Blog Changes

So after nearly seven years, the blog is getting a facelift! By Monday or so there will be a new platform, new look, new better pictures, tabs for my portfolio, and more stuff I haven't even figured out yet. It should even look better on a mobile device (now that I have one of those, I care about these things).

The move should go well because I'm not doing it (these pros are) but just in case this page doesn't cahnge for a week, you can check my Twitter stream for any updates (and follow the saga of the broken French press while you're there).

I Wish I Had His Energy

Of course, I wish Play-Doh (being swung in that bucket) got me that excited, too. More darling pictures at my brother's blog.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Christmas Joy And Christmas $!%*#

First the joy: Last week's kitty blanket tying party will make a lot of kitties warmer and happier this year.

And for the "oh shit" moment of the week: I'm making a rice wrap for my friend (but using buckwheat hulls as a filing instead, since rice can smell a little rice-y and he's sensitive to smells)...

...and I was opening up the buttonholes in the cover and sliced right through one. $%&! Good thing pillow coverss are easy to re-do.

IPHONE

This is what going from a first generation flip phone to an iPhone was like this weekend:

Dawning realization of the power I hold in my hand? Yes! Richard Strauss? Yes! If you need me I can be reached on my monolith. I mean smartphone. 

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Discovery Channel has announced that they've captured footage of "a live giant squid in its natural habitat". We have to wait to tune in January 27th to see any shots, though.

2. In other science-y news, it's the birthday of of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.

3. And in decidedly non-science-y news, shamans have this to say about the new moon yesterday:

As the Moon increases from New to Full Moon, and as the days lengthen and bring more light at Solstice, we have the power of increase at our fingertips. Use it; ride the wave; harness it. On so many levels, we are being offered the portals, tools, and opportunities to tune in to unprecedented spiritual evolution.”

Space!

I love anything from the Hubble Telescope, but this is pretty amazing: A new an hours-long infrared exposure at a section of the  Hubble Ultra Deep Field image has shown us perhaps the most distant galaxies we've ever seen. One of the group of seven is 13.3 billion light years away--meaning that these galaxies were around before Earth even existed. 

I mean....holy shit. Way to be mind-bogglingly vast and ancient, Universe. Way to be clever hairless ape and figure this out, humans.
More information and better pictures are right here at Bad Astronomy.

12.12.12

Happy birthday to my sister-in-law Altair today! She's a gardener, a reader, a runner, a breadwinner, a hard worker, and a great mama to Skyler.

Her namesake!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Kitty Blankets

I spent my hiking time this past weekend getting ready for the Third Annual Kitty Blanket Tying Party at my house this Thursday (here's the first one in 2010). I ended up with seven fleece blankets ready to tie:

Seven isn't that many, but fortunately my mom has been cutting and fringing for a month so there will be blankets for all the kitties.

What I Have Today

I can tell you that it's Emily Dickinson's birthday today and that I did not go for a hike over the weekend, due to shopping and projects and snowing. I said this: 

And Emily said this: 

There's a certain Slant of light

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons—
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes—

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us—
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are—

None may teach it—Any—
'Tis the Seal Despair—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air—

When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death—

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I wanted to announce that I'd finally gotten a smartphone by posting from it (technology!) next week, but yesterday it was left on the porch when it shouldn't have been and now it's missing. I'll get a replacement next week, but I felt like Sad Christmas Grumpy Cat for a while: 

2. Of course, then I see the Atlantic's "Year in Photos 2012" and realize how much of the world had so many more problems than a missing package this year. 

3. And it's Pearl Harbor Day. Also a source of perspective.

"Falling Leaves and Early Snow"

Here's the second half of a Kenneth Rexroth poem I've been saving for a while. It sounds almost Japanese to me, and what he's talking about could be a Japanese painting. Or, you know, today's weather. 

In the afternoon thin blades of cloud

Move over the mountains;

The storm clouds follow them;

Fine rain falls without wind.

The forest is filled with wet resonant silence.

When the rain pauses the clouds

Cling to the cliffs and the waterfalls.

In the evening the wind changes;

Snow falls in the sunset.

We stand in the snowy twilight

And watch the moon rise in a breach of cloud.

Between the black pines lie narrow bands of moonlight,

Glimmering with floating snow.

An owl cries in the sifting darkness.

The moon has a sheen like a glacier.

I Probably Should Re-name The Blog

How about "Better Living Through Hippie Readings"? Because I'm sharing another one. (There may be one every day, if that's what it takes to  make it to the solstice.) 

Anyway, as part of the 3+2 Goals to "be happier [in my work, but really just in general]" and "be more compassionate," I bought The Book of Awakening, a year of readings and meditation prompts. This was today's: 

[Try to] honor each obstacle as something flowing in its own right in the Universal stream, to see ourselves and the obstacle as two limbs of the same tree drifting in the same river, bumping into each other, and even blocking on another for a moment...we must focus on our relationship to the stream and not to the things being carried alongside us.

Tuesday Project Roundup: SQUEEE!

Look at who's modeling his really really oversized sweater!!

 In new project news, I'm going to say that putting up the Christmas tree counts. 

(I'm having a fuse issue with the bottom third of the tree--I replace them but they short out again. That's not very Christmas-y of you, tree.)

December

If it's December, it's time for my favorite part of it: The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar.

Today's image: Part of the Carina Nebula

It's also time to keep something in mind that my yoga teacher shared on Saturday: "The theme for December is forgiveness." That's taken from this page, and the metaphor of "moving houses" really touched me, as did this:

This is the task this month: To forgive and let go. To release the unproductive partnerships and bad investments and stupid mistakes and all the guilt and shame around the ways that we were naïve or impulsive or addicted or ignorant.

...and as you release and let go and forgive, look at what may be coming to you that is new, innovative and exciting. Take a chance on something that feels right and inspires you. Now is the time to have the courage to make the changes you know are right.

And there you go. Space and hippies, brought together for your Monday morning.