Monday Moanings - Monday, November 2, 2015

NaNoWriMo Writes YET Again!


Yes folks, it's that time of year when writers of all stripes and flavours set pens to paper and/or fingers to keyboards to crank out some 50,000 words by month's end. This annual writer's marathon which began yesterday, is billed as a

"fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel."

Check out the NaNoWriMo website for all the details.




This is my third entry into the writing room called November. For me it remains a place of good intentions, really good intentions, to write every day, to finish by month's end a sizable section of the memoir I've been working on for... well let's just say for a while.

I'm not a registered participant because honestly I'm not that driven. My 'Lite' version is a little more relaxed because I've learned, finally, that it's okay to give myself permission to have fun, to accept the better offer when it comes along without obligingly picking up a side order of guilt, and it's okay to attend to my own well being.

And how's that working for me so far?
Day 1 - yesterday - my inner critic ruled out everything I wrote. But I made a great supper with luscious baked apples for dessert.

Day 2 - today - That side order I said I wouldn't pick up? Seems I picked it up anyway. I've got guilt++. But today I will write! 1500 words are due not only for NaNoWriMo but also for my critique group.

With renewed vigour, here's my strategy:
     - manage my time at the keyboard, limiting it to 30 minutes at a time so as to ward off eye strain
     - use lighting, font size and type, (serifs only please!), and line spacing so as to limit the impact of the visual aberration that plagues my eyesight.
     - use 'the force' the tools that produce my most creative and evocative writing - my favourite fountain pen flowing across smooth white paper.
     - go away on a writing retreat this coming weekend YAY! And thank you Ruth Walker and Gwynn Scheltema for offering such fabulous escapes to write.

All righty folks it's time to get out there -

WRITE Stuff, WRITE Hand, WRITE Pen, WRITE Brain, WRITE ON!

Fern Resort - Site of the 2015 Turning Leaves Writing Retreat

©2015 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - August 20, 2015

In the moment, and on the day!

As Wednesday yielded to Thursday, a musical flourish rang out. The screen on my cell phone lit up the midnight darkness. And I smiled. This is the day!

Okay, so perhaps an electronic triplet of tones does not a fanfare make,
still for this common blogger, today is a day of jubilation.

              

                              Blogpost #250!

"What I'm thinking today - A collection of random thoughts, worries, celebrations and memories" debuted on August 11, 2011 with the piece "Opening Gambit" I was off and blogging at full tilt, posting almost daily for three weeks, before running low on fuel. Posts then slowed to an intermittent trickle and sometimes dried up altogether for months on end, with not even so much as a single photo.

The approach of my 60th birthday in 2013 put a pen back in my hand along with a renewed commitment to regular blogging. "Monday Moanings" first appeared on March 18th, 2013. Three days later "Thursday Thermals" appeared with a reflection on "Ready or not, here comes 60." Three months later during the Stanley Cup hockey finals, "or Thereabouts" replaced "Thermals" in the weekly lineup. And the rest is history, or perhaps just a legend in my own mind.

With the exception of those times when I'm travelling with my love out of the country, I publish a post to this blog twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. Almost without exception, each one is written on the day. I've tried writing them earlier then scheduling publication to the blog, but that never seems quite right. Clearly I prefer to be in the moment, on the day. Some days it's a struggle - ideas refuse to gel and words come slowly or not at all. Some days I have to leave it to my photos to do the job. But some days ideas, words and images come together as though they were a well rehearsed piece. Those occasions, though few, always surprise and amaze me.

I no longer write each piece out in longhand as I did when I first set out on this blogging expedition. Most posts are keyboarded at my desk computer. Rest assured this does not mean that my beloved fountain pen now lies dormant. It is pressed into service on special occasions, such as this one.

And I do always enjoy what happens, what flows across the page, whether it is to a place I intended from the outset or to some place I never imagined. So I'll keep on blogging, sharing my thoughts, worries, celebrations and memories in words and pictures with all of you.

I am grateful for all my readers and followers. Thank you for taking the time to read my posts. Thank you for the likes on Facebook, 1+'s on Google+ and blog comments. Bless you.

Life is about doing the best I can, enjoying each day as it comes.
And at the end of the day, it's about being content with what I have done and what I have not done,
so that I can look forward to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.

