Vamos a Sudamerica!

We've done our good share of traveling in our lives, but when I look at the map of where we've been, Asia and South America are, as of yet, missing. One goal of ours is to perhaps go to every country in the world. We are at least going to try our best. So, we've been mulling over a few trip ideas and although we haven't bought our tickets yet, I think we've decided to go to South America.

Latin Destinations has a great package trip to Rio de Janiero, Iguazu Falls, and Buenos Aires. We're not the kind of people who like to take 'tours' or be too touristy, but packages like these are nice because you are not in a tour.. you get to be completely independent - but you also don't have to worry about figuring out flight info, hotels, or (at least with this trip) getting from the airport to the hotel.

We played around with which trip we'd like to do. We considered going to Buenos Aires and Patagonia, but then we realized that we kind of just want to go somewhere warm and not have to think about packing cold weather gear for this particular trip, as (although I'm enjoying winter), we want a little bit of an escape. We definitely want to do a Patagonia and perhaps Antarctica trip some time soon though.



Also, we've really been wanting to go to Iguazu Falls,

as we've only heard AMAZING things about it.


This is partially copied from the article by Travel Wizards:

Enormous, tropical green leaves, clear rushing water, mist sprinkling over your face and altogether one of the most picturesque nature scenes you will ever see in your life. This peaceful and beautiful place called Iguazu Falls is one of the most exquisite natural wonders of the world. Therefore, it must be on your list of places to see in South America. In addition, I felt so much more at peace in Iguazu National Park than I have during my entire stay in Argentina. The town, the people, the waterfalls, the nature and the vibe I received from everywhere and everyone were wonderful and refreshing. Even though Iguazu Fallss is a hot spot for tourists, it is still very easy to feel one with nature.

As for Iguazu National Park and the falls themselves, you are in for an unimaginable treat. The falls were much larger, more fantastic and more mind-blowing than I had expected. I knew the falls were gorgeous, but all descriptions heard and pictures seen do not do them justice. There is no way something so beautiful and enormous could be captured in a photo. It would be a sin to visit South America and not take a trip to the falls!

We were a little unsure about going to Rio, as Christ the Redeemer, is currently undergoing renovations until May.. and that is such an iconic part of my image of Rio.


Also, the visa for Brazil is $150 or so, which is the most I've ever seen for a visa! So, we were considering just going to Buenos Aires and Iguazu, but somehow the trip is actually cheaper for all 3.. so it will work out being the same, and this also ensures that we can go to both the Argentina and the Brazil side of Iguazu.

I'm also definitely looking forward to Buenos Aires. Matt has been there, but I have not. It is a very cultural, European city with amazing wine and steak. Maybe we'll get a tango in as well!



These are some other sites that are good and we are still considering these as well:
Argentina for Less
IguazuWaterfalls.com
STI Travel

Winter Wanderings

Even after the craziness of this week's weather and a branch going through our roof, I'm still really enjoying winter this year. I've never been a winter person, even though I grew up in New England. Give me an 88 degree day any day. But some how, I feel that I'm learning to appreciate Vermont's seasons more and more. I've always loved autumn here (what's not to love), but I've also begrudged the long winters. Chinese traditional medicine talks about learning to embrace each season that you are in, and I think perhaps that wisdom is rubbing off on me. Even though I love summer and doing things like gardening, winter allows me the time each year to do a lot more things that I might not get to do if it were warm outside. My life has a lot more variety because of the seasons and I'm learning that these winter times give my body a period of rest, just as the earth is asleep under the snow.



The snow was beautiful on the trees this morning when I woke, so I went outside with my camera and took some photos. The thing I really like about taking pictures is that it causes me to be more aware of my surroundings.. to take a second look and to also look at things from a different angle. Without my camera, I would enjoy the beauty, but not really ponder it and explore that moment more fully. Here are a few from my morning's winter wanderings:

 

 

One Misty Moisty Morning

The snow from yesterday is melting, because of today's rain, causing the snow to evaporate into a thin mist... and it is a very 'misty moisty morning'. I wasn't particularly thinking of the nursery rhyme this morning though until I stumbled upon a documentary about 'The Leatherman', a hobo who wandered around Connecticut and NY in the 19th century. The documentary begins with this little nursery rhyme/ song. I've always loved this rhyme, even though I never always knew the words entirely or what it was about.





