Tea Time

A post I began in July 2010:

Last month the Readers' Knot book group decided to do an English tea. Strangely enough there have been articles about tea time one in a British edition of Country Life. It's bringing back fond memories of a cream tea at Fortnum and Masons in London, or at a out-of-the-way tea room deep in the Sussex countryside. I couldn't remember how to find those tea rooms. Brian Collins, my then boyfriend, would encountered them on trips along the meandering side roads to Bodiam Castle or en route to Rye, one of our favorite haunts. Mmm. cucumber sandwiches, Scotch eggs, scones with cream and jam, and lots of traditional English cakes. I'm looking forward to this tradition for our book group.

Three Years Later

I can't imagine that three years have passed since I last wrote a post for this blog. But I have been doing a different kind of writing in the last year and a half: creative writing.

I embarked on finishing the novel I began in Cheri Earl's Honors creative writing class that I audited about four years ago. What started out as an exercise to help make the family histories/biographies I'm writing more interesting, turned into a complete historical novel. It took me a while because I stopped and started, researched---and researched some more. Ironically, the biographies are still in the process of being written, but the novel is finished thanks to my joining the Utah Valley Writers, doing the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest in which I finished over 50,000 words to complete the novel, and finally joining a couple of critique groups. The critique groups are encouraging and spurred me on to actually finish the novel . . . and start another one!

My experience in doing creative writing: exhilarating, frustrating, insecure-making, and, most of all, fulfilling. Gardening, reading, sewing and other hobbies, even watching favorite shows on TV, have taken a backseat to writing. (But my all consuming passion is my family; I drop writing for them!)

I now have more time to write. People ask me if I'm bored since I retired: not at all! I couldn't have done this while I was working and bringing up children; some people can do this, but not in my situation. And anyway, I didn't think I had a talent for this; academic and business writing was enough. But now writing is becoming a huge part of my day and week. What is also enjoyable is meeting budding and published writers at UVW and at conferences. I am so impressed at how many young people are writing . . . and writing good stuff!

So what turned out to be an interesting exercise has taken over my life! Now I need to just exercise my body with the same focus! But I need to do more than exercise my fingers as I sit glued to the computer screen writing!

Relaxation

About four weeks ago, I retired from Brigham Young University. I had worked there for 29 1/2 years and it has been strange to be at home and not on vacation. Every day seemed like a Saturday; I kept thinking, "I need to go and buy this as tomorrow's Sunday." Then I would realize that it was only Tuesday and I could do that the next day. On Memorial Day Monday, I met Angie and Clint at Sundance where we had lunch and watched the mountain bike races. While I was sitting outside with the dogs and Angie and Clint were buying a sandwich, I had an epiphany. I was enjoying the peace and beauty of the place even though there were many people milling about. But, for once in many, many years I was not thinking about all the things I had to do at home. It seems for years as though I couldn't really be engaged and enjoy the holidays because in the back of my mind I felt I was wasting time because I had so much to do at home, an opportunity to get caught up with household chores that were often neglected because of my busy life. I realized then that for years I have not really relaxed, even on my days off. And even if I didn't accomplish much at home (I felt overwhelmed with it all even then) my focus was on chores and sometimes what needed to be done at work. Talk about a workaholic! And now, after four years I am actually sitting down to write on this blog. The last four years have been busy with new grandchildren and visits to Scotland and to various conferences. But the worst was the last two years when I was so busy I think I was actually depressed as I felt so harried all the time. There were more and more stresses at work with conflicts with people and the workload and it wasn't until I retired that I realized how stressed I really was. Now, I am hurting from unaccustomed "hard labor" as I have been working in my garden to prepare it for the book group's annual garden party. It has really been neglected for the past two years (as has the house). That has been somewhat stressful too as some of the work that I wanted to get done---the concrete work, reconfiguring of the sprinkler system---is not going to happen before I leave on my trip to Washington. But, it will get done eventually, not just in the time frame I wanted.

Using Google Maps

I'm trying to use GoggleMaps to chart my trip to Fife. It's still a work in progress but here's the map so far. I will add photos when I get the time.


View Fife Villages in a larger map

Gardens are not made by singing

Rudyard Kipling wrote "Gardens are not made by singing, "Oh how beautiful," and sitting in the shade." How true! They are a lot of work. Today I have a young man helping to dig up the masses of peppermint that has loved this rainy weather. This afternoon another group of young men with Becky Buxton will come by and help out. Gian and Andrea have helped a lot too. I suppose I could simplify and take out all the roses, etc. but it wouldn't be the English garden that brings me joy in spite of the weeds and tons of work!

Debris in Space

I heard on the news last night that there's an international conference being held in Germany on the topic of debris in space. Apparently there's bits and pieces of old satellites, etc. floating around our planet. Not only do we mess up the ground we live on but we also have to pollute space too.

Hope vs grumpiness

A copy of "Insight," the Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, reached my desk today. I liked the quotation from Elder Maxwell so I thought I'd share it in my blog:

"Ultimate hope and daily grumpiness are not reconcilable. It is ungraceful, unjustified, and unbecoming of us as committed Church members to be constantly grumpy or of woeful countenance. Do we have moments of misery or some down days? Yes! But the promise is that Christ will 'lift thee up' (Moroni 9:25). The disciple can note the depressing signs of the times without being depressed. He can be disappointed in people without being offended at life. Thus it is that ultimate hope, if it does not finally dissolve our daily dissapointments, at least puts them in perspective." (Thanksgiving speech, November 26, 1980)