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Time to close this chapter.

I have made the leap into the great unknown. I have designed my own home on the Internet Superhighway.

Come visit me at Susansthoughtsfromtheedge.http://susansthoughtsfromtheedge.com/

By all means poke around here. There is so much good stuff on this blog. Then meet me over there... much more good stuff to come!

Things are changing all around me...

Well not exactly. I am changing them.

In the coming weeks I will be migrating this blog, to my own website. I bought the domain -- susansthoughtsfromtheedge.com. I am going to build my own website using WordPress. Changes are also coming to my business, which after a hiatus, is reemerging, slightly new and different focus.

This January I took Allison Lehman's WordPress class and I finally feel empowered and competent enough to build my own space. That is coming in March. I will likely shift my blogging focus a bit and my plan is to try and refocus my writing.

This blog is not going away. I will leave it up. Instead of trying to import nearly 7 years worth of posts into the new space, I will link to this blog, so that people can look back if they want to. Some of the really good posts, I will likely repost and many of my DIY projects may make a reappearance.

Why am I changing? Well, blogger has made some updates and honestly, for new bloggers or those who want to blog and go, I can 100% say Blogger's platform is the way to go. It is easy. This is why I have stayed here for 7 years. This last upgrade, in my opinion was actually a slight step backwards. My skills and blog aesthetic have outgrown Blogger and frankly all the cool kids are talking WordPress.

WordPress is really flexible and it has some neat bells and whistles. I have used the back end of WordPress for years-- carefully posting content for clients and hoping like hell, I didn't accidentally blow anything up. Well now, I am going to try building my own place, from the ground up.

My goal is to have this all finished by the end of the first quarter 2013. So hang tight... change is coming and soon.

Goodreads-- My review of Primal Law (which is a stupid title, having read the book)

Primal Law by J.D. Tyler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

So I finished listening to this one and I have to say I cannot decide, was it a bad story or just told poorly. It is light on details, which in an erotic romance can be forgiven if the sex and chemistry is off the charts, which in this book is decidedly not the case.

I feel like this is at the heart of it, a lukewarm retelling of a story that has frankly been told over and over. And yet, there were glimmers...

Ironically the parts of the story, which held more of my attention, centered around two interesting, well developed minor characters-- which, if the author had put as much art and craft into developing the main characters of this book, well my review would have been totally different.

I feel like this book would have benefited from several revisions and some working shopping with respect to character development.

It wasn't horrible, in the way mindless TV isn't horrible, but I am not motivated to read this author again.

I will say this-- the narration was excellent on the audio book. I would happily listen to Kristen Potter narrate another book. That is half of the reason I finished this one.

So I paid $4.95 for the book on Audible during their recent sale and that is frankly all this book is worth.

View all my reviews

I hate to give bad reviews and I seldom do. I will say, this was a good exercise for me as a writer... I may go back and relisten, if only to see if I can learn something. Where I found myself disappointed and why. 

The new Nationwide Children's Hospital

Lobby leading to Hospital Pharmacy and the Emergency Department

 A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend a blogger open house at the new Nationwide Children's Hospital. I was tickled to be invited. I am a mom and a blogger and I do live in the area. I have to say the new hospital is one of the most beautiful places I hope to never visit again!

We met in the underground parking lot on Saturday, June 2, 2012. I think there were about 18 bloggers in all. It was exciting to meet some of my twitter pals.

The MBA in me was totally impressed. This beautiful building, campus and total process overhaul took only 6 years to accomplish. From strategic plan to reality in 6 years. Amazing. Simply amazing. As on friend, who was Twitter timeline bombed by our hashtag #everythingmatters, said this hospital and their process, very well could change the face of health care delivery. I am inclined to agree.

On the tour our guide emphasized over and over that the process included all stakeholders. Doctors, nurses, staff, parents, kids, families, patient educators, architects, and construction professionals. #Everythingmatters and that included opinions and ideas from the stakeholders. They looked at what worked and more importantly what wasn't working in the existing hospital and processes and changed them for the better.

Corridor. Lots of forest botanical motifs in the new design

After a brief stop in the main lobby, we began our tour in the ER. Let's face it, if we are likely to be at the hospital with our kiddos, the ER is a very likely stopping point. The new ER doubles the capacity of the existing ER and they have revised treatment plans and staff allocations to better serve the kiddos and parents. While I loved hearing about the process changes, I couldn't help being so surprised by just how beautiful the new hospital is. 

Custom Fish Tank in the ER waiting area

New ER trauma room. The pass through supply closet and efficient stock management is just on of the many processes being redesigned to ensure speed and accuracy.

The little ER bed is sobering. While it is good we have hospital ready to care for the littlest patients it is heartbreaking to see the little beds.

 From the ER we went up to the 9th Floor, to take in the spectacular city views and see a standard room and explore the in patient rehab gym and therapy spaces.

View from the 9th floor. The garden is built of special materials because they are built over the underground parking garage.

More of the gardens.

