We each found a piece of sea glass this morning on our walk. “Our work is done,” Gary said. It is a common line between the two of us, a joke, but also reflects our sense that gathering abandoned graham cracker packets and finding pretty things is our excuse for walking.

Recently, while we were gone, the people staying in the house next door lifted two sitting-logs over their fire and then deserted it. It was still smoldering two mornings later and Gary lifted the one end that was still hot and managed to toss it into the sea. People sometimes try to use sand to put out their beach fires, which rarely works and a smoldering fire stinks. I think people simply have an unrealistic idea of how fires burn. A tourist once built a tower of beachwood well over his head. Locals tried to talk him out of it, but he set it alight on a Sunday morning and then was gone home a couple of hours later. He seemed to think it would all go up in a blaze of (his personal) glory and be done. Gary helped put that one out too.

The tourists now staying in the house north of us put out their beach fire—ten barely-burned pieces of firewood!—so Gary didn’t have to this morning.

When we left the other day we had fog rolling in from the sea and it was thicker, unusually thick, the next day when we got home. Though we have back-up baseboard heaters in some rooms, we don’t leave the heat on when we are gone. The house was cold and the power had been out since early morning. Our neighbor said it was supposed to be back on by 1:30, but that didn’t happen. We were grateful for our wood heat as there is no natural gas and power does go out now and again.

The sun came out and a roll of clouds rested out on the horizon, one of my favorite things. It rained on us on our way home from our walk today. Now the world has gone pale gray, ocean and sky, a color I enjoy but not what most people declare as “good weather!” Nevermind.

I am doing well with NaNo, 22k words and over 80 pages as of this morning (about 4k are not new).

Yesterday I learned my visual art has been accepted for a local gallery show in December 2020. I will be putting on warps all spring. Purple, blue, pink. Green. I expect to have a dozen shawls, three large quilts for sale, and maybe a couple of pieced Christmas stockings.

I have been asked to lead a workshop for Willamette Writers in April. The coming year . . . 

In the mean time, My most problematic story is still waiting on a response since July 2018, and is short-listed at two other journals. I am resigned  to rejection all around.