random reflections

Best of 2022 and Looking Ahead

There’s a Top Nine app that’s popular on Instagram. The app will identify the nine most “liked” photos on your feed for the year. I ran it, but many that were chosen were not my favorites. Cathy Zielske created a grid for anyone who wanted to create their own, so I used her grid to identify my favorite cards of the year. No surprise to me that many of them involve hot foil plates or die cutting!

Yesterday, I set up my book journal for 2023, and looked over the stats from 2022. I met the goal I set at Goodreads plus 2.

It was an interesting mix of reading. Almost 3/4 of them were written by female authors. The 62 books were divided almost evenly between fiction and non-fiction, and my favorite ten books for the year divided evenly between fiction and nonfiction as well. Fifty-three of them were print books; the rest were evenly divided between audible and Kindle versions.  I owned about half of the books I read, and the others were evenly divided between books borrowed from my daughter and books borrowed from the library. What surprised me the most was the amount of fiction I read. In 2021, I read almost twice as much non-fiction as fiction. And most of the fiction this year was contemporary or speculative fiction. 

So here are my ten favorite books from 2022. They are ones I’ve thought about long after I finished reading them and/or just thoroughly enjoyed. 

I've downsized my reading goal for 2023 to 52--one a week. I may do better than that, but one thing I learned this year is that it's hard to meet a goal that requires more than four books a month when we're traveling. And traveling is something we hope to continue to do this year. 

I gave serious thought to not choosing a One Little Word this year--something I've done annually since 2011. But in the end, I’m taking a cue from Mary-Lou of Patio Postcards who chose her words quarterly last year. The last several years, choosing One Little Word helped me focus my energies and intentions for the first part of the year, but by summer I was rarely paying any attention at all to it. In November last year I revived my word (Balance) so I ended the year a bit more focused than I had been since August. Once again, traveling always throws me off!

For the first quarter, I’ve chosen Gratitude. I spent the month of November working through photography prompts for Picture Plenty, and started a gratitude journal again. I’d like to establish a habit of paying attention to the small blessings of each day and writing them down. Last year, I finally established a routine of doing spiritual reading/prayer each morning, and I’d like to have an evening routine for recording gratitude.

I’m also setting intentions for each month instead of for the year. For months when we’ll be traveling, I can set some limited goals. And honestly, there are projects I’ve been trying to complete for several years, and I keep pushing them off to the side. If I work on them month by month perhaps they’ll get completed. Under each of four categories—Crafting, Reading, Photography, and Home, I’ve listed one-four things I’d like to accomplish in January. (I’m not ignoring Wellness, but our gym routine and healthy eating patterns are pretty well established so I don’t think I need any particular focus there.) The January plan may be too ambitious, but by evaluating my intentions monthly, I’m hoping all my projects will stay on my radar and get completed by the end of the year!

 

 

 

One Little Word for 2021

This is the 11th year I've chosen a word to guide my intentions for the year. Most of them have served me well--some better than others. This year nothing came quickly to mind, but before I went hunting for a word (which I've needed to do occasionally in the past), EXPLORE popped out at me, and I knew immediately it was the word for me this year.

Exploration is curiosity put into action. Don Walsh

This quote pretty well defines what I'm hoping for by choosing this word. Let's hope by the end of 2021, the first definition in the dictionary also holds true:

1. travel in or through (an unfamiliar country or area) to learn about or familiarize oneself with it.

There are so many things (and places) I want to explore. Some of the things I want to explore from home are prayer practices, new card making techniques, journal writing, sketching and sketchbook design, photography (more intentional, using my Canon and Sony cameras as well as my iPhone), and writing a Rule of Life. The books I chose for the photograph above cover some of those topics. Missing from the pile is The Adventures of Seeing which I loaned to a church friend over a year ago. I've have sent an email to see if I can retrieve it to use for a potential photography project. Heart Talk and Life's Companion are for exploring more intentional and meaningful journaling, and Note to Self is about writing a Rule of Life. I've also found information about that on Tsh Oxenreider's site. An Illustrated Life has been on my shelf (and perused) for several years. That and Liz Steel's new class "Sketchbook Design" will help me explore sketching again. The book on the bottom is a new journal I've invested in that provides a two-page spread for organizing your day, writing your morning and evening gratitudes and summarizing the day. At the end of each week, there's a reflection page that includes a habit tracker. I've been looking for several years for the "perfect" journal. This may not be it, but it's the closest I've found. The drawback is that it's a three month journal and costs more than most year-long ones. If it works, it will be worth it to me. By the end of March I should have a good idea. 

