Confessions of a Pinterest Junkie

I am developing a severe Pinterest addiction.

I blame my backyard.

My yard was, in general, kind of a wasteland when I moved in. Its was basically just sandy dirt with some weeds thrown in. But nature bounces back pretty quickly and my front yard is looking damn good. The lawn is green, if not exactly all “lawn” in the traditional sense of the word — by which I mean, weeds are just as green as grass when you can’t afford to be picky. My winterberry holly came back nice and green, and my flowers are starting to fill in. Another few months and it will be a paradise compared to what it used to look like.

How cute is she?

 

Happy Sunday: “It burned while I cried”

Adele is a tough one to cover because it’s hard to imagine any version of her songs being better… but this is as good an Adele cover as I’ve ever seen.

A Case for Boyz II Men

Last year my best friend was at a charity event and she put one of her tickets into the box for Boyz II Men tickets. A few days later she was walking through the hall at work and someone told her that an email had gone out and she had won. He was more than a little surprised when she was excited. Like…really excited.

I’m surprised that he was surprised…

From about fifth grade through the eighth grade, Boyz II Men was…well, my favorite. In high school angrier music started to take over: Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Hole. So when I joined Allison in Worcester last night to see the three remaining members of Boyz II Men, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

Vignettes from the Train

FullyFunctnlPhil, Flickr Creative Commons

Monday evening I caught an Amtrak train in Hartford and started my journey down to New York’s Penn Station. I also happened to be reading Wally Lamb’s The Hour I First Believed, which has a whole chapter focused on a train ride from New Haven to Hartford for the dedication of Hartford’s Memorial Arch in Bushnell Park. I’m sure that the beautiful old brownstone train station was quite a sight in those days. 

The Problem with Glee

It’s not like people watch Glee for its amazing storylines, but I’m really starting to get worried about its writers.

I’ve always preferred the supporting characters to the (annoying) leads. In fact, I stopped watching the show about halfway into the first season thanks to Rachel being completely insufferable. What brought me back to it? Britney S. Pierce’s ridiculous one-liners and sweet dance moves. I have a serious soft-spot for Lord Tubbington. But Britney’s dimwitted utterances, and Sue Sylvester’s snarky, but hilarious barbs are starting to be overshadowed by what appears to be a complete lack of coherent storytelling. It’s like they just throw stuff at the wall to see what will stick.

Happy Sunday: Thou Mayest

I never tire of Mumford & Sons. They’re working on a new album and I can hardly wait. And “Timshel” is one of those songs that I forget about until I hear it and I love it all over again. But it’s funny, when I read East of Eden as a kid in school, we only read parts of the rather enormous book, but I really liked it. And whenever I Google the word “timshel” that old Steinbeck classic appears. In fact, Timshel.org is nothing but a passage from the book. The word has come to mean, in part because of Steinbeck, “thou mayest” and represent the idea of man’s struggle between good and evil.

Seems to me like it’s a good name for a cat…but all my pets have names.

 

Getting Your Hands Dirty

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to most since I bought my house was putting in raised beds for my vegetable garden. I had a garden at my last place but the soil was more rock than dirt. Some things did OK but others did not, and I had a pesky woodchuck who liked to eat my butternut squash and watermelon every time they started growing. Luckily for my raised bed plans, I seem to know all the right people.

Over the past few months, a family friend who delivers lumber has been showing up with large beams and dropping them off. Then we all got together one day,  plotted out where the beds should go and got to work assembling them. For the past few weeks they’ve sat empty…waiting for the soil to fill them up.

That’s where my mother’s farmer friends come in. She works in a restaurant out in cow country, and one of the local farmers comes in every day. Later in the summer he’ll start showing up and leaving boxes filled with tomatoes and peaches in the waitresses cars. He claims he can’t sell them. About that time my mom starts showing up at my house and we start cooking up huge batches of sauce. One of his buddies–whose farm is much closer to my house–comes in once a week or so and he’s been telling my mom he’d drop off some compost for weeks. On Thursday, he finally did. It looked a little like a T-Rex left me a gift.

Dear North Carolina

Reblogged from Dear Mr. Postman:

I address you because you’re convenient (although controversial) at this moment. This letter also applies to Colorado, where the filibuster last night had constituents crying “Shame!”; to Arizona, where lawmakers recently designated women as perpetually pregnant; to California, where Prop 8 essentially did the same thing North Carolina’s Amendment One did; to Washington, where before marriage-equality legislation even passed in February, opponents were gearing up to fight it through a ballot referendum (we’ll see it in November).

Read more… 717 more words

A Little Extra Sunday Love from Coldplay to MCA

Happy Sunday: Have Some Candy

I just adore Paolo Nutini.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Hiking

I started reading Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail earlier this week, and it’s got me thinking about what it really means to be a “hiker.” It seems to me that lately everyone thinks they’re one, including me — but most of us are not.

Earlier this spring I hit the internet and started researching hiking shoes after I slipped on a few rocks in the woods, and anytime I purchase an accessory for an activity it means I’m truly invested. So I started looking into more local trails. There are tons of options, but as you might imagine, wilderness in Connecticut is not always easy to come by and I have a new rule: if you see a stroller or a child under the age of 8 on a trail, it’s not hiking, it’s just a walk. 

One Morning at Home with John Irving

Reblogged from LightBox:

Whether on a grand-tour TV show or in an architectural magazine, it’s not too hard to see what a famous person’s house looks like. It’s also, thanks to paparazzi and tabloid photos, easy to see a picture of a famous person. But it’s less easy to capture iconic cultural movers and shakers truly at home—in both senses of the phrase.

Read more… 240 more words

This man is 70 years old and he puts me shame in just about every possible way.

Always the Last to Know: John Irving’s New Book

Last weekend I went on a cleaning binge. I tidied up the house, organized my office, hung things that had been leaning up against the wall for months, put up curtain in the spare room, and so on. While going through the office I found a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. Lately I’ve been considering buying a Kindle, and therefore putting off buying any new books. Being a new homeowner, though, means not buying much of anything that isn’t necessary…that includes a Kindle

Meanwhile, I’d been wanting to buy Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and The Hunger Games. So when I found the B&N gift certificate I figured it meant I should go out and get Wild. I sat down and read a few chapters and then decided it was time to join Goodreads. And it was there that I discovered John Irving has a new book out next week.

Happy Sunday from Orla

Aww… little Orla is growing up. She’s still awesome.