Across Campus view. The views are spectacular.

The standard hospital room is anything but standard. One of the changes in this process, was to redesign the hospital rooms and standardize them. Every room is the same and the layouts are the same. This will help the staff when they have to float. Again, the planning team went to the staff and asked them about everything from lifting and turning practices to bathroom design. They redesigned the family chairs and couch/beds. They rethought infection control and how to make everything more homey. The LCD headboard and state of the art TVs, make sure the kids feel in control as well. Feeling blue? Change your head board. Orange your favorite color, no problem you can have that too... The magnetic paint on one wall, that means you can decorate your room with cards or pictures from home.

Our guide telling us about the many features of the room. The LCD variable color head board is awesome.

All rooms have a standard dry erase board. I like that the pain scale is kid centered.

View of the room from the hallway.

The rehab gym and related areas make it possible for kiddos and their parents to practice a variety of life skills and make the transition from hospital to home easier. Honda even donated a car, which was airlifted in during construction, so kiddos and their parents can practice those ever important transfers in and out and stowing a wheel chair correctly and safely.

Honda Civic practice car. Airlifted in during the construction process.

All common areas have a dishwasher, for washing toys. On each floor there are playrooms.

 Not only are the rooms impressive, but the hallways and common areas too. Everything is a child level, the artwork, the creative decor, the wonderful niches, that tell a story.

"Butterflies eat with their feet"

All of this interactive art is at kid eye level

 All throughout the hospital are these amazingly charming animals. Made here in Ohio by The Carousel Works in Mansfield. I love that the hospital is featuring some Ohio craftsmanship front and center.

If I could have figured out a way to bring him home with me... so cute!

The lobby is spectacular with its nature themed landscape. Something out of a fairy tale really.

The gardens are impressive and since they are built over the underground parking lot, they are a marvel of gardening talent and unique weight reducing materials.

The indoor imagination forest is lovely as well. Instead of sticking with dead space or generic lobby, the new hospital has a magical forest, which is just perfect for children and adults alike.

There is no question that the new hospital is beautiful and designed with both adults and children and mind. The attention to detail is amazing, but what I think is most exciting is this truly the intersection of public and private. This is OUR hospital, put together through the collaboration of corporations, hospital staff, and the community.

While we all hope that we will never be the ones sitting in the ER or spending the night on specially designed trundle futon, it is comforting to know, that in Columbus, Ohio-- a town well known for a Big 10 school and related medical center, that we ALSO have a world class and state of the art Children's hospital. A hospital that not only can provide top tier emergency care and treatments for a variety of diseases, and research and scholarship but also a hospital that is committed to community outreach and partnership. 

June 10th is the Community Open House! Your chance to see and experience the new hospital in the way I did. There will be activities and tours all throughout the day.

Community Celebration Day

Sunday, June 10, 2012
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital Main Campus

 

It truly is our Nationwide Children's Hospital.

 

Music Monday: Jack White -- Love is Blindness

So what is Love? That is the question isn't it. It seems to me that for as long as there has been humanity, we as humans, as emotional beings have spent an amazing amount of time trying to figure it out.

Who do we love? How do we love? What is the correct way to love? The Greeks spent a long time trying to define the types of love.  Right now in the US, we are spending loads of time arguing about who gets their union of love recognized for tax purposes. Who has the right to legalize their love. (Honestly, when you think about it-- that is exactly what we are arguing about. Whose love reigns supreme.)

The great poets and writers have always spent time on the subject of love. Pop songs give us candy versions of love.

The other day, my friend tweeted: "If you say you love them both, then you love neither of them." -what moron came up with that one? 

Yeah that is a good question. It seems to me that we as humans just don't have a handle on this love business at all. We have scores and scores of rules about love (which very few people seem to actually understand and even fewer seem to actually be able to follow.) We seem to all think we have it figured out and yet when pressed, we can't for the life of us define it or accurately categorize LOVE.

So yeah-- maybe love is blindness... I have no idea, and I am all done trying to figure it out. Love just is, let's enjoy it and stop trying to figure it out. Let's stop judging it and just enjoy it.

*** special thanks to Steve VC -- a writer I met when I was actively trying to make it as a freelancer-- for posting this video on Facebook. I was racking my brain trying to find a video for today's post and there it was and a thought provoking one to boot.

Music Monday -- You are a Tourist

You are a Tourist -- Death Cab for Cuite

I don't know why this song has been my obsession of late. I keep thinking about the lyrics and what they mean. I wrote them all down the other day when I should have been writing. They kept ringing in my ear as I was writing the other day.

In truth, I don't think it is their best work.

And yet, I am in its thrall at the moment. I am pondering being "a villain in the story I have written."

Or how does one become a "tourist in the city you were born?"

In any event, that is where I am... Pondersville... a city I tour frequently.

Music Monday - All Along the Watchtower

The great Jimi Hendrix and the ever fabulous Bob Dillion

and

The lyrics

"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief.
Businessman they drink my wine,
Plowman dig my earth
None will level on the line, nobody offered his word, hey"

"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too

Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
*buisness man there, drink my wine,
Come and take my herb.

