So the first month of the year is almost over.  Just one more day to keep those January promises.  Don't worry, though.  February has 29 days this year.  You can always keep your promises then.  Fortunately, a promise is a promise.  And if you are making your best effort to keep it, well, that is good.  Giving up and breaking your promise is not cool

Early in January, maybe even in December,  I promised myself I would do not think about doing.  And I would let go of things that were keeping me from moving forward.  I am happy to say I have been doing just that.  I have written this blog almost every day this month.  I have signed up for and attended writing workshops.  In one I am working on a personal essay.  The other workshop is about memoir where I am resurrecting my memoir about my days at the Public Administrator's office.  I also am doing other writing relating things like morning pages and free writes.  

I haven't given up on my photography, either.  I went on two photo-shoots in January.  I joined the 52 Project at the Riverside Art Museum where you work on an art project toward having a small exhibit later this year.  I also plan to submit some of my photo work to local exhibitions and even some competitions.  That is scary, but I promised myself I would.  It's about time you say?  I hear you.

I have to establishing boundaries with my time.  I have learned I don't always have to raise my hand.  I can say no.  I am not the only one to can do what needs to be done.  I have learned that if something is supposed to happen, someone will step up.  If not, maybe it wasn't supposed to be.  And being is the most important thing.  I have learned that doing is not being.  Being is true to yourself and living your own life is what matters most.  

So here we go soon into another month.  For a moment I thought time might be running out.  But thinking that way leads to broken promises.  What we make of our time here on earth is up to us.  And I intend to make the most of it.  I promise you and I promise myself.  Yipes.  It's really out there now.  Now I need to just keep it real.  

Yesterday I wrote up this blog post that was pretty good, well written with several researched links.  It was one of my more serious posts about the current state of food in America.  It was predicated by a community gathering I attended last night at one of Riverside's newer restaurants, Health's Kitchen.  Health's Kitchen produces healthy food made with mainly local produce and food grown on farms in the area.  I was surprised to find out their are at least 19 farms in the immediate Riverside area.  This I found out by visiting the Riverside Food Co-op's display.  

The gathering was one in a series of events leading up to the Third Annual Grow Riverside Conference March 21.    I have been a supporting member of the Riverside Food Co-op for about a year or so.  I believe a good co-op would be a good thing and I would shop there because it is local .  

Anyway, that satisfies my need to recreate the lost blog.  And it also brings important information to you.  And even if you are not in the Riverside area, it is something you should seek out in your own community.  When you think so much of our supposedly "fresh" produce and food travels thousands of miles from South America, Mexico, Asia and other places, well, you begin to wonder just what those foods we are consuming do to our bodies and even our minds.

Oh, and about that lost blog.  I was just finishing editing it when I must have hit the wrong key and it disappeared.  POOF!  I hate when that happens.  And every once in a while it does.  Sigh.  But we soldier on.  And another day dawns. 

Find More Information at the Grow Riverside website here:
http://www.growriverside.com/resources/

Find out more about Health's Kitchen at:
http://healths-kitchen.com/about.html

So I pulled out my art stuff and began to draw.  It was a blank.  I was drawing a blank and there was nothing there.  Nothing.  Get it?  Sometimes we can have the best intentions.  We have inspiration and we have energy, but still, we end up drawing a blank.

Okay, I know this a bit of a bust of a blog.  Well, maybe not.  Maybe realizing that even though you  can put pen to paper or brush to canvas or even finger to trigger, there really is nothing coming of it.  Blank.  The whole thing is just one big blank.

When you draw a blank, that is the time to hang out the "This Space Available" sign.  An open house might be in order.  Maybe even assume the lotus position and chant Ommmm.  Just close your eyes and wait for a sign.  Better yet, just begin to draw.   Or in a case like this one, write.  Write whatever comes to mind and sooner or later the blankness will disappear and life will make sense again.

See, it's already happening.  Anyone can draw a blank.  It doesn't take much.  The important thing is to move through it and onto the next drawing.  I do it all the time.  So can you.  Never be afraid of the blank page.  Just fill it and you might be surprised what embracing the blank will reveal.

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I didn't get the notice or see it the papers, but it appears those octagonal red and white signs labelled "stop" are merely suggestions.  You know those signs, the ones you see at almost every intersection everywhere.  Stop.  Nothing complicated there. Not hard to understand.  

Today I was out driving around town, running errands, trying to make appointments, preferably in one piece.  My little Subie is equipped with something called "Eyesight" that watches the road ahead.  If an obstacle appears up front, it sounds an alert and, depending on the imminent danger, applies the brakes.  Well, you might have guessed here, that happened several times today.  And I was not speeding.

I was entering the intersection near my home when a car blew through the red light right in front of me.  Yes, the system worked.  There was a crossing guard on the corner.  She shook her head when I caught her eye.  And in case you didn't realize it yet, we were by the local elementary school.

When things like that happen, it seems I become hyper-aware.  I counted five incidences of people blowing through stop signs or red lights.  Oh, yes, some of them slowed down a bit.  Some of them even made eye contact as they ignored the right of way laws, (I think I had the right of way in four of those five incidences), but they went right on their merry way.  Sometimes yielding your right of way is the better part of valor.

After an evening of playing cards on Friday nights, my grandmother would always admonish her sister when she was leaving, "Now be sure to stop on all four wheels."   Seems my great aunt was famous for California stops -- rolling though a stop sign instead of stopping.  I wondered at the time how the heck you could stop on anything other than all four tires.  

Now I understand.

Earlier this week I wrote about my friend Al who decided that after eight months of dialysis at home, administered by his wife of 41 years, and 94 years on this earth, it was time to move on.  He quit dialysis and waited for the "road-trip to heaven" with grace and dignity.  He left yesterday morning during the night.

God bless you, Al.  You are an inspiration and a blessing to all who knew you!

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Note:  This is not the gentlemen have been taking to the doctor and such for the past few years, Mr A.  He is still alive and kicking...figuratively and literally.  I am sure I will write of him before long.  His journey is quite different from Al's, but then we all face life and death challenges in our own way, don't we?