still smiling

* snow days
* babkeh
* pbs
* wool tights
* feathers
* secrets
* dansk enamelware
* river stones
* manicures
* finding something that was missing
* pocket squares
* penguins
* cozy cardigans
* charcoal
* color books
* fennel
* haircuts
* disco balls
* wild flowers
* collage
* glaciers
* polish mustard
* chandeliers
* opening presents
* laughing
* light dimmers
* candied ginger
* shaving cream
* giving presents
* flannel sheets
* canoe rides
* bicycles built for 2
* seed magazine
* moments of inspiration
* hand beadwork
* squeezing toothpaste
* reusing
* masonry jars
* savannah
* this american life
* ari
* dirty martinis
* vitamin e
* candles
* wizard of oz
* stripes
* eloquence
* individually wrapped love units ie caramels

"my dear, is there anything you can't do?"

"i'm not sure i'll make a very good nun."

secrets

1. i think i might like fur. just a little bit, like the smell of paint.
2.

i think i have told everyone all of my other secrets.

10.17.08

yesterday i helped lb (little boss) download a barry white ringtone for his wife.

"make love, take a bath, make love again."

-frida k.

i stayed home sick from work and all i ate was cheerios.

i just realized that bingo markers were for playing bingo.

take me home country roads to the place that i belong

on our way back from new haven, we stopped in northampton to relive some good old days. the streets were totally overrun with hippies, the sky was blue and the food was delish.

we bopped in and out of the shops, and came upon a little row of antique shops, and now that we are older and wiser, we ducked in to check them out. unable to leave emptyhanded, i picked up a set of uncle arthur's "bedtime stories" in beautiful condition. i loved the graphics of the little boys and girls playing and praying, and the reddish orange of the cover was totally sweet.

after we got home and enjoyed the stories (i.e. laughed until we turned blue) about honoring thy father and mother like ducklings and praying ardently for scholarships, i just wikipedia-ed him, and it turns out that i share a birthday with uncle arthur.

in the memoir of my life, this will be a funny chapter.

do bean sprouts contain potential energy?

this post was going to speak to the merits of eating food after its expiration date, but i got sick.

lovely days with crazy ladies

the ladies and i cuddled on the beach on plum island today.

who doesn't love having great friends?

***

on another note, earlier in the weekend i chose drawing and graphic design courses to take this fall. i'm thrilled to finally be on the path to doing something i love. the creative juices are beginning to flow...

i enjoy long walks on the beach

*reading rainbow
*mermaids
*yo-yos
*culinary dalliances
*bob marley
*tron
*sea glass
*soft serve
*concord grapes

we just can't stop

*mini-golf
*remembering
*cotton candy
*guitar hero
*sternos
*melted chocolate
*backyard dodgeball
*catching leprechauns
*seven layer burritos
*italian ice
*wheat pastes
*new tubs of vaseline
*straight razor shaves
*wrought iron
*superheros
*minor league baseball
*made-up games
*coney island
*pilgrim sandwiches
*dogsleds
*space suits
*monkeys
*clever costumes
*sing-alongs
*completing a project
*lite-brite
*wide wale corduroy
*seersucker
*morning time
*fish tanks
*asterisks
*relief sculptures
*old museums
*marble slabs
*long hallways
*potter's wheels
*metal lunchboxes
*pump sneakers
*big digital clocks
*bonzai trees
*sunblock
*disappearing ink
*whoopee cushions
*hot air balloons
*hamster mazes
*compost piles
*number munchers
*savoring a new flavor
*piles of leaves
*old photographs
*simchas
*homemade fruit tarts
*elton john
*hiyo
*late evening walks
*rabbit ears
*church bells
*pudding and jelly snack head detectives
*home pressed apple cider
*q-tips
*libraries
*ice cream man
*yo-yos
*bumper boats
*marbles
*hot rods
*tennis matches
*tuna tartare
*blank slates
*julia child
*penny candy
*sea cliffs
*dinosaurs
*rolly chairs
*dr. seuss
*balsamic vinegar
*chandeliers
*eggy-chee
*mix tapes
*laser tag
*duplos
*starfishing
*macaronitunapeas
*adverbs
*morning hello friends
*buttered popcorn jelly bellys
*origami
*the chills
*tina turner's wardobe
*neighbors
*nudibranchs
*book report diaramas
*mojitos
*cuddlefish