(first written March 21, 2013)

See you Monday!



©2015 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - November 3, 2014

NaNoWriMo Writes Again!



Yes folks, it's that time of year again when writers of all stripes and flavours set pens to paper and/or fingers to keyboards to crank out some 50,000 words by month's end. This annual writer's marathon which began on Saturday, November 1, is billed as a

"fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel."

Check out the NaNoWriMo website for all the details.





As was the case last year, I'm not a registered participant because firstly I'm not writing a novel and secondly, I'm not that driven, and so I'm doing a 'Lite' version. My approach is a little more relaxed because I've learned, finally, that it's okay to give myself permission to have fun, to accept the better offer when it comes along without obligingly picking up a side order of guilt, and it's okay to attend to my own well being.

My efforts last year got hijacked by the sudden appearance of a visual aberration that caused words to appear smeared down the centre field of view. The problem (epiretinal membrane in both eyes) persists and is even a little worse this time round, though apparently still not bad enough for corrective surgery.

I am undeterred! Over the past months I have learned to tinker with lighting, font size and type (yes - serifs make a big difference!), and line spacing so as to limit the impact of the aberration. I've learned to manage my time at the keyboard, limiting it to 30 minutes at a time so as to ward off eye strain, fatigue and headaches. I find it rather intriguing that I have less difficulty with my handwritten work. I do my best writing, my most creative and evocative writing, with my favourite fountain pen flowing across smooth white paper. When transcribing my longhand writing to the laptop, I don't have much difficulty deciphering the blue ink script. I suspect because my brain has already had a hand in the writing; it knows then what the words are on the page.

So what does NaNoWriMo Lite look like this year? Ah well I have a plan, a very organized plan to get my manuscript back on track, in just 3 hours a day x 30 days.

Week 1: Days 1 &2 - reacquaint myself with Scrivener®
               Days 3 - 7 - outline, outline, outline; get all those pieces already written and yet to be written, organized! 

Weeks 2 - 4: WRITE!

And how's it going so far?

Saturday: 4 hours (impressive eh?) updating the software, tinkering with the fonts - thank goodness for technology and good software architects who allow for format modifications, however tedious it may be to find the right menu and tab to do so - and working through some of the tutorial. My muse, reawakened from a long snooze at a writer's retreat two weeks ago, spent the entire time twitching in my write hand.

Sunday: 3 hours struggling to get through a few more tutorial lessons before giving up and moving on to reviewing what was already on my Scrivener® outline. My muse fought me every step of the way, her protests getting louder every minute, "I want to write. Forget the bloody outline. I want to write! Please let me write."

Today: All right, already! I hear ya. Come on babe, let's go write.

©2014 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - October 20, 2014

Turning Leaves

No shoulda, woulda, coulda's sit on the window ledge blocking my view of the world outside my door. There's not a moan in sight. The weekend writing retreat at Fern Resort was everything I had hoped it would be and though I did not do much writing, I did accomplish my goal. The goal seemed simple enough: to re-engage with the manuscript that has languished for nearly a year in the bottom desk drawer. Did the story still have energy? Was the story still worth telling? Did the writing still excite me? 

I'd been to the writing retreats offered by Writescape's Gwynn Scheltema and Ruth Walker and knew the fine talent and support that this weekend would have on offer. The companion workbook for the retreat announced the theme of Turning Leaves 2014, "Bridge to Your Words" 

I was dumbfounded when I saw that -- I had no idea that the entire program had been designed for ME. I'm sure Ruth and Gwynn didn't know that either! But there it was in my hands, and the rest, as they say is history; well perhaps not quite so dramatic nor of any great import on the world stage but still, for me, a really big deal! 

I crossed the bridge into the pages of the memoir. It was like entering the old family homestead, full of smells, tastes, sights, sounds, and touches. I took the time to reintroduce myself gently, politely, allowing the tale to reintroduce itself to me. And I fell in love with the manuscript again. I fell in love with the words and the story.

I am profoundly grateful not only to Gwynn & Ruth for their expertise and generousity, but also to Barbara Kyle, the guest author at the retreat. Her enthusiasm and insights on the craft of writing as well as her interest in each one the participants, was pure gift. The opportunity to explore, learn and write in community with other writers of all genres, all experience levels, for a weekend was also a gift. Thank you all!