I have always liked this song. I love Bob Dillion and not because I am a poet and suppose to like Bob Dillion. I think he is a master with language.

What made me think of this song for today's feature is my editor played it on Thursday at the Read A Loud. As the song filled the room, I watched a crowd growing in the Oval. I am not sure what the protest was all about, but the crowd grew and clearly speakers would speaking.

I think this was not a coincidence. There is great power in our words. Poets, writers, thinkers.

Freedom of the press and our ability to gather and share our words. That is the bed rock of liberty. Sadly I think that is fading quickly from view.

Pinterest... not the problem or the answer

So, I have a new playground and it is called Pinterest. For those of you who don't know about Pinterest, you should maybe check it out or not, it is what I like to call visual crack. Luckily for me the iPhone app has some issues and I unistalled it, otherwise I might well be in trouble.

Pinterest is the Internet equivalent of my stacks and stacks of notebooks, full of clippings and pictures and notes. I have killed a fair number of glue sticks, creating these notebooks full of pictures I liked, looks I enjoyed, pictures I found breathtaking. I even have one for my still half written novel.

The great thing about Pinterest is you can easily share these notebooks, I mean pin boards with your friends and heck anyone who shares your interests. You can create a group board and you and all your friends, your wedding party, your BFF, or your writing group - just to name a few options here - can pin and pin and pin. Sharing effortlessly. I really wish Pinterest had been around while I was in MBA school. It would have made collaborating a bit easier. During my kitchen remodel, what a great way to keep track of my wishlist, ideas, things I liked, things I didn't like. I actually currently have a board, where I am collecting ideas for the living room project. (which may or may not ever happen.)

In all fairness, I think Pinterest is simply a better organized version of what many Tumblr blogs are at present. People are visual creatures. A picture is worth at least a 1000 words and in our fast paced culture, we see so much of our lives in images.

I have been online, in a writing capacity for about 6 years, maybe 7 if we count my very early and now deleted MySpace blog. I have had my work taken, reposted by someone, who made it out to be her own original work. It made me hopping mad. I made her take it down and I made it clear she had taken it. It was uncool.

To me this is a clear violation of the trust we all place in our fellow bloggers and writers. Write your own words or PAY someone to do it for you. I have ghost written blog posts and been paid for it. I am happy to write for pay and let someone else post it on a blog under their name, provided the check clears.

That said, I have been 17 kinds of flattered when someone has liked my work so much, that they have willingly reposted and credited me or quoted me and credited me, with a link back. This is the right way to share. The Internet was designed, I think, as a way we could share and share quickly. Since I have been beating the letter writing horse, let's think about how we shared things in the past. Through the mail. You had to tear a picture out of a magazine or an article, and this meant you lost your copy or you had to make a copy or buy a second copy, and mail it. Turn around time of this sharing event - like 5 days, give or take.

Now I can share instantly.

I spy with my little eye something shiny and I can post a link here on the Edge, on my FB, my twitter, my Tumblr (I don't really have a Tumblr, but I could...) and Pinterest in about 10 seconds. I can send a link via email.

Over the last month, I have read dozens of opinions on copyright and Pinterest and who owns what and how Pinterest is evil. I don't really think Pinterest is the problem, just as Tumblr isn't the problem and Facebook isn't the problem.

The problem is as a community, as a creative community we have been lazy about copyright issues and we have stuck with an old model, which frankly does not serve to protect us, the artists, exactly, but those who have paid for our content. When the content is free and we willingly post it to our own blogs or Flickr or website, sometimes that is one and the same, but sometimes not. I also think, that in the early days, we got sloppy. This new medium, this information superhighway offered us a direct link to readers and buyers and fans. We are now able to self publish our books, produce content and make it available in the blink of an eye. Publishers were our watch dogs, not because they liked us but because they were going to protect and hopefully recoup their investment, a few times over.

What we all failed to do, is to come up with a convention, which would make it easy to identify online - what was content which was protected and what is content, which is not. Some people watermark and some don't. Some artist watermark items for sale and have it act as an online business card, some remove the watermark after they have been paid. Without a solid convention, who is to know? For those of us who produce text, there is no way to know. Perhaps we should have picked a font as the deliminator or agreed that text with a double underline meant something had not been paid for.

Being in the drivers seat was exciting and heady stuff. Too bad, we did not think 10-15 years down the road. Broader reach means the old model is outdated. Our lack of foresight has also meant we are starring into a muddy pool of our own making.

Also as Internet users and consumers, we don't like to pay for things. We want to read quality material for free. We want to look at pretty pictures, for free. We want to look at pictures of our best friends new baby or puppy or dress or handbag, for free.

And just as magazines depend heavily on advertisers to stay in print, the Internet is powered through ad dollars as well. Someone pays to host the site, where the pretty pictures live.

