As I regroup, I came upon this quiz (via PlayIsTheThing) and figured it was worth a go. I wonder if I was unduly influenced by the fact that I adore the Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility far beyond good measure? In my defense, as a former teacher of Literature, I'm kinda required to love Jane Austen, even if I do prefer Jane Eyre (still the funniest book I've ever read).
Check out this article about the discovery of the Pretty Jane off the Australian coast.
And like, I'm a trained archaeologist who always wanted to do underwater work on shipwrecks, ever since my grandfather took us snorkeling among them as kids. Plus, I'm totally of Scottish descent, and I've always wanted to go to Australia! Is this some kind of sign?? Or am I just really, really overworked and thinking crazy-making thoughts?
A number of other bloggers have composed lists of Things to Do Before One Turns 35. As my 35th will come in September of the dawning year, now's as good a time as any to make MY list and then endeavor to complete it in the next nine months. Lofty ambitions, to be sure.
Again, these aren't resolutions--we all know how I feel about those. These are GOALS for my 35th year of life. Hold me to 'em, folks!
My list:
Fun! Got this from Riffe Raff, who linked to Ahn-Minh. What a year I've had!
Taking the WHOLE week off to spend time with my amazing family. Am auto-posting a series titled "A Week of Gratitude" while we're off doing cool stuff like baking, digging out the Christmas decorations, jumping in piles of leaves, making final visits to the playground before the weather gets too cold, visiting with the relatives, taking looooong drives all in one vehicle, singing songs loudly, and anything else we can think of. Be back in a few days! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. This year, let's be glad of all we have...
A Week of Gratitude, Day 6: Free and Easy
Driving the hundreds of miles from my mom's to our house gives me plenty of time to daydream and stare out the window. This year, I'll be thinking about how lucky we are to have the freedom to do as we please, to travel from one home to another, to celebrate the early days of our nation and those dedicated Pilgrims, who despite having brazenly stolen the grain that kept them fed that first winter were no doubt focused and persevering.
That will inevitably lead to thoughts of other travels, like our long-postponed honeymoon trip to Hawaii and Europe, and how seeing things even for the second or third time is seeing them through new eyes when you share them with the people you love. Hawaii was brand-new when seen with my husband, who had never participated in any type of ocean watersport before--anathema to the ears of this beach baby, and I delighted in taking him ocean snorkeling for the first time and seeing his excitement at all the fishies. 
Neither of us had been to Paris or to Spain, and exploring those places together was joyful, not least because finding a travel partner whose temperament and personality complement your own is a monumental task, and ours mesh fantastically.
All this freedom, all these memories. We'll talk about them this weekend, I'm sure, telling stories to our family from our adventures. And I'll be reminded for the 1,278th time just how much I have to be grateful for.
Taking the WHOLE week off to spend time with my amazing family. Am auto-posting a series titled "A Week of Gratitude" while we're off doing cool stuff like baking, digging out the Christmas decorations, jumping in piles of leaves, making final visits to the playground before the weather gets too cold, visiting with the relatives, taking looooong drives all in one vehicle, singing songs loudly, and anything else we can think of. Be back in a few days! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. This year, let's be glad of all we have...
A Week of Gratitude, Day 5: Traditions
I have spent most of the Thanksgivings in my adult life at my mother's house. She makes the turkey just right, and always has the sides I love. She has an itinerary, but also a aura of ease that makes it natural to relax and let worry leave you. I like that I can sit still and not feel like I need to rush, or take a nap on the sofa without embarrassment, or have a snack any old time I like.
Since our eldest was little, one of the things she and I look forward to each time we go to Grammie's house is walking down the road to the nearby park to play on the playground or walk the exercise trail or enjoy the weather. Going again this year was the first time our middle child really appreciated the playground, and the first time our new baby has gone at all. I loved the feeling that we were building a tradition with all our family, that all our children would look forward to this each year and remember playing there, with us or with one another. I love that all the damp coolness of the playground mixes up in my memory with the smell of the leaves and the sound of their voices and the taste of the food, that I remember what they were wearing and what they said as they ran and played.
On Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for continuity and the rebirth it brings.
Leaves changing
Tiny baby hands
Fresh bread coming out of the oven
Playgrounds and parks, one last time
Learning who my daughter is becoming, bit by bit
Hearing music through the house--played live, and with verve
A clean kitchen
Catching up with faraway friends and learning only geography keeps us distant
Family movie night on Fridays, all of us together on the sofa with fresh hot popcorn and a PG rating
Waving goodbye in the crisp mornings, looking forward to some peace and quiet.
Sort of.
Hope this is the start of a great week for all of us!
My darling husband, on the anniversary of the day we eloped. (That's right, we eloped--it was awesome. Story for another time.)
What a joyous day. No attendants, no gifts, no music, no cake--although the pecan pie was pretty good. No invitations, no kids' table, no flower petals or live doves. Just a perfect kiss.
And I know our honeymoon was two years in the making, what with getting pregnant right away and then you getting deployed. But wow, has anyone ever had a better honeymoon? Whisked away to Hawaii for a week, elated to be reunited after months of being apart.
And that room? That view? It doesn't even spoil it for me that they tried say we got the great view as a mistake on our last day there--it kinda makes it better that we basically got a HUGE upgrade for free.
And then whisked away again, to the other side of the world. You took me to the islands, and then you took me to the place where time begins. We held hands at the center of the map.
You braved the scariest bus ride in the history of mankind in order to wake me up on Valentine's Day in Paris. We were both terrified, but you were carsick, too, and still you stuck it out for me.
Now that we're well into October, I wanted to drop a quick note about the September campaign I posted about on my birthday. It's such an amazing concept, first of all, that this guy my age just decided to do away with gifts and instead make his life and his time about doing something for people he would never meet. That overwhelms me, not only because I know I would never be able to do it, but also because it represents the kind of character I'd like to have.
I'm so grateful to those of you--especially my family--who have donated to this charity instead of shopping for me this birthday. I'll never miss the gifts, and I'll always remember your gesture. The best gift ever is one that's not forgotten.
There's video posted of the wells drilled all over Africa with the money raised through this campaign. It's totally worth watching. There is still plenty of room, too, to make donations on the website--no need to credit it to me or the September campaign, but if you're moved, please consider dropping a few pennies in the bucket to give a community access to clean, healthy water.
Take care, y'all, and drink deep.
Well, it's my birthday today, everyone. And like most folks in their 30s, I am of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel OLD. On the other, there's NO WAY it's all gone so fast. I'm thrilled with my happy, happy life, but I am horrified at so much in the world around me. Mixed emotions.
I have never, ever at any period (including the Nirvana that is the College Years), been so happy and thankful and overjoyed at the life I have been given than I am right now. I have SO MUCH each and every day for which to be deeply, deeply grateful: an amazing husband who adores me and is kind and thoughtful and inappropriate and brilliant and tender and silly and complex and brings me the purest delight; awesome children who are healthy and smart and funny and sweet and polite and generous and who think I'm a great mom; a beautiful home of which I am so proud, where all of us are safe and warm and together; work that I love and that makes me feel fulfilled and creative and challenged and appreciated; my health, which is no small gift; enough means to meet my needs at all times; friends who surround me with support and love and kind words; a great dog. SO MUCH to be thankful for, so much that no human could ever, ever deserve. It's a good birthday.
Simultaneously, there are so many sadnesses in the world around me, so many things that I wish I had the power or the energy or the compassion or the time or the something to fix. I feel overwhelmed and helpless and angry and frustrated and elated and inspired all in turn. I want to help in so many ways, and I want so many people to help themselves, and I know so well that all that I have is a gift and that I have done nothing to earn it, but that I have worked and worked to make myself worthy, and so I am constantly conflicted when I see all the hurt and the poverty and the abuses of this world, and those who fight them side-by-side with those who lie down as victims. It's confusing and heartwrenching and it makes me feel lost while giving me an enormous desire to be part of an effort to change things.
