January Pictures

Yeah, I'm not so good at this blogging thing. I'm also not so good at taking a picture every day like Michael, but I'm pretending reasonably well. I ran out of room on my free flickr account, so while I'm debating whether to actually pay for more, I'll post what I have here. These are from a few weeks ago, because last week I got kind of lazy. Whoops.


January 9: This is the railroad bridge over the Connecticut River, which is part of the walking/running (and this time of year, skiing) trail in our part of MA. It was a pretty day, so I stopped to take a few shots on my way to the grocery store. Good times.

January 10: I take a lot of pictures up at the Mt. Tom State Reservation, since it's about a ten minute walk from my front door. This is the stream leading away from Lake Bray. It's fun to get shots of it at all different levels of frozen.

January 11: Another in my "photos while driving" series. Whenever Lisa sees these, she makes the "what were you thinking?" face. I'm careful - I swear!

January 11: Claire came to visit for a few days, which was great. I then proceeded to take a series of her with Lisa wandering about in the background. You can see how outings with the three of us tend to go. On this particular day, I was showing Claire around Smith (that's the library back there on the left), and Lisa was in the middle of a long phone call with Jenniffer.

January 13: We stopped to look at dinosaur tracks and the river about two miles up from the house. Claire's not making a silly face in this one, which is kind of shocking.



January 14: The last night Claire was here, she made us dinner. This is why she wins.


January 15: Gus is cute, even when he's under the kitchen table pretending he's not begging.


January 16: Pen and paper, all ready to take notes while Evan critiques my writing. I just realized that I didn't turn this picture before I uploaded it, but I'm not going back now. Just turn your head to the left.


January 17: A year later, Lisa finally designed and ordered her special Converse. I got gift certificates for her and the sis for Christmas '06. Pretty sure the sis has yet to order hers. Lisa's are extra cute and have her name on the back, just in case she forgets who she is.

I have a few more pictures from the latest munchkin visit, but I'll save those for their own special post. Because he's adorable like that.

New Year, New Commitment to Blogging (?)

I am pathetically awful at updating my blog, apparently. I opened blogger up today, just to see, and thought to myself, "August? Seriously?" Needless to say, it's been a while.

We bought a house. We moved in. We bought a lot of Ikea furniture. We put it together. (I know what you're thinking, but I totally helped!) Then we were inundated with family members for Christmas. A brief photo history of the holidays follows:


The Christmas tree I picked out in five minutes, then had to drag out of the back of the little Honda by myself. It sat propped up on the front steps until Lisa got home from work. It's still up, at least until Epiphany. The furniture (minus the bookcase, which we got at Target and put together) was my grandparent's. I sat on that couch every Christmas afternoon for most of my life.

Not-so-subtle indoctrination of the sister continues apace. She liked her sweatshirt! She also liked the ribbon, which she wore on her head most of the day.


The view of our back yard from the kitchen window on New Year's Eve. We got more snow yesterday, so it still pretty much looks like that, except with blue sky. It's gorgeous, really. I'm sitting at the kitchen table so I can enjoy it. I love living here.

New Year's Eve fireworks in Northampton. I took a bunch of photos, but this one is my favorite. You can see that they're being set off from the roof of the parking garage. This was around 6:30pm. Later, they raised a ball (reminiscent of Times Square, but going the opposite direction) on the roof of the Hotel Northampton and fired a cannon. It was excellent. Cold, but excellent.

I'm currently listening to the new Ani retrospective that Em got me for Christmas. We saw it in Target a few days before, and I told her that it would be worth having just for the re-recording of Both Hands. I was so right. Now, a moment to contemplate the incongruity of an Ani cd in Target, hanging out next to all those kiddies from High School Musical...

In other news, I somehow managed to finish 52 books in 52 weeks in 2007. The end was a little ugly and involved me finishing three books on New Year's Eve while trying to go to a bunch of First Night concerts. I wanted to go up to the performers afterward and tell them that I really liked their music, but I really, really had to finish reading. I finished up with the third in Madeleine L'Engle's Crosswicks Journals series, which seemed appropriate considering that she was one of the authors we lost this last year. I also managed to read Slaughterhouse Five a few months ago, in honor of Kurt Vonnegut. No Norman Mailer yet, though. I'm not so sure about that one. I've already begun my first book of 2008, The Princes of Ireland. I like it so far, but it's freaking long. Why do I pick the long ones? At least I'm working on it now instead of on December 31. Never again. I'm saving children's books for December this year.

And that, my friends, is that. Hopefully, I'll blog again soon.

Living in New England = Seeing My Friends!

About two weeks ago, I went to the Cape for four days to hang out with Kate and crew while Lisa was in New York. Much fun (and some insanity) was had. Observe:

Kate and I on the whale watching expedition, pre-feeling pukey. The ride out was great, the ride back was fine. The sitting still while the waves tossed us about? Not so much. Even talking about it later still made us queasy. But at least we saw a few whales!


Loek in the new shirt I brought for him. I also brought them homemade chocolate chip cookies, but Gus helped himself to those.


A really cool big sailboat thingy (I'm sure that's the technical term) we saw while riding the ferry back from the Vineyard. It was just so New England.

While we were lounging about on the beach at the Vineyard, Kateo (who had come down for the weekend) was reading to me from The Big House, by George Howe Colt. It was so interesting and appropriate that I requested it from the library when I got home. It came today, but I may have to wait to start it, since I seem to be reading about five other books at the moment. Isn't that just the story of my life? On the upside, I'm still keeping pace to finish 52 books by the end of the year. It's good to have goals.

