Thursday, October 30, 2008

My first video blog-yay!


Um, here I am showing off my kids and my video making abilities.  The backstory of the complicated narrative is that the kids' great grandmother (Pete's grandma) gave them a weird and creepliy life-like plaster kitty. Ollie has been cat-crazy since way before he could talk.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Travel through time—make Polaroids




Everything looks better with the greenish tinge of yesteryear.  I may be a little late to the Carter-era nostalgia party, but I'm loving polaroiding my photos. I learned about it here (can Swiss designers ever be wrong?).
Go here and download this little program.  Then begin reliving your youth.
But be careful.  It's addictive. . .


Oliver travels back to the '70s to pick out a pumpkin




Maggie and Oliver travel back to the '70s in their cool hats


I travel back to the '70s to get loaded at Mark and Chelsea's wedding

Monday, October 27, 2008

Literary failure, square dancing, and Stinson Beach




Well, there is good news and there's bad news.  And there is some medium news. First the bad.  Apparently my spit shining skills aren't up to snuff because the new agent on second thought just sort of dumped me and my little book proposal, leaving me stranded once again in the literary wasteland. 
The medium news is that because I am now so mature and well-seasoned I can see this with a modicum of perspective and attempt to take a few lessons. 
Here's the first, an oldie but goodie: don't write with "the marketplace" in mind.  Just write what you want to write and try not to think about how anthologies are dead and memoirs are in.  Kay Ryan, our new Poet Laureate wrote a terrifically funny essay that is in part about all the extraneous chattering that writers do in an attempt to connect, when really, just maybe, what they should be doing is writing. Read it here. Really, it's so good.
The second lesson I am gleaning from my most recent literary failure is that one should never send an agent a poorly formed, undone half-book hoping that said agent will recognize in said mess of pages a true spark of genius.  It's not how it works.  Duh.
So, as Howard Junker says, Onward!  To what, I don't know.  I'm thinking of becoming a nurse or maybe a nursery school teacher.  

Ok, now the good news: Mark & Chelsea's wedding was super fun in a million ways.  
The mister and me at the wedding

A few highlights:
Stinson Beach's most perfect weather of the year.
Wedding vows exchanged against the backdrop of kids and dogs frolicking on the beach.
Eating leg of lamb around a campfire and then getting to go back to our nice beach rental and sleep in a bed.
Mark's sister's family band consisting of her seven children, two of whom were wearing kilts.
Following mother-daughter fiddlers through town to the reception.
Late-night chicken wings (an true moment of wedding inspiration).
Learning a wedding reel dance that included do-si-doing and swinging our partners.
Square dancing

Dancing for non-squares

Hip hip hooray for love and marriage and all that fun stuff!




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