Quote of the Day: Take a Deep Breath

photo by jfowithahalo
quote by Wil Wheaton
via the Twittersphere

Quote of the Day: It Comes in Waves

"So, why do you think people do it? she asked. "Leave each other?"

"I don't know," Marion answered.

"But you've written articles about it."

"That doesn't mean I know anything." Marion's tone was light. Caroline looked over at her, waiting. After a while, Marion gestured out toward the ocean beyond the windows.

"I think love is kind of like those waves out there," she said. "You ride one in to the beach, and it's the most amazing thing you've felt. But at some point the water goes back out; it has to. And maybe you're lucky--maybe you're both too busy to do anything drastic. Maybe you're good as friends, so you stay. And then something happens -- maybe it's something as big as a baby, or as small as him unloading the dishwasher -- and the wave comes back in again. And it does that, over and over. I just think sometimes people forget to wait."

Erica Bauermesiter, Joy for Beginners, Page 45-46

 photos c. April 2013, North Fork of Long Island

Trying to read again. Pulling out quotes that strike my fancy. That's all.

Quote of the Day: Moments in Life

"There were moments in life, [she] thought, when you reached back, baton in hand, feeling the runner behind you. Felt the clasp of their fingers resonating through the wood, the release of your hand, which then flew forward, empty, into the space ahead of you."

~ Eric Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners, Page 189

Quote of the Day: No Such Thing

“Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” 

-Scott Adams

via the Twitters

Happy Father's Day 2014!

Possibly the only one looking good here was Dad - despite Jed's smirk. 

Ah, the 1980s. What can I say?

Except ...

APPY

ATHERS

Or, 

Happy Father's Day!

Yes, you! Stop goofing off and let me take the picture.*

Grampa Max, Grumpa, or *squeeeal and point*

 Grumpa Max with Jed's boys ... Drew and Cannon

 Grumpa, Jed, and Cannon

There, apparently, is a love of plaid that transcends generations ...

 Up at J's: all the boys, in descending order: Grumpa, Jed, J, and Nathan

and ghosts of generations past and future.**

 The use of elbows to defend food also transcends the generations through the male line***.

Grumpa and Nathan

 Hope you got some peace and quiet today so you could get lost in a good book.

*But you wonder where WE got it from?

I mean, HELLO!?

** Can you see them? There were a LOT of relatives ghosting about in the house that day. Possibly even Malcolm.

Who is Malcolm? "Malcolm" is the name I have assigned to my potentially new nephew. It might be a girl, you say? But if there's a Nathan, there has to be a Malcolm - so Nathan Fillion/Malcolm Reynolds can have full honor in the family. If it's a girl, and J & Christina are working off the A,E, I, O, U naming guide ... Inara? Um... I'm getting out of this conversation, post haste. Not my call. NOPE. So until then ... Malcolm Monkey *I* think it is. 2 boys. 2 girls. The end. We shall see by the end of the year. Stay tuned.

***Please note: Yes, Grumpa Max loves his granddaughters too. Amber, Elle, and Sarah are loved, as I am and my sisters-in-law -- but I don't have group photos of them from the December 2013/January 2014 and February 2014 trips. OKAY!? Man. Such pressure. And people wonder why I stop blogging from time to time. This shouldn't take an hour for a loving honoring post.

~photos via iTouch and Nikon

Photos of the Day: Going to the Chapel

Once upon a time, a rich man built a castle to live in, and had his own chapel built for private worship. 

Then eventually, things happened and a convent of nuns took over the estate to run a college. 

And it came to pass that they built their own chapel to worship in. 

Times changed, economics changed, and the world changed ... and the old chapel fell to ruins.

Generations of those college students, the neighborhood kids, and other school kids did use the ruins as a place of curiosity, exploration, and sometimes, nefarious partying.

More time passed and the world continued to change.

Lo - it came to pass that new administrators decided to shore up the old chapel, preserving - but not restoring - it for history and wonderment.

Many generations still come to wonder, remember, and appreciate - what we called the Haunted Chapel.

HAUNTED?!

I don't think it's haunted any more.

What a wonderful preservation job.

You can almost hear the hymns.

 

We never got to go in and look up into the turret.

 

 Taken Saturday, June 7, 2014 during Manhattanville College Reunion Ramblings


Photos via iTouch

And I'm off to an actual wedding, at another Castle-type building.

