Category Archives: blogging

grateful gifts

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I’ve been busy trying to catch up on holiday shopping and housework lately, doing iStock photos, and putting up a few Christmas decorations. But I’m not really in the mood to put up the Christmas tree this year, it’s a big one because we have a high ceiling in the family room.  Mr. bookbabie seems a little bummed about that idea however. I don’t think it’s a ba-humbug Scrooge kind of thing with me or depression because my mom is gone. I just think I’m worn out and putting up the tree feels like one more chore to do.

The last months of my mom’s life were pretty intense, then she died (also an intense, emotionally charged experience), and then I went right into planning mode for her memorial party. And now it’s the holidays. It seems like I could use some downtime to process this past year. My mom’s illness and death. My son and daughter-in-law losing the baby. I don’t know. Then again, maybe processing/dwelling on what’s happened isn’t really necessary. I don’t want to get stuck in that woe-is-me place where melancholy and gloom rule the day.

Hmm, okay Mr. bookbabie, we’ll put on some holiday music, light a fire in the fireplace, and put up your giant Christmas tree this weekend. Because through all the sadness and the loss of late you’ve been there by my side and for that I am truly grateful. Your love gave me a soft place to land during this most difficult year, so yes, you shall indeed have your tree my dear.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here. ~John Greenleaf Whittier

word clouds

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Stumbled across another neat generator tonight. It’s called Wordle and was created by Jonathan Feinberg. You create a word cloud, either by entering words yourself or by putting in your blog address and letting it take random words from your posts to make the cloud. Then you can change the colors and fonts, how cool is that? If you embed it with the code you get a small linked version, but I did the screen-capture-paste into my photo program trick to get a bigger version. Give it a try. It takes a couple of minutes to create the cloud but it’s fun to sit back and watch the words appear, thanks for the fun toy Jonathan!

6 words to grace and back

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Elizabeth Minkel at Smith Magazine recently wrote a nice article about their 6 word memoir book and the meme I started. It’s been a blast for me to follow the meme as it rippled its way across the vastness of the blogosphere. I’ve mostly read and commented on the memes that linked directly back to my original post because it would be impossible to google and read every single blog that has played! I thought it was time to do my own random list of some of the bloggers who played the meme, so here we go…

The very first to play, Melynn: A work in progress, be patient.

Fighting Windmills: Just six, can’t I have seven?

Julia: Can I be a cynical optimist?

Seabrooke: From deep within, a quiet song.

Phil: Looking at others looking at me.

Carol: I have become mother and daughter.

Dave: A migration never limited by horizon.

BustedBabyMaker: I cried. But new smiles awaited.

Zack (the 5 word rebel): Help people. Be useful. Improve.

Adam: Being active outdoors justifies fried food.

Lisa: Searching for happiness in ordinary moments.

Lori: An imperfect soul;observing God’s fingerprints.

Brent (another rebel): A cult of multiple personalties.

Kerri: I don’t know, but I’ll try.

Stephanie: Just let me finish this chapter!

This is obviously a very short list of people who have embraced the 6 word memoir meme, however, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has played so far. I’ve traveled far and wide tracking the meme as it left its memeprint on mom blogs, birder blogs, photography and book blogs. I’ve read the blogs of those dealing with health issues, the trials and joys of home schooling children, and the trials and heartbreak of those struggling with infertility. I’ve read angry, funny, sad, and hopeful memoirs, but the one thing they all have in common is that they all offer a six word glimpse into that messy, lovely, vibrant, indomitable, grace filled thing we call the human spirit.

lost and found

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Read about a cool blog today in my local morning paper. Have you ever lost or found a camera or a media card? Now there’s a place where you can go to either upload a sample of the pictures, or look to see if anyone has posted your lost pics. It’s at ifoundyourcamera.net. I really hope it catches on, it’s nice to see another positive way that people are utilizing the power of the web:)

bookbabie’s big give

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My first book giveaway was so much fun. I literally put all your names in a hat and made Mr. bookbabie close his eyes and reach in to pick the winner. Now I understand why Oprah likes to give stuff away! I know, it’s just one little book, not anywhere near the same level of generosity as Ms. Winfrey, but hey, giving is giving and my only regret is that all of you who entered can’t win the copy of Sophie Kinsella’s newest book, Remember Me? And so without further ado, the winner of the first ever bookbabie book giveaway is…Beth, congratulations Beth! I think I’ll keep my eye on the NY Times Bestseller list and do another giveaway this summer, hmm, maybe a good old fashioned murder mystery to take to the beach:)

feelin’ it

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wefeelfine.gif

How do you feel today? Artist and computer scientist Jonathon Harris, along with Stanford math whiz Sep Kamvar, launched a unique project in 2005 called We Feel Fine . We Feel Fine is a database that harvests human feelings from weblogs. From their mission statement: Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.)… At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

Click on the We Feel Fine logo above. When you open the program the first screen you see is a starry field of flying colored shapes, each one is a feeling being expressed somewhere on a blog. Click on one and it gives you a sentence, click on the sentence and it takes you to the blog. You can sort the feelings by gender, age, weather, location, etc. In the lower left hand corner you can change how you see the field, for instance montage gives you the photographs blogged with the feelings. It’s very cool.

memorable memoirs

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ifyouneedme.jpgThe 6 Word Memoir Meme is still going strong, a big thanks to all of you who played and passed it on, it’s been a lot of fun! Larry Smith, one of the authors of the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure contacted me and wrote, “I’ve been meaning to email you and say you’re: a) awesome b) [you have] fully set forth a dream I’ve had since I read the first issue of Wired a million years ago: to be a part of a meme.” I’m so glad you liked the meme Larry! While I’m on the subject of memoirs…I finished reading Kate Braestrup’s memoir, Here if You Need Me today. I like to have a non-fiction book going along with a fiction selection and I always enjoy a good memoir. Ms. Braestrup’s writing style is right up my alley; spare, lyrical at times, and it’s a lovely heartfelt story, all in all one good read. Other memoirs I’ve enjoyed are Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, The Color of Water by James McBride (he has a cool website, click on his name to check it out!) Blindsided by Richard Cohen, Saving Milly by Morton Kondracke, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and The Camino: A Journey of Spirit by Shirley MacLaine.

6 word memoir meme

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As I read yet another book review of a memoir this weekend, my husband told me that I should write one. I said that my story would be much too short and rather boring so when I ran across the following book I decided it was just my speed. A six word memoir! Written by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure is a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were- For Sale: baby shoes, never worn. There’s a video on Amazon with examples from the book, it sounds like a fun read! I’d like to start a six word memoir meme and here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4 .Tag five more blogs with links

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

It was actually a lot more difficult that I thought it would be, but here’s mine…

This too shall pass, I hope.

I tag Melynn at Breathing Easy, Sandy at My Inner Edge, Lisa at Books on the Brain, Janie at Ragamuffins, and Fighting Windmills.

If you haven’t been tagged but would like to participate go ahead and copy and paste this post to initiate your own string of the game, or post a comment with your 6 word memoir and I’ll post them later:)

**Blonde Momentos added a link to Smith Magazine on her memoir post where you can go and leave your memoir, they are collecting them for book #2!