Is It 2012 Already?

I cannot believe that it is 2012 already.  Where did the time go?  I last posted around Thanksgiving—and now it is January.  I had not planned on not blogging for these last weeks of the year; it just sort of happened.  I even read other blogs rather sporadically and commented even less.  Not sure why.  But I bet there is a short story in those missing weeks.

I started looking for reasons, alphabetically:   Absentmindedness?  Accident?  Adventure?  Alien Abduction?  Asthma Attack?  Avarice?  There is probably a bit of truth and fantasy in every option.  So I will just say the time passed, and I am getting back onto my routine.  Or trying to.  Given what day it is, I resolve to post to my blog at least twice a week, as I intended when I started this adventure.  Other resolutions will be posted later, probably.

As I look back on the holiday season, I do want to say thanks to my blogging friends, who kept busy even while I was silent.  I also appreciated the time I was able to spend with my parents this year—they are both getting older with increasing problems with memory and general aches and pains.  I cannot make things better for them, but I can spend time with them and share memories, pictures, movies, chocolate, and a general good time.  My parents seemed to enjoy the little family open house early in December!

At this time of year, I also just love the Christmas Spirit—colored lights and Secret Santas and reconnecting with friends, spending time with family, enjoying holiday goodies and watching Christmas movies.  It was a good holiday. I do resolve to keep my daily gratitude journal alive, even though I do not post everything from the journal on my blog.

Happy New Year, everyone!  What are you thankful for as the old year moves on and the new year starts?  Any resolutions you want to share?

What a Delightful Surprise: Blog Awards

The other day when reading one of the blogs I am subscribed too, I noticed that the blog’s host was the recipient of three blog awards:  The Stylish Blogger, The Versatile Blogger, and The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award.   The recipient was Deborah @ The Monster in Your Closet—and her wit and careful observation of the world around her, including her delightful little boy, are truly deserving of the awards.  You should check out her blog!

These awards are given by bloggers to other bloggers.  There are some basic rules.  First, each recipient needs to identify the one who bestowed the award on him or her–and share extensive thanks.  Second, the blogger receiving the award needs to share seven details not readily known about him or herself.  Third, the recipient passes the award along to 15 other bloggers.  Fourth, be sure to alert the new award recipients they are winners!  Receiving one of the awards is a great honor as well as a chance to champion the bloggers each recipient reads and enjoys on a regular basis.  Everyone gets a chance to broaden their interactions.

I am telling you all this, because Deborah named me as one of her recipients of all three awards.  I had to reread to be sure I saw correctly.  I have not been blogging very long, so this does indeed feel like a great honor.  My first thought was thanks and appreciation to Deborah for awarding these honors on my blog.  My second thought was really a worry:  How can I identify 15 bloggers to pass these awards on to?  I do subscribe to a handful of blogs—and I add more every week mostly from reading freshly pressed blogs—but naming 15 quality these-are-great-to-highlight-and-share blogs?  I felt overwhelmed.  But then I started reviewing all of my subscriptions, noting which ones I especially like to see pop into my email, which ones routinely make me laugh or think or nod in agreement.  All of a sudden, finding only 15 did not seem so easy.  So I made myself a new criteria—I would nominate from those I had been following for more than three weeks or so. 

Rather than giving all three awards to all on my truly-read-and-appreciate list, I have identified at least one person for each award, but most are getting “The Versatile Blogger” Award.   The list is given below.  Keep in mind that my short synopsis of each site does not do the site justice.  You need to see them for yourself, so please follow the links . . . and enjoy.  I am not sure if this is following or breaking the rules, but I have named two website/blogs that are not housed at WordPress.  The following list is not presented in any special order.

Malinda @ Dendrochronology:  Her subtitle is “The rings of life, thought, and action.”  Her postings are always honest, perceptive, and provocative as she shares life’s insights about many things, such as blogging, summer schedules or her daughter’s foray into the world of volunteerism.  She is also starting to share photos that capture the world around her.  Enjoy!

Tricia @ Tricia Booker Photography:  Her home page is headed with this great Emerson quote:  “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”  She presents photographs each day—often just one—that captures that quote’s appreciation of life.  The first image of hers I saw was a flower, but she also shares views of birds and kids and dogs and horses and many other things.  Her work captures the wonder of life.  Enjoy!

Lisa @ The Big Sheep Blog:  Her subtitle is “Where imagination, business and life collide.” She sees (and shares) humor in life’s irritations and looks for balance, sharing entries on a range of topics from the evolution of bathing suits to shopping mall horrors, from eating fast food to insights on today’s media.  She’s a freelance writer who also shares her insights about life in her world.  Enjoy!

Phil @ Strange Bird:  His subtitle is “Paying attention to every moment . . . right now.”  His postings offer a consistent format:  a provocative juxtaposition of vivid image, poetry and video that helps his readers see things from a new perspective.  His versatility comes from the range of topics he explores from birth to dance to liminality.  He always surprises me. . . and makes me think.  Enjoy!

