It is Snowing!

And I'm a kid again.
Snowing past my window and little flakes. In Nova Scotia they say 'little snow big snow' which means if the flakes are small there will be a big accumulation. Wonder if that is true here? We'll see. The dog is happily chewing a bone - we've walked four times today!!!! I think I'm ruining her. I'll have to think about this deeply. I've written for a couple of hours and practiced my piano playing. I've knit a bit - I'm on the arms of the sweetest baby sweater - a pattern that I got from a Debbie Bliss book  - nothing fancy but I turned it into a stripey affair. I've got the front and back done and now I'm working on the first sleeve. Yay!

The dog is so antsy! Is it the snow? Who knows what lurks in the heart of the beast. I wish she would chill or her Dad would come home and go play fetch on the beach for a bit.

Here is another bit of Walden, this time on the joy of solitude:

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervis in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the blues"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.

I too love solitude even though I feel I am most congenial and welcoming of company. After awhile I long to be just myself - maybe a book, or a bit of something - knitting, drawing etc... and also, like Thoreau I do most of my work alone. The SP is good for this - he and I can quite happily spend hours in each other's company without speaking - feeling good to be close but not needing the affirmation of the other. I am working through a tricky bit in the novel - the one that I hoped I was finished - with this revision at any rate. But no, I have added something and so, like a contractor who's client has decided last minute to add a bathroom to the plan, I must jiggle and twitch the whole thing about. Ah well, it is for the good I believe. It better be!

Later amigos. Here is hmmm... a picture of the beach??? No! A photo of my desk in the dining room - right next to the lovely little piano. I'm learning 'It Ain't Going to Rain No More' - a lively piece suited to my mood.  And below that a photo of the kitchen where I sit under the table (cozily heated by a vent below the bench) and write letters. And where I make bread and Sunday dinners and all sorts of things. I can see out the window at the little yard and the driveway and usually at this time of day I make a cup of tea and watch for the Sweet Patootie to come home. I'm going to go do that - the heck with solitude!