I also am not unconvinced that Pinterest is a reflection of a larger issue facing social media and the Internet right now. I am not sure Pinterest ever thought that its platform would be a place where brands went to build their brand image. Maybe I am just naive. This uncomfortable balance of sharing and selling is just getting more and more complicated with each passing second.

I also think that Pinterest Users should be honest and share their sources. Link back to the creator of the photo or the publisher of photo they are reposting. It is proper blogger etiquette and it is how the net is supposed to work.

I think splitting hairs about the TOS and what constitutes ownership in this day an age of click and share and not going to bear any fruit. The playing field is different now. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and the like, have changed how we communicate with our families, our friends, our work groups and with each other, even when we don't actually know each other.

Like this article says - "Pinterest is in someways just like Xerox and a VCR."

As a creative person, believe me I am concerned about the use of my work for profit, without me being compensated or credited properly. I also want my work seen and read and talked about and frankly shared. I love when my DIY pics get re-pinned on Pinterest.

Our current copyright laws do not balance this well. The intersection of commerce and creativity have always had an uneasy marriage. As artists and as publishers - we have limited control over what happens with our products. Is selling a used book a copyright violation? What about those magazines found in the garbage and resold by the someone who found them.

The Internet has only made this intersection all the more complex and confusing.

I don't think Pinterest is the problem or the answer. Just like I think SOPA and PIPA weren't the answer either. I think it is time to figure out a crediting convention that we can all live with and I think it is time to come to terms with the fact that we no longer share information the same way we did even five minute ago. We cannot quibble with whose server has the content and the storage resolution, because in two years it is all going to be bigger capacity and more storage. We cannot quibble with whether posting a link on FB or Twitter or even Pinterest is claiming ownership, it is sharing and if the reposting or sharing mechanism are engineered correctly, platforms like Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter are a means to spread the word and share one's creative output.

If someone takes a picture or some writing or something and says it is their creative work product, when it isn't that is not only a possible copyright issue, it is plagiarism.  That is off the charts wrong. If someone shares something on a board titled "Rocking cool photos" - on Pinterest -- and properly credits his/her source(s),  that is a compliment. Be happy your picture is now highlighted by someone with 1000 followers.

Being adequately compensated for ones creative output is a wholly separate issue. I am not sure many famous artists or writers would say they feel adequately compensated. Pinterest et al, is not the problem with that paradox, nor is it exactly the answer, either.

Music Monday: The Box Tops -- The Letter

"My baby sending me a letter" seems somehow much more powerful than "my girl, she sent me an email."

Maybe I am just biased. I am not sure.

Do people still write letters? I suppose so, there are places in the world where the Internet cannot/does not reach. Last week I volunteered in E's classroom and the teacher had me assembling booklets, so = the kids could write letters back and forth with their big buddies. She had the preformatted sheets set up like an old fashion letter, with a line for the date at the top right and two lines on the lower right for the closing remark and signature.

For a minute I was taken aback. Do we still use that format? Business letters are usually left justified these days.

I have a stack of letters H sent me back when we were dating. It was in the early days on the internet and I did not have reliable leisure time access to a computer or the World Wide Web.

I am not sure what my obsession with letters has been of late. I feel like maybe I should write more letters. Is it a lost art. I think clearly this is why the Postal Service is on the brink, well bad customer service is a major contributor, but really it is a lack of demand for their services. Other than birthday and Christmas, and maybe other Hallmark holidays, the number of letters sent seems to be steadily decreasing.

So my challenge to you this week. Write a letter, lick a stamp and mail someone a letter. It might just make their day.

As to this song. I remember hearing this song for the first time on cassette tape (yeah, something else you just don't see that much of anymore.) My mom was subscribing to a series or something of "Oldies." I am not sure what it resonates with me, but it does.

Write me a letter

I shot this pic a few weeks ago. I posted it to instagram and made some comments. It is a letter to my maternal grandfather from his half brother. Oliver. My grandfather was raised by his paternal grandmother in Thurman, Ohio. His mother had "run off" or perhaps more correctly left his father and return home to the Akron area. She was a career woman. She worked as a telephone operator. My maternal great-grandfather was a real peace of work, although as the story goes he wasn't much for actual work, drifting from one odd job to another.

As the story goes Oliver was only a few years younger than my grandfather and was a happy go lucky kind of guy. Amy Jane, my maternal great-grandmother, did not stay married to Oliver's father very long at all either, if in fact she was actually married, as no one could really say if she was actually divorced from my maternal great grandfather.

My grandfather did complete high school and worked a variety of odd jobs in his teens and early twenties. This is all in the mid to late 1920s. He drove a truck from the "hills" up to Columbus on a fairly regular basis, hauling whatever he could find. Christmas trees, coal, lumber, whatever. My cousin, who I have always thought of more as an Uncle, remembers times when they only ate meat because my grandfather had stopped to visit them and brought some, from either down home or he bought it with some of his earnings.

Oliver apparently had been visiting the family at the time the letter was written and had found work at a beer garden or brewery in the Akron area and was explaining to my grandfather that he should come north where the jobs were plentiful.

