Friday, August 31, 2007

I promised news of my busy teenager, A.J. So here it is:

http://www.mtvu.com/music/freshmen/

is a link which will take you to MTV's Freshmen Video of the Week website. This past week's video was "Big Drag" by Limbeck, a California band who came to Minneapolis to shoot their video. A.J. worked on the making of the video for a weekend during his Spring Break. He was a gopher/assistant/intern and also appears in the video!

Limbeck's video won last week, and that means my kid is on MTV! as well as on their website.

If you watch it, you will see A.J. at approximately the point where the chorus of "Big Drag" is first heard. That shows on the timing on the screen as -2:25 to -2:21. He's the tall guy in the back of the living room, near the mantel, standing quite tall and still, with an afro of curly dark hair. That's my A.J.!

Let me know if you see it...a mom can brag, right? Anyway, even though he wasn't the director, it's a step toward his goal of becoming a filmmaker.

Thursday, August 30, 2007


Home after all of the August travels, and it feels so good to be at my piano again! I also got a refreshing new haircut and color while in California, just in time for all the challenges of September. New job, new semester, new routine to get used to.
I'll post again later today as there is good news about A.J. to share!

Saturday, August 25, 2007


I took this photo at the Monterey Aquarium almost exactly a year ago.
So much has happened in the flow of life this past year!
I feel grateful to have learned many life lessons in the past twelve months.
Tomorrow I fly to California again, but only for a few days this time.
I'm also grateful that love and learning go hand in hand for me. You might even say I learn by loving!

Thursday, August 23, 2007




On one of our last August mornings in Vermont, we awoke to a heavy fog. It blanketed the island where our little cabin sits. Here is a photo I took of my sister, who is taking a photo of my son.


This morning in Minnesota, I awoke very early to a similar fog. I had a 6:50 a.m. appointment with an endodontist, who first inspected, then diagnosed, and then performed a root canal on one of my lower teeth.


I have been medicated and novocaine'd and then medicated again, and I am to spend at least the majority of today in bed, resting. I've given my son and his friend a list of chores and errands to complete, and it seems the perfect foggy day for me to stay very quiet here at home.


I had a busy week so far. This feels like a gift. It's akin to that "sick day" feeling in grade school, when I'd have some non-life-threatening virus which caused my Nana and Mom to decide to keep me home from school, and I'd tuck in to Nana's bed with the soft white bedspread for the day.


For today, I am a little girl again, like the photo above. Quiet and not really bothering anybody, just quiet and resting, maybe I'll read, listen to music, whatever constitutes resting. A rare event for me these days!


Sunday, August 19, 2007






More happy scenes from my Vancouver visit. The final shot is of me with my aunt and uncle. I am doing my patented eyes-closed-for-the-photo pose. Figures! But it's still a fun memory, even if I do look like a blind psychedelic ex-hippie.






A pretty magical afternoon in the park near my cousins' home in Coquitlam, B.C., Canada this past week.
My two little cousins are very special to me.
I can't believe that in less than a year, I will live close enough to see them really often! It's going to be great to share their growing-up years.
The neighbor cat, Annie, enjoys their attentions.
Just a beautiful visit, and I also had an exciting and other-worldly trip to Las Vegas just before my Vancouver trip...Vegas was for the Star Trek Convention and time with my favorite guy. Photos will come later on that one.
Now I'm back home for a week, then one more quick trip and then it's time for buckling down to the school, work, and practicum routine of the fall. I'm sure making every day count this last month of summer.
Hope you are, too.

Monday, August 06, 2007









I hope that these are self-explanatory cabin photos! Except that once again, I must say that the extra-puffy jowls you see on me are related to my dental woes which developed on this trip. I am a rather round-faced girl and I do have chins, plural, but this has been a puffy, swollen left side all week. I think today the swelling is starting to go down some! hurrah for that!
Wish me luck flying. I am to take double of the pain meds. and 800-1000 mg of Advil just to be sure that I can handle the pressure changes and possible pain related to the infection.
We fly home tomorrow, but my cousins L&T stay on here for another two weeks or so.
The stars at night are like nothing else...so beautiful. I'll miss it and must find a way to get back here next summer, even though it's the summer of double graduations and packing to move west and packing AJ to head off to college, and so on....Vermont needs to be fit in there, too!

A few images from our family cabin in Vermont....more to come!

AJ caught two beautiful big bass, which we enjoyed as part of our dinner that night. Cousins Tom and Laurie brought much energy and fun to the mix when they arrived yesterday. My sister Amy, cousin Laurie, and I were sad not to swim today (thunderstorms), so we held up our bathing suits and modeled them! Funny photo of me, Amy, and AJ was on one of our goofy watching movies together nights. We have a lot of those.
Note my swelled up face/jowls? I have an infected tooth and need a root canal, I discovered while here. Should say it discovered me....major pain...but the dentist put me on antibiotics and pain meds. so I'm hanging in there. Not fun, but this is part of life, too!




Thursday, August 02, 2007


Friends ever since we were 8 years old...Brina and Cindy, also known as the Sarabande flute and piano duo, and we are the kind of old friends who can pick up right where we left off, and we telephone each other long-distance at the exact same second, asking, "Are you ok?"
Love love love my friend Cindy.
My son and I are here in Vermont, and we are having a sunny and relaxing week. More photos to follow. Here's my favorite one so far, of me and Cindy, friends forever.
(Many prayers and thoughts are heading back home to Minneapolis, where there was such a horrible tragedy last night with the I-35 bridge collapse.)