Thursday 13: Daybook musings

or today:

1. I am thinking that I'm so glad that laughter exists. I did a bit of that yesterday--at a meeting where I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to laugh *quite* so much. But I wasn't too giggly... I swear. But I love laughter.

2. I am thankful for good friends, always. I had a lovely Google chat with my heirloom friend Corinne yesterday afternoon. Yes, heirloom friend. That's our new word. No more BFF, that's so last week. We've been friends for 26 years, so we definitely feel very heirloomy... we covered all the good topics, solved a few of the world's problems, and even got a little girly and shallow too. All the important stuff.

3. In the kitchen I am feeling off my game. Not sure why, maybe just a little uninspired. Need to get a little inspiration and motivation. Feeling the need to get a little healthier around here too... my tastebuds have been leaning toward fat and salt lately, with a little sugar thrown in for good measure. So, to retrain toward a bit more health, less processed... wish me/us luck.

4. I am wearing jeans and a T and cardy. Comfortable, but dressed. Bonus.

5. I am creating some fun stuff with crochet right now, and having quite a bit of fun with it too (well, other than the whole project I had to throw out on Sunday, as the result of a bad, quick decision with a pair of scissors. Horrors!). I think, though, I need to pick a craft and stick with it for a month or two, doing ONLY that craft and not even trying to fit in the others. I am not doing a good job of multitasking right now, so it's kind of that way by default, but maybe being a bit more intentional about it will alleviate the guilt. I know, what's that? Craft guilt? Who knew? I just look over at my calligraphy table and sigh...

6. I am going to support our local Humane Society this weekend at the annual gala--the Furr Ball. Yes, it is indeed called THAT. Meow! Woof! And today I encouraged the use of Furr-bulous and Bow-wow and that kind of silliness in sponsor levels as I was proofreading the program. Just couldn't resist. Of course, the men are going with me. And some good friends and their son too, so hopefully everyone will be happily entertained. (But we'll keep an eye on the boys at the silent auction tables for sure. Don't want to be coming home with some oopsie items because somebody was kept bidding it up!)

7. I am wondering why it seems at times that tackling things head on is harder work than avoiding them? If you take the long view, avoidance seems to be a heck of a lot more work, with all the ducking and dodging. And by "head on" I don't mean bulldozing, I just mean being clear, straight, honest. I went to a class/lecture on conflict management yesterday, can you tell?

8. I am reading a lot of blog posts/web sites about blogging, how to start blogging, what makes for good blogging. A friend of mine bought a local scrapbooking store this past summer and is offering some new kinds of classes... I am teaching a small class today on blogging basics for creatives. I already taught a general "technology for creatives" kind of class, and that went well, and this one I feel like I have an even better handle on. It's narrower in scope and doesn't run the risk of being as overwhelming as TECHNOLOGY. Just that word can be overwhelming... So anyway, wish me luck. I think it will be fun, and a very small class, so very hands on too... next up, a Pinterest class (I know, you're shocked).

9. I am hoping for some blue sky today. That might be a bit of a stretchy kind of hope, but at least we're not socked in with fog. We had that flip-flop earlier this week: one day of sunshine, gorgeous blue skies and high-ish temps, followed by a really foggy morning. It freaked out a few people that the inevitable Walla Walla fog had arrived and would stay all winter (we've had some pretty long stretches of fog here...), but by mid-afternoon it burned off beautifully. Now, it's just gray. Blah.

10. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. Family time!

11. I am hearing a few music videos on my computer. I almost posted 13 videos today, but wasn't quite ready. So I'm taking the easy way out and just musing at you. Lucky you.

12. Around the house it's all pretty tidy at the moment. You'd better come visit right this moment, because that changes incredibly quickly. I have no idea HOW exactly, but we really know how to clutter up a space around here, between mail and odds-n-ends and who-knows-what... Also, I'm just two seconds away from having fall/Thanksgiving decorations up and going... the gourds have been purchased, the leaves brought out (I have some fun ideas of what to do with them this year), the appropriate glassybabies set out...

13. I am pondering what I have left to get ready for my class this morning. I gotta get moving.

Not sure what happened... I swear the daybook thing used to be 13 items long. Hmmm... Well. I have already written the next two tidbits, so you're getting bonus musings today...!

One of my favorite things right now are all the fall flavors and colors... minus Halloween. I am such a non-Halloween person, there's really not much about that whole "season" that I appreciate--I'm not into dressing up, not into the undead-ghosty stuff, not into decorating specific to spiderwebs and tombstones... OK, so what's the Halloween version of a Grinch? That's me (with a few mini Snickers thrown in, I'm not a complete nut job, really). Take me straight through to Thanksgiving, please and thank you.

