Ice, Stones, Love

Hello, far-flung friends!

Today has been about family duties - not just me corralling, feeding, and training up the kids - actual duties. My lovely mother has been in to have surgery, and with her hard-working husband doing his work in Oklahoma, that left me here for the hand-holding duties. Since she's been here for two foot surgeries and two C-sections, I am not complaining.

This comes just after my husband and I returned from a northern trip (yes, there is still some MN North of us) to retreat together for stillness, and for each other.

We differ, a bit, in what we think of as 'paradise'. Invariably, he is about the warm sunny peacefulness of a quiet tropical beach.

I am all about the quiet of a state park, on a weekday, an hour south of Canada in February....provided there's a crackling fire and indoor/outdoor hot-tubs to choose from. My husband has a sunny personality, I have a more contemplative. He doesn't ponder much, I don't live in the moment much. Hence, we do a lot of learning from each other, a highly attractive process, come to that.

In any case, we had our time together, and came home to kids who need us, and my mom (and her little dog, too!) who also needs us. Being recharged, I am more than up for it. If I get my beauty sleep, that is. 

So, I will leave you with one more image from the trip (I'll put up the link to the album later, check back!) and get off to bed. I have some delightful projects coming up that I can't blog much about until they are done, But, I promise you pics when I'm through.

If I really get my act together, I may re-post "Winter", just because i seem to be in a bit of a recycling craze.

As always, don't feel shy about leaving comments. I'm sure other readers stumbling through here may find something in common with you, and that shouldn't be too terrible....;-)

I hope you have a lovely, warm, cozy night.

Thank you for coming by to visit.

s.

Stories...a Re-post

belatedly, a love-note about stories

Stories

Somewhere, tonight, perhaps even now, a 14 year old girl has deduced that it is far better to be an Emma Woodhouse than a Harriet Smith - except for all the baggage which also comes with being a know-it-all.

Somewhere, this afternoon, Samuel Coleridge's albatross is flapping about, presaging doom.

This morning, a curious agnostic paged through the Acts of the Apostles and found Paul getting snakebit on the Isle of Malta (er, after starving, getting seasick, and shipwrecked earlier that same day).

Stories live.

Bella Swan and Harry Potter are carrying on in the imagination of teenaged readers, having different adventures in different places - all at the same time.  Nancy Drew is still creeping up the hidden staircase at the Sign of the Twisted Candle, and the kindly maid is showing them how she makes 'Butterfly Pie' for old Asa. Trixie Belden still teaches her cousins and friends her 'memorize the room' game, and beating her brother at saying 'Rabbits, Rabbits" on the first day of the month.

When you put a story out there - in pictures, in words, in binary, in lovingly dipped crowquill script - yesterday, or a thousand yesterdays ago, those names and places and faces will carry on, whether you claim them or not. You still have to stand behind anything you write - being gentle with the younger-and-perhaps-less-wise author, nonetheless. Because if your story was read by anyone, than it is still 'there'.

For my story, so far, there is exactly one person who knows that a girl named Justine has fine, almost transparently white blonde hair, and that she will never willingly speak.  Another knows that a bad person named Eli should really get the splinters out of his tongue before they, er, fester.  And, a third reader knows that there is a girl, on an old mine road, thinking she knows everything, who has learned all she will ever, ever know, too late.  And that some cups should be passed, and some water never drank.

Your stories will live long after you do - tell them carefully, and tell them well. Watch, closely, the stories you read and write - fiction or not - those names and faces and places will live in your head, and are almost impossible to evict. They will remember you, whether you want them to or not. They will keep you company, for a very, very, long time.

Sweet dreams, my story tellers, my readers.

Read and write and dream well.

off to recharge....

hello all!

It's been a long hiatus, children busy-ness, illness, family worries, and just...life, have usurped the occasional examinations of daily life I'd been posting. These are all normal, but, on top of them, we've kinda sorta started some serious house hunting.

We've been very busy with the daydreaming ;-)

However, what I am busy with - Now Right Now is - getting my son off to school (he's been experimenting with hair clippers 'to save money for a house, mom!!' and getting the bags packed.

For the third time since our children were born, we are getting away together. Alone.

And there's still a bit of packing left.

Ideally, we are coming back rested, refreshed, recharged, and ready for our next adventure. So, there will be more entries coming. I left you a valentine (well, Jon's valentine, anyway) as a token of good will. Even left the last poem up. 

Also, I've discovered Pinterest, by the way, (find me at Shari Emerson). I am using it to track inspirations for future projects, recipes, artists I love, photos I like, and, um, home inspiration too. I'll be adding the gadget to the blog so you can come-and-go at will. Pinning is easier than blogging, I might use Pinterest as an artistic scavenger hunt - set a theme for the week, and pin boards in a series of tracking what my brain is up to...kind of like a scavenger hunt crossed with an evidentiary trail!

That's it for me. I've resigned myself to an ugly midwestern winter, so our getaway may provide a little more of the scenery that I must admit I need!!

Have a lovely weekend...i'll be reporting back later next week :-)

S.