Moments (and a few links!) of Joy

Chatting at the Sky: "The Spiritual Discipline of Wearing Better Pants"

"One of the casualties of my good girl detox was shedding my misconceptions about the spiritual disciplines. I needed to give myself permission not to practice them for a while because I couldn’t figure out how to do them without thinking I was earning something. 

"The past several years have been a re-entry of sorts into the world of the spiritual disciplines. It’s different now – kinder, gentler, tender, and more free. My definitions have changed as has (I hope) my demeanor."

Beauty in Winter

2014 was a big year for learning things. Sad and tragic things, fun things, productive things, beautiful things, all kinds of things! As Gracie sometimes says, "Ah the wings!"

(All the things.)

I would love it if I'd already written blog posts for many of these, which I could just link to with a little summary, but 2014 has also been a hard year, and the words and stories are slow to come. They're coming, now, but I can't push them all out before this linkup. (Speaking of things learned.) So I'll write what I can and maybe add some links later, to future posts.

(Because what an epic long blog post with lots of links really really needs is even MOAR links, to other huge long blog posts. Yup.)

1. Reminders of grace are all around.

Silliness is a grave business.

If you read the last couple posts, you might have noticed that today is my daughter's first birthday. My eldest and only (thus far).



I can think of lots of different things to say, but in the end, most of them fail me. She is truly a gift of grace; from the beginning of the pregnancy, when she brought light to a dark time for our family; to her safe birth amidst all kinds of risks and dangers; to the amazing person that she is now.

This is actually the next day, technically.

Even when she was a newborn, that was always something that surprised me, how little I felt like I had "a baby" or like I had become "a mother" in a generic sense -- I had her, Gracie (codename).

She was and is a very particular baby.

Sherlock Ducky the party hat.

She knows that silliness is a grave business.

Happy birthday, my love!

Babies, affection from

I suppose I should take it as a compliment when my daughter tries to eat my face. After all, she tries to eat all of her favorite things.

Yes, that dark blotch is her wide open mouth, attempting to suck out the water bottle's life force.

48-Hour Book Challenge Finish Line

It will probably come as no surprise that I didn't manage twelve hours in the 48-Hour Book Challenge this weekend. No, I made it up to a whopping three hours and eighteen minutes! Woo! Well.... it is what it is. I wish I'd tracked the time I spent on my starting line post, I could have included that. I mean, I don't think it's supposed to count, but when you're so far from the twelve-hour minimum, the rules become a little less relevant.

I would've liked to post about my progress here and there, but that would've been taking more time from my 3h18m, so I didn't.

I did eventually decide to make an exception to my rules for myself that I talked about in my starting line post, regarding writing reviews before reading. An exception for the sake of the Challenge. Unfortunately, I did not decide that or prepare my reading materials in time to take advantage of a couple baby naps that would have been glorious -- I was holding her the whole time, so no way to write reviews. But I didn't have my Kindle to hand, or even the book I wanted to start with loaded onto my Kindle, so I ended up reading blogs on my phone instead. Woefully unprepared.

Should've at least spent that time focusing on reading other 48-Hour Book Challenge blogs, but I didn't. Bother.

So, here's the breakdown. In those three hours and eighteen minutes I finished up a review of The Last Unicorn and posted it, drafted another (An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis), started reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy, and did a tiny bit of "networking." Sort of. I mean, I didn't really spend a measurable amount of time reading other people's blogs. My networking was mostly putting the link to my starting line post on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and replying to one comment on it.

I spent 2 hours and 11 minutes on those 2 reviews. I spent 45 minutes reading. I spent 22 minutes on my tiny bit of networking. (How did those few things take that long?!) I made it 53% of the way through The Death of Ivan Ilyich on my Kindle. It's one of those older Kindles that can't do page numbers. Based on Amazon, in print it normally runs around at least 80 pages, though. So I read around 42 pages in my 45 minutes this morning. Okay. (I've said before that I'm not a particularly fast reader, I just read a lot. Now I can't even say that. *sob*)

Well, it was fun, and I probably wrote more this weekend than I would have without it. I hope next year I can do at least a bit more. I'll try to get another little personal book binge in here, soon. And, unrelatedly, to clean my house. Poor house.

