[I was distracted by a spontaneous engagement party yesterday...Congrats to Shanti & Olivia ♥ Messy Monday will return next week!]
This is a collection of posthumously published short stories by Kurt Vonnegut. He's such a good writer. The stories in here have a little darkness, vivid characters, and little twists that make them delightful and thought provoking. If you're a fan of Vonnegut or if you just like short stories, you'll like this book.
Where Wednesdays are a regular feature where I and a series of guest bloggers talk about places that are important to us, be they work spaces, outdoor spaces, sleeping spaces, places we visit, places we live, places we drink coffee, etc. etc.
[do you want to talk about a place or space that's important to you? let me know and I'll set you up with a Wednesday!]
[This week's Where Wednesday is from Corinne, my mama...I'm happy to have grown up exploring the desert with her. This is more or less her first blog post, so please give her a warm welcome ♥ Enjoy!]
Where Wednesday. Desert. No thought required. It’s long been a healing place. A place where I am my most true self; let the layers peel away. It’s also the place I have the most fun. It’s the first place I want to go when school lets out in June. It’s the place I go when I meditate and it’s the imagery I see during a shavasana.
Where this Wednesday? All American Man? Chaco Canyon? Capitol Reef? Bryce Canyon? Moab? The Wave? Yes, The Wave. This magical place is in the Coyote Buttes area of the Paria Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness on the Utah/Arizona border.
Scott has already written beautifully about this spot where I was lucky to spend a day with him and Sara. Walk-in permits are issued by lottery…just ten per day. We won three permits ON MY BIRTHDAY! Oops, we were a party of four. Freddie, being Freddie, gave us the thumbs up to go ahead.
The trailless hike means looking for landmarks to find our way. The Wave is hidden and remote and feels like an adventure. A bare rock entrance takes us to another planet; with sandstone walls, swirling striations of yellow, orange, pink and white. It’s like no other place. Even here, there is life in small pools. Just look.
[sara here...this is an upside down tadpole shrimp my mom and i found in a desert pool...bizarre! tadpole shrimp are little crustaceans with prehistoric origins...they often live in temporary pools, and even after the pool dries up, their eggs can survive up 25 years and will hatch when conditions are right again]
I’m not sure why I feel such a strong affinity for desert environments. After all, I spent my early years in Canada. Maybe it’s because life there is fragile, yet strong enough to survive. Life is a gift in the desert. Sharing time in the desert with Freddie, Sara and Scott is the best gift I’ve ever received. (I love you guys.)
"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself."
Edward Abbey
(Desert Solitaire)
I drew this goat...isn't he cute? I was working a freelance job as a photo stylist assistant and we needed a cute way to label tasty cheeses, and he got used again for a cheese & wine party set.
Where Wednesdays are a regular feature where I and a series of guest bloggers talk about places that are important to us, be they work spaces, outdoor spaces, sleeping spaces, places we visit, places we live, places we drink coffee, etc. etc.
[do you want to talk about a place or space that's important to you? let me know and I'll set you up with a Wednesday!]
For today's Where Wednesday, I'm cheating a little bit and combining it with a book report (it's been a weird month...cut me some slack). It makes sense though because one of my favorite places has always been inside a book. Well, the outside too...when I was 2 I would walk up to my Grandpa's bookshelf and touch all the bookcovers. Before I could read I was content to flip thru an upside down TV Guide in the backseat of the car. Okay, the TV Guide isn't really a book...but it used to look like one and I thought I was reading it. I love love love to read...which definitely carries over into blogs and magazines, but there's nothing like a book.
The last book I read in 2010 was...
I saw this in the visitors' center at Zion National Park many years ago and couldn't stop thinking about it...I finally grabbed a copy at Powell's this summer. The author tells the story of Glen and Bessie Hyde, a newlywed couple who decided to raft down the Colorado River in 1928. The river was still wild then (no dams) and only a handful of people had made the trip (Bessie was aiming to be the first woman to do it). When Glen's father did not hear from them at the expected time, a search was mounted. Their homemade boat was found fully loaded and intact sitting in the water...but there was no sign of Glen and Bessie. Glen's father searched for over a year for some clue...and years later the story became legend among river rafters. Did Bessie kill Glen and start a new life? Did they both get tossed from the boat and drown in the cold November water? Did they try to walk out of the canyon but get lost? The author talks about all the possibilities, and about Glen and Bessie's lives before they met, plus he and his wife build a similar boat to see what the trip was like for the Hydes (that's the author+wife on the cover). It was an interesting and mysterious story. There are great photos (the camera and film were in the boat) that were a big part of what drew me into the book.
my hipstamatic pic of a pic
In 2010 I read 17.5 books (a dreadful total for me...I'm aiming for 30 this year. The 0.5 was a book I just couldn't finish). The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie was my favorite for the year...can't wait to read the next in the series!
Monday has come around again...time to make a MESS! Today's mess:
smash! I smashed oil pastels, a crayon, a willow charcoal stick, a watercolor cake, the end of a colored pencil, the end of a sharpie. The paint was my favorite because it didn't just turn into powder and fall off the page, so I smashed drops of paint a few times. Fun ideas: get a regular sized hammer, smash harder, go outside and not worry about the crayon bits flying around in the office.
