Ready or not....we are in the midst of renovations and as I go through boxes, clean the top of the fridge, move vases into cupboards, decide what is to be kept and what is not, I am glad this is just a small preparation for the arrival of my parents. It's not a move! although it sometimes feels like one. Today I found pictures my sister Laurel had painted, years ago, of our family as faeries with wings...and they were just the thing to go on my office wall, since I like them a lot but they are not Bernie's favourites, and they also need new backdrops but they are fine in this room. Today I have to buy lights, both for the spare room and another one for the basement. We have also finally got our spa running and tonight will likely be my first soak after a long day of bend and stretch, and perhaps after attending the Baha'i feast. Yesterday I took our second daughter for lunch (at Kelsey's, very good) and then we (gasp) went shopping. Joined Costco and spent way too much time wandering around and purchasing bulk items (toilet paper for both households, enough pepperoni pizza pops to keep my son's lunches going for a month, I hope).

Of such prosaic dailiness is life made: incoming mails, most of which have to do with the manuscript for my second book, which I will mail tomorrow; always, the inevitable junk which does not get filtered out; from time to time, personal helloes, most recently from my niece Jessamine; requests for this and that. Outgoing mails, writing the blog...I thought to go out and dig up the garden but in fact find that there's still too much in bloom for me to do it yet. The yellow zinnias have gone crazy! It seems like the more I cut for flowers indoors, the more want to bloom. I will definitely put in more next spring.

I keep thinking that I have become more present-oriented than thinking of the future, yet already I find myself almost unconsciously planning: bulbs for fall, bulbs for spring, what to cook for dinner, where to go to buy this or that...when will this happen? who will come next to visit? where will I next travel (Chicago, I think, for a book signing)...is it common to always be thinking, "What next? What next?" I enjoy the moment, even the turmoil of the renovations, not the least because it means that Bernie is home more and I can chat with him, or at him while he and I work together.

It's the sense of chat, of audience, of who is listening? Reflections here, group mails there...what is blogging but the desire for being heard, for communication, and it's so much easier to do it to the screen than the necessary work, sometimes, of human interaction. I am sure that there must be books about the psychology of the addictiveness of communicating through screens...I know many people spend inordinate amounts of time somehow connected...but I have to tell you, the connection feels a lot better when you're sitting down with a cup of tea at the end of a busy day and your husband or your child comes along and sits down with you and the chat is real. Complete with smiles and laughter. Yesterday my eldest daughter came home from her job and I was the recipient of one of her tender hellos and a gentle kiss. I still feel the glow, and will sign off to go and feel another touch of sun.