happy list

1. sea glass
2. long walks
3. 70-degree weather
4. family reading time
5. mason jars
6. blank notebooks
7. the perfect shade of blue on a t-shirt
8. hand-me-down clothes
9. animal crackers
10. perfect timing

right now

We are:
digging us some Edith Piaf
reading Stuart Little by E.B. White out loud
creating collages
dreaming of beachcombing
working on a new manuscript
creating our own summer reading program because the one here is PATHETIC
trying to figure out how I will physically return the 82 (no joke!) books I have checked out from the library
making some yummy mesquite chocolate chip cookies

klein bag

My latest addiction:

I've never been a purse girl. Yet, I have been struggling with how to store my wallet, keys, pencil and pen, moleskine, sunglasses, bandana and lip gloss.

And then I discovered these Klein hardware storage bags.

All my stuff fits in there, with just enough room to spare. I throw it in the passenger seat of my car and go, it fits into my grocery basket perfectly, I can toss it in my girl's stroller and we're off. It's just right. It's not too precious, so I can wash it in the washing machine. A practical, yet funky solution to keep my stuff together.

from an undated LIFE interview with Hugh Laurie

LIFE: Your father, who won an Olympic gold medal in rowing for England, also coached you in the sport. Share a bit of his oarsman wisdom.
LAURIE: My father didn't deliberately coin aphorisms. He was far too modest a man to think that anyone would be writing down his profundities. I do remember him saying some very good things like "Any idiot can win." That's always stayed with [me]. What he meant was "Winning doesn't actually teach you anything." You win. End of story. But the losing and how you deal with and and what you take from it - that's the interesting bit...
The whole thing about rowing is that you're facing the wrong way. If you fall behind, you can' see who's winning. That starts to mess with your head: how you keep in contact until you push for the finish line. [My father and I] were discussing there very strategic pushes and he said, "Well, you could do all that, but I remember when I rowed, we'd just have one push. You put everything into that one push, and if it it doesn't work, well, we all lose some races." The funny thing about that was, he never did lose any races. He won everything. But I thought that was a wonderful way of looking at life: You have one big push. Put everything you've got into it. If it doesn't work, well, we all lose some races. If you're trying to hold back, if you don't commit, you're never going to get results."

happy list

1. sending & receiving packages in the mail
2. freshly painted toenails
3. thunderstorms
4. lists
5. a new red tricycle
6. just-sharpened pencils
7. ordering books on the internet
8. mason jars
9. summer pajamas
10. watching my girl sleep

summer reading

In honor of the kick-off of our local summer reading program (yippeee!), here are two links about preventing the "summer slide" from the International Reading Association and Reading is Fundamental.  Happy summer reading!

everything

I am loving everything this woman is creating. Everything. She is making me wish I had an extra $500 lying around while also making me reconsider everything I have ever thought about quilting. Enjoy!

peonies by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweep sap,
taking it away

to their dark underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

right now

we just bought Qwirkle and have been playing it every night. every day, my girl plays with it, too, in her own way: matching shapes, sorting colors, counting, etc.

reading The Social Animal by David Brooks and pretty much having my mind blown

relishing the fact that I had the courage to call a major Time Out for the whole family on Tuesday: sometimes it's necessary

looking forward to a bonfire on Friday...and a long weekend

processing all the goodness of a weekend in D.C. filled with art and friendship: I got to reconnect with a friend from college and it was filled with meandering conversations and recognition

wondering what The Hubby and I should do to mark 10 years. (I have a great gift for him, but I'm not sure what I want and he is not a mind reader and I am impossible to shop for so I feel like I should just tell him what I want, but I'm not sure that what I want is worthy of a 10th Anniversary. ahem.)

preparing for a nice, long hike this weekend in Shenandoah National Forest

falling in love with Charley Harper's artwork...

what are you doing right now?

from Jim Rohn

"You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with."

30 day challenge

I am at the beginning of a 30-Day-Challenge to get up early. OK, so early is relative. For this challenge I decided to spend the first 15 days waking at 6:30 a.m. with the plan to bump it up to 6 a.m. after that.

I had been doing really fantastic waking up early in March and the first half of April, but I fell off the wagon in late April. Well, I'm back on it.

