June 25, 2009
Oh, Banff. How I loved you. Your mountains! Your lakes! Your forests! Your colorful money and your lack of Internet access!
(The view about halfway up the hike between Lakes Louise and Agnes. This is Louise.)
Frankly, I am not thrilled to be back home. After this:
(The Devil’s Gap, view from boat on Lake Minnewanka)
Or these:
(Bighorn sheep at Lake Minnewanka)
But I am, and I will deal with it. Meanwhile I want to see your pictures of nature from your summer travels or local adventures, okay? Okay.
*Of course when hiking from Lake Louise to Lake Agnes, I could not get John Prine’s song, “Lake Marie,” out of my head. (And the wind was blowing, especially through my hair.)
March 25, 2009
We had some incredibly gorgeous and life-giving spring weather last week. Windows were open. Porches were sat upon. Spring cleaning plans were made. And then…another dump of freezing cold and snow. Boo. I’m so over it. I have things to do, people! And I can’t possibly be expected to do them when it’s so gray. Bah.
On the up side, I just found out that Story of a Girl made the International Reading Association’s Young Adult Choices list, which is pretty great. Thank you, IRA! And I got my first fanmail for a foreign edition – a girl in Belgium wrote to me about the French translation. Between that and the IRA, I’m feeling very international today. If only I could be in a foreign country right now. A warm one.
Over at the Teen Fiction Cafe, we’re blogging about fashion this week. Today I posted about my love/hate relationship with What Not to Wear.
It is now time to curl up with some tea and a movie.
January 25, 2009
January is/has been full of busy-ness and hard work. Which also means it’s been full of opportunity, but right now all that opportunity is manifesting in work. That seems to be the key step between opportunity and accomplishment. I have this feeling all of 2009 is going to look like that: opportunity, hard work, and not much space in between. Accomplishment remains to be seen and judged.
Curious about: What is the combination of meteorological factors that makes one snow storm consist of tiny, fast flakes and another consist of slow, fat ones? I have seen some alarmingly giant flakes sail by the window today.
Multitasking accomplishment of the week: Thanks to the wonders of technology, last night I was able to watch figure skating on our big TV, and watch The Lost Weekend on my laptop during the commercials. I haven’t seen that since way before my father died. The movie struck me as even sadder this time, if that’s possible.
From my CD archives: During the last push on this revision, I’ve had the following five CDs on rotation, over and over and over and over – the soundtrack of Man in the Moon (completely instrumental, James Newton Howard); The Story Angel in the House and The Story Grace in Gravity; Sam Phillips Fan Dance; and Badly Drawn Boy-Have You Fed the Fish?
Stay warm…
