Beginning Anew

It's been a week filled with comings and goings: a visit to the eye doctor, a late afternoon at the movies for Woman in Gold, meeting with out-of-town cousins for a supper visit, a day out for the  symphony and lunch, and a Sisters' gathering for brunch, not to mention overdue trips to the grocery store, library, bank, and Ikea food shop. The weather has been changeable, too; some days sun, alternating with cold and rain showers, but there was only one day of really unpleasant rain, and thankfully I could stay home for that. The other times that I was out and about driving to the various appointments and errands, I relished the view of spring flowers and the greening of lawns and foliage. The daffodils are gone now, replaced by tulips and multitudes of flowering trees in white and pink. The lawns have turned from blah to light yellow-green and now to a rich, deep green, and the trees separating our neighborhood from the little commercial area to the south have sprouted blades so the view is no longer as stark as it was during the winter. Soon we won't be able to tell that there is anything but forest between us and the main road. I walked that area on Saturday during a quick trip  to Walgreen's for the batteries I needed to get my mouse working again, and the weather was clear and fresh and sunny on the way out, though a few raindrops moved in by the time I had made my purchase. Today we drove west to our favorite superstore to get groceries and curtains for my office, deliberately taking the slower town road instead of the interstate so we could view the gardens along the way.

This afternoon we installed the curtains that I desperately need to shield my desk and computer from too much sun coming in through the venetian blinds on my south-facing window. Then I got energetic enough to put together a new floor lamp that I hope is going to encourage me to sit in an easy chair in my office to read, rather than relegating all my pleasure reading to the bedroom. I have been mindful since we moved in of the opportunity to reshape old habits, and I am attempting to define certain areas for certain types of reading. My reading is dependent on good light, and I now have several places in the house with good light, so I am reconsidering what I read where, both to foster the reading and to manage the clutter. I just might be able to keep the newspaper in the kitchen, I think,  or failing that, on the dining room table, instead of spread over the living room couch or my bedside stand. I'm trying hard not to bring magazines and recipes and cookbooks into my office at all, as they will only get lost there. And I'm trying to keep work-related paper only in the office, not just to reduce chances of losing them throughout the house, but to reduce the encroachment of work into other aspects of my life. I am not forbidding myself the pleasure of reading in bed entirely, though--that would be a real hardship and counter productive for the imagination. But I am trying to limit the objects on my night table to one book and one tablet at a time. That is going to take some discipline. But new environments can help to form new habits.