early morning

I love waking up before 5 a.m. Sometimes I think I would enjoy sleeping late but I like the easy transition to the day...dark to light, silence to sound, lazy to busy. I haven't used an alarm clock, except for rare occasions, for years. I hate being blasted out of sleep by an alarm.

The down side of this is that I rarely see the other end of the day.

I went to a Social Media Marketing seminar the other day that was fascinating and exciting and almost made my brain explode. So much to learn. There were people in the class who didn't know what a blog was, had never seen Facebook, and had never received a tweet. That's why you can't stop...all of a sudden you are behind and can't catch up.

I'm reading several books now, by or about women as they age. Anna Quindlen's book. Amazon says: In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.

This book by Florida Scott-Maxwell's book called The Measure of My Days. This is what the Amazon review says: explores the unique predicament of one's later years: when one feels both cut off from the past and out of step with the present; when the body rebels at activity but the mind becomes more passionate than ever. Written when Maxwell was in her eighties, The Measure of My Days offers a panoramic vision of the issues that haunt us throughout our lives: the struggle to achieve goodness; how to maintain individuality in a mass society; and how to emerge--out of suffering, loss, and limitation--with something approaching wisdom. Maxwell's incredible wisdom, humanity, and dignity make The Measure of My Days both timeless and timely--an important contribution to the literature of aging, and of living.


And the Julia Child biography that I mentioned in a previous post. I wish I could have met her.

I don't have any thoughts on aging. At least none that I can articulate right now. I exercise to stay out of the nursing home. I think about getting older. I enjoy my life right now and wouldn't choose to be younger if I could. I have gotten a little wiser about some things but many things are still a mystery. That's about it.


I don't know why I can't (or won't) write my own book reviews. Maybe for the same reason I won't join a book club. It feels too much like school. I always feel like I barely survived being an English major with my love of reading in tact. They do their best to bleed it out of you, believe me.

I learned at the seminar the other day that blog posts should be 250-350 words. Whoa. That's not very many. Maybe that's more a marketing kind of blog. I guess you can stop after 350 words if this gets too long for you. Ha!

I'm going to exercise this morning. Regis begged off so he is sleeping in with the dog, who likes to get up for a while to see what's doing on and then return to bed with whichever human is still there.

Gus is going to the PAW today. He's had a big week...several trips to the dog park in Mankato, a walk with Bob, Emily, and the kids last night, and now this afternoon at the PAW. He gets out more than I do. Really.