Messy Monday Bonuses:
[finally messy buns are in style...I've been doing my hair this way since high school...well, minus the yarn. I'll try it sometime soon :) ]
Have a good monday...make a mess!
Diane, the lovely keeper of The Dew Drop Inn, has a creative and thoughtful tradition that starts off her new year. She dispenses words to friends and strangers to do with what they will [click HERE to let her explain it]. This year she expanded her tradition to include the interwebs, and my word is:
It's a good word for a distract-able procrastinator who piles a lot of stuff on her plate, don't you think? I love it and I love the orangey squares in the background.
This week I'm focusing on good memories of my grandma ♥
Check out all the beautifully presented words HERE at The Dew Drop Inn and check with Diane to see if she's got a word left for you!
I found this during a regular bookstore browse:
MESS was created by
who has a great website and blog you should explore. It's an activity book made for practicing unrestrained creativity....getting out of your head and not worrying about rules or results. You'll see what I mean. I thought it would be a fun weekly exercise for the new year. I'm going to try to not pick and choose activities based on my mood, but let myself participate in whichever page I land on. Today I turned to:
And the result (with help from my mama):
I'm not going to lie...'not thinking' is hard! We had some good laughs making our mess today...and then I made another mess in the kitchen making lentil soup.
Hope you enjoyed your Monday...did you make a mess today?
P.S. Thanks to all of you who left sweet messages about my grandma :)
I know it's Sunday, not Friday...but Friday I was traveling to Salt Lake City for sad family times...my grandma is gone. Today I thought I'd share some lessons set by her example, plus a blog post I wrote a year ago about a visit to her home.
Friday Five [things my Grandma taught me]
1) Be generous
2) Work hard
3) Take care of your family...no matter what
4) Be crafty
5) Give people a hard time...for laughs and/or to get what you want.
She is already quite missed ♥
NOSTALGIA 3/6/2010
While in Utah I visited my grandmother's house. I love her house. She has a huge corner plot of land...huge for the city anyway. It really was the classic grandma's house to me...
It holds so many great memories for me...running around the yard, picking apricots, Sunday dinners, lounging on the grass on summer evenings, the veggie garden, flowers flowers flowers, the clothesline in the backyard, the spooky basement, the mysterious attic, rooms in different colors (I usually stayed in The Blue Room, but The Pink Room is fun during the day), special treats (cookies, homemade jam, chocolates, Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, soda), purple shampoo, the flickery bathroom light, the antique vacuum, coloring books, the glass grapes, standing on the big heater vent.
I love her kitchen too. It's so sunny and has neat cupboards. And you get hot rolls if you hang out there. Look, down the hall you can see The Papa's senior portrait. Maybe someday, with his permission, I'll show it to you. He's a handsome devil! My favorite kitchen spot was a stool similar to this one:
I don't get to see her often enough. She's the hardest working person I know...and she's a crafty inspiration too...crochet (we took home a fresh cozy afghan the day we visited), embroidery, knitting, baking, canning, candy making (she makes chocolate candy from scratch...they're ridiculously good! I will turn down the See's chocolates you offer me, and this is why) ...at 85 years old she still does all of these to some degree. And she does them perfectly. Somewhere there's a drawer full of state fair blue ribbons. I was lucky to grow up watching her make.
[The first 'Where Wednesday' post comes from an artist...my husband, the incomparable Scott Mansfield. I've been to his place and it's pretty great. ♥sara]
I am honored to be the first ‘Where Wednesday’ guest blogger on Sagebrush Coast, a project that has been in the creative vault for quite some time. It looks amazing, don’t you think! This recurring Wednesday post is interesting because everyone has personal spaces they hold dear. Following the suggestions given on her opening post, “work spaces, outdoor spaces, sleeping spaces, places we visit, places we live, places we drink coffee, etc” I’m going to talk about a place that fits all these for me.
Deep in the heart of the Colorado Plateau lies a crimson valley stripped with ancient geologic striations that ribbon across it in banded hues of red and blonde, marking the ancient epochs with geologic tidal bands. It is in this hidden place I find myself one crisp early morning in Spring. There are no trails here, no man markings, no signs only rock and wind, scattered hearty flora and animals adapted to the seemingly inhospitable environment. I come as an observer, a recorder. On this morning the slightest breath of wind dances about, lost in empty tranquility. I feel the same. With a compass in one hand and my tripod in the other I continue my walk South over broken Navajo Sandstone, toward a distant point on the horizon. The East is awash with indigo light. The air is still again and a morning thrush sings its awakening call to all those who will listen. Animals here hunt in the cool of night, but my quarry exists in the light; it is composition, trees and rock that I’m after. I am a landscape artist, and this is my place. It gets lighter in the East and my brain starts focusing on the play of shadow and low angled light. There is no past or future while I’m here. Timeless interaction is what I’m seeking. To show the motif that exists between the nature before me and myself. The weight of the tripod in my hand is comforting, an old trusted amigo, unflinching in its desire to accompany me anywhere. The camera strapped to my back is loaded with rolls of film, and my eye searches on. This is why I am alive, to feel nature flow through me. Peaceful, content, happy I continue on as the light in the East grows.
