Sunset

We've had a stretch of beautiful days lately, but I've been too busy to take advantage of them. Even though I worked much of the afternoon, I vowed that I would go out with my camera, so just before sunset I went up a hill that overlooks water.

Stuff

A RGBP Friday 5

1. Are you a hoarder or a minimalist?
~I am a bit of both. I am sentimental and save lots of stuff with memories attached. I still have a whole box full of papers and projects from my own K-12 years, as well as my kids'. But I'm not organized enough to have it in scrapbooks--just stuffed in boxes. And I have baby clothes that all four of my kids wore. And old Fisher-Price toys. And a couple of my own old baby dolls.

~On the other hand I don't have a lot of furniture or big things. I vowed years ago not to move things that I don't really like, so when I moved to Vermont I left most of my furniture, and replaced it bit by bit. And I've never had a really big house to fill up (until now, and I've promised myself not to fill this one up, and so far I really haven't).

~I don't have a lot of 'bric-brac' either; all of the things hanging on my walls or sitting on shelves are things that have meaning to me, that have some sort of story.

~I do have a lot of books. I know people with more, but I do have quite a few.

2. Name one important object (could be an heirloom) that you will never part with.
~It's hard to narrow it down to one--see above.

3. What is the oldest item in your closet? Does it still fit???
I have an Icelandic wool jacket I bought in 1975. It doesn't fit and it needs to be relined and cleaned, but I hate to part with it because it reminds me of living in Iceland.

4.Yard sales- love 'em or hate 'em ?
Not a fan. I neither go to yard sales nor have them. When I get rid of stuff, and I do, it goes to Goodwill or someplace like that.

5. Name a recycling habit you really want to get into.
I was really good about recycling when I lived in Vermont and NYC, but where I live now, recycling is a lot of work. So I need to just reestablish the habit--even if it means putting the stuff in the car and driving it to the dump--gah.

So tired...

This has been one of those weeks that just goes on and ooonnnnnn....lots of meetings--deanery, vestry, stewardship, lots of work in between meetings. It hasn't been a bad week, just a busy one. And I have to work again tomorrow (another meeting) and then I have an all day workshop on Saturday, a meeting before church on Sunday and one after...so I'm tired.

Tiredness and blogging don't go well together--note the lack of posts all week. Maybe I'll do better next week. Or not. We'll see.

A lovely retreat

We returned home late this afternoon from our parish retreat. Despite many of us getting stuck in awful traffic on Friday and a rainy Saturday morning, the retreat went well, and I think a good time was had by all. I personally came home exhausted, however. Running a retreat is not so relaxing, but I did get some down time Saturday afternoon and evening.

During my free time I played with my camera a bit, and learned two things, first that I need to learn a great deal more, and second, that I need a tripod. Saturday night we had a bonfire by the lake and as we arrived at the fire pit we were greeted by a beautiful crescent moon that was, as it turns out, setting, not rising. I tried very hard to get a decent picture; here are the best ones.






These are in chronological order. When the moon reached just barely tree level it cast the most beautiful reflection on the water, but it was dark enough that my picture came out quite blurry. My bonfire pictures didn't turn out very well, either, but here's one.


The Kid was one of the musicians for the retreat. We had people of all ages--from toddlers to octogenarians--in attendance, but they all seemed to enjoy the music.


I love the rocking chairs on the porch of the dining hall. I spent some wonderful quiet moments there on Saturday afternoon. There is nothing like a porch rocker for relaxation!

I'm glad tomorrow is my day off. I need to rest up from my retreat!

Retreating..

Off to the woods in nearby New England state for our second annual parish retreat...I'm more or less in charge, so it's a less relaxing prospect that it might be otherwise. But it will still be fun.

Back Sunday.

I wish I could blog a smell...

because the wild grapes outside smell soooo good. The Kid says it smells like W@lch's Gr*pe Juice, but I think it smells much better.

Is this me?

As seen at Chichimama's and Dani's ...

You have 12 days to modify my daemon....what do you think? Click on the image to modify my daemon if you think this one doesn't fit.




And you can go here to make your own.

Traditional blog photos

In the tradition of jo(e)...


the back-of-the-head shot: the Kid and two friends (names under development)



and the hair-covers-his-face-so-you-can't-see-him-anyway shot.

RIP Madeleine L'Engle

According to the New York Times Madeleine L'Engle died yesterday (Thursday) in Connecticut. Those of you who've read here for a while know that L'Engle's writing was very important to me and that I collect her books.

Although I was the right age to read Wrinkle in Time when it was published, I didn't encounter it until I was in my 20s. I loved it, and its sequels, as did my children later on. A little over 20 years ago I attended a retreat led by L'Engle, and began reading her non-fiction as well, but it was only about 10 years ago that I began collecting her books. I have over 40 of them (some are duplicates) and many of them are books that I will go back and read over and over.