Photo of the Day: Let Sleeping Lambs Lie

Or it will be BAAAAAAH - D.

Muscoot Farm, Katonah, NY

Taken via iTouch during a lunchtime run to the farm to drop off a donation

Photos of the Day: Unexpected Art Happenings

Discovered while wandering around 125th Street, outside the Cloisters, and around Washington Heights

Memorial Day, 2014

photos via iTouch

Photos of the Day: Pull up a Chair or 2

Given how busy things are "write" now, it might  be best if you pull up a chair 

Or desk at one of my events in order to get my attention (I can't promise uninterrupted) for a bit.

Photos from Sunday: top at a donor event at Caramoor and bottom, an old desk at ye old alma mater, Manhattanville as part of my 20th college reunion.

How has it been 20 years and how did I lever my butt in and out of those contraptions?

- iTouch photos and via iTouch

Photo of the Day: Hammock Time

Lockwood/Bielecki's Wild Energy installation, Caramoor's Cedar Walk

It's not even the full-on Festival yet, and already .... I have the opposite of Wild Energy. I am exhausted.

Nay, sick and tired.

I actually think I am running a fever. 
Though, it could be allergies ...

But I am TIRED.

Though, to be fair, I had a very full Reunion/Caramoor event heavy weekend AND very little sleep AND an office retreat and a few other life issues all at the same time! 

SO MUCH GOING ON FOR THE NEXT TWO MONTHS!

And the Festival doesn't start for 10 more days.

Sigh.

If you need me, I will be dreaming about being out in these hammocks (after being dipped in bug spray.)


Photo via iTouch

Photos of the Day: Stately Homes

You know ... the houses that have been the center of my life the last week or so? 
Not too shabby.

Definitely NOT a cube in a big Grey Box in an Urban Jungle.
MUCH bigger than my Attic.

Not bad places to work, play, reminiscence and retreat.

Spanish Courtyard, Caramoor's Rosen House

Trimpin's art piece, Piano House at Caramoor

Reid Hall aka the Castle, Manhattanville College

Main House, Muscoot Farm, Katonah, NY

Photos via iTouch

Photos of the Day: Chalkboard Confessionals

We, the Class of 1994, do solemnly swear we were up to no good in Professor Bowling's old lecture hall.

 

 Mischief Managed and messages c. Della/Doralice

photos via iTouch

~ via iTouch

Photo of the Day: Reflections

Music Room, Rosen House, Caramoor, Katonah, NY

photo via iTouch

I feel the need .. the need to read

graphics via the Twitters and Someecards

With apologies to the writers of Top Gun

Editor's note: as of 6/11/2014, there is a stack of 5 books on my bedside table, 10 stacked up on my credenza, and a note from the library saying they have 6 more that ordered. Why did I think I was going to catch up with 6 months of reading RIGHT BEFORE FESTIVAL?

Photo of the Day: Serenity Now

Buddha at the Rosen House, Caramoor, Katonah, NY

Deep breaths!

Just remember to breathe.

photo via iTouch

Photo of the Day: Reading between the (blue) lines

This came in via my e-mail and my Twitter feeds last night. 

UM...

WHAT?!

Aside from knowing that my brother J seems to be about to lose his mind, you can now infer what I can infer.

And you know what I know.

Updates later.

Quote of the Day

via the Twitters

Turn of the Page/ Turn of the Phrase

It's ... June?

June?!

With the turn of the calendar page, I'm going to try and be better about adding a note or two to this blog page. 

Maybe if I ease back in, the words and creativity will start to flow down the dry paths?

Sometimes it will be a photo, or sometimes it will be a turn of the phrase.

Speaking of a turn of phrase:

These, from a recent New York Times Travel article, particularly struck me, especially after a recent quick trip back up to Connecticut's familiar back roads:

At that moment, I understood that you could not inhabit anyplace permanently, except in memory, and that this was as it should be. ...

I felt the shimmer of time’s continuum flickering against the backdrop of place. ...

... I realized there did not have to be just one home: In the mind, geography converges; beloved landscapes, villages, cities, countries, all become one, in the borderless scrapbook of memory.

 

from A Return to Rural France, and to Childhood Memories, by Liesl Schillinger on May 28, 2014, New York Times

Writer's envy? Travel envy? A bit of both. You betcha. But ... so grateful for what I do have.

Scenes from CT quick trip:

 

Xo, Auntie Nettie