Dusty @ Around Dusty Roads:  She is “a woman of a certain age” who narrates her travels—near home and afar—with attention to all the details: vistas and tour logistics as well as local flora and fauna. She gives you a chance to be there too.  I first started traveling with her when she was visiting Sedona, but now that she is back home she has also explored local area forts and museums.  Enjoy!

Susan @ Creative Procrastination: She is a wife and mother who lives in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains, VA.  She is a great storyteller who writes about writing, nature, country life, and the antics of her Jack Russell Terrier; her posts often culminate in lessons from the homestead.  As an added bonus, she is an expert on Dr. Suess and shares some of his quotes periodically.  Enjoy! 

Lee @ Lee Rentz Photography:  As a professional photographer, his postings include terrific photos that document his life and travels.  Whether he is on a birding trip, out camping or hiking, visiting a flower show, or capturing the wonders of city life, his artistic eye captures the wonder of his subjects through a focus on color, form, and texture.  Enjoy!

Darice @ Grown Up for Real!  Her postings share her realizations about career, family, and relationships as she tries to balance the grown-up stuff in her life.  She shares wit, wisdom, and keen observations as she provides book referrals, thoughtful quotes, and insights about life.  Her postings are often direct and to the point, especially on Wordless Wednesdays and Post-It Note Tuesdays.  Enjoy!

Jesse @ Succincity:  His subtitle is “Business, Marketing, and How People Work.”  Succinct is a great adjective for his ability to clarify and simplify the elements of marketing and business—but his insights are most often applicable to all of life, especially since his main focus is on people.  Whether he is talking about culture and honesty or personal breweries and 7-11, he makes me think and appreciate in new ways.  Enjoy!

Tim @ Slouching towards Thatcham:  His subtitle is “Tales from the front-line of life, fatherhood and the living room sofa.”  He offers thoughtful often imaginative comments on varying aspects of fatherhood and society, questioning—for example—who is really disabled and whether little boys should wear pink.  He also offers reviews on film, video and TV shows such as “The Apprentice,” “Dr. Who,” and “American Idol.”  Enjoy!

Cheryl & Ismail @ Honest Course:  The subtitle of this website/blog is “Celebrating honesty and integrity in society, government, and individuals.”  This is a relatively new site that is not hosted by WordPress.  Much like Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent, this site can seem unassuming, but it is dedicated to truth, justice, and perhaps even the American Way.  It’s worth a look.  Enjoy!

Emily @ The Heart of the Artist:   This is another non-WordPress website/blog that is worth some attention.  This site is dedicated to celebrating the creative process and giving glimpses into the artists as well as their work.  Some of the artists named on the above list might want to sign up as one of the artists to be showcased.  Enjoy!

Jean @ Jean of All Trades:  She first caught my eye when she shared photos of the art and fashion she encountered in Santa Fe, NM.  Since then, she has been intriguing, sharing fashion shots with flair and passion. But her postings also offer insightful comments on such topics as feminism in the media.  Enjoy!

 

Nana @ Inside NanaBread’s Head: Her subtitle explains that her blog is a lot like her junk drawers, full of “tidbits, trash, and treasures.” Her friendly, cheerful postings comment on many aspects of life, including family, crafts, and travel, but she also willingly shares recipes and photos that make you think you can create these dishes as well.  Her recipes range from oatmeal cookies and tart cherry dark chocolate bark to smoky baby back ribs.  Enjoy!

Natalie @ While I Breathe, I Hope: Her open, honest, witty postings share insights about her life and family in Pittsburgh—and that family includes a great Great Dane.  On top of that, she makes cooking look easy as she shares recipes and photos that literally make you hungry.  Enjoy!

Now comes the really hard part:  Sharing seven details about myself that most people probably don’t know.  As you can see, I have added my own qualifiers so I can stop worrying if I mentioned some aspect of these details already somewhere on my blog.  I suppose one of my items could be that I do not always remember everything I write, but I do tend to remember what I read! 