A few years ago while reading some biographical information on L'Engle I figured out that one of NSLS's best childhood friends was related to her through L'Engle's mother's family. I don't know if NSLS's friend even knew it, but the connection was really clear to me from the details in the family history.

L'Engle's characters overlapped her books (and occasionally her real life, to the chagrin of her children) and when you read enough of them you could feel like you were part of the family somehow. Readers knew what happened to Meg Murry when she grew up, and some of the Austin characters surfaced in adult fiction (Suzy Austin in Severed Wasp for example). But we never heard more about Charles Wallace. Reportedly when asked if she would write about him again, L'Engle answered that she would if she found out what happened to him when he grew up.

I guess now we'll never know.

Comfort food

When I was sick in June, and my friends were here, they bought B0st0n M@rket mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner. It was soooooo good that I had to have it two more times while I was sick. Ever since then I've craved mashed potatoes (which I've always loved but rarely cook) as comfort food, but I hadn't actually succumbed.

Until last night, when I had a wicked headache, and the Kid went out to dinner with his friends. As soon as I dropped him off I went to St0p and Sh0p and got some mashed potatoes and gravy -- yum. I hesitate to say this, but they were almost better than chocolate.

This whole "Grandma" thing...

Yankee T asked me in a comment if I was going to change my name to "Rev. Dr. Grandma." I don't know if she was serious or not, but no matter: The short answer to that question is no. The long answer is something I've been thinking about--actually I thought about it before I found out that I'm going to become a grandmother. And that is this: I don't want to be called "Grandma" or "Granny" or "Nana" or any of the usual grandmotherly names, for lots of reasons, but mainly because they don't feel like they fit.

"Grandma" in my mind is my mother. We've never actually had a "Granny" in our family, but what I called my grandmother ("Ninnie") was a corruption of Granny; my older sister said "Ninnie" and it stuck. My other grandmother, who died when I was in kindergarten, was called Mama (a as in acid, not Mama with an ah sound, if that makes in sense.) But my kids, including NSLS, called their paternal grandmother by her first name, Iris, because she didn't want to be called by any grandmotherly name either. And that seemed to work just fine.

So I don't know what I do want to be called--not necessarily by my first name, especially since the Kid and I have first names that sound just alike (even though we spell them differently). I guess I have plenty of time to come up with something appropriate. Any suggestions?

A quiet Labor Day

~Except for one service and one meeting yesterday, I've had a very quiet four day weekend. Friday and Mondays are my days off anyway, and this week I had the unusual occurrence of not having to preach and not having any Saturday meetings or duties. And I've been really lazy all weekend--I did some laundry and straightening up, but otherwise I read, took pictures and just hung out.

~I started reading Harry Potter 7 again, more slowly this time to take in all the finer points. And I had missed or forgotten some things. I'm about half way through--when I'm finished I'll see if I feel differently about any of it.

~I have avoided going to the grocery store all four days, even though I really need to get some food in the house. I really dread going--it's not the shopping per se, but the deciding what to buy and what to cook that I really hate. So I put it off....and off and off.

~Unlike me, the Kid has worked every day this weekend, all day. He washes dishes at a local restaurant, and this weekend was the last hurrah for the season. They'll be open until October, but this was probably the last really busy time. And he has homework and he agreed to do some lawn work for someone at church, so he's been a bit overloaded. His allergies are acting up, too, so right now he's trying to finish his chemistry between sneezes.

~I walked down to the Village today to feed my diet Coke addiction, and every other car that passed me was a convertible with the top down. It was a beautiful day for it, for sure.

~When I was on vacation I went days without diet Coke, but now that I'm back I want it every day. Context is everything I guess.

The new camera

As you can tell, I have been having lots of fun with the new camera. I still have LOTS to learn to use it to its full potential. I tried to learn more about using different settings while I was on vacation--I bought a book about the Canon XT that is really helpful, along with the manual that came with it and experimented with taking the same picture with different settings and so on. But mostly I've used the auto setting and the setting for action--most of the fair pictures were taken with that as were the butterfly pictures.

The one thing that has frustrated me is not being able to zoom in. The only reason I was able to get the butterfly pix is because I was standing only about 2 feet from the butterfly, and even so, they are cropped--as are most of the others (which is fine, really). My old camera had 10x optical zoom, though, and I was used to being able to zoom in on things farther away. I could still use the old camera for that, but honestly now when I use it , it seems so SLOW that it makes me crazy. Am I a bit spoiled here? No doubt.

At any rate, I had a little cash I'd been saving for a while, so today I order a telephoto lens. I was going to wait a bit longer, but delayed gratification only works so long for me. Our parish retreat in nearby state is in two weeks, and it will be a good opportunity to work with the camera again. I do feel a bit guilty for spending so much money on myself, but it's done. At any rate, stay tuned for more pictures.

Here are a couple more from Maine:

Butterflies and bumblebees

From a late afternoon walk in the church garden...