Time Has Come

This year, 2020, I am finally making progress on my idea of compiling all of my blogs into a manuscript.  Eventually, it will be printed and bound.  I'm not sure who really cares, but my need to leave something behind that another might want to read, seems to be driving me.

This has become a major, almost overwhelming project.  I have been trying for two years to get this off the ground and this is the year it will be done.

In doing this I have figured out how save and transfer each blog to my computer, correct the fonts, move paragraphs and then save into a PDF so it can later be transferred to a publisher/printer.

I currently have experimented with a couple online publishing companies.  In doing this I have created three other books already in 2020.  So at this point I have published two "coffee table" books.  They contain 100 photos each, one of my paintings and one of my gourds.  I am very happy with them and feel they are a good compilation of work I have done in the last twenty years.  It is very satisfying to realize how much artwork I have created and it really only touches a small amount the work coming from the Wild Gourd Studio.

The other book was an experiment of publishing online and content is from some of my blogs on horses and other animals on our farm.  It is wonderful, but many things I will correct for the manuscript I am working on now.  The title of this little soft cover book, with twenty five stories is, TRUE HORSE STORIES and other stories from the farm.  

MEMORIES

     This morning, I cleaned around the old computer area.  Oh, the things I found.....  So many notes and papers that may or may not be important today.  I bag for recycled papers, a pile for "keep" and another pile for "find another home".  

     Then it happened, I found the bundles of maps and agendas for our trips out west.  I had thought I might make some photo books from all the beautiful pictures I have stored in my computer and phone.  Of course, I never made time to follow through on that project.  I suddenly realized the books are no longer important.  Who cares about them?  Only me now, I have lost the only other person I could have shared those memories with.  I am the only person to care and to carry those memories.  It is a hard reality when I have to be seventy-five years to find that our experiences are only ours to carry, no one else can understand those memories or even care beyond the polite acknowledgement of your momentary mention of your remembrance.  

     I did save my journal notes, I'm not sure why.  I will probably never read them and basically, they were the daily notes of the miles ridden, towns we stayed, the parks we visited and maybe a good place to eat.  I might actually read them at some point and then throw them away.  Oh well, that's another day.

     I will dry my tears and try to find happiness knowing I have had wonderful memories with a wonderful man, I will relish the sunshine and cooler temperatures.  I will enjoy the happiness my little dogs, Fen and Millie, give to me.