The documentary makes it kind of seem that the rhyme had actually began because of this person, but I looked it up and it is much older. There are a number of versions, but here is the whole song:

One misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather,

I chanced to meet an old man a-clothèd all in leather.

He was clothèd all in leather, with a cap beneath his chin,

Singing 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

This rustic was a thresher, as on his way he hied,

And with a leather bottle fast buckled by his side.

He wore no shirt upon his back, but wool unto his skin,

Singing 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

I went a little further and there I met a maid

'A-going, a-milking, a-milking sir' she said.

Then I began to compliment and she began to sing,

Singing 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

This maid her name was Dolly, clothed in a gown of grey,

I feeling somewhat jolly persuaded her to stay.

And straight I fell a-courting her in hopes her love to win,

Singing 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

I having time and leisure, I spent a vacant hour

A-telling of my treasure while sitting in her bower.

With many kind embraces, I stroked her double chin,

Singing 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

I said that I would married be, and she would be my bride,

And long we should not tarry and twenty things beside.

I'll plough and sow and reap and mow, and you shall sit and spin,

Singing 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

Her parents then consented, all parties were agreed,

Her portion thirty shillings, we married were with speed.

Then Will the Piper he did play, whilst others dance and sing,

Saying 'How d'ye do and how d'ye do and how d'ye do again'.

Then lusty Ralph and Robin, with many damsels gay,

Did ride on roan and dobbin to celebrate the day,

And when they met together, their caps they off did fling,

Singing

'How d'ye do and

How d'ye do and

How d'ye do and

How d'ye doooooo .....

... and How d'ye do again!'.

I often wonder about nursery rhymes.. how they began and why they get passed along or how they change along the way. Some are really bizarre and as kids we don't even realize it. Like 'Ring around the Rosie' is perhaps said to be associated with the plague... or at least that was what I was told a few years ago. I just looked this up on wikipedia however and found that it is probably not true, although the rationalization for the argument does make some sense to me.


Many have associated the poem with the Great Plague of London in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this;[15] by 1951, however, it seems to have become well established as an explanation for the form of the rhyme that had become standard in the United Kingdom. Peter and Iona Opie remark: "The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, posies of herbs were carried as protection, sneezing was a final fatal symptom , and 'all fall down' was exactly what happened."[16][17] The line Ashes, Ashes in alternative versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme, or other plagues.[18] In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique reference to the plague.[19] (For 'hidden meaning' in other nursery rhymes see Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, Humpty Dumpty, Jack Be Nimble, Little Jack Horner, Cock Robin and Meanings of nursery rhymes.)
Folklore scholars regard the theory as baseless for several reasons:
the late appearance of the explanation;[15]
the symptoms described do not fit especially well with the Great Plague;[17][20]
the great variety of forms makes it unlikely that the modern form is the most ancient one, and the words on which the interpretation are based are not found in many of the earliest records of the rhyme (see above);[18][21]
European and 19th-century versions of the rhyme suggest that this "fall" was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy or other form of bending movement that was common in other dramatic singing games.[22]

Anyway, just some random musings on this misty moisty morning.

Walking in a Wild Winter Wonderland

This winter has been very mild. Our plow man was commenting just the other day how difficult it has been for anyone who relies on a steady flow of snow during the winter season. Well.. that all changed last night, as mother nature decided to bestow her blessings of the white stuff upon us. When I woke this morning, I looked out the window to see a beautiful landscape bathed in a silver glow. But I was also abruptly taken out of my awe, when I heard a large crash and ran into the other room to discover that a large branch had somehow fallen with such veracity as to pierce the ceiling of one of our rooms. It was difficult to believe my eyes, but there it was. This snow is extremely wet and heavy and has been causing branches to let gravity have its way throughout the day... and of course we were so brilliant as to park our cars under those lovely beams. The snow is so wet in fact that it has a very strange blue look to it. At first I thought that window washing fluid had somehow gotten into one patch, but then I looked at it was everywhere.

 

Anyway, its supposed to keep snowing all week and someone said perhaps 30 inches. Yikes! Let's just hope the house is still standing next week. My cousin posted this picture on facebook this morning. Perhaps I better start knitting if I want my trees to be happy and keep standing straight.

To have or not to have (kids).. that is the question.

