For Cissy, I am putting together a sampling of all Joni’s CDs that I possess.

We have had the 200-disc player for many months, but it was only Thursday evening that I finally chose 100 of my favourites and slid them into the slots that will be their new home for a while.

The next day I woke up with the neck thing and after a couple hours realized it was not going to go away and took a pill. Then I laid down on the couch under a blanket with Joni’s CDs playing through from earliest to latest, from start to finish, and listed my three favourites from each CD. I laid there till 1:30 when my neck had stopped aching and it was time to go to town to pick my son up from school and run a few errands.

Of course, I was not even through half the stack of 17 CDs piled in square columns on the coffee table, so the next morning I listened to another one or two before coming upstairs to make banana pancakes for my sweeties.

It has been a very pleasant journey, this listening, for Joni Mitchell’s songs and particularly her singing of them are the most beautiful blend of lyrical imagery and musical heart. My soul moves when I listen to that woman.

It is a joy to introduce Joni’s music, to imagine someone else discovering Joni’s genius for putting subtleties into words and touching the spirit.

I am missing the CD versions of some of the albums I used to have on vinyl or on tape, so sorry Cis, you will hear no samplings from Clouds, Miles of Aisles or Mingus. But you will have a collection of over 50 of Joni’s songs, and when you purchase one of her CDs you will find yourself diving into a treasure trove.

Monday, Feb. 10

I dozed this morning, listening to the radio, not worried about getting the boys out the door at 8:00 because L was up and would take care of it.

At a quarter to, Don came down to tell me Barney wasn’t dressed and hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. With a pained groan, I got out of bed and came upstairs to see what the holdup was.

He was dressing and had made toast for himself but it was “not YOUR bread, Mom!” so he left it on the table with one bite out of it. L had gone outside to check on cattle when he saw Barney sit down with his toast, and no one remembered that there was a bowlful of leftover banana pancakes in the fridge. So Barney has gone to school with no breakfast, bearing a piece of fruit to eat on the bus, and I will be baking bread today.

A friend’s mother died this morning. I tried to phone him when I heard she was in the hospital, but he has been staying in the city with her. He has lost his two closest family members -- his mother and grandmother -- within the past six months.

On the highway to my hometown since we moved here, I have driven right on past their house every weekend, each time thinking “I must stop in there soon, but not today.”

He didn’t get along with his mother, so I have no idea how he has been faring with her so ill. I’m not even sure if he was still living with her; he may have moved into his grandmother’s house in town.

Out wood collecting this afternoon with my sweetie and his dad. It's 20 below today -- 40 below with the wind chill -- but fortunately we were in a well-treed yard so only exposed skin stiffened in the cold.

We drove the few miles to cut the wood, past islands of bare bush in a frozen white ocean of rippled waves.

Meanwhile, Loverboy was up in trees, wielding a chainsaw, and generally being all sexy in that sweat-and-muscle kind of way. Couldn't help but notice.