it's been a wonderful morning. curled up with a cup of tea and lemon yogurt, reading proust. watching the sky fill with light, filtered through the half naked trees. floyd licking the yogurt bowl clean, but getting his extra long white whiskers covered with yogurt and watching him figure out how to clean himself. it's a little magical that an extra hour has simply materialized in my day. tom is still sleeping. i'd like to be vacuuming, to get that chore done for the day. but i'm trying to stay quiet so he'll get an extra hour of sleep. i emptied the dishwasher from last night and found enough pots and pans and bowls to fill it up again. so, dishwasher music is coming from the kitchen. edgar is galloping around the yard, pounding across the porch and into the leaf covered lawns with a little more energy than usual.

i'm putting on the kettle for one more cup of tea and a few more pages of proust until tom is awake. then i'll vacuum and fill my bath and later, spend the afternoon watching football and building quilts.

this evening i started my winter journey. since the time i was searching for my own direction in my mid-twenties i've wanted to read proust. i was intrigued with him. and i knew that the people who's lives i read about and obsessed on had also been intrigued with him. i outgrew many of those personalities, but not my distant interest in marcel proust. he is pointedly french. and his work circles in and around the parisian and provincial life. gallic. and since my life in france, so many years ago, i feel that connection profoundly. i've started reading swann's way many times. but a few weeks ago for my birthday, tom gave me the entire set of volumes.....everything together waiting for me to become part of them. the past weeks have been so busy with the house, i've wanted to settle in during the rainy evenings and start reading....but i waited until tonight. the house is listed, and i now feel free to start this new project. i'm hoping to read 25 pages a day and while the winter away with proust. i'll let you know how it goes. À la recherche du temps perdu.