I am not sure if my grandfather gave this serious thought or not, because shortly after this letter was written Oliver was killed. He was struck by lightening while standing under a tree.

Eventually my grandparents did leave Gallia County and came to Columbus. My grandfather got a job as a "fireman" on the rail road and made a living slinging coal for a number of years. He also worked second and third shift in a factory in what is now the Short North, during the war making munitions. A stick ball injury and a bum ear drum kept him out of the army. The railroad rented them a house on Central Avenue in the early years and later they moved to Grove City and bought a house of their own. This was an accomplishment for two people who left "the hills" with little more than their car and the clothes on their backs. After trying to make a living "down home" they faced the facts and moved. They had no other choice.

Later my grandfather worked at the Ohio Penn, which is now the Arena Distract. He survived the riots and would tear up, telling the story of an inmate who shoved him in a small closet, full of mops and buckets saying, "Captain, you be a kind man and a fair man, and I don't want to see you get hurt, but if you stay out here in the thick of it, they kill you. They want you all dead."

He did survive the riots, he was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation. The man who locked him away, died in the riots. Most likely shot by corrections officers or killed by an inmate who had witnessed him tucking my grandfather away safely.

I found this letter, tucked in with a box of my mom's sewing stuff. Why? I have no idea. I know there is a box of other letters tucked away still at her place, which is actually now my brother's place.

This letter got me thinking. How will we keep our family histories in the digital age? I seldom keep emails, I just read them, act on them and delete them. Sometimes I keep really special notes and cards, but then again, I don't get long letters these days. Even just 20 years ago, when I was a teenager, I wrote long letters. Sometimes in English to friends in the States and much of the time in German to my pen pals and such.

For historians, letters have been a wonderful window to the past. But what if their aren't letters? What if we have no first hand accounts of life, as normal people lived it. Will my blog survive for my great grandchildren to read? (goodness I sure hope so) With all the changes to technology and the possible electromagnet changes, servers and hard drives could be erased in a blink of the eye.

As the pencil fades and the paper weathers, this note penned in a masculine scrawl, from a man I never met and who lived a very short life, is a piece of my family's past, which is fading away with each passing year.

Looking Back...

Two days ago, I revamped my blog a bit. I believe this is the third time I have changed it around, updated the lay out, changed the colors. (The third time I have made a major tweak.) I like it.

As part of this process, I reread some of my early entries. I started this blog in December 2006. This was my first post; I am the queen of creative titles let me tell you. It was shocking to see myself talking about my 4 year old. (Yikes she is now 9.) Also I was cleaning away clutter back then. (I am still struggling with clutter, today.)

In 2006 my MIL had recently passed away, in 2011 my mother passed away. My MIL never read my blog, my mother read it often. During December 2006, H and I were cleaning out his mother's house and preparing it for sale. In December 2011, H and I (and my brother) have been cleaning out my mother's house, preparing it for my brother to move in.

I only wrote a few entries in 2006, but in 2007 I wrote alot. I wrote about missing my MIL,  about my miscarriage in 2004, the kiddos and I adventure to Germany for Easter, how JFK actually stands for Just Freakin' Klueless, I wrote about sex (more than once), I wrote some book reviews like this one, I came down hard on the barbaric practice of FGM, I blogged about my first rejection, I talk about my mother's rediagnosis with thyroid cancer, I blogged about my food issues, it occurred to me I might be too old to read Cosmo, I come to terms that my "baby" is becoming a "little dude", and I mention Iceland on my blog.

That was all in the first year of blogging. It was great fun wandering around the archives of my blog. I have been writing for a long time. Honestly, in 2010, I almost gave up the blog all together, but last year, with the help of the photo contests, I keep it alive, even though I was very busy, stretched very thin and emotionally exhausted the latter part of 2011.

I am committed to another year of blogging in 2012. I do enjoy it, even if not that many people are reading my posts. I still haven't decided if I am going post regular features or go with the flow. For now we wait and see.

A Holiday Story -- Santa Gets Thanked by L

L had to write a story for class and frankly, it is pretty good and it proves my point, a writer writes and a writers personality and sensibilities shine through, even in works of fiction. She asked me if I thought it was good enough for my blog and I told her it was absolutely good enough for my blog.

So here is her story!


**********************************************************************************
 

Santa Gets Thanked

by L

It was the night of Christmas Eve Seema and Percha were hoping to get all they wanted. Seema and Percha were sisters. The two sisters were sitting on the to rusty metal chairs on the deck. “Mom said we have to get to bed early if we want Santa to come,” said Percha.

“I know,” said Seema “but I want to see what Santa looks like."

“Well,” said Percha “Santa has a fluffy white beard and a red cloak”.

“I know that,” said Seema “but I also want to thank him for last years gifts”.

“Girls,” called mom “time for bed.”

