Winter Light | A website of personal writing and photography in Ft. Worth, TX.

Winter Light
A website of personal writing and photography in Ft. Worth, TX.

Walls of sheltering pine on either side of us

The same feeling of protection always comes over me when we are in the pine woods again.

Labels: treo photos

The wedding

Looks like we're all set for a wedding.

Labels: treo photos

Ave Maria

Labels: treo photos

Stairs at St. Catherine of Siena

I wonder where they lead.

Labels: treo photos

Dairy Palace

My favorite stop between Ft. Worth and Metairie. This time I got fish n' chips. It was great!

Labels: treo photos

Tea and company

I bet you thought I died!

It's been a busy week, let me tell you. Henry and I are enjoying the front view with freshly-brewed mint tea, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and vitamins. I am exhausted, but I am coming to life again. I can feel the stirrings. I am emerging from my silent, thick-walled room of contemplation to begin sharing what I have felt in my inward sojourn.

I thought my spiritual questions were just a lark, an outpouring of anxiety and stress in the midst of this life change, that they would be forgotten, my little journal abandoned or repurposed in a while. However as soon as I find myself with inner space to think I find myself returning to my spiritual studies.

Labels: treo photos

Antique switch plates, home notes

I was amazed by these switch plates. They are everything I want in a switch plate. I want them in the music room and parlor. Their golden tones will offset the warmth of the floor and contrast with the wall color I have chosen "Spanish Bluebell."

Other rooms will have subtle switch plates, but I actually want to replace everything, including the telephone jacks, which we won't use, because the plastic is so old they have yellowed and become dingy.

This weekend I weeded one front bed but didn't dig up the bulbs. I think they are amaryllis because I saw amaryllis blooms earlier this year. They need to be thinned out and replanted elsewhere because they have migrated randomly and are really on top of each other. For the front of the house I best like a color scheme of blue and yellow. The side yard will be white flowers, and an accent of red won't hurt. I also see them looking well near the gates. I still don't know where to plant a rose garden. There's no obvious good place. The front yard is very shady.

I cleaned one of the tables. I'm thinking they may stay in the shed for a while. I have become so familiar with spiders and beetles today. The spiders aren't the same as in east Texas, not at all. The ones south are rangy and move quickly, are often tarantulas. The spiders here have large, decorated abdomens and those bent-needle like legs. They look like black widows, but are brown with white markings. They make me uncomfortable, I need to look them up. It's amazing how it comes back to you.

I find I am not that excited about chickens right now. Maybe I find the stables too intimidating. I more desire a dove cote. Not very useful, I know. I also wish for ducks, but I'm afraid we don't have enough water. I also don't know if something would eat them.

I painted one pole over completely. I didn't strip the old paint that well, and I've applied two new layers. For the next pole I stripped it twice, and next I will repaint it, compare it to the first. If my extra stripping made a big difference I'll strip the other poles likewise, including the one I already painted, which will probably peel quite easily since it is so fresh. Actually painting is pretty tiring! The muscles in my hand hurt for clenching the brush. I'm sure I'll toughen up. If two strippings don't improve the texture of the second pole I'll resort to three. Need more Simple Green and white paint. I turned my rubber gloves inside out because they've gotten so moist. They have red mold growing all over the palms apparently. Maybe I should just throw them away.

Already I feel life changing so much. I am not writing anything right now. I feel this is not the time for that. This is a time of great change for us, a time to live and experience things.

Labels: home notes, treo photos

This is the integrator

At the top you can see a strip of paper. When the integrator has a total breakdown we have to enter that raw code in letter for letter. It goes something like else !$2.0;19; etc. We have to get every space and character exactly or it won't work.

Labels: treo photos

Lesson 1

This is a chromatogram. Coming off first is a phenylephrine peak. Do you see the hump or deposit at the end of the peak? That's bad. Using a different column on another system I was able to get them to separate but that HPLC isn't working correctly. These instruments are from 1992.

Labels: treo photos

Isn't this fun?

It's rare I have a chance to do a photolog from work. Let me tell you, I am so excited. Last month around this time I stressed and sickened over something, finished it off as best as I could, it was reviewed, but QA rejected it. Here I am again, less than 24 hours before another deadline given this product again, and don't think I haven't spent this last week burning the candle at both ends on several other little surprises. I don't mean to be dark, but I'm tempted to open the bottle and swallow all of the damn pills right now.

Everyone was allowed to go home early due to all our hard work, but not me, because I am stuck with this terrible product which I've known from the beginning is just plain wrong. Why is it in quality control that when something is wrong with a product the analyst is made to suffer, and suffer, and suffer? Don't worry, I already know the answer to that one.

But really, don't worry, because I have my own means of amusing myself. I feel a photo shoot coming on.

Labels: treo photos

The Amityville Horror

I thought this picture the inspector took for the front of our report was rather funny. It is my understanding now that a home inspection is meant to highlight every possible flaw about a home. I could not help but think that this picture is funny with respect to that. Our inspector did uncover a few sources of discomfort, possibly horror for us, that led to some stressful bartering. In the end, it was out of the hands of buyer and seller and then suddenly, placed right into our hands.

At any case, our home looks nothing like this picture.

Labels: home notes, treo photos

The dear old table

Here's the little table in one of the barns that the former owner made. As you can see, everything is very dusty. This place has been uninhabited for some time.

Labels: home notes, treo photos

Good morning, dear house

It is about to rain. The sky is dark, the birds are flying low, and the air is heavy. I have ten more minutes before I have to return. I find I cannot sit in the building any more on my breaks. I have had such a deep need lately to have a boundary between myself and the building. What if we could all experience the sunshine of the spotless mind every day? Somehow life gets so complicated.