Now, I gotta get to work. Catch up with you later.

©2014 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - September 22, 2014

Out of Order

My writing almost always begins with ink on paper. Nothing draws out my thoughts better than a perfectly balanced fountain pen gliding across a lined smooth white page. And so it was this morning as I sat down at the table with uncapped pen poised and opened  the blog journal...

QUELLE HORREUR!
Two blank pages sandwiched between pages one and two of last Thursday's writing!

I love order; I thrive on things being in their proper, logical place. Equally I hate waste; I simply cannot abide disposal of perfectly useful goods. This morning's discovery generated a disturbance in the force; it unleashed an irritating dilemma: do I ignore the waste to uphold good order and discipline, or do I take a walk on the wild side and plant today's writing in the middle of last Thursday's and continue as necessary on blank pages following the previous post? Can I truly allow myself to be that out of order?

It's a very small problem in the big wide world, nevertheless it stole a whole 25 minutes of my time while I alternately wrestled and ignored it. Two news items caught my attention during my excursions away from the dilemma on the writing table.


One was the People's Climate March.

courtesy of the Sierra Club, Facebook page

According to the Sierra Club this was "the biggest climate action in history" with over 310,000 people filling the streets of New York City yesterday. Impressive! The cynic in my soul, already stirred by the blank pages in my blog journal, rose higher in the air to wonder how many would so eagerly pay 10¢ more per litre of gasoline AND welcome wind and solar farms in their neighbourhood? It's so much easier to march for a cause than to make it happen.









But then a second article caught my eye. The Rockefeller's, or more correctly the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, valued at $860 million, announced that it will divest itself of all fossil fuel company assets to invest in cleaner alternatives. Now that is BIG, and part of growing trend. The believer in my soul warmed up and overcame the cynic. I dared to wonder if just perhaps the tide is turning, that the word is getting out that green energy can make both dollars and sense. Yes!




Back at the writing table, I flipped my blog journal open again, turned to the blank but out of order pages and began to write. A walk, or even a write, on the wild side is a good thing, from time to time.




©2014 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - August 7, 2014

"Write about what should not be forgotten." Isabel Allende

Oh look! It's 'Throwback Thursday' again. Can I throw it back?
I limped into today via a Wednesday marred by a migraine and a nasty flare up of tendonitis in my right foot. In my efforts to salvage something useful out of the day I decided to clean the finch feeder and not only did I ram a screwdriver into my finger trying to remove the bottom plate, but I then forgot where I put an integral piece to reassemble it again. Not to worry, my love is an expert here - not at remembering things (he's no better than I am), but rather at fixing things - so problem solved and finches have food. Perhaps I should have written down where I put the all important part.

I took refuge in the kitchen. As I turned the fish in the skillet for supper a deep penetrating hum emerged from the oven. I jumped back at the distinctive sound of unrestrained electrical current. With a strange kind of thud, the noise ceased and stove top lights went out. "Well that was interesting!" Mr. Fixit offered. He'll figure it all out in due course, but in the mean time I have no oven, though the stove top is now working.

Is it any wonder that my approach to today, Thursday, is tentative at best? The headache is gone but the painful foot remains. Based on past experience, a few physio treatments to alleviate the acute stage accompanied by RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) and 6 (SIX!) weeks from now I'll be back on track. Well, now what?

"Write about what should not be forgotten." popped up in a window on my laptop screen. The words grabbed my attention and instead of my usual disinterested nod, they garnered a full stop, look and listen as a deep resonance reverberated inside me.

For months the memoir about my journey with my mother through Alzheimer's Disease has languished in the bottom of a desk drawer. The story has all but disappeared from my radar. Oh I know the untidy melange of typewritten and hand inked pages is sitting there. I even occasionally give the drawer a kick to see if anything is alive in there. Nope. I chide myself for not getting on with the job, and therein lies the root cause of my inaction - the memoir has become a job, a boring, tedious chore devoid of all enthusiasm and out of sight. Where are the days when a passion-filled pen spewed out pages filled with a heart rending tale?
Why am I writing this memoir anyway?


