I'm Back

Yes, I'm still here in magical Mariposa.

My intention to blog weekly disappeared for

several weeks.

In those weeks many things happened.

Some of them I'll share with you now.

Jazzie and I went on a short road trip with two of my Mariposa friends. We drove through Yosemite and spent the night in Lee Vining. Jazzie was thrilled to be one of the "girls" as she joined me sitting in the backseat of the car, walking around Mono Lake, eating dinner in a restaurant that had outdoor tables, and sleeping on my bed in the motel. We also visited an old gold mining town, Bodie, and then headed home.

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Jazzie and I took another much longer road trip to Utah where we spent three weeks visiting family. We learned that one of my sisters has stage four ovarian cancer. A few weeks later my daughter, Christina, flew to California and we drove back to Utah for another visit. My sister had her first chemo treatment and lost some of her hair, so I bought her a bunch of scarves. I was showing her my favorite way to wear a scarf when an idea emerged to have a gathering of all of the sisters (there are six of us) wearing scarves. A hospice worker was giving my sister a massage at the time and said a photographer works with hospice; she arranged for him to take photographs for us. We had a fabulous evening being models for the photographer, eating great food, and hanging out together. At 10:00 I left to go home and sleep; my sister with cancer was still there, laughing and having a great time. Cancer is a strange journey. It has brought this sister back to me

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More family news: At the end of the video listed below my son and granddaughter are show riding te $15+ million carousel! Anna Jane makes news!!

Brooklyn's new carousel a labor of love - CBS News Video

www.cbsnews.com

CBS News video: Brooklyn's new carousel a labor of love - Jane Walentas purchased a damaged carousel and spent the next 22 years - and $15 million - to restore the ride back to it's original condition to have it sit in a new Brooklyn park. Charles Osgood reports.

And the announcement below is about my son's amazing work in New York City. So very, very proud of him, inspired by what he is able to inspire for our world!

The Rockefeller Foundation Honors De Niro, Rosenthal, Sadik-Khan and White with 2011 Jane Jacobs Med

www.rockefellerfoundation.org

I've been enjoying small town life, cross fit workouts in the morning three days a week, water aerobics in the early evening in the city's outdoor pool, many walks around town with Jazzie making new friends. What hasn't been going so well is my writing. Did blogging seem too much like writing?? Lately I've been interested in the developments about brain patterns and the idea of giving your brain a job to do while you sleep. So a few weeks ago I asked my brain to solve my writing block. When I awoke the next morning the first words in my head were, "Writers write." How perfect is that? I'm back in action, excited about writing. I have several articles in the works, amazing friends supporting me with inspirational texts, phone calls, and offers to read and critique my work. I'm cultivating the practice of writing five pages a day with no suffering and no critique. Just putting enough words on the page to fill five pages each day. It's generating excitement; I feel like I'm cheating when I take time to edit or do research. What a great game!