First Morning August 27, 2009

I have never read a blog, so this is an unusual thing for me to do. I have wanted to write daily for the last four years but have not been able to get myself motivated on paper. Perhaps the concept that others may read my writings will increase my self motivation.

I moved from Seattle to a small town in Southwest Washington four years ago this month. My friends in the city told me that I would miss Seattle, that I would be lonely, that I should rent because I would want to move back to the city. I have not wanted to return to Seattle, I have not been lonely, and I did not rent a home. Instead I bought a house in a new development and bought the empty lot behind my house, so I would not have another house built right on top of mine. I proceeded, over the last four years to purchase three more dogs to add to my first two dogs; I also have five society finches, one silver bill finch (who needs a friend), and one red factor canary. My five society finches have two babies in a nest, one black one named Eddie and a blonde named Speck, they are not flying yet.

Most of the people in this town and small county are elderly, I am 59 and most of the people I know here are older than I am. There are eight or nine churches in this county of four to five thousand people. I belong to the United Church of Christ, but often attend the Episcopal Church because they have a Spanish class before church (for one reason). The attendance at many of the churches is 28 or less people a Sunday. I don't understand how the churches pay their clergy or keep their buildings in repair, but they do it. One thing that was a surprise to me when I first moved here was that during coffee hours in the United Church of Christ the men sat at one table with the other men and the women sat with just women. I don't know if this is a Finnish custom (or from some other Scandanavian country) or if it just grew as a tradition in this community. Another thing that is different than city folks is some people never look you at your face when talking with you, many people look away or down; it took me a while to get use to this. It seems that many people who have always lived here are shy, there is quite a large group of people who have never lived anywhere else and who have family histories going back three generations or more. Now many of the young people leave to go to college or enter the military because there are no jobs. The people use to work in dairy farming or cucumber farms for pickles, or logging or fishing. I guess there were more people here at one point but when different professions stopped providing jobs many people left the area. I call this part of my world the boondocks. We are 45 minutes from the closest Washington town, which is a bigger boondock town and seems to have more conservative people than this little town.

On Monday I interviewed to become a foster mother for the second time. My daughter who was originally a foster child is now 25 years old. I had wanted to become a foster mother again when she was 21 but it didn't happen, I guess I was too busy. I didn't want her to be jealous or feel I was trying to replace her. So I guess I will have a child in my home soon. It will be interesting to see how I deal with a child in my home and also to see how the child deals with me and with the "live stock" that live here.

I am on my way to see my spiritual director.