Oh, and before I forget, the highlight of the weekend was Loek's new word: "poop" (said in a sweet, tiny, high-pitched voice, as one might say 'oops' to a similarly small child). I don't know about Loek, but it's totally my new favorite word of his. Now if only we could get him to say "Bunnie." I guess we'll keep working on that one next trip.

Life in the Country

As promised, here are pictures of Mom's house in South Hadley, where we've been staying for the past two weeks.

This is the front, with hydrangea bushes that are now turning blue!

Here's the side by the driveway, including the windows into the little random hallway (opposite the one Finn and Loek like).

This is the back of the house, including the open sliding glass door into the kitchen, and on the right, the hallway of windows that lead to the garage. At the moment, I'm sitting in the kitchen, looking out to where I stood to take this picture yesterday.

These are the flowering vines that live at the back of the garage.

And here's a close-up of the little birdie houses that are above them! We hear birds constantly, so I guess they like their condos.



See? They're blue! They're blue! Happiness is easy to come by, in my world...

Our First Visitors!

I've been a blog slacker due to the big move, but now I'm in Western Mass (and have pictures to prove it!). When we first got here, Kate and Loek (aka: the cutest munchkin in the world) came to visit.Loek and Finn both like the hallway with the windows.

(Note Loek's Bunnie shirt - Kate's getting him started early on (mis) learning my name!)

Loek also likes his Lamby (which he carries with him, particularly when he's sleepy) and frozen yogurt (which he wears on his face).

But he's particularly fond of his Mommy's shoes...












It's a good thing she doesn't wear heels!










Next: pictures of my mommy's house (where we're staying)!

Books that changed me

The book I'm reading right now (Walking a Literary Labyrinth by Nancy M. Malone) asks the question, "Do you have a list of books that have changed your life?" Her theory is that each book we read takes us to a new place, and it changes us irretrievably. I think she's right. If I had to make a list to answer that question, it might look something like this:

The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley

The best telling of the Arthurian legend I've ever read. One of the biggest shapers of my early spirituality. It still speaks to me about divine feminine energy and the sacredness of the earth. If pressed, I'd probably still claim it as my favorite novel.

Journal of a Solitude - May Sarton

My first trip into May Sarton's world of poetry and quiet. A love song to the work of one's soul and to New England. I am not her kind of poet, precisely, but she somehow still is my kind of inspiration.

The Long Loneliness - Dorothy Day

I first "met" Dorothy Day through Liz Carr, the Catholic chaplain at Smith. She inspires me incredibly, with her honest quest for meaningful spirituality, her care for others, her writing, her integrity. And the last two pages of the book are the purest poetry I know.

Anything by Louisa May Alcott and L.M. Montgomery

I'm particularly (still) in love with Jo's Boys/Little Men and Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom. I liked their most famous works, of course, but the slightly lesser known books were my constant companions as a child. I reread Rose in Bloom a month or so ago, and it made me realize just how much of my early sensibility was shaped by their writings. Perhaps that's why I liked Jane Austen so much when I met her (finally!) at the end of last year.

The Exiles Series - Melanie Rawn

The best fantasy books I've ever read. I've been waiting, none-too-patiently, for the final book to come out for about ten years now. And I'll wait as long as it takes. They're that good. I can reread the first two once a year, at least, and still find new and fabulous things within them.

There are a million other books I love as well, but these are the best of the lot. I imagine I read books by men, too, but just not as often. I think this year I've completed sixteen books, and only two of them are by men. They just don't tend to speak to me as well, and they don't write books about the things I need to read. At least right now. So I'll stick with these, my favorites. And keep reading. I just never know when I might find more.

Transitory Amusements

Here I am, blogging again, and it's only taken me a week (or so). I'm sitting in Bongo Java Roasting Company, working on various computer-based activities and listening to U2 on Pandora. Transitions went off decently on Sunday, though those stubborn buggers wouldn't just break down and cry, damn it! Jessi did a little, but that was it. I even (mostly) held it together when I read them the rededication portion, with the roses and everything. Lisa followed them around with a camera the entire time, which made it harder for them to be all sappy, because they were making goofy faces at her the entire time. Claire and Jessi are way obsessed with Lisa. It's cute. Luckily, the pictures came out beautifully. This one's my favorite:

That's during their first stop, Play. We didn't actually fill the pool with water, so they should be grateful. And if we're going for strange, this one's pretty great:

While Claire and Marguerite hug, Danielle is actually smelling Claire's hair. And some mystery hands are wrapped around Danielle's waist. It's the Dani-and-someone hair-smelling monster! Bizarre. And then, of course, there's the series of weird Claire faces (made at Lisa, of course):


What can I say? She's a charmer, folks! I hope the good folks of Iowa are ready for her. She'll be taking Grinnell by storm come fall. Jessi will luckily be a bit closer to me, at Dartmouth. I've already offered up my services as chauffeur so that she can go see the BF at Brown. Then I have an excuse to go see Lexi and Katelet! And quality time in the car to hear about life in the Iveys. It's a win-win.

In other news, my house is still being taken over by workmen trying to make it pretty to sell. Hence I am hiding in various coffeeshops around Nashville. Hopefully it'll be all ready to go within the week, and then we'll sell the sucker. And then...to Massachusetts we shall go! Whoo! Yeah, I'm not excited. At all. Clearly.