Wordle

Just what have I been writing about lately? This is it. These are the words I use, the things I repeat. Fun to see. Check out http://www.wordle.net/ , which will take your site or text and make it into text art. Play with the layout, words, colors, font... whatever you like and make your own!

The Dockray Farm

Grandad's wagonwheel fence surrounding the house and yard and Grandad's rock wall outlining garden beds

My Granny and Grandad had a farm in the mountains outside Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Their land encompasses some of the mountain on each side of the road that winds through those hills on a longer, prettier route to Mayhill than the main road takes. There are fields down the center of the valley, along the road, where they had cattle the whole time I was growing up. Granny still keeps a small herd, even though she lives in town in the house she build after Grandad died.

My mom recounts stories of a time when they grew gladiolas in the fields and artists would come and sit along the road, painting the scene. Even without the flowers, and even in the browner days of winter, it's beautiful country. I have a lot of memories of this place. It's rich with family history, history that should be written down by someone. I'm not sure who that's going to be. Last year, through a combination of events, so many were told and retold back and forth between my mom and Granny that I *had* to write some down. They are on little scraps of yellow paper, picked up from the scrap notes pile at our church office, where I was when I realized I was going to miss out on these jewels of memory if I didn't at least start taking notes. I found them when I was packing my scrapbooking stuff to take on our trip and realized that it's been a whole year and I haven't done anything with them. I know that every family has these stories of the everyday, but these are from mine and I wish they were put together in a way that we could enjoy them. Hopefully I'll start relaying a few here!

Zack working on crossing the cattleguard

We're Back

Zack at the Dockray Farm in the mountains of southern New Mexico

We're back from our long trip and and I'm really enjoying looking through the pictures. We captured more moments than it seems like the time could have held! We had such wonderful visits with family and it was fun to do something different. Now I'm glad to get back to normal. I've been writing in bits and pieces, on scraps and programs. I have half written posts in draft form that I am going to try to fill in, so pardon the disjointed chronology and old news as I finish and post them.

Blog name

Ok, as previously disclosed and discussed, I acknowledge that the name "Deanna's Blog" is lame. Julie has a list of options, but none have really struck me quite right. Some are downright scandalous ("Making Mungers"? hee hee!).

I really just want to have a chance to write, with the tantalizing thought that someone, somewhere might read it. I want to show pictures of the kids, but I'm not really thinking of an online scrapbook. I like the idea of discussing issues now and then, but it's not really a political forum for me, more like occasional musings. I tried out "Thoughts from Deanna" for a day and hated it. Sounded crazy egocentric to me. I like capturing anything that is creative or fun before it slips away from my Pigeon Brain. What's a girl with too many hobbies and no single focus to do?

I keep thinking back to my wedding, when we were doing so much ourselves that the hours and minutes before the ceremony had to shift into a panic-driven high gear. Julie, who embodies all the best of the Fieldmarshall personality type, began to move everyone along. It was Lead, Follow, or Get Outta the Way! My friend and attendant, Alya, was sprinkling sparkles on the tables for the reception. "Sprinkle, Alya, sprinkle!" Julie barked!

Sometimes my hobbies feel like they only get going when there is a deadline and I have to shift into high gear. I finished scrapbooking my wedding at one in the morning the night before Sammy was born, almost ten years later. I finished my nephew's crocheted blanket in the backseat of the car on the way to the baby shower. I finished the preparations for the M is for Man on the Moon party the night before and morning of only due to high-gear and the help of my mother- and father-in-law and our friend, Glenn. As usual, I was in the kitchen plating up the food on the trays and garnishing at top speed just before the guests began to arrive.

So I'm trying a new name: Garnish, Deanna, Garnish! If I hate it after a few days, I guess we'll go back to the lame name.

on blogging, facebook, etc.

Uh oh. Miss Manners has me in her cross hairs:

The novelty of being able to register oneself with the entire world and to keep an open diary and share every passing thought has seduced many people who have then found to their regret that unselective exposure does not equal popularity. (full article)

p.s. You know who you are, friend with the Miss Manners link in her blog. I got caught up and spent a ridiculous stretch of time reading about the horrors of arriving at a home with your own purchased coffee in hand.

Zack's Art

This morning, while we were still sleeping off the effects of a night up too late (me fixing my old and new computers, James preparing for today), then up later still with a congested baby, Zack made some thank you cards for his summer Sunday school teachers. I had set some precut and folded paper out for him last night, since we had meant to work on it all week and hadn't done it. I loved his cards so much I had to scan them and share them. Both teachers got rainbows, this one the more elaborate of the two.

Then, one got a "blastoff" scene. With some squinting and head cocking, you may be able to see the countdown - 10, 9, 8, and so on, with the 2 and 1 coming diagonally down when he ran out of room. The three men are in a spaceship, and you can see the trajectory up to "the sparkly moon". You can see where he has sounded out "Becki" as BekE.



Finally, the other card got a retelling of the song B-I-N-G-O. He loves to write this. There is something so compellingly innocent about his writing as he improvises spelling and writes the letters wherever he finds to write them. He more often goes to the line above to continue than the line below (an optimist, handwriting analysis might say). The words run together and you have to read them like a seek-and-find; there are no limitations by the conventions of writing, just an eagerness to just get writing.

The Problem of Blogging

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time reading blogs. It started with Gretchen's, where I discovered that my friend of many years is a funny, clever writer and, with apologies to Mommy Town (the next blog I began to read, a friend who has a lovely voice-in-print), that she "has her hands full". My husband listend to my amused retelling of friends' antics many times before mourning outloud that the silly or brilliant or poignant moments with our own children are not being similarly recorded, but are slipping away in the press of life. Well. Now the pressure is on.

Meanwhile I read more blogs, and the blogs they link to, and the blogs of the commenters... Does everyone have a blog? One of my favorite friends started her own, and I can hear in her latest post the same trepidation I have about attempting to join the likes of the amazing bloggers out there.

The final straw was, ironically, an incredible, crisp, intensely creative one, SouleMama. I found her (surprise), through another blog, and found many more blogs through hers, plus books I now need to read (currently on request at the library) and projects I want to do. Of course I began with what I now gather is a familiar response of "How can she DO so much!?", which touched off a few days of moping and complaining that "I can't get anything DONE!" (maybe because I'm reading blogs all day, hmmm?). But as I dug deeper and read her response to this question (a "frequently asked" one, I now see), I understand that she doesn't do everything, but she does focus on what she really means to. And since I am ever reminded how quickly the days of having babies and young children pass, I'm going to try that too.

So, I expect a flurry of posts based on everything that has been brewing in my head, then nothing as the newness fades, and then... who knows. I am telling myself I'm just *trying* it.

Oh gosh. The title "Deanna's Blog" is so boring.