Where have I been, or better yet....Where am I now?

How many blog ideas have come and gone in the last month? A thousand? More?

I don't know, I have been busy just wishing that my thoughts could be instantly translated in to type (I almost wrote trype.... misspelled, but appropriate? YES) but in the same moment I have decided to never write again.....

The inner critic has been too vocal, squashing nascent ideas before they have even had a chance. This demon has been silencing my voice with cynicism before I have even had a chance to explain, better.... express myself.

No

more.

Today I am writing just a bit to get over the long span of silence and self doubt. No, more that it is the critical eye that is again stuck waiting for perfection....when simple effort and follow through is called for. This is not a commercial forum, a product. When I started this I wanted this to be a conduit for creative journey and expression and even whim.....

Onward!

JMB

Some words of hope to a Sweet, Swedish meatball...

My sweet, sweet husband sent me this update to an earlier blog (see Secretos). I love it.

Those muffins sure do make me laugh. We actually took a pack to a potluck last month....and I have to ask,

HOW DID I EVER EAT A WHOLE ONE??

They are large.

That said, I had a wonderful Mother's day at the ocean. I thought of all you nice moms who have made my journey easier and more fun and hope that you all had a wonderful day too.

JMB

**Note to my Meatball mommy friend-- you make this mom trip more fun....the boys are great, I love them, but to have someone who helps find the humor in never sleeping/eating/pooping alone again...

PRICELESS!

Also the timing of this is a sign. I think that it means that if we can all just think that we all are just doing the best that we can.... It is gonna be alright.

MAYBE not the best time ever, but ok.

Goth/Punk vs. just dirty...

I was at the library yesterday with the whole brood. We were snacking on some bagels, because my youngest had a meltdown on the 2nd floor...you know where the adult books are....and it is really, really quiet. We needed a bagel.

While we ate I noticed all of those "mall rats", the teens that kind of loiter around in our downtown, causing all good and upright people to run to the large shopping malls and big box stores for their commerce and leave all the good merchants of the downtown, to struggle until they finally move to the large shopping mall......but back to the "mall rats".... I was so happy to see that FINALLY the Goth/Punk look is back! HOORAY!

I was getting so tired of dirty teens begging me for change, the kind with their dirty baggy pants and hempy looking shirts.... the begging teens are now DECKED out in their cool black tight pants, multi-hued tutus, and dark-dark hair and make-up!

I am so happy!!!!

The disgruntled teen fashion of my youth is back in style. I always thought that if you were going to rage against "the man", you should do it with some kick-a#$ flair.

So,

I salute you-- teens of the downtown, THANKS for bringing the Goth/punk scene back to your herd as you move through our empty downtown! I am so serious, I was tired of the dirty wannabe hippie stink, the Goth look is so much edgier and much more exciting to see. LOVE LOVE THE TUTUS and the striped knee-high socks!!!!!

JMB

Beauty is where it happens?

This is a long piece, but quite good. It is a story about life and beauty and whether, we "the busy people", can recognize beauty when it happens, not just when we are in the mood.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?referrer=emailarticle

I also heard an interview with Joshua Bell on an NPR podcast and was fascinated. Thanks to Ali Edwards for having this link on her site. I wonder what I would have done...I wonder what would have happened if the "experiment" was done in another town, or on another street corner if the result would have been the same.

My message from the article was to continue to try to slow down and EXPERIENCE my life, instead of just GETTING through the day. And, more importantly, to appreciate what my kids have to say and think.

I'm going to do that more.

JMB

Blogs, blogs and more blogs

I have just realized that I was born about 5 years too late. I think that if I had hit college when the whole internet "thing" had actually been working, then I would have just dumped Biology, or whatever else I was studying and got on that whole programming nerd band wagon. I have been checking out ALL sorts of blogs in the last few days and I don't know how people are doing all they are doing and THEN still being a mom. (maybe they are really bad parents....JUST KIDDING)

But does anyone else find blogging odd? Surreal? A bit stalkerish?

Maybe it is just me with my obsessive nature, but I can't get enough of these cool things that other people are doing and then you can just READ READ READ all about them (or what they choose to share, if you want to think of it that way) and then I can go to all of their links and find people in other countries that are doing cool things.....why, it just goes on and on.

That is why I think that it was probably better that I was born too early, else I think that I would want to be some sort of cyborg and be on the computer ALL the time....living in a sort of fantasy computer craft world where everyone is so inspired and making things and things.

The other day this one woman posted some really beautiful flower photographs...and I commented and then she wrote me back....it was so weird, I mean she is in Germany and I am here and.....well, it is a weird and different world we are living in.....Great, and I love being able to peek in on what people are doing, but it is still a bit weird.

Here are some crafty blogs that I have been checking out lately:
http://www.angrychicken.typepad.com/
http://www.thegivingflower.de/
http://westcoastcrafty.wordpress.com/
http://lazygalquilting.blogspot.com/

Do any of you have any that you just can't stop looking at?? I, of course, need yet MORE.

Things that I have seen lately....

Scene in Roseburg....what a combo! Look closely, then look again.

My sweet boy and his love of my umbrella.

Super-man and dog breath chews.

Super-man in repose.

These are just a beginning, I am kind of fixated on this weird lolly-pop holder. It not only holds the pop, but if you press the "S" the lolly rotates and his fist pumps up and down. I think that I might ask my son if Superman can travel with us. He LOVES Superman.

I think that I might also.

JMB

Movies, ones I might be embarassed about...

Last night I was talking with some friend about movies that you "just LOVE", but you are sort of ashamed, or maybe just a bit shy about admitting to. It was really funny, mostly because I have a horrible head cold and I felt like I was inside of a tunnel and I was desperately trying to remember bad movies that I liked.....and I was trying SO HARD. I just couldn't think of anything. I came up with some thing like "Adventures in Baby-sitting" which everyone knows is actually a stellar flick. Finally I remembered "The Core", which is really bad, but SO good!! It also made me feel better that someone else had seen it and also respected its awful-ness.

So, I am needing some help, to dig out from the recesses of my mom-addled brain "good/bad" movies. I would like to hear yours too....they don't have to be total stinkers, but ones that, perhaps, people might not know that you know all the dialogue to, or that you're totally "crushin' on" the "McDreamy" of the "Can't Buy Me Love" era. These are also movies that, given a free Sunday afternoon, you would SO watch them yet AGAIN!

Here are a few of mine:

Can't Hardly Wait---Seth Green is mighty funny as "Special K"

Blast from the Past--Brendan Fraser is so charming with his 50's dorkyness

Anaconda--J.Lo and Ice Cube...need I say more?

10 things I Hate about you... Heath... what a dish!

An incomplete list, yes, but I want to hear yours!!!

JMB