Oh, one more thing I need to do before I sign off. I almost forgot. You need some pics of Baby from over the weekend, right? For the road. Well, I might be able to help you, there...

You would eat your toes too, if you could. They're delicious. Trust me.

Oh, look at that! I rolled over and now... Hi camera! Would you mind if I ate you?

After one of the naps, when I put her down. That didn't really work out, contrary to appearances here. Sorry about the orientation, having technical difficulties with Blogger.

 

Do you like my hair? Isn't it beautiful?

A walk, my pacifier, and air blown in my face? This is the BEST DAY EVER!

Insert Funny Caption Here

I can't do anything in the proper order. I am inordinate. The first pictures I post here of Gracie ought to be the best pictures, the most beautiful, adorable, etc.

Instead I shall post this semi-recent one that amused me vastly.

Newborns have a startle reflex. Gracie's startle reflex is quite alive and well. Especially in some of her sleep cycles. She'll throw her arms up and out, quite possibly literally at the drop of a hat. At least if it's a heavy hat and dropping it makes a bit of a noise.

So... the other day I tried to take a picture of her sleeping in a rather odd/amusing/cute (don't actually remember which) pose. But it was in low light, so when the sound of the "shutter" on my camera phone made her startle, what I actually captured was this:

Okay, okay, I'll post a couple semi-recent cute ones, too. So many I could choose, but these shall suffice. For now.

Now that's just creepy... :)

I mean, houseplants aren't supposed to write notes.

Because awesome friends are awesome.

This is what greeted me when I came in to work on Monday:

Click to embiggen. Of course.

Note the fine print at the bottom.

The Klingon house plant is my favorite. It's on a shelf above my desk, not at eye level, so I didn't notice it at first. I was also pretty slow to notice Marcy-chan, and slowest of all to catch that it's best to stay face up.

Thanks, Rachel! As I said, because awesome friends are awesome.

Anyone else with fun stories, things friends have done to make your work environment just a little cheerier? Though I'm guessing no one else would put a "Mongoose of efficiency" post-it at your computer...

I laughed. I cried. I yelled and shook with anger.

"I laughed. I cried. It moved me, Bob."

Um, to be accurate, I suppose the title should read more like, "I laughed. I cried. I yelled and shook with that feeling you get when you've just yelled at strangers, and whoa, did you really just do that, that is so very atypical, but man it was justified, that was ridiculous, how dare they make you yell at them..." Yeah. That emotion. Not exactly anger. Not exactly embarrassment, either.

As for the crying, that was a different occasion. And I didn't, much. Just felt like it.

This was an interesting day.

An anniversary, of sorts. The day of the Alzheimer's Mass, at work. The day, a year ago, when I started thinking and working on my first blog post about Mom's dementia. (The major thinking anyway -- most of my posts do some early percolating first, but as a step towards actually sharing what I was thinking about, it basically happened a year ago today.) The next day I finished and posted it. The Mass stays on the same day of the week, so the date is slightly off, but meh to that.

It's been... an interesting year. I think I might even mean that in the full Firefly sense. Well, the second half of the year wasn't so bad.

It was good to start a new year. Felt hopeful. Nice. Thank God all that stuff from last year is over...

Oh, wait. It isn't. One thing is just going to keep getting worse and worse. Still, without some of the other things going on, it's a LOT easier to handle. Or it would be, if it would just stay still, d*@& it.

Yeah. I was feeling fine. I sat in on a Fantastical Lit class over the fall semester, which was awesome. Processed a little bit more about Mom's dementia in the midst of the class. Occasionally worried that I was ignoring it too much, and this was going to be bad, but that was it. The worry didn't even turn me instantly depressed, like it would've if I hadn't been doing so great.