My biggest take-away from last year's OLW, COMMIT, was that setting monthly intentions from a broader list worked much better for me. Eventually I got to more of the items on my lists than I had in the past, Each month will include a reading goal, an organizational/purging goal, and a group of habits to track. For January, it's 1) establish a morning routine of reading (firmly in place,) journaling, and meditation/prayer; 2) complete four books including one from The Unread Shelf Project--a project from 2020 that I'm continuing; 3) begin a weekly sketchbook page reflecting joys and gratitude, and 4) begin to work my way through my stamp/die collection, actually using them before deciding which ones to keep and which ones to give away or donate. I'm guessing that February's goals will look much the same with different books, perhaps a change in habits to track, and once the sketchbook class has ended, a new creative goal. I'm feeling pretty flexible and willing to change things up until they feel right. 

So here's to 2021. I'm guessing the next few months will be difficult ones. Observing safety routines will be more important than ever as others get frustrated and give up on the isolation requirements. A vaccine for folks my age may be available by March, and I hope that's not an overly optimistic prediction. And I'm hoping my OLW project will help keep me entertained and busy here at home!

April OLW Recap

COMMIT has remained a good word for these unusual times, although the goals for April evolved as the month progressed. This, I'm sure, will be the new normal for the summer ahead. All our plans for travel and special events have now been cancelled through the end of August. I'm still holding out hope for a trip to Wisconsin before summer ends, but we'll have to wait and see what things are like, not only here but in all the states between here and there. If things were normal, we'd be there now to celebrate Mother's Day and my birthday. Thank goodness for FaceTime and Zoom. 

Like the pandemic, winter has still not lessened its grip on western New York. Trees have still not leafed out, but the birds are returning. In the last two weeks, we've had rose-breasted grosbeaks, Baltimore Orioles, many yellow finches, and a red-winged blackbird and a cowbird at our feeders. The last two are new are new to our yard. 

I finished Sandie's 30 Day Photo Challenge, and managed a photo-a-day--again all on my iPhone.

In the middle, you'll see a couple photos of grandchildren I did not take, but were sent to me by my kids. Twelve of the photos were from our almost-daily walks and hikes. We tallied over 57 miles during April, 24 of them on the Lehigh Valley Trail. There are also three photos of food. I've really enjoy cooking, and there could have been many more photos. I'm trying 2-3 new recipes each week, and doing some baking which is really unusual. The walking seems to be offsetting the increased calories!

So back to goals, on the 7th of April I committed to doing a 100 Day Project--daily coloring in any medium which coincided with Kathy Racoosen's 30 Day Coloring Challenge. It's a good project, challenging me to try some new techniques as well as get out a variety of coloring mediums. Amazingly enough, I've managed to post on Instagram regularly as well. I also signed up for an Online Card Class which I've enjoyed. I completed several projects, and have several more I want to tackle.

Another new goal emerged a week or two later when I received notice that my iCloud storage was about full. After offloading about 90% of my documents to an external hard drive, I started to tackle the incredible numbers of photos in my Photos app that go back to 2006. I'm about halfway through (now working on 2013) and have purged over 11,000 photos. It's been a good trip through memory lane and a reminder to henceforth delete duplicates and blurry photos as you go. (As well as the multiple photos I take solely for my blog.)

I read seven books:

I particularly enjoyed Writers and Lovers, the only romantic novel on the list. I found some of Alice Munro's short stories challenging, but in the end understand why she has received so many accolades. Although I found the first of Nora Gallagher's book slow-going in the beginning, by the end I had marked so many pages, I ordered her second memoir and enjoyed it as well. Five of those are books for my Unread Shelf Project. April's goal was to read five books and complete a BINGO sheet. Done! (See the photo for Day 17; one of the books was finished late in March which met the requirements for the BINGO game.) Now I'm engrossed in two long, but interesting books, so I'm thinking I won't finish seven books in May. 

