Of morning pages & toads

Morning pages are good for Toad Head. I'm not much of a morning person. In fact, I'm a morning toad. The first hour or so is usually a daze of waiting for the coffee to take effect. But if I can just sit up in my nice warm bed and write for a half hour before I have to interface with Tuesday, I'm much more alert when I finally am up "for real." So, I'm liking it.

Now, let's be honest. I don't go to the office anymore and I don't have to accomplish a whole lot first thing, so all this is a kind of luxury for me. Vicky gets up at the hour when our paper is delivered (dogs bark, so I know) and Viv is a much, much earlier riser than me. I used to set the alarm for 5:30 to do the pages. But even then it was a more gentle transition that rolling out at 6 and having to, like, dress myself.

Also, the view from our bedroom deserves a lot more admiration than I've ever lavished on it since we busted out the wall and let the lake and sky all the way in. I find that although I love that view, I tend to distract myself from it with fifteen minutes of TODAY or a quick escape to the kitchen for -- yeah, yeah -- coffee. So, now I'm a prisoner of the view for a longish stretch. I'm writing, but I'm looking too. And I'm arriving at the day, the last couple of days, more energized than recently. If not noticeably more artistic.

You can remind me of this in a couple of weeks when I start complaining. I'm including a photo of one of our toads. (Besides the Morning Toad, I already owned up to being.) Our contractor B.J.'s daughter loves our toads which live (loudly) in the window wells in the summer. The boys up the street love them, too. They adopt them and take them away in jars. Hopefully to good homes. I at least limit them to one toad per boy. Anyway, the photo. It's got two great things. A handsome toad. And awesome nail polish.