Until today. Stupid anniversary.

No, that's not true. There were some twinges before this.

She's been repeating herself more, but... well, I know that it's beyond normal, that it's obviously because of the dementia, but it doesn't seem so bad. Sometimes you repeat yourself even when you remember what you said, just because it's something that's important to you. This was beyond that, but... okay.

Recently, one of my sisters sent Christmas presents for everyone to my parents' house. Mom has them, and has been distributing them. Doesn't make complete sense, but it's one of those things she always would've done in the past, and she basically still can do it, so I guess it's good. I came over one day, she gave me mine. I think before I left she wondered for a moment if she had something for me, I reminded her she'd already given me the present, and that was that.

Then I came over again, last Thursday, to pick up something. She took me aside, pulled out the presents, was looking through the labels... "No, Mom, it's okay. You already gave it to me."

I mixed a shake for myself and was on my way out about ten minutes later. She stopped at her room, pulled out the presents... "You gave it to me already. It's okay."

Oh, and she was also pretty perplexed about how to butter her potato.

I know these are small things. I know she still has so much, so many memories that could be gone later... but today is an anniversary of sorts, and I am sad.

I ended up missing the Mass this morning, taking a friend to the hospital instead. (She's completely fine.) I'm kind of glad I missed it. The Mass itself is beautiful, but I think today seeing the Alzheimer's patients would've made me cry. I just... don't want to see that right now. I'm fine with seeing it in general. Just... not now. Please?

I mean, I would try to stop thinking about it, too, but that didn't work. I finished the novel I was reading, and killed my phone's battery browsing facebook before giving in. I could continue browsing on my computer (did, for a bit), but I think the time has come. Have to write to think. At least, in a productive, now-I-can-put-something-behind-me sense, and not the broken record kind of thinking.

The other thing I've been thinking about recently? Being young for this to happen. I was... very tentative, at first, to accept any condolences about my relative youth and her relative youth. Implying that because I'm 29 years old and was 27 that last October then this must be harder for me, well, that implies it's easier on my older siblings. And I don't want to say that, and I don't want to try to quantify or compare levels of pain. No good comes of this. Although I think I'm fine with saying it could very well be harder on Melanie. I... with the death of a parent, okay, it's obviously not good to lose a parent as a child, or in high school or college. It is Bad. With a spouse... tragic when a newlywed dies. I think the one part that made this harder for me to admit is that when someone dies after a long full life with them, you grew to know them that much better, there's even more there to miss and grieve the loss of. But... okay, you can be glad for the time you had. That's life, everyone dies eventually... But yeah, Melanie, you having to deal with this when you hadn't quite graduated from college yet? That's bad. No one should have to do that. I remember her heart attack while I was at Biola. That was bad.

29 years old, on the other hand, is not that young. That's the other bit. I was a morbid child and thought when I was a kid about my parents' age and my age and when they might die, and because I was only a child with a very limited grasp of life expectancy and it sometimes happens this way, I thought, okay, what if they die at 60? That hasn't happened. That would've been... 2001, for Mom, and end of 1998 for Dad. Thank God you're still here. Still here while I went through high school and college.

Heck, back in not-quite-as-modern times, I could die at 29, and it'd be young, but not unheard of. For my parents to die or suffer the diseases of old age when I'm 29, and they had me when they were older... Yeah, not the most tragic thing out there. I'm not a child anymore.

But all that to say, I think I'm fine with this particular condolence now. It's... lonely. I am... really, really, really tired of hearing about people's grandparents who have or had Alzheimer's. No offense to anyone who's told me that. Sincerely, I do not mind, I haven't minded any of these statements on their own. It's just as a group that it's grown taxing. It's like it's rubbing my nose in the fact that I'm young, and none of my peers are dealing with this yet. It's probably the exact thing I would say, in your place. And I'm sure having a grandparent with Alzheimer's can be very, very painful. I definitely grieved when my grandparents died, and I wasn't at all close to them.

