photo art

Click on the photo to blow it up and see all the tiny pictures that created it. Make a mosaic from your own photos here.

smarter than a fifth grader

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:)

Merry Christmas!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exists, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. ~Charles Dana

wordless wednesday

Sarah McLachlan – Wintersong

A song for our little dog Nikki, for baby Kylie, for my mom and Brenda’s sweet Payton, and for Julie’s dear husband Rick. We hold you in our hearts this holiday season and always.

2008 best book lists

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

skywatch friday

The other day I was driving home from running errands and I saw that little patch of blue sky peeking through a blanket of lead colored clouds. During the winter, the landscape around here seems to lose its color. But I think maybe we sometimes simply lose the ability to see the muted colors of the season. That little bit of bright blue sky reminded me to look a little harder, to look past the naked brown branches of the trees and the withered flowers in my garden. I went across the street and photographed the fishing pond in the park again, frozen now, but rimmed with bronzed grasses and crowned with just enough blue sky to renew my fragile faith.

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. ~Mother Teresa of Calcutta

(almost) wordless wednesday

When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it. ~ Charles de Lint

sunday rerun

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. Many other 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.”

soul sisters

Julie and me, 1970

At my mom’s memorial two weeks ago my cousin Julie and I found a quiet corner in the living room and talked for a long time about aging parents. She was worried about her own mother and wondering what is was like for me having to say goodbye to my mom. Julie and I were very close growing up, more like sisters at times than cousins. Yesterday my aunt called to tell me that Julie’s husband Rick Bach died suddenly Monday night of a massive heart attack. Me and Mr. B  just got home from the service. The chapel was packed with friends and family who spoke lovingly of Rick and his passion for life and sports, one of The Four Tops sang a beautiful a capella song, and my little cousin Jules is simply crushed. Before she left the day of my mom’s party we all promised to get together soon for dinner and Julie gave me a CD of a band that records at the studio she manages. I found one of their videos on youtube, hope you enjoy it.

grateful gifts

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

december daydream

I’ve been working out lately and I’m rather proud of the results. I mean, not bad for almost fifty, right? Okay whatever, I really just ran across another website that is a complete waste of time (but kinda fun!). I’m thinking about sending this one to George. Roll back the calendar a couple of decades, throw in a few hair weaves, and I may actually be able to pull this look off;)

afterglow

The party for my mom’s memorial was Saturday and we had a wonderful time. We had over ninety people at the open house and we were fortunate to see friends and family from far and wide that we don’t often get to see anymore. We caught up on each others lives, looked at photos and videos, and it was very healing to hear people say so many kind things about my mom.

The day before the gathering I had asked my dad if he was looking forward to the party and he said no, he was afraid that it would be too emotional, that there would be too many “sobbing people”. I reassured him that it wasn’t going to be that kind of memorial and it wasn’t. While a few tears were shed, there was mostly laughter and hugs as we all came together to honor my mother’s seventy-four years of a life well lived. The photo above is of my sister Carrie and her daughters, Emily and Jenny, and their little dog Lola. They flew in all the way from warm sunny San Diego so we ordered them up some snow for Sunday…the day after the party;)

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. ~Robert Frost