Since turning the big 3-0, I've been thinking more about whether or not I should have children. I know the biological clock is ticking and there is enormous pressure from parents especially and society in general. I always thought I'd want kids when I was growing up. I love children (most of the time), but I also like giving them back to their parents when they start to fuss. The thing is that I love my life the way it is. I have the freedom to travel, the freedom to curl up with a book and read without interruption, the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want to do. But my genes and society say that isn't enough. I have to have kids to make my life full and meaningful.

I just read an article today in the New York Times,
God Said Multiply, and Did She Ever

"WHEN Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants."

You can read the article for yourself if you want, but the article ends with a quote from Yitta:

“If you leave a child or grandchild, you live forever.”


Its things like this that make my genes say, 'c'mon.. don't you want to live forever?'. And from my genes' perspective that is totally true. Biologists like Richard Dawkins talk about it in these terms in books like The Selfish Gene. He puts the evolution of species as not evolving for their own sake, but for the sake of the replication of their genes. Its definitely a strange way of thinking about things (as we humans have a tendency to think we are the center of the universe).

Anyway, I digress. So although I think its AMAZING that this woman has 2000 living descendants, does the call to 'be fruitful and multiply' still apply as the world population approaches 7 BILLION people?? And would having children really make my life more full and meaningful?


I found an interesting article in Newsweek about this topic:

When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we'll call the Sloans, were the only couple on the block without kids. It wasn't that they couldn't have children; according to Mr. Sloan, they just chose not to. All the other parents, including mine, thought it was odd—even tragic. So any bad luck that befell the Sloans—the egging of their house one Halloween; the landslide that sent their pool careering to the street below—was somehow attributed to that fateful decision they'd made so many years before. "Well," the other adults would say, "you know they never did have kids." Each time I visited the Sloans, I'd search for signs of insanity, misery or even regret in their superclean home, yet I never seemed to find any. From what I could tell, the Sloans were happy, maybe even happier than my parents, despite the fact that they were (whisper) childless.

My impressions may have been swayed by the fact that their candy dish was always full, but several studies now show that the Sloans could well have been more content than most of the traditional families around them. In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's "Gross National Happiness" author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.

The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."

Simon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research ("Obviously Professor Simon hates her kids," read one), which isn't surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of what we've been raised to believe is true. In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. Only one in six (16 percent) said that adding new children had a negative effect on the parents' happiness. But which parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable?

Parents may openly lament their lack of sleep, hectic schedules and difficulty in dealing with their surly teens, but rarely will they cop to feeling depressed due to the everyday rigors of child rearing. "If you admit that kids and parenthood aren't making you happy, it's basically blasphemy," says Jen Singer, a stay-at-home mother of two from New Jersey who runs the popular parenting blog MommaSaid.net. "From baby-lotion commercials that make motherhood look happy and well rested, to commercials for Disney World where you're supposed to feel like a kid because you're there with your kids, we've made parenthood out to be one blissful moment after another, and it's disappointing when you find out it's not."

Is it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned? Anecdotal evidence says no. In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their offspring also served a purpose—to work the farm, contribute to the household. Children were a necessity. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated work and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. A key study by University of Wisconsin-Madison's Sara McLanahan and Julia Adams, conducted some 20 years ago, found that parenthood was perceived as significantly more stressful in the 1970s than in the 1950s; the researchers attribute part of that change to major shifts in employment patterns. The majority of American parents now work outside the home, have less support from extended family and face a deteriorating education and health-care system, so raising children has not only become more complicated—it has become more expensive. Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs anywhere from $134,370 to $237,520 to raise a child from birth to the age of 17—and that's not counting school or college tuition. No wonder parents are feeling a little blue.

Societal ills aside, perhaps we also expect too much from the promise of parenting. The National Marriage Project's 2006 "State of Our Unions" report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations. Twenty-five years ago, women married around the age of 20, and men at 23. Today both sexes are marrying four to five years later. This means the experience of raising kids is now competing with highs in a parent's past, like career wins ("I got a raise!") or a carefree social life ("God, this is a great martini!"). Shuttling cranky kids to school or dashing to work with spit-up on your favorite sweater doesn't skew as romantic.

For the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming. As for those of us with kids, well, the news isn't all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who've never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son. As for the Sloans, it's hard to say whether they had a less meaningful existence than my parents, or if my parents were 7 percent less happy than the Sloans. Perhaps it just comes down to how you see the candy dish—half empty or half full. Or at least as a parent, that's what I'll keep telling myself.

