It seems like I have gotten into a rut, beginning dispatches with my perceptions on the latest weather trend. There is good reason for this – the cold, snow, and wind are all-consuming entities. They are important to me NOW. I can’t refrain from making note of what’s going on externally.

Well today the temperatures were in the teens – blustery in town, less so here. I was inside all day, working, so I didn’t get to experience the temperature-related uptick.

Alys with dinosaur books

I mostly worked in the warehouse, stopping for one meeting and ending the day with another. All the while I was thinking about my animals and wondering how they were doing. It was warm enough today to go for a ride. . .

There are going to have to be some changes in the managerial department of the Bright Lights Book Project. I am doing too much, and it seems there are more and more layers added, the latest being to develop a literacy program. Maybe the first step when dealing with change is to acknowledge that I can’t do it all. But how do I let others know this in a way that will get them to take on more? This is my challenge.

Maybe I need to be on a twelve-step program. I would like to go down these stairs rather than go up them. Is this allowed? Maybe heaven should be at the base of the figurative stairs rather than at the top of them. Of course, heaven and hell are an illusion – as in, I hope I end up in Heaven, or I hope you end up in hell. If Heaven and Hell are hope related, meaning something one does or does not aspire to, well then, they do not exist.

So what does exist? I am going to feel cheated if I die and don’t find out that I have a future. I often wonder if, worldwide, everyone wonders what is to become of their physical and mental self. And I wonder if they also fear about the unknown. It might very well be that those in heavily populated countries are less individualistic thinkers. Me, I think, I know how I came to be, but have no idea where I’m going.

This is the type of insular thinking that complements winter weather. My thoughts will turn outward, I am sure, in a month’s time. And there is always May, my favorite month – I live for the smell of the cottonwoods and the green tinge one sees on the trees. And I delight in seeing the geese, in ragged V’s head north. And too, in again seeing the swallows and robins who call here home for the summer.

I’m also looking forward to brushing out the horses’ coats and letting the sheets that come off the shedding blade fall to the ground.

Four months from now is a long time away. If it was May and I was looking to September I would say that four months from now is a short time away.

Next: 37. 2/6/24: Late to Bed, Late to Rise