A few plans for the rest of the week include lunch tomorrow with my childhood pastor and his family who are in town visiting, picking Seth up from school tomorrow and sliding on in to the weekend. Oh and making and canning applesauce, and maybe even finally blogging about some of the recipes I've made recently, as I've been just horrible about that...

Here is picture for thought I am sharing.

Remember that? That was my "word" this year... how's it going with that? Ha.

How are things in your world? Fall arrived in all it's glory? Tell me what you're up to!

For more Thursday 13 folk, go here.

For more daybook kind of people, go here.

Ten Word Tuesday

The internet's back, but I'm not. Feeling behinder and behinder.

Friday night grateful moment

This week I am grateful for many things; quite a few of them you have heard before: health, family, my men, the weather (well, not SO much on the dull, gray days, but in general it's been a lovely fall so far), prayer/faith and the contentedness it brings me, color and silly things like Pinterest, you know... the usual. (And figs. Basil. Friendship. Coffee.) (See, it's really hard for me to NOT do the list.)

But a few posts from other blogs have really added gratitude to my week, and I am very thankful for people who put their thoughts out to the universe in specific ways to touch others' lives. It's really hard to know if what you say is going to impact anyone, but believe me: I am blessed by things I read all the time.

Here are a few I am especially grateful for.

Walking On My Hands: Balance
"Perhaps I will find balance only when I surrender to the imbalance, to the unbending truth that balance can only exist between polarity, between gravity and a tiny body, between the jagged earth and the infinite sky."

Writing My Way Sober: The Most Beautiful Truth I Know
"All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming." -Helen Keller

A Design So Vast: Look at the light of this hour and Learning to Breathe

Live In The Layers: Let the hours play upon my body

The Gypsy Mama: I want my kids to know I was more than their mom
"I want them to know they were enough. Just as they were. That they never needed to perform for us."

I do want to especially note my men this week... my gratitude for them fills my heart so completely. For the love and kindness of my son to those around him, I am most grateful. His true and compassionate heart is one of his most winning traits. (And he has many...) (I'm completely biased, I know.)

And for my husband and the many gifts he bestows upon our family, I am daily, hourly grateful; from his hard work and dedication to his laughter and teasing and loving appreciation of our life together, he makes our world a better place.

I hope gratitude is a part of your week's ending as well. What are you grateful for this week? Big, small, infinitesimal, I would love to know about it.

Peace to you and yours.

Ten Word Tuesday

Beautiful fall breezes blew baby tumbleweeds into the kitchen. Really.

Common Miracles, week #22: The ordinary stuff of life

 “Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.”

-Pema Chodron

s I look around my world during this beautiful autumn, I see many ordinary things that qualify as common miracles:

*Leaves turning color. We don't have a lot of yellows and oranges, but quite a few reds... on fire!
*Pheasants scuttling around the front yard.
*Bunnies sitting and munching in the rain.
*Dahlias still blooming, happily.
*Flowers my husband brought home for me.
*Thanksgiving (Canadian) flowers my parents sent to us, so beautiful.
*Plum cobbler, yum. I could make a whole meal of it. (Well, I kind of just did.)
*Seth on his trumpet, making beautiful noise.
*The sound of rain on the shop roof (I could sleep out there!).
*Dark clouds against the mountains.
*Smell of turkey roasting (again with the Canadian Thanksgiving... we call it "warm-up Thanksgiving" around here).
*Pumpkins all piled up outside the grocery stores. 
*Fuzzy socks and warm sweaters.

In a way, I feel like fall snuck up on me. But in another way, it seems right on time. Loving every minute of these cooler days and wishing that somehow darkness didn't have to come along with it. There's certainly no common miracle in the dark! Ha.

I am indeed inspired by my everyday good fortune, and I hope you are feeling the same, whatever your Monday held!

To see how the Common Miracle project started, go here.

Friday night grateful moment

ou know it's fall when the darkness descends earlier and earlier... it's Friday evening (as I begin to write this) and yet it might as well be the middle of the night! This "feature" to autumn is both something I adore and something I dread... Funny how that can be, but it is.

I'm grateful today that husband took the day (mostly) away from work (sort of). It was a nice day, differently paced for both of us, and a lovely segue into the weekend.

We had two days of rain this week, and I loved it. Every minute of it. And to top it off, on the second day, as the rain faded and the sun went down, we had a lovely and amazing sunset. I am grateful for the sunsets here in the valley, all four seasons of them. I wish I could figure out how to take decent pictures of sunsets, but those seem just a little outside my expertise... now if I only read all the tutorials I find re: photography...