But this... this is different. Except maybe for a few people who were raised by their grandparents instead of their parents, the relationship is different. And I'm young, and it's hard, and this kind of thing isn't supposed to happen to me yet, and it sucks. In fact, I would very much like to hit something.

There. I said it. I'm going to hold back from calling that a "pity party," and just be honest. It does suck.

I've also been thinking about identity. I'd rather identify myself by my strengths than my scars, I think, but because it's often much harder and takes much more vulnerability to show another your scars, sometimes they feel like the most real, deepest and truest things about yourself. At least to me.

I get depressed at times, and sometimes a thing like Mom's dementia can be handy when you're in pain -- you can point to it, and say, "Look, this. THIS."

But of course it isn't handy at all because it just adds to the pain.

And there were times last year when it felt like so overwhelmingly everything... of course it seemed like a part of my identity. It is. My mom has dementia. That's a part of who I am right now.

But... I had other pains, before this happened. Those were a part of my identity. They're harder to explain, and point to. Not as overwhelming right now, but if harder to share, in some ways they still feel truer, because of that? I don't know. Maybe not. But one thing I do know -- I am still the same person I was before this happened. At least in part. I've changed, but not completely, and I'm still me. So she can't be all of my identity... Not that I thought she was the whole thing but... Okay, I don't know where I'm going with this, anymore. Just thinking out loud. Sorry. Moral of the story: Identity is complicated? Guilt over how you see yourself is bad, even if you define large parts of yourself by the wounds and scars, rather than by the joys?

Now for something completely different! In honor of the other interesting part of my day! That I referenced way back at the beginning of this post, and even posted a teaser sketch for, on facebook and google+!

(I was going to do a better drawing for the post, take more time, but it's getting late, and I just want to finish this thing. I'd really like to post it tonight instead of tomorrow. That way I won't have to change my "today"s to "yesterday"s.)

It was a new experience, because I've never had people honk and yell at me for something I so obviously couldn't do anything about, before. At least, I don't think that's happened to me before. It was ludicrous.

Though I've drawn little tiny arrows, those are to show which directions the cars were pointing. We weren't going anywhere, save for a bit of impatient inching, now and then.

In retrospect, I think the guy next to me and the guy behind me didn't see or couldn't tell (respectively, probably) that there wasn't any room at all for me to move forward. I mean, it wasn't like it was one of those situations where it would be a little tight and you wonder, "Can I get through? Should I try?" No. There were two feet, maybe three between the van and the corner. But I didn't notice that the guy beside me wasn't blocked, that he could advance and fix the whole mess from the very beginning! So see? It's not always easy to be very observant about what's going on behind you! He didn't notice that I wasn't being an idiotic-let's-make-a-huge-traffic-jam-on-the-off-chance-that-if-I-wait-here-I-can-get-a-parking-spot person, and I didn't notice that he...was! Yeah.

Wait, I was trying to be nice, and give him the benefit of the doubt, and all that. Oh well. Oops.

At first I typed (and posted) that as "...I-can-get-a-parking-lot person." Yes. Just wait here, and we will give you a PARKING LOT! It's magic.

Um, so he yelled some, and the guy behind me honked, and I yelled back (complete with big arm gestures), "Where am I gonna go? I can't go back, he's there, you're beside me, they're in front of me, what do you want, I can't go anywhere!" Or something to that effect. I was ticked. And then, wonder of wonders, he moved! And the van could move, and the woman driving the van thanked me, and everyone lived happily ever after. The end. Though, driving away, I was shaking with the emotion I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

See, who ever said yelling never fixes anything?

Ooh, do you think they're wrong about hitting stuff, too?  [evil grin]

More Smoke Photos

November 2008

I put an album of my November photos up on google. However, my November photos consist entirely of pictures of smoke. So, there are a few more than I posted on here earlier. Not a lot. And they're pretty repetitious. Meh.