I put my dressform in the small room I adore as my sewing room. It is just what I wanted. It is a sewing room.

I am reading A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe. It is so good! I have actually not read her in my adult life. It's like I'm discovering her for the first time. The Mysteries of Udolpho was too immense for me in high school. Her discernment and discussion of human behavior is rapier-sharp. I have noticed how the Age of Reason authors focus on the nuances of behaviors and personalities that truly resonate down the centuries. I will come up with some quotes when I am on my PC. We can all say, "I have known someone like that."

Labels: home notes, treo photos

The keys

Here are the keys to our new home as of right now.

Labels: home notes, treo photos

Would you look?

The more I think about this, the more I keep laughing. I knew my Starbucks was special. Gosh, I love this place.

This was taped over the word "slut" engraved in the side of the bathroom mirror. Hey, the tape was peeled halfway back. I wonder how many people had to look.

Labels: treo photos

The last BBQ?

Every time we eat at a favorite restaurant, I ask myself, will this be the last time? When we move, we will be far away from these places. We have been going to King China BBQ for at least five years now. It is my favorite Chinese restaurant. I have never eaten Chinese food quite like they do it here. It is not breaded or fried, but marinated with different flavors which are delectable. In addition to their huge menu selection, they have many different drinks, most of which I’ve had, I think. I don’t drink milk tea or jelly tea any more due to calorie concerns, so I had their soymilk last weekend, which was wonderful and grassy.

Could it have been the last BBQ?

Labels: Arlington, restaurant, towns, treo photos

Dove

Well, that is a dove. It seems like my camera has degraded over the years. This Treo is at least three years old now. I still remember that I was listening to Nightwish on my Treo 600 when I dropped it and it lost its speaker abilities. Things have changed so much for me. I look back through the tunnel of years and feel strange and lost. I wonder if I made some bad career decisions, then I wonder if I care about this sort of work at all.

Am I going to making mincing steps through life without committing to anything? Always I have said, I'm just here waiting for the next thing. Or, when I was in high school, because I had to be, but my mind was in a "better" place, college, but I learned quickly I couldn't settle my mind there either so lived in my future job.

Here I am in, I guess, my fourth job. In one sense I would have been pleased I managed to be hired by four different people. Part of me asks for very, very little in life. And then the other part of me asks for so incredibly much.

Labels: treo photos

Recipe journal

Today Nathan and I went to Tuesday Morning and browsed. It was so fun. We bought random things there and at Tom Thumb. I got this recipe journal kit at Tuesday Morning and spent this afternoon breaking it in. I already have three pages done. At Tom Thumb I found glittering black tea lights on Halloween clearance.

This weekend has been full of the unexpected. We saw four houses Friday evening after work in an incredible heat wave. The first two were pretty fascinating. We started putting together an offer on the first house with our realtor this weekend. This morning I checked my email, and the seller dropped the price on the farm house so that we could afford it with our mortgage. We accepted the offer. So the farm house I described back in April, well, that's probably going to be our home. I won't believe it until we're moved in, and I'm not talking about it till it's a done deal. But I did start back embroidering my curtains today, and I felt a deep brooding happiness over it all. For the most part though I'm done with feelings for a home. It's really not wise, especially the way mortgages are going these days.

Another big surprise was that I contracted poison ivy from one of our woodland jaunts, and it has spread like wildfire over my body. I have never had poison ivy this extensively in my life, and it has been over ten years since I had it at all. Wildfire is the best description for it. My skin is flaming all over. Nathan has caught it now, but he doesn't itch. I have calamine lotion all over, but nothing stops the inflammation, and it keeps spreading. I am thinking of taking the day off tomorrow, because when I have to wear anything on my legs it's excruciating and spreads more. Last week I actually prayed I would get sick so I wouldn't have to go to work. But I am suffering right now. My nerves are throbbing all over. I scratched in my sleep last night like a madwoman and woke myself up with raw and swollen pox all over. I had to reapply the lotion at 3 a.m. Tonight I am already feeling worse.

Complaining makes me feel better.

Labels: treo photos

Green tips

On the tops of our trees over the balcony you can see the pale green of new growth.

Labels: treo photos

Optimism blue

Labels: treo photos

McDonald's can look kind of pretty

It has been ages since I have sat in here by myself! I have really missed it.

I have to work tomorrow. I can't believe it. I am already compiling a list of things to do to counterbalance that:

- Sew striped placemat set
- Do my photo cube shoot
- Wear my Innocent World dress, at least if we go out somewhere

Labels: treo photos

Beer cheese

Sunday I made some beer cheese that has to ferment in the refrigerator for five days, and tomorrow it will be ready to eat.

Labels: treo photos

Hydrangeas

This is their second summer with me.

Labels: treo photos

How much longer will I be able to do this?

I don't know whose toes those are.

Labels: treo photos

Jonah goes to the vet

Saturday Jonah got his beak and nails trimmed. He was so good!

Labels: treo photos

Sturm und drang

It raged all night, and still it rages. What a dark time it is as I have to grapple with things painful and beyond my control, alone.

I decided to start going out on my breaks again to recreate a private and creative space for myself, but the storm prevents the very first step of my resolution.

I felt that God was with me last night. After a sleepless and stress-filled night I found that the thunder and lightning were immense and that I should sleep another hour. Despite my stress I did sleep, and I feel better than I would have. I know that God is not in the storm or the fires, but God is the still small voice guiding me to do the right thing with what I have, if I let him.

I did wake with enough rest and strength. I have enough composure to get through the day. And no, it isn't about the wretched house. If I was enough of a spoiled brat to get so deeply distressed about that problem I wouldn't expect anyone, especially God, to care.

Labels: treo photos