I'm grateful that Seth's first round of high school conferences went well--he's doing really good work on the academic side of things, the social side seems to be mellow enough (just the way he--and I--likes it!), and most important, he's having fun. It was kind of cool to sit there and hear how much his teachers enjoy having him in class--not that I'm surprised surprised, it was just reassuring. It was, on the spectrum of how these things can go with a co-parenting situation (if you get my drift), pretty good.

It's Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and I bought a wee turkey today to make a mini-Thanksgiving dinner for our family on Sunday. I don't always fly my Canadian flag wildly, since I'm a U.S. citizen and and have been a resident, more or less, since 1985. I'm grateful to have my Canadian heritage, and there's nothing quite like going "home" to Canada. And, I'm a big fan of Canadian candy too. Ha. At least I have my priorities straight, eh?

And just as I wrote that last paragraph, who should call but my Canadian grandmother! I am SO grateful to have a grandma who calls occasionally to say hello. She's 92 and still kicking (gently kicking, she's a lady, after all...). I'm grateful for the kicking, too.

I continue to glean basil off my basil plants and make pesto and eat it with just about everything, so I haven't quite tipped over into fall eating completely. But with the rain this week, it really brought out the soup and stew in me, so I think this coming week will have some yumminess in that direction. I am grateful for seasons, and how it switches up the menu (whether I want it to or not!).

Another benefit of the slowed down growth in the garden and yard is that mowing is slowed up too. I do like mowing, and my love of a new lawn edger from husband has been heard near and far, but even the most avid mower likes a break... I'm not done done, but I know I can space it out quite a bit between mowings now, and I'm grateful for that!

Tomorrow I'm trekking up to my high school alma mater to say hello to my fellow graduates from 1986. While I know it must be so hard for you to believe it's been 25 years since I graduated from high school, that is indeed the case. My BFF Corinne is not able to come up from California for the occasion, but I'm soldiering on anyway... you'd better make it for 30, C. I'm counting on it! I'm especially grateful for my time at UCA because of the friends I made there. Actually, that's really the only reason I'm grateful for my time there... the people.

I'm grateful for laughter. Oh, how I do love a good belly laugh. (And I'm not one to shy away from a tear or two either--see my post earlier this week re: Parenthood. Yowsah.) Friend Jen posted earlier this week re: Melissa McCarthy's hosting of Saturday Night Live. I haven't watched an SNL episode in real time in... well, many years. So I rarely keep up on who is hosting. Occasionally I'll see a clip on Hulu+, as it's apparently pretty popular there and the more popular clips pop up as suggested viewing. Well, Jen's post prompted me to check out the whole episode and I laughed heartily a number of times--always when Melissa McCarthy was in a scene. I adore her. I always have, from Gilmore Girls days. We watch Mike & Molly too, on occasion, and Bridesmaids was really quite a hoot. She and Kristen Wiig together? Priceless. OK, so if I haven't convinced you enough, I am posting my favorite clip to help seal the deal. Love. Her. (The whole episode is available here.)



I continue to be grateful for the beauty (and sometime silliness) that IS Pinterest. Here are a few of my favorites that are definitely from the silly/pointless/what-are-you-pinning? side...

tea

bunnies

mullet (I almost feel bad about posting this... where is this person now, do they have a sense of humor about this picture? I hope so.)

google

creative

backrub

wolves  (Seth should have had this onesie...)

bra

And I'll leave you with those deep and meaningful images to take you into the weekend! I hope you have lots to be grateful for this week? What's on your list?

Peace.

Thursday 13: 13 responses to Steve Jobs' passing

hen I first contemplated posting for Thursday 13, finding 13 quotes by Steve Jobs seemed like a pretty meaningful idea. (You can tell I wasn't exactly planning ahead with a post...) That would be easy enough... right now Steve Jobs quotes are EVERYwhere. But, most of them are pretty well known already. His interviews and commencement speeches have been mined for pithy, poignant statements for years, and rightly so. Steve's serious health issues of the past decade drew him to speak about how he chose to live in the face of mortality. That, and his long-time entrepreneurial huevos... a powerful combination.

As I was doing my quote research, I happened upon an article that featured responses to the news of his passing. There were quite a few thoughtful sentiments expressed from well-known characters in politics, technology and business. So, I thought I'd share my 13 favorites of that list:

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter

Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder

Jason Hiner, Editor In Chief of TechRepublic at CBS Interactive

Jeff Jarvis, journalist

Joe Brown, Gizmodo Editor in Chief

Josh Linkner, entrepreneur and author

Larry Page, Google co-founder and CEO

Scott Simon, NPR commentator

Sergey Brin, Google co-founder

Shawn Blanc, technology blogger

Finally, I can't resist a few relevant words from Steve himself:

More info than you probably want, but I'm on a roll here: If you have time and interest, here's a piece written by Brian Lam (of Gizmodo) about his interactions with Steve Jobs relative to the iPhone 4 prototype debacle of 2007: Steve Jobs Was Always Kind to Me (Or, Regrets of an Asshole). 

