being and becoming

I took some flower pics for fun this morning. I’m still struggling with the whole balance thing, I always feel like I should be doing chores or only taking the kind of iStock photos that sell well. I wonder if it’s mostly an American problem, always feeling like we need to be doing something that will make money or accomplish some kind of work related goal? We do tend to be a workaholic society. Why is it when we do something solely to feed our spirit we feel guilty, even though we know in our hearts that at the end of our lives we aren’t going to wish we had spent more time at the office or vacuuming the floors! Hmm, so I think I’ll take a me day today, do some creative stuff, read, meditate, maybe even watch the grass grow (really, I sprinkled grass seed this week outside my office window and it’s cool and rainy so it’s going to sprout any minute now!). But first, I should throw the wet towels in the dryer before they start growing mold, empty the dishwasher, clean off my messy desk…

Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.  ~Matthew Arnold

teaser tuesday

oldpeoplekissingI’m participating in a Tuesday book meme this week where you open the book you’re reading to a random page and share two lines. I just started reading the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I opened the book to page 127 and spotted these two sentences: They weren’t young anymore, this was the thing. They kept telling each other as though they couldn’t believe it. Those lines struck me as pretty funny because my husband and I often do the same thing. He’ll complain about some misbehaving aging body part (on himself, he knows better than to notice or point out mine!) and then we’ll comment on how old we’re getting. This exchange is usually followed by shrugs and one of us saying rather Zen-like, “Well, what’s the alternative?”  And no, that is not me and Mr. bookbabie in the photo smooching, but hopefully it will be someday! Click on brown box below to see what others are reading at Teaser Tuesday…
teasertuesdays

best of youtube

I started a YouTube account recently and learned how to take and upload videos, look out Mr. Spielberg, bookbabie is now in the movie business! My first “film” is about our pet squirrel. Well, maybe he’s not exactly a pet, we don’t walk him on a leash or let him sleep at the foot of our bed. But for the moment he does satisfy our need to have a cute, fuzzy little creature around. When our dog died last year we decided to go pet-free for a while so we’d have the freedom to do some traveling. Unfortunately, the economy immediately tanked and we’ve since tightened our belts resulting in vanishing travel itineraries which gives us plenty of time to play with our video camera and risk disease by hand feeding peanuts to overgrown bushy tailed rodents 🙂

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. ~George Eliot

(almost) wordless wednesday

Mr. Bookbabie is making an appearance on my blog today in honor of Earth Day. That’s my guy enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame on the front page of the newspaper a “few” years ago. He was a very young Biology teacher at the time displaying a water purification system and he just confessed to me last night that he was actually distilling booze! Oh well, it was the early seventies after all, at least he didn’t have the students growing “herbs” in the greenhouse. He also told me he wishes he still had all that hair and those really groovy pants 🙂

See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.

skywatch friday

I wandered over to the fishing pond across the street to take a few pictures and two swans were conveniently floating around enjoying the bright sunny day. It’s finally starting to feel like spring around here. I must admit to feeling a little blue today however, it was a year ago this week that we lost our first granddaughter at only five months gestation. Last spring was tough with my mom being so ill and then the baby’s death. Thinking about those days and weeks reminds me that I have so much to be grateful for; that Meagan is pregnant again and doing well, that my mother is no longer suffering and my dad is adjusting as well as can be expected to living alone.

I suppose what they say is true, time heals all wounds. Or perhaps it just puts some much needed space between you and the pain. And in that space, if you are lucky, you may find a little peace. Near the end of one of my books I write …when the earthly lives of my daddy and brother had safely made that transformation from flesh and blood to mist and memory, when the grief had finally settled itself comfortably into the undercurrent of my days and nights, my voice came back to me. I wrote that not long after losing my beloved father-in-law Hank, and I was remembering that shift, that soft gray place where grief slips quietly into the background and we begin again. That is the joy and wonder of spring too, and it is here at long last.

angels and dreamers

Too tired to take any new pics, but did a photo-manipulation to try and get the creative juices flowing again.  Click here to listen to the voice of an angel named Susan Boyle and be gently reminded that dreams can come true and angels exist in all shapes and forms! See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. ~Arthur O”Shaughnessy

tuesday tidbits

the-reader-crowned-with-flowersNeed some help picking your next book? Go to this reader generated website, plug in one of your favorite books and get a list of similar books. The painting in this post is by the French painter, Jean-Baptiste-Camille. Looking at his work has gotten me thinking about taking one of the photos I did of Andy and Meagan and painting it. I seem to be “thinking” about going back to painting more and more lately, which is good I suppose, now I just need to put those thoughts into action! I still haven’t quite kicked the flu, it’s been over two weeks and I’m feeling a little frustrated. Luckily, I did a lot of the prep for Meagan’s baby shower earlier this month so I’m not stressing about the fast approaching May 3rd date. Meagan is feeling good and baby Brooklyn is over three pounds now so we are all counting our blessings and waiting for the day we can count her tiny fingers and toes!

easter memories

Once upon a time, on a lovely sunny Easter morning just like this one, three little girls got all dressed up in their Easter finery. Before they left to go to their grandmother’s house for supper, they posed with their pretty mom for a picture. When their daddy said “smile” they did, thinking the whole time about the Easter egg hunt, the coconut cakes dotted with jelly beans, and their many cousins waiting for them at the other end of 8 Mile Road.

Other things may change us, but we start and end with family. ~Anthony Brandt