Seema and Percha quickly got up, ran inside, got on their PJ's, and went to bed. I really want to see Santa thought Seema. Seema had a hard time gong to sleep but when she did, she woke to a very loud sound. Seema jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs. When Seema got down stairs she saw me. Seema carefully crept up to me. I finally looked at Seema and said “Hi are you Seema?”

“Yeee...sss,” Seema said very scared.

“Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho!” I said, “there is no need to be scared.”

“I came to say thank you for last years gifts,” Seema said.

“You are welcome,” I said and with that I was gone.

Seema sat on the chair and softy touched the wrapping paper. Seema looked at the clock, it was 6:00 am, one hour before her sister got up. So she waited and waited. Her sister was up half an hour later. Seema and Percha opened the gifts. Seema got two stuffed animals, a craft and a movie. Percha got the same. Both of them had the best Chrismas ever.

Around the house...

H and I have been making some changes around the house. When we bought our house, we both fell in love with some aspects and others we knew we would some day change. It has been a long process, filled with babies, new jobs and a busy life. The kitchen and master bath came first. Then I tackled the mudroom this spring and summer (and the hallway that connects the mudroom and the kitchen.) Then we moved immediately into the family room. We were couchless for much of the process. This amazed and confused the children's friends. L's BFF asked repeatedly, "when are you getting a new couch?" E's new school buddy asked, "Where do we sit?" E explained that is why the room had a floor. I know we are quirky. No way was I painting the room with new furniture.

About a month ago we moved in these guys from IKEA. It seems strange to unpack your couch from a box and then assemble it, but we did it and I think it was more than worth it. I love that in a few years, if I get bored, I can change slip covers and much more cost effectively than buying a brand new couch. (The current slip cover is dry cleanable also! A decided bonus in my opinion.)

I would also be remiss - not mentioning I finally have a chaise. I have wanted one forever... we did put the chair and chaise together for a unconventional love seat.

As I mentioned, this summer we focused on the family room. It had been a yellowish cream and we changed it to a warm, rich light brown. I love the color. H isn't in love with it, even though he picked it. We also got a new sofa and love seat chaise combo. The biggest change is we replaced the drafty, cheap and poorly installed faux french doors with a beautiful, energy efficient window. I love the change. Another coat of paint and it will be time to buy blinds, curtains and lamps.

And no we did not forget to remove the stickers, the kids and I have been decorating for Halloween. We love window clings.

For anyone who has visited us, it is noticeable that there is very little art on the walls. H and I have different and I mean radically different taste in art. We also put it off, because we were always going to "redo the family room." Knowing he favors pasture scenes with cows and dogs and I am more into impressionism and modern art, I decided, why not photographs, better yet, why not our OWN photographs. Better yet, why not photographs of one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, Iceland. So when Living Social did an offer for Image Canvas I jumped on it. It really was a good deal and the results are very nice. Exactly what I wanted.

While nothing can be done about the awful cold air return, we have done our best and I love the photos. Also, the service from Image Canvas was wonderful. Reasonable turn around time and reasonable shipping costs.

And while H was hanging pictures, a task he relishes with the utmost joy, I asked him to hang these two as well. I bought these, almost 4 years ago, while in NYC. I stumbled upon a market or flea or something at University Circle (or is it a square) and I really liked them. Just this summer, I finally, had them framed. They are vodka bottles with flowers, so I decided we should hang them over the bar.

The pumpkins my mom gave us and the owls are my most recent obsession. They stay, the jack-o-lanterns will be with us through Halloween. The tape - that is caution tape and I have plans for that, just wait. We are going all out this Halloween.

Remember those squash vines I blogged about all summer. Well they yielded three pumpkins, two possible squash and about three dozen gourds. The kids' teachers got gourds, neighbors have gotten gourds and my BFF got some too... I arranged these guys on our mantel. Again, the paint color really sets them off nicely.

I think the kids have rearranged them about a dozen times but they are all from our yarden. A few of them night be squash but I am not sure, so I am going to refrain from eating them.

We really love Halloween and this weekend is apple picking and pumpkin gathering. Some of the most fun things to do in the fall. I cannot declare the family finished until I tackle window treatments and lighting, but it feels good to get cozy on the new sofa or chaise and blog!

Music Monday: Vampire Weekend Oxford Comma

I think commas get the short end of the grammatical stick.

Case in point the Oxford Comma, also known as the serial comma, is a topic of much debate among writers, editors and the like. As a typist, I tend to skip the Oxford Comma in favor of less key strokes, but when I write long hand, I include it, it is more elegant.

I think it is useful when making a long list, let's face readers are not superheros and they do need a breath from time to time. Our story, its essence, its substance should leave them breathless, not our grammatical choices or omissions.

I had to laugh the other night as L's teacher spoke to us at the open house. The school distract has adopted a new word study program and one of its chief goals and to teach parts of speach and word usage.

Duh!