One of my all-time favorite charities has always been Heifer International. I love that they reach out to those in need, and offer them just the tiniest push to get them going, just enough to build momentum, and that they then ask them to maintain that momentum through their own labor and dedication. Heifer seeks not to drop-ship supplies and then fly away, but to give hope and renewal by offering people the tools they need to begin again, themselves.
Another great work to which I've been exposed is Charity:Water, a new charity set up last year to fund new wells world-wide for villages in need. A guy my age has dedicated himself not to solving people's problems for them or by handing them a temporary solution, but by seeking to alleviate the underlying problems in their environment that lead to their inability to move forward--in this case, a lack of potable, healthful water in villages across Ethiopia that causes whole families to sacrifice hours a day seeking out the most basic of necessities and prevents them from work or schooling or farming or any of the other things each of us must pursue to make our daily lives improve.
I've set up a button in the sidebar there, over to the right. I've decided to ask for donations to a charity in lieu of birthday gifts this year as part of the September Campaign. I know the Nie Nie auction was just a couple weeks ago, and I am so thankful to those of you who donated to such a deserving family. I hate to even post a request for MORE after the generosity of the internet these past few days. But if you feel so moved, please click the button and consider giving the smallest gift to help provide basic needs for children and families you will never, ever meet. It makes me thankful to know that with all that I have, I can help even a little as others seek to help themselves live better, healthier, longer lives.
And thanks, y'all. Today's a good day--all over the world.
Photo: Me and my mom, in Europe somewhere, 1975. Could just as easily be me and one of my girls, since my mother and I have always looked so much alike! FYI, I'm not quite this chubby anymore...
My birthday is coming up next week, so my husband and I sent the girls to their grandparents' and are spending the weekend in Nashville. Last night was My Pick of Activities, so we ate BBQ and then went to a little club downtown to see some bluegrass. The place is called the Station Inn, and is wayyyyyy old school. They serve frozen pizza and beer, and for dessert you can have a Moon Pie or a Goo Goo Cluster (that's how you know it's Southern old school--that, and the only chips they have are Lay's, a Southern brand if ever there was one). It's a little cinder block building with cobbled-together hardwood floors worn smooth from all the feet over the years, and the folks there are the nicest you'd ever, ever hope to meet. My Sweet Husband shot the image above with his phone just as the band began their first set, and I'm glad, because it just kept getting better, and we wouldn't have wanted to stop listening so hard to take a picture later on.
We've still got our clocks on Eastern time, so we headed over at what we thought was 8.30 for a 9.00 show, only to realize we had over an hour to kill once we arrived--but we got to listen to the band and the owners talking while we waited, and I got an Abita ROOT beer to drink, which I didn't know existed, and made me feel like one of the cool kids again instead of the constant (pregnant) designated driver.
The music was AWESOME--even better than I was anticipating. The show had been given the Critic's Pick in the local arts paper, so I was sure it'd be good, but it was such a good time that my face hurt from the grin that got stuck there, just from sheer enjoyment. I can't say I;m a huge country fan, or that I've always loved bluegrass, but I've always had a very quiet love of the banjo--something about the pitch of it, and the speed of the pickin'. (Growing up in Alabama, too, you learn to appreciate some of the finer aspects of Americana, and bluegrass is certainly one of those.) They also had a mandolin player who was outta this world, and to whom we got to speak before the show--he's from Michigan, where he studied political philosophy, and had been to Atlanta to attend some conferences at Emory, so we had a teeny bit of common ground. He was the crazy nicest guy, and knowing he was academic and geeky AND plays a jillion instruments REALLY WELL added a cool other level to the show.
Most of the members are also in a band called Lonesome River, and the guy singing up front was named Kevin Denny, and every single one of them was outrageously talented and a joy to listen to. Check out their stuff--you won't regret it! I'm throwing in some You Tube of them--the first Kevin Denney is a live recording from the Bluebird Cafe here in Nashville earlier this year, and the second is the Lonesome River Band from a little over a year ago, also live.
And now, packing and driving back home, collecting our children, and the slow, quiet return to real life. Hope y'all enjoy a restful Sunday--here's to a good ol' bluegrass week!
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