Today the words of Isabel Allende answered my question. I took the time to search out the context of the quoted words, an interview titled "Why I Write." The full quote is even more instructive for me:

"...Maybe the most important reason for writing is to prevent erosion of time, so that memories will not be blown away by the wind. Write to register history, and name each thing. Write what should not be forgotten."

This may not be sufficient kindling to fire up my fountain pen, but it has opened up the drawer to let some light in, and where there is light there is energy.






Though a search on her name, "Irene Hoersch Cudbird" reveals her place in history, my mother did not change the world on any great scale, in any grand way. But she did shape my place in the world, how I experience and interpret life around me, and she still does so to this day. There are important stories to write, wisdom and truth, love and laughter that should not be forgotten.

©2014 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - July 24, 2014

Much Ado About Nothing




Well that's the kind of day I'm having. I've spent much of the morning fretting about what to write here today. Every one of my grand, and not so grand ideas, has petered out after two sentences, lost energy, disintegrated into a pile of randomly generated grey words. And I am not enjoying this.






Yee gads! What's a writer to do? I could wait a bit, until later this afternoon, to see if pen and brain want to talk to each other or perhaps even hold my write hand and dance words across a page, but my time this afternoon is booked with other things. So it's now or not today.

I am spinning my tires, going round and round and succeeding in generating only heat and smoke - no light at the end of the tunnel.




So I'll leave you today with, well frankly not much, but at least I hope a smile.

from my collection of Cocktail Napkins

Enjoy this day where ever you be.

©2014 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - March 24, 2014

The Travel Countdown has begun!

I'm a little late with this today, but just blame the courier.

There I was sitting at the kitchen table, fresh hot latte to my left, fully loaded fountain pen poised in my right hand, pristine white page before me begging to be branded with my script. But what to write at the top of another new week? Several hands shot up to offer answers in my classroom of ideas. I considered which one to call upon, my mind caught up in weighing the merits and savouring the possibilities. I was yanked out of this creative reverie by the intruder alarm.

A great ruckus of barking, growling and foot-stomping from our resident canine announced that a FedEx truck had pulled up out front. The driver bounced out, giving rise to more barking and fancy footwork. Under his arm was a grey box.

Those few country names on the side were more than enough to get my feet dancing. I made the requisite scribble of a signature on the electronic keypad and he handed me the package.

Travel Documents! Now this was exciting! I headed straight back to the kitchen table, shoved the writing gear aside, then lay the box down and pried it open, licking my lips as I worked. For the next hour and a half I engrossed myself in going through everything. I checked the ID badges - yes our names are spelt correctly. I checked the luggage tags - yes, as advertised they are real leather! I read the little booklets cover to cover, TWICE. But something was missing. A ticket.

There's just something about holding a ticket in my hand that makes my travel dreams real. I don't just want to look at it on a computer or smartphone screen. I want an official paper with dates, and names and transportation details with a bit of unintelligible airport and city codes. But today I got a box. A box which held a snazzy black zippered case emblazoned with The Viking logo on the front and a tagline on the back - "Exploring the World in Comfort®". The itinerary and destination booklets are tucked inside along with personalized nametags on lanyards and luggage tags.

I guess these will just have to do to satisfy my need for something tangible. Admittedly, the luggage tags do have a certain cachet, a bit of an exotic allure ...

but still, I want a ticket!

©2014 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - January 30, 2014

Write On!

I wanted a diagnosis. I wanted to know what was distoring my central vision. I've wanted to know this since October 31/13 when the greasy smear first appeared down the centre of my visual field. I wanted it to go away. Yesterday I got my answer. Yesterday my love and I made the trek down to the city, to St. Michael's Hospital to see a neuro-opthalmologist.

The information sheet warned, in caps no less, that "Due to the complexity of care for our patients, the waiting time will be 3 to 4 hours."  So it was with books and writing tools, tablets and smartphones that we settled into the waiting room. No matter how I planned for this, no matter how much stuff I brought to while away the time, to distract me from the tension and the tedium, waiting in a big city hospital to be seen by a big gun specialist was still nerve-racking, a delicate balance between fight and flight accompanied by the constant chatter of the optimist and the pessimist in my head bantering on about the best outcome and worst case scenario. I studied my surroundings - hospital green walls, salmon marbled vinyl flooring, bad artwork on the walls, umpteen notices about infection control, two identical poems about miraculous hands which I couldn't see well enough to read, and a big poster about patient's expectations of a great hospital. I wrote a little (you're reading it now) and the first hour passed.




