sides and all they had to do was put in a culvert for a driveway. It's a completely undeveloped piece of land...no sewer, no water, no electricity. My friend in real estate is going to see if she can get any info on the buyer(s) and what they intend to do with it though she doesn't think it's a developer.

Today is a blue sky day, a little breezy but will get to the low 60˚s, so I think I'll go out and see if I can find anything to take pictures of.

Well, best laid plans and all that. Just as I was ready to go out my daughter and grandgirl Autumn came over. We had a very nice visit and then I fed the turtle, hung the wind chime that Autumn and Jade brought me back from Ecuador, walked the dog and stopped by my neighbor Gary's house on the way back for the greens and other garden bounty he offered, picked up more sticks in the yard, pruned the small Chinese fringe flower tree by the front steps of the new deck, pulled up another handful of clover. It sounds like a lot but really it was just piddling around outside for the rest of the very nice day.