The mushroom puzzle continued apace over the last week, providing an intricate challenge. Each puzzle reveals its unique strategy as it develops, and tactics shift as fewer pieces remain to be placed. This is what makes Liberty puzzles so much fun, and so good for your brain, too!

I’ve made a point to step outside multiple times each day and walk at least down to the pond, if not up the driveway or east toward the canyon a little way. In addition to PT exercises and normal activities around the house, these short walks are beneficial for my new hip and also for my spirit, nourishing heart and mind. I’m still using the cane, limping a little, experiencing various aches and pains, and all of it is fine.

In this last week before the election, many people are stressed and anxious; I’m optimistic but no one can be certain. I’m protecting my spirit by radically limiting exposure to headlines from the failed major news outlets, who have insisted on covering this landmark election as though it were any other horse race, and not a choice between preserving the democratic republic we’ve lived with for 250 years or allowing a fascist dictator to move into the People’s House. So turning to nature often during the day, pausing to breathe, meditate, attend to the beauty of our precious earth, and practice gratitude for all that is good in each day keeps me grounded in what truly matters in this short life.

I’m grateful that I finally found my transitions glasses! In the early days of my recovery while I was still on painkillers, I wore them out one day, and put them somewhere ‘temporary’ when I came inside; somewhere I made a mental note to remember because it wasn’t their usual location. And then I forgot. I looked for them for weeks, Pamela and Kathy looked for them, over the course of the next month we looked everywhere. Last week I looked at the walker and thought, ‘I’m gonna have to give this back soon, I’d better just check that pouch to make sure I haven’t left anything in it.’ It’s not as though I hadn’t looked there for my glasses before, several times; but this time, I dug deep into the pouch, reaching beyond the fold where it hangs over a crossbar. And as my fingers touched them, I laughed. It’s amazing they didn’t smash or crack under all the other things I’d put in that pouch over the weeks.

This morning, our first snow on the ground at this elevation, just a dusting, after a good soaking rain yesterday. Dawn drove me to my six-week post-op appointment, where I got a gold star and got cleared to bend low enough to start a fire in the woodstove. And just in the nick of time! It was 27℉ last night, and forecast to drop to almost 20 tonight.