happiness

“Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.”

― E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Image: win7wallpapers 

something that makes me laugh...and stings just a little :)

"That's the funny thing about marriage, you fall in love with this extraordinary person and over time they begin to seem ordinary.... I think it's all the nagging."- Phil Dunphy, Modern Family

Image: somanyhues

want, need, wear, read, and make

At not even one and a half, this is only Sweet Pea's second Christmas and I know I could give him nothing this year and he'd still be as happy as a clam (well, that is true as long as I let him play with the TV remote). However, I worry about the future and getting caught up in wanting to smother him in stuff that he won't necessarily want, need, or play with more than the time it took to unwrap (this book has been an eye opener for me in many ways that I'll share with you in another post). Anyway, I sure am glad to have stumbled upon The Four Gift Rule. It makes gift giving seem easy and it also makes a ton of sense to me (although I think I would add one additional category: 1 Thing They Make - for art supplies, crafts, etc.). Stockings, on the other hand, are a total free-for-all...

A Post for Russell

Russell Hoban, author of 60 books for children, passed away yesterday at the age of 86. Although known most famously for those beloved badger books about Frances, my favorite of his has always been "A Mouse and His Child" (1967). An incredibly profound and moving story, I think it deserves to take up room on anyone's bookshelf.

     "The mouse and his child, unwound, came to a stop, while their captor sat down on the edge of the hole where the television screen had been and ate his salami. As he looked up into the night, the massed clouds lifted to reveal the sky. The moon had set; the stars were sharp and clear. Low above the horizon wheeled Orion the Hunter, and near the luminous scattering of the Milky Way, in the Great Dog constellation, blazed Sirius, the brightest star of all. Manny Rat liked dark nights best; he grimaced at the stars and turned away.
      Standing as he was on uneven ground, the child was tilted at such an angle that he too saw the Dog Star, beyond his father’s shoulder. He had never looked up at the sky before; indeed, he had as yet seen little of the earth, and even that little was more frightening than he had imagined. At first the icy glitter of the far-off star was terrifying to him; he sensed a distance so vast as to reduce him to nothing. But as he looked and looked upon that steady burning he was comforted a little ; if he was nothing, he thought, so also was this rat and all the dump. His father’s hands were firm upon his, and he resolved to see what next the great world offered."

{from the David Small illustrated edition, page 27}

fall strolling

Sweet Pea and I are presently in love with weather that is finally and consistently brisk. It makes our daily walks both more energizing (for me and my homesickness for Northern falls) and lulling (for him and his coziness under a woolen blanket and hat). I really wish it was like this all year round...

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

- George Eliot

{"traversing leaves" by leslie*thomson}

Summer, I am so over you...

via Let Us Read and Let Us Dance

There is not a single part of me that wants to be outside anymore. Pull the curtains, crank up the air conditioning, bring me a hot tea - I want to stay indoors and pretend it's October.  I've never been a summer person, but this year I'm really over it. You could blame the multiple days of over 100 degree temperature or the fact that I'm nearing the end of my pregnancy, but whatever it is I am seriously hating summer right now. And knowing I'm not the only one makes me feel so much better....

from EW's "Why We Hate Summer":

''I enjoy being indoors. I enjoy laying on couches, snacking, and reading (watching TV). Summer sucks because it is the only season when, if I want to do this in the middle of a gorgeous day, people (my children) look at me like I'm a disgusting person. Well, guess what? It's 90 degrees out there, it's 68 degrees in here, and this episode of The Bachelorette isn't going to watch itself.'' 

Adam Scott
Parks and Recreation

''The heat makes me lethargic, so goodbye gym, goodbye waking up before noon, goodbye enthusiasm for anything. But I'd have to say the worst part of summer is swampy Spanx.'' 

Whitney Cummings
Comedian

''The reason I think summer is terrible: I'm British. As a people, we cannot handle even the most moderate heat, either physically or emotionally. We were brought up believing that summer is for French people, with their outdoor lunches, sunglasses, and crunchy vegetables.''  John Oliver
The Daily Show

While I nest, I think...

 via the obsessive imagist

words to carry into the weekend

via a beautiful day

a quote

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul.
And sings the tune
Without the words,
and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson
US poet (1830 - 1886)

Image courtesyof blamethecrane.tumblr.com via weheartit

motivation to write the written word

 via pretentious and pop

Writing is hard. Whether it's blogging, dissertating, or love-lettering - it's as hard as any art of creating is difficult - it takes real effort and it means the sacrifice of lots of other things that you cherish like time and, in many ways, yourself and your pride. That's why we don't write as many writerly posts as we'd like (though they are my favorite when we do write them) and that's why finishing my dissertation is taking much too long to finish - all of it is hard work, much time, and an expression of vulnerability. So here's some motivation to get more writing done in my life - hopefully one of these will stick...