So, this doesn't really give me a clear direction one way or the other. But at least I'm engaging in the process of consideration.

Fit for a queen...

I got the idea the other day to try doing a canopy above our bed. I've always liked this look, as it seems simple yet dramatic, and it would fit in perfectly with our house. These are some photos I found as inspiration.




I was thinking of just making the crown, as there are quite a few 'how to' sites online, but then I found some great ones at Horchow, that have a great old world flair.





There are also a wide variety at Touch of Class and some great ones at Passagems. I particularly like this one:


Now I just have to choose one and find that perfect fabric!

Memory Lane

Before the days of digital, there were scrapbooks, albums, and piles of random photos strewn in boxes in the attic or under the bed. I've been a photo junkie ever since I got my first camera in high school. But I've never liked how those printed pictures got put away often hardly ever to bee seen again. And then there was the cost of printing those pictures, which was especially frustrating if it turned out you'd overexposed a roll, or the camera accidentally went off in your backpack and you got a nice shot of nothingness, or you were somehow making the most horrid looking face or your eyes had that demonic red glow to them.

I absolutely love digital cameras. I love that I can take as many pictures as I want and I won't be 'wasting' film. I love that I can put them online and share them. I love the fact that if a fire burns down my house that I won't risk my life trying to go back and save my precious photo memories. They will still be online even if my albums and computer get toasted to crumbs.

So I was doing some organizing the other day and came across a box filled with albums that I hadn't looked at in quite some time. It brought back so many memories, and yet I wished I could share them with old friends and have a laugh reminiscing. And then I had the idea that I could just take photos of these photos to store and share online. It took a few hours, but it was a nice quiet Sunday and it was surprising easy with my new camera, as I don't have to use a flash. Some are a little blurry and some are from scrapbooks, so they might look a bit strange, but here the links to the albums and I hope you enjoy the walk down memory lane.

College Days

Latin American Studies Program

(I have a lot more pics from LASP, but I have to find the album)

ECHO

2001-2002

2003/2004

Buttons

Last night we finally got around to seeing the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I thought it was a great movie. The special effects of him being an old man and then a young boy were quite astounding to me.

This movie is LOOSELY based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Usually I like to read the book/story before watching a movie and I like Fitzgerald, but in this case I hadn't gotten the chance. I did read the story this afternoon though. You can read the entire text on line from the University of Virginia. I almost always like the original books more than the movies they are based on, but not in this case. I thought the movie was better. It really had to be adapted quite a bit in order to make it into something that anyone would want to see.

Anyway, I really liked some of the quotes from the movie, so I am copying them here:

"Benjamin Button: For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

"You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go"

"Benjamin, we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?"

"Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss."

"Benjamin Button: Some people were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people — dance"

I was definitely crying by this last line. I was crying because everything does change, everyone does die, because life is so beautiful, life is so fragile, life is so diverse. Because all these things and more, I cried. I think that is what made this film so moving to me. And even though Fitzerald's story wasn't his best work, I think he secretly knew something when he gave Benjamin the last name Button.

I love buttons. They don't have to be on clothes. Actually I like when they are not on clothes the best. I love when you can see the diversity of a bunch of old buttons all together in a jar. There are a couple of great antique shops that I go to that have a great collection of buttons. Even though they have lived past their purpose... maybe the clothes that they once were on are now out of fashion or they somehow got separated from their brothers or sisters on the shirt or dress they once belonged to... they still have an interesting place, even if its just the fact that they make me smile when I see them.







So perhaps Fitzgerald had a thing about buttons too. Although this may be stretching it, buttons (like people) have a purpose, they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and although they have a limited time of usefulness (they get old or un-necessary), their 'lives' can still have meaning and add beauty to the world past their point of purpose if there are those that were willing to appreciate this beauty.

When You Reach Me in A Wrinkle in Time

I was just reading a little about this year's Newbery Medal Winner, When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. I haven't read the book, but it sounds interesting and I would like to read it. I've been reading a lot of 'kids' books in the past few years and doing some writing as well. It all started when I re-read A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle. It reminded me how much fun these books were, and I just began to allow my imagination to roam. I didn't always have to be reading these scientific journals or 'serious' books. Anyway, it turns out that Rebecca Stead also loves A Wrinkle in Time and talks about it a lot in this book as well.


