Tag Archives: writing

goodbyes

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An old friend of the family made this music video in memory of my mother and just sent it to me. Frank DeLaMarre is a singer songwriter who wrote this song after John Denver passed away. Thank you Frank for creating this tribute, it’s beautiful! I think I’m going to take a break from blogging. I seem to have lost my writing/blogging/internet browsing mojo. While writing my blog and sharing my angst helped me get through the dark days of my mom’s long illness and passing, I feel like it’s time for me to step back and spend more time building my photography portfolio, actually doing yoga rather than just talking about it, and perhaps trying to rediscover my books and love for reading and writing. Thank you all for your support over the years and for showing an interest in my little life, I’ll still be around and checking in on your blogs from time to time, have a happy and healthy 2010!

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. ~Buddha

teaser tuesday

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Teaser Tuesday asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. I’m reading The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer. I don’t read a lot of mysteries or thrillers but sometimes I think it’s good to step out of your reading comfort zone and shake things up a bit. I’m really enjoying the read and when I went to his website I also enjoyed his snarky sense of humor! He has fake movie trailers and in one video he’s got family members reading some crummy reviews of the book. It’s totally hilarious, you gotta love a guy who can laugh at the critics! And if those are real reviews I certainly don’t agree with them. I plan to read more of his books, he’s an interesting guy and a good writer.

My teaser sentences are from page 44 where he writes, It’s so damn easy to judge. But Paulo knows from his niece, no matter how much you want someone back in your life, sometimes it’s the letting-them-back-in part that hurts the most. I reread that second sentence several times. It struck me how true it was, and not just about letting people back in, but about letting anything back into your life that you associate with heartache. Years ago, I had to stop painting because I was very ill. When I finally regained my health I didn’t go back into the spare bedroom where my easel was set up for many months. I thought it was because I was afraid I wouldn’t remember how to paint, that I may have lost the ability to be creative after going through so much physical and emotional hurt.

One afternoon, I finally got up the nerve to venture into my little studio. I opened a can of turpentine and squeezed a selection of oil colors onto my palette. Facing a blank white canvas, I breathed in the scent of my paints, dipped my paintbrush into a swirl of cadmium red, and promptly burst into gut wrenching sobs. It was at that moment that I realized it wasn’t the fear of not being able to paint that had kept me away from my art, it was the fear of losing it all over again if my health problems returned. I had grieved long and hard after first losing that part of me, did I really want to let it back in? So I agree with Mr. Meltzer, that simple little sentence says a whole lot about human nature and I imagine most of us can relate to in one way or another.

horny cows and letting go

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Last Sunday while on our butterfly hunt, my husband and I came across these handsome fellows grazing in a nearby field. They are African Watusi, and I couldn’t help but wonder how they have adapted to our harsh Michigan winters coming from such a warm, dry climate. The lazy days of August are coming to a close here but they are feeling much more like the cool crisp days of October and I’ve caught myself saying at least it’s not snowing several times already! I do believe that my life would be much easier, happiness much closer at hand, if I could adapt to change like the beautiful horned cattle in the photo above apparently have. I want to learn to embrace not only the crazy weather patterns here in Michigan, but also the roller-coaster ups and downs of this thing called life. In two weeks I’m turning fifty and the one year anniversary of my mother’s death is coming up at the end of September. I can’t believe I’m that old and that my mom has been gone for a year already. I’ve never been very good at accepting change, at “going with the flow” as they say, but I’m making a real effort to improve on that skill. I have to of course, because change is inevitable in every life and as we grow older the ride only speeds up and those peaks and valleys only grow taller and much deeper. My birthday gift to myself is going to be to learn to let go, to put my hands up in the air, feel the wind on my face, and enjoy the rest of the ride for as long as it lasts:)

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear . . . . It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to. ~Marilyn Ferguson

See more PhotoHunt Saturday: Surprise entrants here and Camera Critter Meme players here!

