Until tonight, the deer seemed to have vanished. I hadn't seen one near the roads in several weeks. A student who lives in the country wrote in a journal for my class that she had seen many deer recently along roadsides that I travel daily. Was I simply not paying attention? Were they avoiding me? Does this paragraph have a future?

Then tonight while I was driving home at around 7 PM, a doe jumped out in front of the car about a half mile from Ogden on K-18. The car approaching me from the east flashed its lights. Thinking the driver was warning me that I had my high beams on, I checked, flashing my own high beams and illuminating a doe as she crossed 40 yards in front of my car. My conclusion: I've been preoccupied with work and other matters recently and haven't stopped to smell the...um...nevermind.

I think the point of that shakey beginning is to find a way to praise the Maggie Turner journal linked in the sidebar. Turner's journal reminded me of a truth that I often forget to practice: Good, durable writing is about noticing. What so much of the writing on the web is too often about, you will of course determine for yourself. But some of Turner's recent entries -- well, see for yourself. It's a journal that focuses on the words and their depth and not on the HTML.

I spent many of the free minutes in this day typing and uploading the journals from the weekend. And as of this entry, I am caught up after my weekend away.

Good night.

I came across Maggie Turner's wonderful journal (Page by Page: A Woman's Journal) by way of a link in John Bailey's web log. I suspect I'll have to add it to the links page for regular reading because the quiet of her writing drew me right in.

Check the photo pages too.

My To Do list for the holidays grows and grows, but even the first item ("create To Do list") remains to be done.