beach week memories--sand castles

music . . .

OK, I'll admit . . . this label was already long overdue when I added it last December.

Maybe it's because music is the one simple pleasure in life that renders me powerless, eludes me, takes me to places and times I can't always come home from, at least not unchanged . . .

Soon after my last cell phone upgrade--maybe the day I downloaded Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of Gabriel's Oboe and made it my ringtone--I added own an mp3 player to my too-long to-do list. I did the research, to the point of deciding that the one I wanted would be a someday purchase--as in when the Christmas debts were paid, after the price came down, etc., etc.

A year and a half later, I've just been (late-birthday) gifted with the very one I wanted--both upgraded and downpriced. I've spent most of today revisiting a modest collection of CD's I rarely make time to enjoy . . .

A gig of downloads and four playlists later, I'm so enjoying this now-simple pleasure.

And going in my mind to other times, other places, other . . . selves . . .

. . . where there is time, there is a circle . . .

7 more reasons to be happy . . .

left-to-right, top-to-bottom

26. Cassie

27. Kelsey

28. Campbell

29. Mason

30. Michael

31. Kira

32. Garrett

beach blues . . .

Full circle again. North Carolina beaches nourished and inspired my childhood dreams. This was the beginning . . .

Back to another North Carolina beach this week . . . with other children with other dreams. A bit bittersweet, though, from this place in time . . .

There's something to be said for the innocence of childhood . . . Need to remember to take this inner child along with me, to let her out to play and wonder and dream . . .

Bonneville blues . . .

It's the end of an era - 21 years of entrusting my life, the lives of those I love, to me behind the wheel of a Bonneville.

I've owned three. Each with its own set of memories, with its own set of tin-woman personality quirks.

I saw the first Bonneville on the highway on our way home from taking our first child off to college--first year, out of state, far from home. I remember crying that Sunday in church as another talented teenager played the flute in her place . . . The image of the car left an indelible mark. A few weeks later, I went in search of one much like it and suspect I found exactly the one--a demo--I'd seen that earlier afternoon. It was blue--really just blue--and I loved it. But, like so many first-of-its generation cars, not so very reliable. The fuel pump failed within walking distance of work. Several years later, the (first) transmission failed when I was on my way to work on a statewide testing day (I was the school test coordinator). From that car I learned to diagnose terminal illness of the alternator, a skill that spared me two potential Bonneville strandings. Having also learned to diagnose cancer of the transmission, I reluctantly traded it in for Bonneville #2 (just in time, I was told).

Bonneville #2 - an interesting metallic purple gray with soft gray leather seating - was my love. I'm sure it had its share of mechanical problems. In fact I remember one I diagnosed long before the mechanics would believe I wasn't just some crazy woman who thought she understood cars. And, yes, this car too came at a turning point in my life--moving, sending my last child off to college (first year, out of state, far from home), moving again . . . If it hadn't been for that last child, I don't know that I could have let that car go . . .

On the morning of one of those January days with snow in the air, my last child had what we hope still would be his last wreck - a close call, interstate median, just missing trees that could have stopped time for us all. I had promised him Bonneville #2 when the time came for me to move on to something newer, more reliable. Now, when I wasn't at all ready, was the time. On an icy Saturday, eight years ago, I met Bonneville #3 - midnight blue metallic, taupe leather seats, I was determined not to become attached.

This wasn't just about keeping a promise. It was also about taking a leap of faith. More car than I had funds to purchase, even with a five year loan, at the time . . . Just a few months later, I was offered the career opportunity that has shaped these last eight years--and the extra pay I so needed to support my Bonneville passion.

This Saturday--8.5 years and almost 140K miles later--I found the strength to let go. I could sense that this was the time--not that I wanted to let go (I would have kept Bonny 3 forever too), but that I must let go. Bonny 3 must have sensed my decision. When I turned the key in the ignition yesterday morning, silence . . . The original battery (I could write a book on what I've learned since about batteries located under the back seat, passenger side, AAA can't replace, special mounting kit required) died without warning (as if I hadn't been watching the battery indicator for years now, thinking surely I would know).

For the first time in 21 years, I am not a Bonneville owner. I've joined the ranks of SUV owners, downsized, de-glamorized . . .

I will not become attached to this car . . . It's not a Bonneville, after all . . . But I opted for the blue without and the gray leather within all the same . . .

SUV woman :- /

full circle

I've come full circle, in the last few weeks--immersing myself once again in my post-graduate quest for understanding all things technology (technology and literacy, that is) and in my undergraduate thirst for knowing all there was to know about the story of our world (and, more specifically, about the European history that is my heritage).

The technology stories I'll tell, all this next year, on (one of) my other blogs, thevirtualsandbox. But the world history stories will make their home here, I think.

I spent much of last weekend reading the first half of Volume 3 of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World--fodder for fashioning texts sets to support the humanities curriculum writing going on at my school. It was fascinating reading--stories new and stories I'd once known, but long ago forgotten.

Coming full circle . . .

One story I did not know. All my life I've heard the phrase "Black Hole of Calcutta." I had no idea what it meant, or even that it meant anything worth knowing. A seed of a story in Bauer's book led me to an out-of-print reprint--Noel Barber's The Black Hole of Calcutta: A Reconstruction--a book newly published at about the time I should have read it first, but am sure I didn't. I made the time for that reading this weekend . . . oddly enough on the anniversary dates of that world-changing event, June 20-21, 1756.

I've gleaned two important truths from the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta. I now understand how and why the British came to rule India. Retribution. The second truth validates my valuing of life's simple pleasures. The author concludes his account with this observation: nature has a habit of outlasting history.

Coming full circle . . .

2 years later . . .

It all started so simply--a place where I could post our family photos, my son explained. Blogging was uncharted waters for me. I'd created an award-winning webpage for work several years earlier, using Netscape Composer, but this seemed, somehow, the greater challenge. Those first pictures of Michael were the only trace of this venture/adventure for months . . . until, tasked with creating a multigenre piece of writing around a theme of my choosing, the concept of capturing, of celebrating life's simple pleasures in a virtual writer's notebook took shape.

I have a new writing assignment this summer--a cultural autobiography. Not sure which virtual scrapbook I'll use for that--only that it will be more . . . private perhaps?

I've webpaged (two new sites at work this year), wikied (I'm a rank beginner but learning), Photostoried, and begun moving on to Smart notebooks and Movie makers . . .

In the fall, I'll coteach, for the first time in a long while, a technology course . . .

But writing for this blog has been, is, and will continue to be . . . a simple pleasure.

rose of the week/month/year/decade/andbeyond?

I think it's been at least two years, if not three, since Brigadoon bloomed for me. Just last year I noticed that much of the bark and wood at her base had splinterchipped away. Natural aging, I guess. What more to expect of a rose that spent her youth containerbound before being tucked away in a deeply shaded, treerootbound, oft-neglected rose garden?

I took a picture of her single bud this spring, fully expecting that it might not mature. Was I ever wrong, in just this week when I needed a gentle reminder that miracles happen all around us every day of our lives . . .

7-11

When I was little, I thought convenience store was a fancy name for the seb'm-leb'm down the highway. This birthday year, 7-11 has taken on a whole new meaning!

the no-longer-seven . . .

and the just-turned-eleven . . .