This is part of an interview with her. I was completely like this when I was a kid too... actually I still ask these questions:

Rebecca Stead: I thought about time a lot when I was a kid. Not in a mystical way--it was just the passing of time, the idea of time stretching out forever, that interested me. I used to wonder, "What will my room look like on my thirtieth birthday? What will be the first words I say in the year 2000? When I’m forty, will I remember the ‘me’ I am now? Will I remember this moment?" I guess part of it was thinking about how we leave ourselves behind in a way, which I think we do, throughout our lives.

I was also really interested in what is "knowable." There’s a certain number of people alive on this planet right now, and it’s a simple number that anyone could write down or say aloud, and so in some sense that number exists as a truth, yet we can’t know it. That’s the kind of thing I thought about when I was Miranda’s age.


Also, this is from her website under 'about'. I really like what she says, so I'm copying it here:

It was at school that I began writing. Sometimes I invented stories, and other times I just wrote down things I overheard – jokes, or snatches of conversation.

Much, much later, I became a lawyer (I believed that being a writer was impractical), got married, and started working as a public defender. But I still wrote Very Serious Stories when I could find the time.

My first child, a fabulous son, was born. A few years later, I had another fabulous son. There wasn’t much time for writing stories after that. But I still tried.

One day, my then-four-year-old son, though fabulous, accidentally pushed my laptop off the dining-room table, and the Very Serious Stories were gone. Poof.

So. It was time to write something new. Something joyful (to cheer me up: I was pretty grouchy about the lost stories). I went to a bookstore and bought an armload of books that I remembered loving as a kid. I read them. I went back to the store and bought more books. I read them. And then I began to write, and I began to love writing. That’s when I became a writer.

Some people will tell you that real writers don’t use parentheticals (which is nonsense). The most important thing to know about writing is that there are no rules.

The Creation of Value or The Meaning of Life or 42

In a previous post, I was commenting that I had been thinking of the concept of value recently. Then, the other day, I picked up a book entitled The Creation of Value by Irving Singer, who is a professor at MIT. The book is quite good and I thought I'd copy some of it down so that I can look back at it. I usually do this in a journal, but now that I have a blog, it will be so much easier to find where I write down these random things. I can find most of it again in google books.



There are some pages not included in this preview however, so here are some quotes/notes from those pages:

1. Throughout history educated people generally assumed that philosophy, like religion, is capable of elucidating the meaning of life. In the past, philosophers often made this attempt. But the twentieth century has been quite different. Questions about the meaning of life have been dismissed or neglected by many of the greatest thinkers in the last hundred years. Even if they were right to do so, we must nevertheless wonder why it is that human beings are both attracted to such matters and constantly baffled by them.

2. A healthy person does not brood about the meaning of life. He gets up in the morning and throws himself into activities that involve his energies and provide personal gratifications.

9/10. Peasants - Without much schooling and without systematic thought, they had learned how to live in manner that eluded him. They acted out of faith rather than reason, and he concluded that only faith comparable to theirs could make life meaningful. This helped him toward religious feelings he thought he had outgrown.

14/15. Above all, we must ask ourselves whether we understand what the original problem was. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Once you know what the question is, you'll know what the answer is.



21/22. Nietzche - amor fati (love of destiny, or things as they really are). This attitude entails a heroic and healthy-minded acceptance of reality even though it is horrible and wholly destructive to everything that participates in it. The worst parts of existence also belong to reality, and he has determined to love and therefore accept it all completely.

I just realized the google book ends on page 34, so there is far too much to fill in here and probably not right to do with regard to copyright. Here's one last quote though from page 103:

John Stuart Mills: People can be happy only if they "have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end".

Just monkeeing around

Last night we were at restaurant in Turner's Falls, MA, where they were having a fundraiser for The Brick House, which is a community center there. Peter Tork, from the Monkees, was performing.


I loved The Monkees show growing up. I know it was before my generation, but it was played as re-runs, and I always thought it was hilarious. Anyway, it brought back some memories.



The above video is not very good quality, so here's the theme song again:



Peter also played 'Daydream Believer' and the crowd sang along.



Another of my favorites of theirs is this song:


It was later in the movie Shrek, re-done by Smashmouth.



This was the info about the night:
PowerTown Music will present a fund raising concert for the Brick House Community Resource Center. The show will feature Peter Tork from the Monkees, Folk legend Cliff Eberhardt, Ray Mason and local rising stars Katie Sachs, DeAngelo Nieves and Brooke Brown Saracino.