For myself, I'm immensely sad for his family, naturally, and for all the rest of us, just a little bit. But mostly I'm glad that Steve Jobs lived the life he did (though shorter than it should have been), and that his impact will be felt deep and wide for a long time. He lived a big professional life, and drove people crazy with his vision for what could be. What a legacy.

I'm also glad for him that he got a chance to prepare to die--in my imagination, he probably didn't leave earth with things unsaid or unresolved. That's inspiring to me, to remember to live that way, every day, even without a cancer diagnosis.

What were your thoughts on hearing about Steve's passing? Anything thoughtful to share (all Apple haters can skip this part of the post, thanks!)?

For more Thursday 13s, go here.

Midweek reminder: I'm a sap, in case you'd forgotten

may have mentioned last year that I became a fan of the TV show Parenthood... I love the writing (Jason Katims, Friday Night Lights writer!), and I am a huge fan of Peter Krause (Six Feet Under! Sports Night!) and Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls!). But it is truly an ensemble cast, and I enjoyed the whole first season quite a bit.

I completely forgot it was coming back on this fall (I know, not a very attentive fan, huh?) and was pleasantly surprised to discover a few episodes stored up on Hulu+. A lovely surprise indeed. EXCEPT. I also forgot that I cry at EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. Man, what a sap. How is it possible to have nothing AND yet everything in common with a group of people on the stinking television?

Bless you, Ron Howard.

Craft reveal: Kim's birthday pillows

y dear sister-in-law Kim's birthday was in August, and I made a couple of pillows to add to her birthday package. True to form, out of sight meant out of mind--I meant to post the pictures of the completed pillows ages ago, but finally seeing them at her home this past weekend, I thought, better late than never, right?

I started this pillow before I took the hand applique class last winter, so this was fused applique with embroidered embellishment. The dots are French dots, and I could have gone a little crazier with those... I was worried about cluttering it up, but now that I see the picture, I think it should have had more...

Rather than do a ruffle around the pillow, I decided to make a ruched edge. I was happy with how that turned out.

I cut the flowers from a background, and arranged them on a different fabric background.

To go with the Carpe Diem pillow, I decided I would make a giant granny circle pillow, a la some pretty pillows I've seen on Pinterest. The fabric behind the crochet is the same fabric in the ruched border.

It's always challenging to work on crafty projects and want to share, but then need to keep them secret for a special occasion... I'm working on a few more projects currently, but trying not to stress about the 80 days until Christmas... tick tock, baby! It's a comin'.

Common Miracles, Week 21: My little blue dot

“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.” 

–Pema Chodron

am aware (have been for a long time, actually) of my directionally challenged nature. If I don't pay close attention, I can end up on the opposite side of a city (Calgary, Alberta comes to mind), come up out of a subway and find myself in the Bronx instead of uptown NYC; I have frequently turned left when it was pretty obvious I should have turned right, and frustrated many a traveling companion. It can take me multiple times of driving (myself, not just being a traveling companion, that takes even longer) to a new, complicated destination, before I've got it down.

I was reminded of this just yesterday when navigating my way out of Seattle, and, finding myself on the flip side of I-5 than I intended, I pulled out the handy GPS on my iPhone. It was actually pretty hilarious how many times I rejiggered the "current location" to accommodate where I had ended up, as opposed to where I was supposed to be. It almost never failed that when the line said "go there" my little blue dot was going the opposite way. (The beauty of a 15-year-old traveling companion with his face in an iPad is that the frustration levels stay pretty low. Bonus.)

Why am I confessing this? Because it struck me that, as with road trips, so is life. How many times do I have to adjust, rejigger, adjust again and sometimes I've even had to turn around? It happens. BUT. At least I'm doing it. Moving. Changing direction as needed. There's nothing noble about picking a course and staying it, even when you know for sure your little blue dot is way lost. Yet, that happens all the time, doesn't it? Sadly, yes.

Before you think that I was wandering the hills of Seattle for hours, this whole thing was about 7 minutes long, before I got myself headed the right direction; I'm not sure Seth even noticed! But it was funny enough to me that I thought about it on the way home, reflecting how grateful I am for GPS technology (how much longer would it have taken me if I didn't have the blue dot feedback?). And I also thought about road maps--digital and otherwise--and decided that actually having a road map is a heck of a lot better than not having one!

(This quote applies to life, not actual driving road trips!)

When I think about where my blue dot is most days, it brings me a lot of joy.

The Common Miracles project started here. I really enjoy the prompt it provides me each week to think a little differently about things I might otherwise take for granted.