Clearing out

A friend called today and told me she’s taking a 5 week intensive course in French, in Quebec City.  How extreme is that for learning something new and challenging?  What a coincidence after my writing yesterday!       I was thinking about something a little less extreme, like learning how to grow poinsettias so they will last for 2 Christmases!

       Joking aside, it’s difficult to come up with learning something new which will keep my attention span such that I will actual keep it in the memory box.  I’ve been lecturing my mother for the last couple of days on reading something new and interesting and all the while I’m trying to block the whisper “pot calling the kettle black”.  Somehow I don’t think book learning is what I need at this point in my life.

       I’ve tried Zumba, I’ve tried line dancing, it’s time to think of something quite different, something that I am actually coordinated in.  Yes, I am thinking what I need before my mind can be nimble is to make the muscles, the body, nimble.  Exercise will bring oxygen to the brain and perhaps the little firing neurons will give me the Eureka moment.

       For the last two days Mom and I have been watching the critters sniff around the new family room.  It’s quite amusing to watch them tread cautiously around the room, looking for something familiar.  When they smell an old pillow they linger over it, pawing it and then crouching on it to ensure that it’s still theirs.  As they get closer to one of the new pieces of furniture they wait expectantly as they know one of us is going to yell “don’t touch the new furniture”.  They look puzzled, as this expression is only supposed to happen in the living room.  Why in my room, they wonder.  They are learning something new and they don’t like it one little bit.