My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp North, without declining West? Whatever dies was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die. -John Donne, The Good-Morrow This past week I found volumes A-F…
“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” – Henry James I have to agree with Mr. James here; summer is magic. With my littles at home and days filled with swimming, reading, long walks, trips to the library, canoeing, hammocking, lego building, and not homeworking, I am entering August on tiptoes, knowing there are only…
(1) Turn off the Radio. (2) Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines. (3) Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again. (4) Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things,…
‘A rain had fallen from some warmer region in the skies when the cold here below was intense to an extreme. Every drop was frozen wherever it fell in the trees, and clung to the limbs and sprigs as if it had been fastened by hooks of steel. The earth was never more universally covered with snow, and the rain had frozen upon a crust on the surface…
It has always seemed strange to me…the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. -John Steinbeck, Cannery Row Recently Puro Fairtrade…
A while back I made a delicious concoction involving Frangelico and coffee. Soon after I was contacted by the nice folks at Frangelico to create a recipe, which I said yes to immediately, because I love baking with their liqueur. Prior to my frozen drink, I had actually only used Frangelico in baking and cooking, and worked at a coffeehouse that made a delicious Bundt cake involving the…
The summer we moved into our house, my sister and her husband gave us two raspberry bushes. We had no idea how to take care of raspberries, but we found a little home for them along our fence, dreaming of jam, and pie, and afternoon snacks. Now, years later, they are out of control – bushes racing up and down that chain link as if they own the…
I tend to get hung up on things. I fall in love with something, or someone, and then get slightly obsessive. For instance, there was my u2 obsession. It’s possible I only listened to The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby for an entire year. There was also my Ella Fitzgerald kick, and you can ask anyone I worked with at a coffeehouse about that. There was Gone with…
It’s quiet here in this house; words are flitting past me in the silence and I can’t quite catch them. I’m actually eating this rhubarb ice cream while I sit here, trying to write of it’s glory: to capture tart! and sweet! and creamy! with eloquence and creativity. But this sly dessert wants all my attention; we’ve locked eyes now, and it doesn’t care about adjectives. So I’ll…
Six years ago this August I was sitting on the Great Wall of China. It’s a significant memory to me: climbing and climbing, leaving the sweltering humidity behind and slowly making my way toward blue sky and high towers. Adam was with me, along with two of his Chinese students, Fran and Jack*. We spent the day there, walking and climbing, sitting and staring. I remember taking a…