"I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done."

— Barbara Kingsolver via I Love Reading and Writing!

 via Sycamore Street Press

❝Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.❞ 

— Susan Sontag via the writer's den

via life is wine

"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair; the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page."

— Stephen King ~ "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" 

via I Love Reading and Writing!

from More About Time: The Myth of Doing it All by Rice Freeman-Zachery

via Sycamore Street Press

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

— Sylvia Plath via BrainyQuote

a lovely thought

via savoring the details

a scary thought

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
-Kurt Vonnegut

Image courtesy of CBC.ca

words to marry by...

There are lots and lots of wedding stuff to post, but how about some words? Here are some quotes which reflect what I wish my wedding and love and marriage to look like...

via These are a Few of my Favorite Things...

"the irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love. the act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around like rational hesitation. to commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." 

~Anne Morris   

via naturally nina

via somerset

"i love you also means i love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, & also, i love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, & also, i love you in a way that I love no one else, & never have loved anyone else, & never will love anyone else." 

~ J.S. Foer

via These are a few of my favourite things...

via it's mary ruffle

via saying images

via the devil and god...

this i the last paragraph from Jane Austen's "Emma" via Michael Fusco Design, but if you can't read it from this image, it says:
"The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own. "Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business! Selina would stare when she heard of it." But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union."

mantra while I work this weekend...

via somerset

reckoning day

Because I seem to live my life according to this motto - today is one of those days when my procrastination has caught up with me and I must grade and grade and grade until I can't see straight anymore. When will I ever learn?

P.S. For a free printable card of this Keep Calm spoof - head on over to this post on "Creature Comforts'" old blog (or, as I am likely to do, procrastinate by checking out "Creature Comforts" latest posts at its newer location).

Why does Wednesday often feel like this?

by tamjpn

“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”


 - Jean Paul Sartre

"This is for Tabby, who got me into it- and then bailed me out of it."- S. King

Beauty in Everything image courtesy of weheartit.com

Almost as soon as you crack open a book, you stumble upon a dedication, and that sentence or phrase is nearly as fascinating to me as the author's work that follows it. Maybe it is because those dedications have their own stories that we are not privy to or maybe it is because it seems to be the ultimate gesture of gratitude....whatever the reason, I always read the dedication before I start a book and again when I finish it. I'm often disappointed when it reads matter-of-factly "To John" or "For Jane" (despite the honor and beauty in those simple words) because I want to know more....

It turns out there is actually a book, "Once Again to Zelda: The Stories Behind Literature's Most Intriguing Dedications" by Marlene Wagman-Geller, that tells us about some of those "John"s and "Jane"s. It was in an article in the the New York Times about this book that I read the story of the dedication to Tabby (the one that is this post's title in fact) from author Stephen King.

For instance, in his first novel, “Carrie,” Stephen King wrote, “This is for
Tabby, who got me into it — and then bailed me out of it.” Was Tabby a cat? No.She’s Mr. King’s wife, Tabitha, whom he started dating in college, after they both reached for the same copy of “The Joy of Sex” in the library. They married in 1971, and Tabby worked at Dunkin’ Donuts to give Mr. King time to write.
When he threw away a draft of “Carrie,” she fished it out of the trash,
encouraged him to finish it, and helped him flesh out the girls’ locker-room scenes. Ms. Wagman-Geller writes that, when the book sold for $400,000,“Tabitha, who was sitting on a sofa that she had salvaged from a yard sale,put her head in her hands and wept.”

It is just the kind of quirky story of inspiration and love I imagine when I read a dedication. To think there are 49 other tales in Ms. Wagman-Geller's book....I will definitely be checking it out.

does anyone (aside from me) need this list?

{via If I had my own world...}

if I MUST make a resolution...

Forget resolutions for the lot of the year - I'd rather just focus and enjoy each and every one of those 365 days when I'm actually in 'em (hey! I think I just tricked myself into a resolution... oh, the power of the New Year! You've caught me in your evil web once again!!)

image via dreamcatcher

still a lot of Friday left...

(via we live now)