The Smell of Brewing Coffee

Isn't that one of the best smells?  I think it's right up there with frying bacon.  I was poking around in the freezer this morning and found a nearly empty bag of Mt. Meru coffee from Tanzania that my writing friend AC gave me so I brewed a pot.  Mm, it smelled so good.  It has a slight citrus aroma and tastes great.  AC's church mission helped the coffee growers of the Mt. Meru region of Tanzania get organized and get their product selling in America.  It's a Free Trade product so most of the cost of the items goes back to the growers to lift the standard of living in their villages and lets them send their children to school.  Worth the little extra it costs besides I'm too old to drink crappy coffee anymore.  I'm trading up.



Yesterday I went to the thrift store for a few plaid flannel shirts to cut up for a pattern I found that I thought would make good Christmas gifts.  The shirts were $5 each.  Then I went to Joann Fabrics for the interfacing and purse handles.  I also bought these three skeins of cotton yarn--and spent $70.  With coupons.  So my affordable crafty gifts will tally out to about $25 each not including my labor.  Hmm.  (It's probably better not to figure that out.  Kinda takes the fun out of it.)




Here's the bit of mitt #2 I knitted last night.  Tonight I didn't knit.  I tried to sew today while I did laundry but ended up fighting with the tension on my machine.  Guess the old sewing machine goes in for adjustment once the computer one comes home.



Today's toss/donate item is this gigantic picnic hamper that I've had for 40 years and used maybe 4 times.  This was a contest points choice when Durwood won the Miss America sales contest in 1979 and he had so many points to spend he was reduced to using the last few on pairs of socks.  The brown canvas bags are from a defunct laundry sorter the frame of which gave up the ghost years back but I was sure I'd use those nice bags for something.  I didn't.  Out they go.


20 November--Gustav Courbet, Woman with Pigeons.  Joseph waved his hand to shoo the pigeons away from the poor dead girl splayed out on the dry grass.  The pigeons didn't move.  He looked closer.  The birds were dead too, each of them pinned to the girl's body by an arrow.  Dr. Mayes would have a field day with this.  The doc thrived on puzzling out the whys and hows of the murders that seemed to pile up more quickly these days.  Joseph, Lieutenant Granger, looked around at the high-rise apartments that bordered the park.  Each apartment had a wide balcony reached by sliding glass doors so figuring out where the arrows came from would be a challenge.  How had the killer managed to shoot two pigeons and the girl simultaneously?

I thought I'd clarify what the above paragraph is for new readers.  I read in a writing guide years ago that it's naive to think that just because you know the language you'll be able to sit down and write decent stories.  Just as artists sketch, musicians practice, and athletes train, a good writer has to exercise her writing muscles, so I've been writing a daily prompt (words or pictures used as a jumping off point) for years and put it on here.  For the last few years I've used the Art Gallery Page-a-day calendar so the inspiration for those paragraphs is a painting or some other art piece.  Sometimes what I write is directly derived from what I see but, as in the case of the above, a portrait of a woman and pigeons that look like her pets led me to write the start of a murder mystery.  Most of these remain as exercises but every once in a while I'll keep writing  to see if something develops.  Only once has it turned into a novel which is the one I'll tackle after The Seaview (the one I'm working on now) is ready to be pitched to agents, etc.  Hope this didn't bore you but there've been a couple comments lately that made me think that an explanation was in order.  G'night.
--Barbara