I'm posting this so that I have some way of being held accountable.

good things right now

• the birth of my friend's twin babies with most excellent names: Samuel and Juniper. seriously, aren't those names perfect?
• a run of rainy days (exactly what I need right now)
• a new soup recipe to try: from my girl's favorite book at the moment, "Soup Day" by Melissa Iwai
• another query crafted and sent to an editor
• this camera - I had no idea there was an instant film camera on the market! - I've missed my polaroid film so much - I may just have to get this
• friends who are so kind. kind in ways that I don't deserve or warrant. a group of them are going to cut down our dead tree. another is coming to watch my girl while I make a phone call. (there is no way to pay people back, really, is there? no gift is enough. just a return gesture, a strengthening of the friendship bond, a promise to be there when they need us. right? I'm humbled and grateful.)
• plans to make this have begun. (warning: very slow link, but worth the view)
• dreams of making a new quilt, OK quilts, have begun dancing in my head with inspiration from Rothko and a pile of bandanas
• the resumption of our daily family walks has been such a delight - hello longer days
• summer pajamas!

What good things are happening for you?

#28

In junior high, I lived in Nashville: the South. As a result, we spent what felt like months studying the Civil War. I memorized battle dates (and then promptly forgot them), built dioramas, wrote special reports, learned about the great generals.

And yet, I never really understood what the Civil War was all about. Was I too young to understand the complexity of the reasons for the war? Yes. Was I too immature to even begin to fathom what it would be like to fight against your own brother? Yes. Was I too spoiled to begin to guess how exhausting it would be to march hundreds of miles? Yes. Was I too ignorant to guess at what our nation would be like today had the Union been demolished? Yes.

But, I'm an adult now. With a husband I love. A daughter I would die for. A country I love. And I am living in the belt buckle of the Civil War.

Last weekend, we went to Gettysburg National Military Park. Standing atop Little Round Top, I teared up. I felt an enormous sadness. A sadness for all the men: husbands, brothers, fathers, friends killed.

The week before our trip I read The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. And for the first time I felt such empathy for both sides, I understood the different perspectives and I had such a strong respect for the soldiers who fought. (This is a lovely, very easy to read book. I was hesitant to start it because I've never been "into" the Civil War and thought all those reenactors were geeks. No more.)

We are now watching the movie "Gods and Generals" which is about the Battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg and Chancelorsville. There are more books to read, more battlefields to visit and more movies to watch. But I can finally say, friends, that I am beginning to appreciate the sacrifices that all those men (and women) made for us.

Oh yes, back to the subject. Gettysburg was phenomenal. We spent the day, could have spent the week. I wasn't too sure what we would find; it is a battlefield after all. How interesting could it be? Well, very. We followed the CD audio tour and enjoyed every moment.

your newest addiction

Friends, prepare to take a journey down the rabbit's hole. Really: don't go to this web site if you, say, have to pick up your child in 15 minutes, or you need to pay close attention to something on the stove or you plan on going to bed within the next hour. Don't click on this link if any of those circumstances apply to you.

Wait until you have a couple hours (at least) available, a mug of coffee on hand and your favorite pen with a stack of paper and no one around to distract you.

The Paris Review has made its interview collection available online.*

I've read volume no. 1 and 4 with no luck locating no. 2 and 3. So this feels like, well, it feels like thank you Paris Review.

This is your chance to get into the heads of your favorite writers. Don't miss out.*Based on my limited picking around on the site it seems that the archives are open, free and completely available. Only the most recent interviews are cut off mid-interview with a request for a subscription if you want to read more.

happy mother's day

Have you seen this? "A Mother's Prayer for Her Child" by Tina Fey. The woman can write.

Enjoy.

#17

Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius. My girl and I toured the Pope-Leighey House two weeks ago and I was bowled over by his ingenuity. What an innovative man!

According to the pamphlet I received at the site (the house is protected under the National Trust for Historic Preservation), "The Pope-Leighley House tells the story of Frank Lloyd Wright's innovative designs for modestly-sized and affordable single-family 'Usonian' houses and how two families adapted this dwelling to fit their mid-20th century lifestyles."

Here is a link to its floor plan. It measures in at 1200 square feet.