Peter Tork was the most accomplished musician of The Monkees, Tork plays 12 different instruments; his choice "depends on what kind of music I'm playing." He Performed as a folk musician in Greenwich Village and Los Angeles before being selected for the Monkees TV show. He made 58 TV episodes 6 albums, a TV special, and a movie before leaving the Monkees. He now Travels the world with his band Shoe Suede Blues.

Cliff Eberhardt knew by age seven that he was going to be a singer and songwriter. A driving force of the Greenwich Village New Folk movement and well known among his peers, Cliff s songs have been covered by the likes of Richie Havens, Buffy St. Marie, Erasure and Lucy Kaplansky.

The event will also feature valley legend Ray Mason and his road-worn 1965 Silvertone guitar. Ray Started his first band in 1966 and averaging over 100 shows a year. Brooke Brown Saracino has been honored in the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Singer/Songwriter Showcase every year since 2005, and was selected to perform in this year's Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase..The event will also showcase two local singer songwriters Katie Sachs and DeAngelo Nieves.

All funds will benefit the Brickhouse Community Resource Center and their efforts to create green jobs, sustainable jobs and jobs in the music industry.

The mission of The Brick House is to support individual, family and community well being through collaboration on economic development, youth development, leadership development and education.

Wine Cellar

We're doing over our basement and putting in a wine cellar. These are some good inspiration photos:

 

 

 

 

Here are some other ideas:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYOR26fsdzbDZGRrY3h6Y3ZfMjBkcGh3ODhmZA&hl=en

These are some great websites for antique tiles:
http://www.tileofluxury.com/antique_Mediterranean_tiles.php
http://www.pavetile.com/

Some more favorite links:

wine cellar

http://www.tuscanwinecellars.com/TuscanWineCellarsHOME.html

Favorite Fotos

 

 

 

 

A few of my favorite things...

I heard this song on the radio today, which ironically, is one of my favorite things.



The Sound of Music is one of my favorite things and so is jazz, so can you get better than this song?

Tonight I'm sitting in front of a crackling fire surrounded by a warm snuggly blanket, eating pistachios and drinking hot cocoa, listening to classical music, reading a good book... and I was like wow, these are some of my favorite things - all coming together just for me. Perhaps just thinking of my favorite things summoned them here.

Anyway, I like the song... but the things in the song aren't necessarily my favorite things (although who doesn't like raindrops on roses or kitten whiskers? scratch that.. if you're allergic to cats or flower pollen, those might not be high on the list). But seriously, shnitzel with noodles? What is that? Ok.. so I just googled it:

Maybe it tastes better than it looks.

So then I thought I'd write down some of my other favorite things just for the heck of it. And here they are in no particular order:

flip flops, sunny days, warm rainy days, splashing in puddles, vacuuming (weird i know), sea shells, singing at the top of my lungs even when i don't know the words... i usually don't know the words, fireworks, documentaries, lightning bugs, dressing up, thunderstorms (i used to be so afraid of them when i was a kid), roller coasters (also another ex-fear), sunflowers, watching the orange glow from the last embers of a fire, taking photos, heart to heart talks, marshmallows, dancing, coffee, dipping stuff in coffee, big band music, orange juice, holding hands, seeing everything in that nice 'sun set' glow both for real and when it just looks like that when you're wearing sun glasses, trampolines, visiting different cultures, clouds (especially stratus...but not when they're thick; only wispy), google, patterns, hugs (both real and chocolate), smoothies, painting, hydrangeas, white chocolate, volkswagon beetles, The Beatles, taking off my shoes and playing in the grass, the smell of rosemary, farmers markets, waterfalls, antiquing, star-gazing, star spinning (thats when you stand on a flat grassy lawn at night, look up, spin until you get dizzy and fall down), hammocks, lasagna, snuggling with my husband, alpacas, hummingbirds, sleeping on the beach, cool rocks, cathedrals, swimming, red leaves in fall, stepping on crunchy leaves, double rainbows, pancakes, a purring kitty, warming my hands around a nice hot mug, mulled cider, fractals, nutella, getting dirt under my fingernails, rooibos tea, playing cards, smoked gouda, nice smelling candles.

There's lots more, but I'm going to get back to enjoying my favorite things now.