Here are the details:

1. When I was little, maybe 4 or 5, I flew with an older cousin in a small two-seater plane.  He had gotten his pilot license and was showing off.  My memory is not real clear, but my general sense if that I had a great time just barely being able to really see out the windows.  He is now a retired engineering professor living in Canada who will be in CA for a meeting and for visits with family this weekend. I plan to get more details from him to help my memory.  But I think it is this experience that has me hoping to eventually go up in a hot air balloon and maybe even skydive!
2. I really like elephants.  I imagine I have said that before in a blog entry or two.  But when I was a kid, again maybe about 5, I was taken to the zoo and there was a baby elephant there. I fell in love.  We lived in Chicago at the time, and I was determined to have a baby elephant as a birthday present.  I did not get what I wanted, but I did have a plan:  she would live in the basement, eat cheerios, and play in the back yard.  Made sense to me—and started my fascination with these gentle giants.
3. When I first went to graduate school, I was an English major—in fact, I specialized in American Literature.  Of course, I have read the classics.  Except Moby Dick.  I started that tome several times, wrote papers on it, took tests on it, refer to it when teaching, enjoy the references to it in Star Trek, but I have not read it from cover-to-cover.  Ssh.  Don’t tell anyone.
4. I have read pretty much all the works of Robert Frost and Walt Whitman.  They, in fact, are my two favorite poets.  In so many ways they are not alike, but they have a core appreciation of nature, life, and its cycles that comes through in their work.  They are both apt to write about fences and roads and wandering the fields—and I think in part my love of nature comes from their vivid presentations that so capture the mind and imagination. 
5. If asked, I am quick to point out that I am NOT a watcher of Reality TV.  How can anyone enjoy (or waste their time) on such shows as The Jersey Shore or The Real Housewives of Whereever?  I can get fairly snooty about this fact.  So it is rather embarrassing to admit that I do watch shows such as Judge Judy, People’s Court, and Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares.  I swear, I managed to keep myself from realizing they too are Reality TV.  See, you can get people to believe anything!
6. Did I mention that I really, really like elephants?  Over 10 years ago now, I had a great experience through a weekend class.  I was part of a group that toured a wild animal ranch housing animals who were all movie stars.  The best part of the day was being able to give Nellie, a 7.5 year old African elephant, a bath.  She loved it!  We all got drenched. Rather than sponges, we used brushes and hoses—but it was great fun!  I would do it again in an instant.
7. I am a cancer survivor.  In February 2012 it will be five years since I had the full complete hysterectomy that got all the cancer.  I did not even need radiation or chemo-therapy. I felt very blessed, especially given what suffering so many cancer patients have to contend with.  I do not talk about this much, but the awareness of being that close to death and surviving changed my perspective.  That experience urged me to be more vigilant in appreciating life, going out to play, and telling people how much they mean to me. 

That’s it!  That’s my seven things most people probably did not know about me!  Please take a minute to visit the blogs I listed above as blog award recipients—they are cherishing and reporting on life in great ways.  We all should go out and play!

Thanks for reading.

Saying THANKS

Lately I have been reading a book called One Thousand Gifts.  My sister gave it to me, and again she is right:  it is great, provocative, potentially life changing.  It is not fiction; I guess I would label it a memoir or maybe devotional.  Ann Voskamp, the author, shares her journey from overwhelming grief to a life filled with thanksgiving and appreciation, a life—for her—that leads back to God.  What initiates her journey is her journal where she records 1000 items that capture her attention and her thanks.  It does not have to big things like world peace—just the day-to-day details and moments that often go overlooked. 

For example, Ann’s list includes the following items:

• First frost’s crunch
• Kettle whistling for tea on a cold afternoon
• Mama delivering chicken soup to the back door
• Toothless smiles

Her gratitude makes sense to me, in part because I already note the items of nature that capture my eye and heart.  But I never thought about keeping a catalog before of those items as well as of the daily occurrences that are easy to overlook. Her book suggests that slowing down to notice and appreciate these items can help set an attitude of gratitude for life.  It’s the mindset that makes the difference.  Ann starts realizing the power of her journal when a friend questions her about the change that is becoming evident:  “Yes . . . you’ve changed.”  Ann goes quiet, pondering how to respond, since she had not realized the change she was feeling was becoming visible. 

Her thoughts capture her quandary:  “I don’t say it, but I am thinking she may be right and I had felt it for months, the maturing, the swelling, the something different that had begun to happen.  But I had thought the re-creation was still embryonic, a bud of hope. I hadn’t thought it had fully bloomed.  I hadn’t thought that anyone could see the light in the eyes.” Her friend suggests the change is a result of the list she’s been writing.  Slowly, Ann offers her answer, “’Yes . . . “ There. A moment. And yes. ‘It’s The List.’”

Since I had been thinking about writing my own list, this week seemed an especially good time to get started. After all, I had a special experience I could add to the list.  No, I am not listing that I was freshly pressed—although that was terrific!  I had already shared in an earlier posting that the sense of audience inherent in keeping a blog is powerful.  Therefore, getting close to 1400 views in one day, almost more than I had received since I had started my blog months ago, was overwhelming.  But my appreciation is being recorded for the sense of community that became real to me through the feedback provided by others. Some “liked” what I wrote, others left comments, and a handful subscribed. 

It was the camaraderie, the shared experience that stays with me.  To extend the connection, I have visited the blogs of those who stopped by—and was rewarded with wondrous entries that made me laugh and cry, took me to new worlds, or suggested new ideas to ponder.  I collected book titles and recipes and travel destinations. It’s nice being a member of this blogging community—and that is what I am thankful for!

