It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better...

...being a mom and watching him grow.

We just spent about a week with family up in Rabun Gap.
My cousin Barb took this and many other fab photos of the kids.
These 2 of Anton took my breath away enough to count my
blessings and remember the lyrics of "Something Good" from the Sound
of Music. Maria and the Capt fall in love and she realizes that there
was some great plan for her all along, in spite of the road being rocky
at times...

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood.
Perhaps I had a miserable youth.
But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past,
there must have been a moment of truth.

For here you are standing there loving me,
whether or not you should.
So somewhere in my youth or childhood,
I must have done something good.

Nothing comes from nothing,
nothing ever could.

So somewhere in my youth or childhood,
I must have done something good.

Mia in Barbara's Eyes

Check this one out. Look at that beautiful giggle.

Anton in Barbara's Eyes

So my cousin Barb is a Photoshop guru and has been taking pictures of all of us all week long. Here's one of Anton that turns me inside out.

Family of Bookmakers

Hi friends,

I've been up in Rabun Gap spending yummy family time with the Texas Dusey's. Today we made books together. Tomorrow we shop! Yay! Here are pictures of our efforts. Aren't they and their creations darling!?

~Anne

W I L L B I T E

After a trip to the vet to pick up cat food, I asked for a "will bite" sticker as Anton has grown very dangerous as he approaches his
"terrible" two's. If he can't bite YOU, he bites himSELF. Really!

I love my husband & I hate DOMINO.

Dougie Fresh sent this e-mail out to his dearest friends today and I, being his beloved, love him for it. I did not stamp this letter, but left it on his desk this this morning to stamp it, if he felt it was worth wasting money on. "This one's worth a stamp!" he said, and scanned in the letter for you all to see, before popping it in the mailbox.

From: douglas.elser@yahoo.com
Subject: Love My Wife
Date: June 13, 2008 7:27:13 PM EDT

I love my wife for many reasons, like for instance the son she gave me and all that. But her sense of humor is awesome.

Anne got tired of all the deceptive letters from DOMINO Magazine trying to convince her that she owed them money because she had accepted a 'free' issue or two. So this little gem went out in the US mail today.

~DE

Silence

This weekend Doug and I rented There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis was masterful as always. Completely transformed himself.

I was deeply struck by the soundtrack, too - dug a little deeper and discovered the composer Arvo Part. Below are some amazing things Arvo has said about composing, creativity and being open to space(s) I read in this article, where the author talks about the Fullness of Emptiness.

For all you designers out there: When he talks about rests, you can translate that as white space.

"I have discovered that it is enough if a single note is played beautifully. This single note, the sense of peace or silence have a calming effect on me." (p.4)

One word suggests more than two ever could. Candlelights will always be sexier than floodlights. Emptiness yields. The blank page tells every story, which is why writer's block is so overwhelming: we tremble before the mystery of our own omnipotence. Lao Tzu: "The Master says nothing, and leaves nothing unsaid."

"My music was always written after I had long been silent in the most literal sense of the word. When I speak of silence, I mean the 'nothingness' out of which God created the world. That is why, ideally, musical silence is sacred. Silence is not simply given to us, but in order that we may draw sustenance from it. This sustenance is no less valuable to me than the air I breathe. There's an expression: to live on air and love. I'd like to rephrase this: if you approach silence with love, music may result. A composer often has to wait a long time for this music. It is this reverent sense of expectation that constitutes the brief silence of which I am so fond." (p.5)

I have studied a little bit of neuroscience, enough to know that we do not experience things, but the differences between things. We see boundaries, and our brains conserve resources by assuming the rest. So when I say that no sound exists without silence, I mean it in the least metaphysical, most flesh-and-blood way possible. To experience is to compare. We owe all of our music to silence, even if we never stop to thank it. The single piece of advice common to every musician, no matter the instrument, is to play the rests. Play the rests.

There is also, however, a silence beneath silence. The rests emerge in this openness, the deeper silence in which we make our comparisons. Needless to say, you cannot hear it. But maybe you should try.

Look! A seed spreader!

I love my job

This is what I found written next to my car on the way home yesterday. Whose the wonderful student who wrote this?! CONfess!

Polymer Clay Shawl Closures

Hallo friends,

After selling my polymer clay buttons to Knitch, I've decided to try my hand at making shawl closures. They're made of 2 parts a stick that goes into a thing with a hole (sometimes it's just the stick that can do it by itself). That sounds really graphic, I know.
I tried making both parts out of polymer clay, but the stick part is too thin to be made out of the clay. So I've bought dowel rods and bamboo skewers and plan on painting them and then sticking one end with a polymer clay bead that matches. Here are pictures of my efforts. Having a blast here. I think next I'll move onto making hand-painted knitting needles. Weeee!

Wet and Happy

Here's my Hunny Bunny playing in the sprinkler for the first time. Joy!