L struggles with Mad Libs, because they teach writing and reading and spelling in an "organic" way that things like grammar and language arts gets lost somewhere. This makes me sad. As a poet I enjoy knowing the rules - SO I CAN BREAK THEM. Furthermore, I am a lousy editor, but I do know the rules. I spent much of my school years diagramming sentences in more than one language. I enjoyed that practice.

Never mind that as my junior year English teacher blabbered on about "comma splices" and and the "eternal run on" it went over me head, I do hear him still today. Knowing the rules has value. Language is often just a set of generally adhered to conventions. It changes over time, commas come and commas go.

Last night I was looking at the old typesets in a vintage store and marveling, that used to be someone's job - to look at a text and painstakingly prepare a mirror image. Can you imagine? Now I often don't even bother with a paper draft, I just take it from my head to the screen. No editor, typesetter, copy editor, nothing.

On one hand that ups the intimacy, there are less filters. It also increases the chances for misplaced or omitted commas.

30-Day Photo Challenge

I am doing something fun and creative this September. A Photo Challenge. I know I am a writer, not a photographer but I love the idea and I need something to jump start my creativity! (Maybe I will write some poems to go with the photos. Who knows.)

Allison over at Show &Tell is sponsoring/hosting the challenge.

I will be posting daily photos on this blog. She also has a open flikr set up, the 411 on that route is here.

So hang on and let the clicking begin.

What's in a name?

I recently discovered that others, who feel the same way about protecting their online identities and exercising their right to choose, how much, when, to whom and under what circumstances they will allow online intimacy to occur have started a new website to share their stories.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my relationship with what has become known as pseudonymity. I referenced the Ting-Ting's songs - That's Not My Name. That post by the way was one of my most read posts in the history of this blog.

I urge you to go check out the website My Name is Me. There are some amazing stories being told. It is important for all of us to have the right to choose, when and how we choose to build intimacy in our day to day lives, both in person and online. Our world is very different now and it is not impossible to have a friend across the globe you have never met before. It is not impossible to build virtual communities.

For some people letting it all hang out makes sense to them, to others, like me, we are cautious for a variety of reasons. As I said before, it really is up to the person disclosing, where they choose to draw the line.

Music Monday: Death Cab for Cutie LIVE

This week I am featuring a band, who I have discussed before in one of my first Music Monday posts. I am re-featuring them, because last week I went to their concert. It was a last minute decision and I am so glad I made the choice to go, even though it might not have been the best thing to do before heading out on a 7 hour road trip. But then, it is about living life and not always doing the best thing.

If you want a professional type concert review, might I suggest you check this post out, which a tweep of mine wrote. (Casey's review is totally worth clicking thru, just sayin! You know you want to.)

For me, the tone deaf, musically clueless, it is less about the music and more about my own senses. I like music that makes me feel. If I am really honest, I am into the lyrics... what the song makes me feel. The musicality is secondary. That said, sometimes a collection of guitar rifs and thumping drums, do make my bones rattles and give me chills, but in general, I am no judge of musicality.

Therefore I have often had a love hate relationship with Death Cab. Musically I think they are great, lyrically, they often grab me by the heart and shake me. As I stood outside, on a relatively comfortable late July night, it hit me. Not only do I generally like their sound, appreciating the musical variety, I am in awe sometimes of the precision of their lyrics. I think their music is precise too, I think they are inclined to be musically perfect, but it is the overall economy of words and the precision of each word that keeps me coming back. This is not poetry of the ambiguous. This is pointed, sometimes sharp and sometimes sentimental. Always moving. This is music with a profound message, if you are willing to really listen. Sure sometimes there is a catchy tune, but that is just the hook, for those on auto-pilot, it makes for charming mood music, but if you listen with your heart as well as your ear, I think you will find an unexpected depth and soul.

I do anyway.

I found these clips on you tube! I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed last week's show.

And one of my favs.

The show made me think and I think there will be more poetry, more things to explore. What is music after, if not poetry brought to life.

New Series: Iceland Inspired

I took so many pictures in Iceland. I was well and truly inspired. On so many levels. To do the trip justice, I am not going to be able to just write one quick post, the experience was more complex than that. The country, the scenery, the experience more complex than that.

I am not an inexperienced traveler, I have been all over German speaking Europe. I have been to the Caribbean. I have been to another volcanic island, Hawaii. I have been up and down the East coast of the US, all around Florida and many other interesting and beautiful places. Napa Valley, SanFran, NYC, Sleepy Bear Dunes in MI.

There was something very exotic  and very exciting about Iceland. There was something magical about this being the first family vacation, where the kids really could experience it and could do more. No strollers and no naps to think about.

The experience has taken some processing, me thinking about how best to share it, how best to talk about the experience in a detached travel blogger sort of way and then how to explain and share how the experience touched me, changed me, inspired me. I feel energized as a writer after Iceland (maybe it was the act of taking a vacation, I don't know, I can't say.)

So I am going to do a multi-part series. I will tag it Iceland for ease of searching in the future.  Please ask questions, understanding that I am writing this series as I go, based on an outline and will likely write some of it on the fly as the mood strikes me.