it's a lovely night thinking about lovely things

*pop pop's oxford t-shirt
*letterpress notecards
*pencil grips
*eating spoiled food anyways
*grapefruit shower gel
*pom pom socks
*newly paved highways
*callaloo
*classical music lessons
*judy blume chapter books
*thirsty terry bathrobes
*annual marriage proposals
*cashmere socks
*levels as hand tools
*cornrows
*living dangerously bouncing super balls

ari has a few additions tonight. this is such a wonderful game to play:
*choco-tacos
*naps in the park
*doonsbury
*sushi in the fens
*assisting people
*bageltique
*daybeds
*puppet shows
*miniatures
*animating
*sleeping in
*fresh socks
*monkeyball
*gummy cola
*cigars with gentlemen
*sidewalk chalk
*waterproof shoes
*kl, kl, big city of dreams
*sunday brunch at the diner

i often worry that i am chronically almost going to be late.

everyone has something to give.

i spent a great deal of time speaking with the man on the corner, who has a true appreciation for classical music. he offered me lessons in listening, as well as setting up a proper system on which to listen.

***

i will travel to india one day. i believe that it will be there that i will truly find spiritual peace.

***

i must once again share my feelings on love. i believe that have been granted great gifts; both the ability to love, and the joy that one is overcome with when they are loved.

i just had a great weekend visiting my grandparents in new jersey. here is an updated list of things that make me smile:

*egg creams with grandma
*cast iron skillets
*lightening
*raw oysters
*giggling
*baby powder
*rhinestones
*antiquing
*chicken fingers
*summer
*eskimo kisses
*sea glass
*plum wine
*brooklyn
*yarn shops
*moments of inspiration
*sour gummy worms
*my scooter
*walking on the beach
*freckles
*cambridge

the tweet

sometimes you have those days that you just want to hold on to every single moment of; the ones that you know have changed the course of your life.
yesterday doodie and i remembered how much we love each other. and i began a new chapter of my life. this is the chapter of me, i am at the wheel, and i can take myself where i need to.

we harnessed our creative energies together, and created limoncello, a masterpiece which i will always have as a vanity. as we sat on the stoop relaxing after a long day and admiring our work, a young girl walked by, simply enamored with the vibrancy of the furniture laid before her on the sidewalk. she knelt down, and pointed to the small bird that is the drawer pull, and said, "tweet." her father scooped her up, and in one elegant motion she was up on his shoulders and they continued on their stroll.

while in bermuda several weeks earlier, we had been trying to think of the name of the bungalow that we will one day be able to escape to, hidden on a secluded beach, but a proper name evaded us. "the tweet" now seems like the perfect name, one that was coined after doodie and i had brought out the best in one another, and we were relishing in the moment- almost an afterglow.

* * *

i have the power to shape my destiny. i will be more aware of all of my capabilities, and from now on, i cannot blame anyone but myself when things do not go in the direction that i wish them to.

i will both be creative and resourceful, and make many more worthwhile and special moments and days.

* * *

we took a few photobooth style pictures so that we could memorialize the day, because moments so special are not meant to simply slip away. then we put our wedding rings on together, and retired to bed.

What Is Your Life's Blueprint?

Six months before he was assassinated, King spoke to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967.

I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's blueprint?

Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you fell that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life — what your life's work will be. Set out to do it well.

And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

This hasn't always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in — stay in school.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

i heart life

sometimes i feel so lucky to have so many special moments and people in my life. it's time for me to start blogging again so i can share some of them.

things that make me smile:
* homemade strawberry fruit leather
* tavis smiley
* vespas
* soft toilet paper
* new jobs
* bendy straws
* clean sheets
* smoked whitefish
* swan boats
* my crossing guard
* fresh herbs
* marvin gaye
* making messes
* feather pillows
* farmer's markets
* my vintage moomoo
* unspoiled beaches
* gold shoes
* green cardigans
* indian textile designs
* plumeria
* pbs
* adventures
* pea tendrils