SoCal Ditty

There's a cloud over my head; not white or grey, but brown. The light glows red, in place of rain there pours down ash instead.

Isn't this weather for October, not November? Our falls are always "Indian summers;" so would this be an "Indian fall?"








These were taken from the top of the parking structure by my work. I would guess, based on the direction, that this particular smoke (to add to the soup...) is from the Brea fire. And here's downtown LA, in the other direction, for a small small taste of the air quality:





















And sunset amid the smoke, seen through the door of the shop.

The Saga of the Sore Thumb

So what do you think? Does it stick out like a sore thumb? Does it make you think, in Willow's words (as I remember them), "Man, that baby's sore!"

Many months ago, I burned myself and wrote up this post. But I hadn't uploaded the pictures yet. So. I burned myself making cookies. The potholder slipped or something (at any rate it obviously wasn't quite where I expected it to be) and my bare thumb grasped the pan.

Really, it sticks out like a sore thumb by definition, although sore is hardly the word. It didn't start feeling that good until the next day.

I'm always rather fascinated by my own wounds, and so John always jokes when I hurt myself that I'm probably thinking of taking pictures and posting about it on my blog. This time, I decided it'd be fun to humor him. I didn't realize how hard it would be.

The camera refused to focus on my thumb at the distance necessary to show detail. And, of course, my thumb refused to stay away from cold water or ice for any considerable length of time. I normally am against giving in to hostile demands and threats, but it seemed that doctors would take the thumb's view of things.


So I provided it with a bowl to carry everywhere, before getting out some ice, which required more dexterity and patience. (Have you ever tried to open a zip-loc bag without using your left thumb? Apparently it's a funny sight.) What was shown to be nearly impossible, however, was taking a picture of my good hand for comparative purposes. I will prove this by putting up a low-quality photograph. Yes, that'll prove my point. Really. See?


Prop the camera on the knee so the index finger can snap the picture, try not to get water on the camera... ack, too much! Plunge the thumb back into the water! Ah, blessed relief...

Seemed like a pretty bad burn at the time, but two days later and I can easily rub it -- it just feels like skin that's been pinched a little. Yesterday morning I instinctively stuck it out to avoid brushing whatever my other fingers were holding. But I put a band-aid on and that began to subside, and no one asked me what had happened to my thumb, so I guess, even sore, they can be rather inconspicuous. Like cutting a couple inches from waist-length hair. Now I know.

(Later, as my hands are dried out and dirty from packing books, there's a patch on my thumb both more shiny than the other skin and with more lines across it, as though first melted into glass, and then cracked. I know you wanted to know that, just as I now know of the relative inconspicuousness [but wouldn't it be more fun to call it inconspicuosity?] of sore thumbs.)

DA Love

"DA" being deviantart, of course. Since the last time (back in March) I pointed out on here that I'd updated my gallery, I've uploaded quite a lot. First I've got some miscellaneous pictures, mostly dealing with nature but some with people (including some kids at my church -- so cute!), then some beach shots, and then it soon transitions to a trip John and I made. After a few of those I put up my airplane shots (coming back from the trip). Those are good. Then several of Lucy, and back to miscellanea.

The airplane shots include this one:



While it wasn't my favorite of all of them, at least not in print form (I prefer "Look to the Light", a few photos later in my gallery), it seems to be everyone else's favorite! It made it up to 100 favorites (other people marking it as a favorite, allowing them to collect it on their own "favorites" page for later viewing, and influencing what will show up when you search for popular images) pretty quickly, and is now at 120. I knew it was a good sign when, almost immediately after uploading it, it passed my previous high, which I think was 6 on a picture. Yeah. And then it just kept going. It was exciting. I was excited. If you check my journal entries on DA, you'll see what I mean.

