minus 6 - return to the garden

It's 70 degrees out, and I'm finally up after 6 hours of sleep. The garden is doing its Eden impression, with a squirrel grooming atop the stump, a juvenile black & white woodpecker practicing his skills on our river birch, and a flaming cardinal swooping through the lot, calling to his mate. The yellow finches, meanwhile, have sent reminders that their thistle feeder is getting low.

I'm thinking that perhaps the cold weather could hold off another month or two with no complaint from me.

But a bit of rain would be nice. All the flowers are dying as I have simply not taken the time to water.

Now here's a dilemma for you: to water and allow them to die of the cold, or to not water and allow them to slip away in the dry heat?

Right. There's just no answer here, is there? sort of like my dissertation. (you just knew I was going to work that in, didn't you?! . . . . laughing, here. . . . .)

Hoo buoy. . . .

Chapter one is mostly done, although there is SO much more I could do.

I'm afraid to take up chapter two. But will do so immediately upon finishing up here. And actually, I'm shooting for finishing chapters two AND three today. That just might get me enough momentum built up to be able to dash off the introduction and conclusion, so that I can re-write chapters 4 and 5 with the 'big picture' in mind. Tweaking as necessary. (and going back to chapters 1 through 3 as necessary by what was 'dashed off' by way of the final structure).

Oh God. . . . help me. Because there's still the Bibliography to do; still the table of contents; still the acknowledgments, statement of 'exclusively my work', summary, abstract and title page - all of which have to be put in order, some of which numbered and then the whole thing put in order and somehow printed out and you just know that's going to be a treat!

It's time for a feather to appear. A large corvid one, if you please, Father. Just to reassure me. Again.

Sorry. . . . back again. A feather like this one would be nice, too. All polka-dotty. It looks like it might have come from the woodpecker.

You don't know yet about me and feathers. They are a small message to me of reassurance. Or of warning like: "Hey! Look over here! You're missing something."

Many times they are like a post-it "I love you" note.

I need one today.

Please.

I guess that means I'll have to go for a walk! Probably not a bad idea.

Oh. And yesterday? The king came home with the building permit. Things are picking up around here!