• 10:53 Rain ... R still going to cut some wood today. We both feel "running out of time" stress. Sigh.
• 14:55 Off to Barnes & Noble for change of scene. Hope this is the right decision. We're all pushing var. boundaries & buttons today! Eeek.

Yes, some wood was cut. Yes, I got to see some nice folks. Yes, it was good to be out of the house.

But I probably should just have gone away for the weekend. Just too much overall. One of those days!

In the last two-ish weeks, I've
( ... posted some links: pollinators, estrogenic compounds, gender and layoff ratios, dumbass behaviors, robots, 'safety' bills ) It's not so much that I agree with any or all of these, but I found them somewhat thought-provoking (and often deserving of more time than I had to think/discuss).
( ...tried to find a little time for self, family, silliness ) I like it that there was time for me and art and communication. I needed that.
( ...and one geeky thing )

I tend to want to catch up reading LJ before posting anything, especially if it's been a while. This has a similar effect as eating a at really great buffet, as I browse backwards and forwards (generally mostly chronologically) through 2 weeks or more of Default-flist posts (if I included every list and comfy acquaintances I "friended", I'd probably never manage), clicking some of their links. It's a general sense of what folks are up too, occasionally excellent ideas and stories, and feeling nice and full at the end. Thanks, folkses!

Now, if I can find any further time between what I really need to get done and what I do and what I like doing (oh, intersecting realms!), I might have time to post about M being nifty, camping trip, work (or not work), pregnancy, dogs (lack of), and just how nice July has been so far w/r/t people, from part-time lovely housemate to birthday friends to even some pre-gaming.

However, there is laundry, dishes, yoga, invoicing, sites fixes, site tail ends, stacks of data entry, and some presents to find for another birthday. So you only get teased, as I make my list... will do more if I can push it!

(LoudTweeter's server went down, so I'm collecting these notes from my Tuesday (yesterday))

Advertising/Social Justice responding to viewer: http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2009/06/high-tech-anti-domestic-violence.html
     This was a link recommended by MG on FaceBook. It raises a lot of questions and ideas for me, but mostly reminds me in a way of a scene in a movie--was it Gattica? ruthling called FaceBook a brilliant way for friend to serve advertisements to each other, and I think there's some truth in this. I can see tech like this poster (yeah, you gotta go look at the link to see what I mean) being tied to reading the "blink" technology on people's credit card(s) or "smart" passports and such, and relate that to other ad-relevant info in databases. While officially, "they" aren't supposed to be able to get personal info from blink tech (IIRC from a Scientific American issue a couple months back), I don't buy it for a second that such data won't get leaked or sold.

Messing around with print layouts: balancing readability, whimsy, pictures, relatively efficient inkjet printing (ink use, page counts). Hm.
     That would be me experimenting with my SWAPA and other newsletters. I want more clue!

Sunday, July 5: Bug Walk at the Birds of Vermont Museum, Huntington, 10:30 – 12. Free admission to the Museum that day for BugWalkers!
     Just a ping to suggest folks come. More details on the Birds' events calendar: http://www.birdsofvermont.org/events.php

Updating Birds of Vermont Museum site. They have an Art Contest for kids! http://www.birdsofvermont.org/art_contest.php
     Ditto; part of what I was working on at E's while she and her stepdaughterM played with Mojo.

Another day of a fair bit of driving around for various errands and appointments and an unexpected but useful nap and lo! the only useful work being getting an invoice ready to print. I have GOT to stop having days like this.

I laughed at this, from supergee: Star Trek FlowChart, for knowing which movie is which. Hee! I haven't seen about half of these, actually. Or I might've just forgotten. I did see the most recent Star Trek movie and liked many things about it. It made me start thinking about which sets of folk tales/audiences permit messing with "canon"/expansion of canon, and which don't. (I was thinking particularly of Lord of the Rings in contrast to Star Trek, and inherent structure. I told R that if I were some cool lit academic, I could probably get a dozen papers out of this idea, pushing and stretching it, and he just gave me a look. But I mean, really, Grimm & Lang & Andersen, and then Disney & Tepper and McKinley and... ok, ok, it's been done.)

One of Debby's recent posts reminded me to say that we went to see Andre Rieu! For Christmas, Mom arranged for her, MonkeyBoy, sisterK, and R (only he was on call so it became me) to go to the 30th Anniversary concert in Manchester on April 21. Morgan loved, which was the point. So did the rest of us. Music! Dancing! Some of his favorite songs ("the dolly song" and "the bull song") from DVDs! Balloons!!

I slowly read books by the Dalai Lama and by Pema Chodron. I love the way these books make me feel: hopeful, respectful, possible. I'm also reading Dirty Laundry: 100 Days in a Buddhist Monastery. This is a fascinating contrast to works the other two, actually (in both structure and content), and reminds me that Buddhist and Zen practitioners and monks are probably all ordinary people with all of our ego-quirks and drives. They have inspired this question: Is serenity something you can learn, or does the habit of it happen, like wisdom, while you are working on other things?

This question might also be influenced by recent readings in nellorat's and ozarque's LJs. Mind you, they are working on really different processes, but I can see how musing over their posts might poke me into wondering about serenity and wisdom and acceptance amid, during, in response to, and maybe even in celebration (sometimes) of change.

Nellorat's posts this month also are really making me think about health, my own perception and reaction to body shape and size, what my resistances are and my strengths (in terms of governing and increasing my health in my body). Some of ellenmillion's recent art, and some of lepi's practices in the last year+ are part of this weaving, and I think so is my swimming and some good news I received today (thyroid, sugars, liver all tested normal or excellent). I thank you all, especially Nellorat, very much. (I may write more details later, or I may not, since I'm not sure it would be much more than a snapshot of current thinking rather than serious process/change/growth. Either way is OK.) If you're interested in this sort of thing, go browse her blog.

We're on vacation next week (lepi is part-time housesitting or sorts, thank you dear!): off to NY and Philly, bracketed if we're lucky by some birthday parties, and not getting the garden planted but at least frost will be almost surely gone by the time we're back. Not to mention continuing to practice really silly run-on sentences.

• 09:10 coffee + random(Abba, Chieftains, Vivaldi, Rusted Root, Gaelic Storm) wins initiative roll v. sorrow+chores. Plus getting to see E&L later!
• 20:33 Retail therapy: New sable brushes for me; foam and bulldozer model kit for Mojo. Thanks, Turbocat, for gift card!

from twitter to LJ via LoudTwitter...all hail crossposting silliness! (And don't even ask about Ping...)
Actually, I didn't totally take the day off. Also was total goddess of laundry, of keeping fire going, and of washing dishes, and didn't suck on the vaccuuming front either. Hah.

quick notes from the day

• 12:01 Long list, short day. But sunny! And all days are short, anyway. I mean, it's January...
• 13:48 Listening to "Extreme Chocolate" ping.fm/kKWVF while working. Mmmm......

from twitter to LJ via LoudTwitter

metasilk ...

• 17:26 Exhausted. Tornado of nieces/nephews/presents. Mother in law read SWAPA out loud to me. All 3 mothers in 1 house yesterday. Today: sledding.

from twitter to LJ via LoudTwitter

... I really wanted to write "wrapstuff" ... yikes!