I also loooove my favorites. You should check them out. Especially by browsing through the collections on the side. I'm not finished tweaking the collections, but they're still organized better than just browsing through the favorites. Those are in the order that I added them. Sub-optimal. Oh, and I know that it's much easier to browse through tons of images by looking at the thumbnails and then clicking on a few that catch the eye (I do it all the time myself); but I highly encourage clicking on one, clicking again for full view, and then proceeding with the "forward" link, which will show you the next image in full view. There are some amazing images that one simply cannot see are amazing as a thumbnail.

Well, I think that's all for the DA lovin'... for now. Cheers. =)

Prague, Oaxaca, Angeles National Forest, Disneyland, Boo, squirrels, sunsets...

Happy Easter!

I have updated deviantart again. Well, many times. How much is actually new to you would depend on when you saw my last post and checked it. My newest picture on there is one of my favorite pictures ever (of my own work, of course).

Not much else going on in my life at the moment... typing and editing for an Indian neighbor, work, books, World of Warcraft, Buffy, Latin... you know, the normal stuff. (= Today I exercised for an hour. 30 minutes of jogging, including a bit of walking for my warmup and cooldown, and 30 minutes of Wii Sports. It made me happy. I think I would like to run in a 5K again sometime soon. I'll have to be more consistent with my exercise again, and research when and where such things are being held.

Last Wednesday I drove out and saw Sharon. It was lovely. Thank you, Sharon! On my way home I stopped at Craig Park (by the 57 and Imperial), a place I ran for Cross Country a couple times in high school. I wandered around taking pictures of flowers, ducks, and the lake, and then came home. I haven't uploaded the pictures yet, so I'm not sure whether or not I got any good ones. My camera was giving me focus troubles, so my strategy (especially concerning the ducks) was to take a ton and hope for the best.

Budapest

And more deviantart. I'm addicted. Much fun.

Sprite, Sequoia, Italy...

Updated deviantart again. Enjoy.

I have a table!

But not just any table. Oh, no. I have a lovely, shiny, book table! That is to say, I got my own table of picks at work. I'm very excited about it, because I'm a nerd that way. In fact, I'm so excited and such a nerd, that I even took a picture! Well, several actually. Not only that, but I'm going to blog them, too. ::hangs head at the nerdiness of it all::



The sign, I'll admit, isn't strictly true of all of them. Some of them I read first, and then bought... some were given to me... there are even some (gasp) that I don't own yet! I do plan to buy them someday, really I do! But meanwhile I'll uh... just buy them for the store, should these copies sell. Yeah.







































The first picture is good, when you click on it for the larger size, but it's hard to see the back row, plus there was some glare on some of them. So obviously the other pictures were necessary. Anyway, don't consider this as a definitive list of my favorite books ever -- the store doesn't have all my favorite books. But these are pretty much all books I really enjoyed. A lot. Hopefully they'll sell well, and I'll have an excuse to order more excellent new (as opposed to used, not old) books for the store, and put them on my table. Yay!

Snow Photos!

I put pretty much all the pictures I haven't deleted from our Christmas trip to Wheaton up on my google album.

Christmas 2007 in Wheaton

I encourage John's family (I'd say your last name, but then my full name would be connected with this blog, and that's no fun) to look at it too, because I've edited some of the pictures a bit since giving them to you. I also updated deviantart, but was much more selective with my choices. My comments are different on each.

Beth's Pictures

Of England and Scotland. Pretty. Sometimes funny. (She's my sister-in-law, for those who don't know.)

Light

These are my pictures for the month. I guess September wasn't very eventful. I put this first one on deviantart. As I explained on there, every day at work around closing time the light slants through the windows and tempts my camera. So I start experimenting. The water bottle's probably my favorite, which is why I put it on deviantart. Of course.

















This is the shop door.








On this one I decided to focus the camera elsewhere, so it wouldn't automatically darken the picture. It's just my lunch bag, though...














Speaking of "just my __", here's another water bottle. It was glowing. Not sure that it stands out quite as much in the picture.