monday muse

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bookbabieposterartYou all know what a sucker I am for on-line generators and quizzes. Every time I find a fun new website I think that’s it, I must have seen them all and then I stumble on another…and another….and another. And I don’t spend all that much time on-line either, honest! As a matter of fact, last week I finally finished my feverish work on novel #3 and entered it in the ABNA contest. When I got up today I realized that this is the first day in many many months where I really feel like my time is my own. This weekend I even went to the craft store and bought stuff to make my future granddaughter a gift. I haven’t had the time , energy, or motivation to make something simply for the joy of creating in a long time and it really feels good. Anyhoo, the latest website. During Obama’s campaign a street artist named Shepard Fairey designed a poster (now somewhat controversial) that became very popular. I made the bookbabie poster at a neat website based on Fairey’s art called obamiconme. It’s free, no downloads, and after you set up an account it saves all your posters. Check it out, even if you didn’t vote for you-know-who, it’s still a lot of fun 😉

cuppa cuppa java

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The Caffeine Click Test - How Caffeinated Are You?
I’ve been working on book three a lot lately, hoping to make the deadline for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. Last year with my mom so sick and the kids losing the baby, needless to say, my head was not in a good place and my writing was put on the back burner. I’ve decided to use the contest deadline (and lots of coffee) as motivation to get serious about finishing my third novel. I’m not sure if I’ll start another one after this one (I may be too busy babysitting later this year), only time will tell. Click on the picture to test your own caffeine “level”:)

smarter than a fifth grader

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blog readability test

If you click on the orange badge it takes you to a fun website that analyzes your blog’s reading level. I’ve noticed it can vary from day to day though, I suppose along with the length and depth or your posts. The first time I tried it I was at the High School level, today I’ve dropped down to Junior High, same as the popular and intellectual celebrity gossip blog TMZ so I guess I’m in good company. I had a heck of a time finding any blogs at the College Level until I came across A Blog Around the Clock and then I stumbled on a Medical Humanities blog that earned the elusive Genius Level badge! I’m not really sure it deserves it though. I tried to read it but for some reason it didn’t really make much sense. I think that blogger just likes to throw around a lot big words like hegemonic and neuropsychoanalysis. Hmm, maybe if I paste a few more of those fancy words on my blog today I can get back into High School:)

2008 best book lists

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We’re kitty-sitting my daughter’s cat, Mr. Boo this week. I caught him checking out my bookshelves this morning. He just finished Dewey but when I tried to get him to read Marley & Me he said he’d pass, that he finds dog books, “trite and overly sentimental”. I’ve compiled an eclectic mix of best 2008 book lists for you, take a gander and see if you missed anything that sounds interesting!

Washington Post, Amazon, NPR, Publisher’s Weekly, Barnes & Noble, New York Times, Stephen King, Slate, Library Journal, Salon, Seattle Times, LA Times, The Sunday Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, The National Book Awards, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, The Pulitzer Prizes, New York Magazine, PEN/Faulkner Award, Penguin Writer’s List, Salon Author’s Favorites, SF Chronicle

I was born with a reading list I will never finish.  ~Maud Casey

sunday rerun

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lunapic-122921891283600

I was thinking about Julie today and her husband’s sudden death and I remembered a post I did on my old blog. I had a tattered copy laying around and it being a lazy Sunday afternoon and all I decided to rerun it. I did the neat old movie animation on Mr. bookbabie’s photo at LunaPic.com, a fun online photo editor and animator…

On our way home from Whole Foods today, my husband and I saw an accident just minutes after it happened. A large SUV had run off the road, hit a ditch, and smashed into some trees. Several cars had already stopped to help but the police hadn’t yet arrived and we saw that someone had opened the driver-side door. Inside, a woman lay slumped and unmoving over the steering wheel. She had short blond hair like me and she was wearing a red coat with a fur collar. Maybe she was out running errands we said, or maybe she was on her way home from a holiday lunch. We tried to convince one another that she was “just” knocked out from the force of the airbag, that the front end of the car really didn’t look that bad.

As we drove, one, two, three police cars sped past us, lights flashing and sirens screaming. Then two ambulances and another police car passed us and we suddenly realized that she probably wasn’t alone in that big SUV, maybe she had a car full of friends – or children. As we opened the trunk at our house we could still hear the wail of sirens in the distance and I turned to my husband and said, “Every day when I hear you…” and that’s all I got out before the tears started and the words caught in my throat. But what I wanted to say was this, “Every day when I hear the door open and I hear your footsteps coming into the house, and I hear your tired voice call out ‘hello’, that’s the best part of my day, that’s the moment I would choose to have back one more time if anything ever happened to you.”