For now - look at one of my favorite pictures. I think it answers the question - Why Iceland?

Music Monday: The Ting Tings That's Not My Name

The Ting Ting's That's Not My Name

As a matter of full disclosure, I have not and likely am not going to be checking out Google+ anytime soon. I am social media saturated and I tend to let others feel these new things out, before I invest too much time in these beta testing matters. If anyone has a compelling reason why I must hurry up and jump on the Google+ wagon, please do leave me a comment.

I absolutely love A V Flox's writing. She is a wonderfully insightful blogger on all sorts of topics. Put simply she could write about sock lint and I would eagerly read it many times over because she is a good writer. I also follow her on Twitter. This weekend she put a post up about Google+ suspending her account because it is not her real name. Shockingly she, like so many other writers, artists and performers uses a pseudonym. She is such a trend setter. Mark Twain was Samuel Clemons people. O'Henry was not his real name. Many of our favorite movie stars and television personalities are not using the name on their birth certificate. I don't use my real name on many of the things I have written and published elsewhere. Much of my very best work, is published under the name I picked for myself. I self published my poems under that name.

Here is the deal many writers and artists pick a name that reflects the person they feel they are when writing. They also do it to protect themselves, their families and that fragile creative kernel, from a variety of people. As A V Flox says, she started writing using another name to protect herself from her family's scorn. I renamed myself early in my writing career to keep things separate, to protect my kids, to separate out my writing into categories, which various people close to me might want to be reading. Not all of my writing is political, about my yarden or women in business topics. My poetry can get edgy. My writing can get dark or steamy or ranty. I am a multi-faceted diamond and my various personas separate the art, the creative work product accordingly.

I have written about this before but I think it bears repeating. Writing is incredibly intimate sometimes. Being an artist, a writer can be very tricky. I have had instances where "fans" or "followers" or "creepy stalker types" think they know the totality of me based solely on a piece of writing I have done or a small segment of my writing. They don't. You see what I am willing to share, in some respects it is highly, highly edited. BY ME. I decide what I am willing to share.

For me writing is mental exhibitionism. I actually do enjoy sharing with my readers what I am thinking and sometimes what I am feeling. I enjoy pushing certain buttons in my readers. I enjoy the feedback, I like that I can make you think, squirm, make you smile. Make no mistake, a good writer, someone devoted to their craft wants to form a relationship with their readers, but in the narrowly defined space of the written word.  At the end of the day, however, I control what part or parts of me you get to see. Just because I am willing to write a post about same sex marriage or my yarden for that matter, does not mean you, my reader have the right to trample my privacy. My writing something you enjoy is simply that, an exchange, I enjoy sharing, you enjoy receiving and we go on about our day. Just because I write a poem, which is about romantic love, sex or something very titillating and moving, does not mean I am inviting you over. Even if you are an intimate or close friend, that poem may or may no be about you. It is a work of fiction, it is a creation, it is something I have done, either for the sheer desire to create, in reaction to some stimulus. It might well be a combination of many, many things, some past and some present.

For me, picking a pen name, was my way of controlling the levels of personal intimacy. This is very important to me. I have been, in my online creative world, more than once a bit scared and totally relieved that the creepy admirer knew only my writing persona.

So while on one hand I can see why Google+ would want people to use their "real names." The problem is 15 plus years into the Internet age, is my writing persona any different than the "real me" many of you know? Is Fern Micheal's any less a real writer, a real person, because the name on her birth certificate is different than one who has sold hundreds of thousands if not millions of beach reading paper backs.

At a certain point the writing persona, the artist persona, it is as much a "brand" as it is a name. Seeing something written or produced or designed or whatever the creative output is, there is a "branding" effect. When I think of Picasso I think of cubist reality and when I think of Monet, I think of soft colors and pretty flowers.

So to answer a tweet I saw last night, "What's the big deal about Google+ insisting on real names."

Well for some of us, in certain areas of our lives - That's not my name...

Music Monday: Bjork - Army of Me

Bjork - Army of Me

It is safe to say - that many of you knew where we went on vacation. For those still in the dark (actually we went to where it is light nearly all day, everyday in the summer) Those in the know follow me on facebook and twitter. (hint, hint)

We went and stayed in Bjork's stomping grounds. Right - Iceland. Why Iceland, because I have have wanted to go there since I was about L's age and I fell in love with the pictures of Iceland in the National Geographic Our World coffee table book. They were so amazingly beautiful.

So when I learned the flight is just over 4 hours from NYC. I was sold.

As I believe in truth in writing, I am writing this post before our trip and scheduling it. Right now we are likely still in bed, as we got back very late last night. I am pre-writing. Later this week, I will upload pictures and give you all the scoop. I am hopeful that we loved the place as much as everyone says we will and that it is as beautiful as it looks online and in coffee table books. Hawaii was, when H and I went there on our honeymoon many, many moons ago. I think volcanic islands have that in common.

Stay tuned. But for now, amuse yourselves with another Bjork hit!