Just after 10am, my name was called. The doc spent the next 40 minutes asking questions and doing tests. No fault found. Then the eye drops went in and I was shuttled back out into the waiting room. Of course due to the drops, my eyesight became even worse over the next 40 minutes. Those green walls became a sea of blurriness and the wall art some nondescript flotsam and jetsam. Again I was summoned back to see the doc. One look with an opthalmascope into those huge dark pools that my eyes had become, and she announced the diagnosis: an epiretinal membrane in the macular area of both eyes. You can read all about it on the Canadian Opthalmological Society website.





I have half of what I wanted and it's neither as good as my optimist nor as bad as the pessimist. But it's not going to go away. I am stuck with this distortion and though it may get worse over time, I won't lose my sight entirely. When it does get really bad there is a surgical procedure that can remove the membrane, with some risks; all surgery has risks. While I wait to see a retinal specialist who will monitor my eyes for some time to come, life goes on. There is a Chinese New Year dinner to prepare. I've got most of the ingredients and the rest I'll pick up today. Tomorrow after a luxurious massage and a haircut, I'll get cooking.

Write on, I say, Write On!

© creativenature.nl - Fotolia.com

©2014 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - January 23, 2014

Moving right along...

Old man winter responded to Monday's "Dear John" letter by unleashing yet another blast of bitterness. Yesterday morning it was -32C (-26F) outside my door, a record low in these parts for the thirty-six years we've live here. In fact Winter scored a hat trick of superlatives yesterday - super cold, super bright and super blue sky. I am however prevented from saluting or even bowing in recognition to this achievement due the restriction of movement imposed by the multiple layers of clothing I'm wearing.



Perhaps I should also warn you that the snowblower is back from the shop and is fixed and ready for action. All of which goes to say that it is winter and it is moving right along as it should. The switch to Eastern Daylight Time - Spring Forward - arrives March 9, and eight weeks from today, at precisely 12:57pm EDT on March 20 the spring equinox will give winter the boot.
The light is returning.

My writing, beyond this blog, has languished since the end of October due to an as yet undiagnosed visual impairment, but in the past two weeks frustration and a stubborn disposition have driven me to get back on track. I can manage almost a half hour in front of the laptop screen before annoyance and fatigue set in, and if I have the patience to take the time to get the lighting just right, I can sit and read a book for almost an hour. I can personally attest to the benefits of fonts with serifs to ease reading.

So moving that right along, a friend and I have partnered up to be each other's beta readers and I have already sent a few chapters of the memoir off to her. Also, I have finally downloaded "Scrivener" , something I've been meaning to do for the better part of a year. I dutifully pushed my poor eyes through the entire tutorial - that took two days - still I was impressed and excited, sure that this was just what I needed to energise me back into the work. I set up my new project and began the document import. It took less than five minutes for me to be utterly stumped and even more utterly defeated. I heeded my beta reader friend's counsel, stepped away from the program and took a deep breath. The past two days I've dared to stick my toe back into the Scrivener pond and have actually made some progress with it. There have been enough "aha" moments, flashes of understanding, to keep me motivated. Phew!

I've not written anything new in the memoir yet, but rather I am taking the time to reacquaint myself with the story: the people, the places, the events, and along with all of that of course, the emotions. I am re-discovering the reason why this story is important and that's a good thing, a really good thing.
The light is indeed returning.
Cheers!

© leo tomić  – fotolia.com

©2014 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - November 21, 2013

I'm outta here...

I'm going away this weekend even though I still can't see straight.

So there! 

Take that you unbidden, unwelcome blotch

 occupying centre stage in my visual field.

I've been charted, scanned, and neurologically checked out with no fault found. I've spent three weeks going round and round;

obsessing, lamenting, and worrying.

Enough already!

It's time to get on with life and so I'm spending the weekend away at a writer's retreat.