The other items I catalog as I start my list I share with my readers as a way of saying “Thanks!” Thanks for your feedback.  Thanks for making me feel part of this blogging community.  Here’s the start of my list—maybe you will find something here that you appreciate as well:

A sister who loves and supports me, and who I could always count on to play (as kids and adults)!

Being part of a blogging community

Roses in all their variety and splendor

Wind rustling through the trees unexpectedly about 3 am, catching my attention and then lulling me to sleep

The laughter of my neighbor’s kids as they run in from the pool

Snuggling under a blanket on a chilly morning

A cat’s ability to hide in plain sight

Seeing a wolf at Yellowstone, even though it was too far off to capture a picture

The satisfaction of finishing a novel that has kept me up all night

Catching glimpses of birds darting across a field, daring anyone to identify them

Dogs—mine from long ago that I still miss at times and any others I am lucky enough to meet along the way

Bringing a bit of spring indoors

So, THANKS, readers for being part of my blogging community.  What are you grateful for?

On the Path to Finding My Voice

“The spirit of the road beckoned, and I could do no work at all.” Basho

Writing is a process. I know that. After all, I taught freshmen composition for over 20 years. My goal with the student writers was to help them master academic writing, so they could reach their educational goals. These young writers needed to master three things: fluency, confidence, and a sense of audience. With those skills, they could then produce essays and research projects—and then start worrying about punctuation, sentence structure, paragraphing, all that. They initially did not believe me that boring, cookie cutter prose was not good writing, even if all the words were spelled correctly and there were no comma errors in sight.

Fluency was the easiest quality to develop—if they would follow directions. They needed to write, write, write. Then write some more. To fill the page. To not see putting pen to paper—or fingers to keyboard—as a bothersome chore to get through. Writing could help them learn, organize ideas, just see what they were thinking. Get them thinking. One technique was to freewrite—just write and see what comes out! Don’t stop, don’t edit, just keep the pen moving. Keep a journal. Jot down ideas. For some students I would recommend Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones in an effort to nudge them into free flowing creativity.

Confidence was more intimidating for the students. Most of them did not trust that they had anything to say. Even the loud class clowns or defiant questioners often mumbled on the page. Addressing a blank sheet of paper (or screen) with determination and courage to get the words out there is daunting, especially if you do not yet trust your own voice. The nudge of assignments and grades can get them moving, but success comes when they take pride of ownership and care about being understood. Not all students get this far—but most do at least enough to address assigned topics and move on to the next class.

The transition from student writer into just a novice writer usually surfaced when a sense of audience became more automatic vs. an afterthought. First drafts are often for the writer herself, figuring out what needs to be said. When your awareness of your writing shifts to the start of a conversation, to a concern about whether the ideas make sense to someone else, you are a writer. Revision helps. But this transition requires the development of a new sensibility: the awareness that the communication is incomplete without sharing and connecting with someone else through the words, whether you can literally see that other person or not.

I enjoyed that part of my academic life, especially when I could witness a student blossom into a writer. The other part of my academic life—as a professor and an administrator—also involves writing. Writing is not the whole job, of course. As a dean, for example, I solve problems, plan budgets, attend meetings, keep others motivated and learning. But a lot of what I do involves writing: daily communications, evaluations, reports, grants, surveys, proposals, to name a few of the end products. I actually enjoy helping produce a grant proposal or writing an accreditation report. Professionally, I have always seen myself as a writer.

I share this preamble about my long term, professional immersion in writing to help clarify how surprised I was the other day. AHA: In my own personal writing I was still a student writer! I lacked the confidence to put my work out there for an audience to read. I doubted my voice. Would my musings really be of interest to others? This realization came when a trusted friend asked me to read a draft of her novel. She too has been a writer for years, mostly of historical documents and newspaper columns. The novel was her first venture into a new genre—and she had not shared it with others yet. But she had the guts to send it out there for me to read. I was honored—and it was great!

Her bravery got me thinking. What am I waiting for? Why am I not producing more personal writings to share with others? How could I share my writings? Right then and there, I decided I would start a blog. I did not really know what that meant. Blogs, Facebook, Tweets were all foreign to me—unknown territory. But I bolstered my confidence, found a voice—timid as it was—and started the blog. I knew I needed deadlines in order to produce, so I set the goal of publishing every couple of days.

I have been blogging for about a week now. So far, so good.

My blog is more a monolog than a dialog thus far, but I am writing. Sharing this realization has helped bolster my confidence even further. Plus, sharing a goal publically gives me something to be held accountable to. With some more practice and increased fluency, I am now more productive. My voice is getting stronger. And I am seeing my writing more and more as an adventure than as work that needs finishing.

I like the path I am on—and I will keep wandering. Maybe others will keep reading.