Here are the details, innovations that impressed me most:

• custom-made furniture, much of it made from plywood, so that the pieces would fit the exact dimensions of where they were to be place.
• an emphasis on the horizontal. See the pictures of the brickwork and screws (below) to see what I mean. Also note the faux stain glass windows. Stain glass would have been very expensive, too expensive for the purposes of this house, but he used wood cut-outs to create a similar look all while emphasizing the horizontal line.
• radiant floor heating. According to our tour guide, FLW invented this.
• absence of clutter.
• using a variety of ceiling heights and ample windows to create the illusion of a spacious house. There is really no way to describe the way that FLW is able to manipulate a person's feelings via architecture. Go to the FLW house closest to you and you'll experience it for yourself. He is a master at it.
• common-sense: positioning kitchen cabinet doors so that when opened they were lit by the windows.
• drawers that tipped out instead of pulled out.
• an outdoor herb garden that was accessible from the kitchen. FLW tried to blur, erase the boundaries between indoors and outdoors as much as possible.
• to this end, he didn't want the owners of the house to hang curtains. The owners won this battle, but when I toured there were no curtains hanging and I could see why curtains would diminish the connection with outside. However, privacy is lovely and if I lived in that house, there would be curtains. Sorry, Frank!



the entrance



an example of how obsessed FLW was with the horizontal line and details:
the vertical mortar is tinted to match the bricks so it disappears,
the horizontal mortar color is lighter and thus stands out

all the screws are aligned horizontally aligned -
I'm sure that didn't drive the construction crew crazy!

view from the rear courtyard

view of the screened-in porch

Here's a fascinating interview with its first owner, Loren Pope.

#8

To cap off completing #8 on The List, "learn some basic French words and phrases", let me share my 10 favorite French words (I've included the pronunciation when I could find it):
1. book - le livre - (luh LEE-vrah)
2. tree - l'arbre - (l' AR-brah)
3. postcard - le carte postale
4. horse - le cheval - (luh sh-VALL)
5. egg - les oeufs - (lay uff)
6. flowers - les fleurs - (lay flur)
7. library card - le carte de lecteur
8. apple - la pomme - (lah pumm)
9. sun - la soleil - (lah sol-ay)
10. mountain - la montagne - (lah mon-tyne)

Learning these words, OK I ended up learning hundreds of French words, was so much fun and such a good reminder that I love learning foreign language. In high school and college I studied Latin. I remember immersing myself in it and reveling in discovering more and more about it.

I relied on a great DK French-English visual dictionary as well as a stack of children's books to find these French words. It was a great starting point.

This brief dip into the French pool has me thinking that I need to study another language in more depth. I'm keeping my eye on Rosetta Stone and the Concordia Language Villages courses. Who knows what may happen? Of course, I have to decide between French and Swedish. Which language would you choose to study?

trader joe's love

Let me introduce you to the best shampoo and conditioner ever. By "best" I mean a S&C combination that is affordable, contains no lauryl sulfates, makes my hair look great and smells delicious: Trader Joe's Tea Tree Tingle.

I am also loving their Trader Johann's Virtuoso Lip Balm which boasts olive oil, jojoba oil and vitamin E as its top three ingredients. A nice alternative to the lip balms that are packed with nasty chemicals.

#4

I purchased this book after reading an article about a successful (published!) author saying that reading it was the equivalent of completing an MFA program. The book was expensive; right now it's listed at $44.81. I bought it anyway. I figured that was a bargain when I considered how much it would cost to actually enroll in and complete an MFA program.

Of course, it took me a year to read it. But, read it I did. And I learned a lot from it.

What I took away from it:
1. If I ever teach Rhetoric at the college level again, this will be my text.
2. I read this book a chapter at a time. I definitely recommend this approach. I enjoy studying grammar, but many of the proper grammatical terms escape me. (They probably always will.) So taking small bites of this book helped increase my comprehension.
3. I will probably never read this book cover-to-cover again, though I will refer to it often.
4. I learned more than I expected to. The authors really revealed a lot of methods that were previously unnamed to me, to change the rhythm and focus and emphasis of a sentence. They revealed and explained some useful tricks of the writing trade.
5. This is a must-read for writers.
6. This means I can cross #4 off The List!

from "The Gastronomical Me" by M.F.K. Fisher

"It was a wonderful window, one of the best I can  remember, and what I saw and thought and felt as I stood in it with my hands on the food for us those months will always be a good part of me."