"Turning Leaves" is the annual Fall offering from the dynamic duo at Writescape, Ruth E. Walker and Gwynn Scheltema. (If you are a writer, do not pass up an opportunity to attend one of their retreats.) Who knew way back in the heat of July when I registered, how timely this retreat would be for me? I'm not going to place huge demands on myself for this escape to write, no word counts, page or chapter goals, just a gentle time in the company of supportive writers and facilitators in a resort setting.

The words will come and I and my fountain pen will be ready to write what I can for as long as I can.

Que sera, sera.

©2013 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings, November 4, 2013

NaNoWriMo - My Lite Version

It all began on Friday...

Image courtesy of
National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo, a whole 30 days of intensive writing, a kind of writer's marathon (check out this link for details on the official scoop). Now I'm not a registered participant because firstly I'm not writing a novel and secondly, I'm not that driven, and so I'm doing a 'Lite' version. My approach is a little more relaxed because I've learned, finally, that it's okay to give myself permission to have fun, to accept the better offer when it comes along without obligingly picking up a side order of guilt, and it's okay to attend to my own well being.

So on Friday, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo, I spent a good chunk of the day with my sisters instead of writing. We had a great day together revisiting some of the wonderful stories of our childhood. We laughed a lot, learned a story or two one or more of us didn't know and simply revelled in time together. With a bit of a stretch I could claim that this was valuable research for the memoir I'm writing, but in truth no actual writing occurred, not a single word.

Day 2 - Saturday I was snookered by a TMJ/migraine tag team that effectively blocked all incentive to write, and replaced it with fatigue and an aura of unremitting gloom, coincidentally matching the weather. Again no writing, not a single word, unless I can count a grocery list.

Day 3 - Behold! A day of glorious redemption! A full day, crisp, bright and AWAY at Writing from the Centre. Many thanks to my friends Elaine and Janis for the time, space and great food. Sunday, I put words on paper, the ink flowed from a fully charged fountain pen, (which I had to refill half way through the day!), my brain actually formed sentences and put them together into meaningful paragraphs and the coherent (relatively - as is typical of first draft) pages stacked up. I estimate the word count to be just shy of 2000, but it matters more to me that I wrote, that I knocked off an episode or two of the book and that feels good, really good!

Day 4 - Well of course it's Monday and there is no sense in moaning about it. I'm off to the gym then the afternoon is clear for another luxurious stretch of writing. I'm thinking a modest goal of 1500 words a day is doable and if I manage that on 5 days out of 7, I'll reach 30,000 by month's end, which is just about what I need to flesh out the middle section of the memoir.

So here's my goal for NaNoWriMo Lite: Complete the first draft of Section B, currently titled "As Time Goes By" by November 30.

Cover me! I'm going in...

©2013 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - October 17, 2013

Sophie's Choice

It's been a stunning Autumn so far. Many, many days of sunshine and warm temperatures lure me outside to meander through the forest and revel in the splendour of it all. I confess that I "left undone those things which I ought to have done" and fallen for Autumn's siren call - again, and again, and again. Woe is me.

Every morning all the "oughts" and "shoulds" line up to wag fingers of condemnation at me as they hector, "Today, today you must go to the gym. Today you must work."

Every morning I drink in remorse along with my cappuccino and I resolve to do better, to resist the temptation of the world outside my door, to get to the gym, then get back home to nail my backside to the chair and get to work on my book. But then the great day star rises above the trees, drenching my writing space in light. The world outside sparkles and Autumn quickens her step. I cap my pen, turn from the page for just a moment...




Our faithful canine Sophie stirs at my feet, stands and stretches then rests her chin on my lap. Her mismatched eyes - one blue,one brown - are as seductive as the season, "Let's go for a walk, mummy. Pleeeeeze." And I am undone. Camera and dog treats at the ready, we make good our escape into the forest.

Sophie wanted to go all the way to the stream yesterday, way at the far east end of the trail, a good 3 mile hike round trip. In fact when I tried to take the more usual path, she simply sat down and would not budge until I caved in. There had been quite a lot of rain overnight so the ground was soft and glistening. It was grand. And it was after all, Sophie's choice.

Text & photos ©2013 April Hoeller