Happy Birthday!

Thank you for being such a wonderful friend, inspiring son and truly excellent human being. Every single day since the one where I first felt you kick in my newly rounded belly has been a beautiful adventure. You really were the happiest, smiliest, best-baby-boy a mama could wish for. And then such a lovely toddler, little boy and now thirteen year old young man. I have told you this before but I will repeat it until my very last day...if before you were born I was given the opportunity to make a wish list of all the possible attributes I wanted for my future child I would have felt greedy making the list that you have become. You are wise beyond your years yet a crazy silly boy, you are so very funny yet have a nurturing and serious heart full of love, you do happen to be very beautiful on the outside yet your insides far exceed any possible physical beauty. I could go on and on but I will just finish this letter by telling you this.
I.
Love.
You.
So much more than I will ever be able to express here in words. Thank you darling boy of mine for everything you are. I celebrate you today and every single day.

Love,
Mama

Photojojo! says 'photo slideshows are so yesterday' and after following their link to this fantabulous new website called Animoto and doing the 30 second video above I totally agree. It is super easy to make one of your own and the shorties are free. If you follow this link you can get one free full length video banked into your account. I am saving my full length freebie up for I-don't-know-what-yet but thought my TtV robot shots were the perfect place to try out this cool new thang.

Let me know if you make one of your own because I would love to see it :)

I Am Aglow by Sarah Harmer.

(although I still think this one is her best album...mmm, yummy!)

___________

may your weekend be full of tiny interesting choices and unmissed adventures.

love,
les

Happy Birthday!

Thank you for being such a wonderful friend to PickleBoy and I. You are so funny and warm and supremely talented and so uniquely and individually YOU. You are an inspiration and a joy. We are so lucky to have you in our lives and I will celebrate you on this day forever and ever.

Love,
Leslie

pink.
toenails.
shower curtain.
ceiling.
pink.
________

more bathrooms here.

***WARNING***
I get political in this post.
My opinions. MY blog.
I will NEVER require you to agree with me but if you do not believe in freedom of speech - particularly on an individual's personal yet public blog - than you might as well click away right now.

I have never wanted to get preachy or political on my blog yet something happened last week that changed that up...PickleBoy and I sat down together and watched this movie.

It does not matter if you like their music (I do).
It does not matter whether you like the choices that have been made by the current administration of this country (I do NOT).
What I do think matters is that a human being - American or not - should have the freedom to speak their own personal opinions no matter the forum without the fear of such extreme retribution (death threat anyone?).

I said it at the top of this post - it is worth saying again - we need not agree on one thing other than an individuals right to speak their own truth. Out loud. You do not like what someone has to say? Do not buy their cd, their book, their whatever. Heck, go say it out loud on your blog. But try and stop someone from exercising that right?

I think not.

...

I recently stumbled upon Summer's brilliant little post called 'It's Coming'. She links to all sorts of goodies that she wants to do/see/read this Fall. The trick-slash-fun part being that you do not know what she is referring to until you click the actual link. It's like a little treasure hunt.

SO how about a meme inspired by her post and by my very favorite season? Fairly loose rules on this one. You can alter it a bit here and there to make it work for your own personal 'to do' list (I did!). And when you get yours up, leave a comment here so we can click over to your spot and get inspired. Make sure to tag five-ish peeps to keep the ball rolling. Who knows, maybe some of us will even have the same answers**!

The These are the Things I want to do this Fall meme:

1. I want to make my first pair of these and then my own mashed together version of these two patterns.
   
2. And read and fully absorb and implement this book (which deserves and will get it's very own post sometime soon).
   
3. And make a big batch of that and this and - oh yeah - these, too.
   
4. And hike here.
   
5. And spend more time writing in the lovely blank journals from here that have sweet grammatically incorrect quotes on the covers and, well, here too.
6. And listen over and over to her and endlessly to the three separate archived broadcasts of this.
   
7. And see this** - hula, don't you think we should just see it together?
8. Oh, how I want to wear this over these with these at the bottom and this over the top.
   
9. And take a weekend workshop here with my lovely one of these and this new baby which is on the way to me as we speak.
   
10. And celebrate my 40th with my best girls, for a whole weekend, in a beach house here.
11. And squeeze him but then later hunker down in front of the fire with him.
    
12. And maybe (please-oh-please) go see them and ooooo her and, hey, how about a new album from her?
    

I hereby tag Andrea, Steph, Alicia, Elena, Angela and anyone else who wants to play :)

Taken in the bathroom at the Bella Union salon after a so-very-needed-looong-awaited haircut by the most talented and lovely Gillian. I know it's an overused sentiment but to have my hair blown dry regularly, aahhhhh, it is most definitely on my "if I won the lottery" list. And see the glints of gray? I have decided that I like them and PickleBoy has proclaimed that he likes them, too. He has officially named them "sparkles".

Of course I had to stop by Japantown on the way home to stock up on incense and have some noodles at Suzu. This meal is so good, costs $10.50 including tip, and serves as lunch (tea and toro with rice) and dinner (I pack up the ramen and take it home).

San Francisco. She is my friend.
__________________

more bathrooms here.

Something that Alicia wrote a week or so ago has been tumbling around inside of me ever since I read it. Please pardon me for quoting her out of context:

"I liked to draw those things where you enlarge a picture on a grid, drawing each square for itself alone.....they chopped it up and gave you all the squares, all mixed up, and you drew them one by one in the right places, waiting to see what it was going to be"...and then, "I'm just going to work on my little squares and see how it all turns out." - Alicia Paulson

These words functioned as a shiny magnet that drew a most precious metal memory back to me. You see, when I was in seventh grade my art teacher gave us a similar assignment. We were to take a picture from one of her magazines, fold it into squares and then box by box copy the image to paper. We were required to draw a larger version - an assignment on scale. I chose a black and white portrait of a young girl with two braids in her hair. At first I thought nothing of the assignment but as I drew each individual square I got more and more excited. My confidence started gaining steam with every stroke of the pencil. When finished several weeks later I was stunned at the likeness. I remember that the teacher thought I had done a nice job. That my parents nodded approval. But me? I was so proud. I felt as if I had stumbled into a part of myself previously unknown. And then it happened for the very first time. It suddenly did not matter to me at all what anyone else thought about something that I had done. The only thing that mattered was that I was good with me. My life moved on. I grew up. I forgot all about that drawing. I also forgot how unbelievable and liberating that first burst of being completely confident and comfortable in my skin had felt.

Until now.

And now I will never forget that feeling again.
I vow to get there again, stay there, live there in that feeling.
I know just how to do it, too.

One little square at a time.

other people's bathrooms here.

...





Tune in to KCRW and celebrate 30 years of Morning Becomes Eclectic with past live performances and interviews online from 9am to 6pm (today). And if you come late to the game (edited 9/5 to add) - not to worry! They have archived the show into three 3-hour sessions each hosted by one of the three DJ's responsible for this veritable gold mine of the very best tunes.

I suggest you follow the links here and listen in the following order:
1st: Chris Douridas (my favorite)
2nd: Nick Harcourt (a very close second)
3rd: Tom Schnabel (definitely third but there is some great stuff here as well)


Don't Labor, LISTEN!