So my goals for May: keep working on the 100DayProject, and begin to assemble cards with all the coloring I've done so far; participate in Spring Card Camp 2 which started Wednesday; read another book from the unread shelves (reorganized by genre during April); complete the purging of photos in the Photos app, and move on to one or more projects I keep pushing ahead month after month. We'll see which ones win the battle! I'm also determined to walk every day in May. This weekend will be the biggest test as snow is predicted Saturday night. Mother's Day (celebrated here on Sunday) is going to be really cold!

OLW: March Recap and April Intentions

I continue to be grateful that I chose to set intentions month by month this year since March certainly was not the month we expected. By the time we returned from a wonderful week with Sarah and her family, it was clear that traveling to Hawaii and California were out of the question. Fortunately we took care of most of our cancellations before the wait time on phones reached an hour or more. In just a week we were in self-isolation where we have stayed except for a daily walk and a weekly trip to the grocery store. 

Once I realized I was going to be home WAY more than normal, I took a second look at my intentions for my OLW, COMMIT, for March. After about a week of having difficulty staying focused, I made a list of "To Do Items for Imposed Seclusion." Being a list maker at heart, I immediately felt better and began to be more productive. I didn't put organizing, cleaning, or purging on the list, but I've been doing little bits and pieces of that as well.

First on the list were two items that have been on my mental to-do list for months, even a year or two. About two years ago, I realized that I could be cutting my stamped images with my Cameo. I watched a few videos, but frankly I'm intimidated by technology I don't really understand. In August, Sarah gave me a tutorial, but I never felt independent. Finally, with another tutorial from Sarah at the beginning of the month, I have mastered the art of cutting out my stamped images. I'm still working out some details, but here's a look at two bunnies I die cut with the Cameo and then watercolored.

The second task has been copied over and over and over on my weekly lists. At long last, I have all our photos from our road trip in September edited and up on SmugMug. If you're interested, you can find them here. There are a lot of photos, but the format on SmugMug allows you to look at them very quickly. 

I kept up with my watercolor practice, watched a series of videos on layering stamps (and started practicing with those), and kept up with the Photo-a-Day project.

A note on the photo of Hannah on the top row with a Band-aid on her forehead. She woke up in the middle of the night and told Sarah her head hurt. Sarah asked if a Band-aid would help, and she thought it would. She wore it for several days! I must say the hardest thing about this isolation is not being able to see my grandchildren. We stay away from everyone now, although we do, gratefully, get to video chat with everyone. It's clear there will be no personal photos of grandchildren in April, but hopefully I'll get a few from their parents. Although there was snow in March (see the snow on the daffodils on the 23rd), there quickly were signs of spring in the park, and the daffodils on the kitchen table are from our back yard, as is the hellebore. I found the hanging basket of pansies at the grocery store that are now outside our kitchen window. Many of the photos are from our daily walks.

Last, I kept up with The Unread Shelf Project, finishing Ann Patchett's debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. It had been on my shelf for years, a paperback copy that I purchased at a used book store somewhere. I also finished four other books: Apeirogon, Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say, The Hope of Glory, and Dear Edward. I enjoyed all of them, but was especially fascinated with Apeirogon by Colum McCann. It's the most inventive novel I've ever read, and a tragic commentary on a true story of two fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, whose daughters were killed as a result of the ongoing conflict. The two men now travel around the world telling their stories, hoping to inspire an end to the bitter conflict. 

 

So April. It's going to be a lot of the same: daily walks (fortunately the parks and trails here are still open and people have been great about keeping appropriate distance from one another), lots of reading (I have a list of six--two new and four on the unread shelf), continuing to play with watercolor (I have a new set of watercolor markers I'm anxious to try), and working on the second online course Tracy gave me for Christmas---Copic Jumpstart with Sandy Allnock. So it looks like lots of coloring is in store. The biggie on the list is getting started on making a photo book. Some of you know well, I've been promising to do this for years! Like the Cameo, for some reason I've always been intimidated by making a serious photo book. I figure now is the time. I'm also going to keep up the photography habit, including in my daily search items from Sandie's 30 Day Photo Challenge, and Kim Manley Ort's 30 Days of Perception.

I hope you are well, and keeping busy. It's easy to get discouraged during this unprecedented time. Every day I lift up my gratitude to all those in the front lines of this pandemic, and all the workers providing essential needs. And my prayers for all those who have lost their livelihood, are ill, frightened, overwhelmed, lonely, and in need of comfort. I'm blessed to be where I am, and who I am with right now. And I certainly don't take it for granted. 

OLW: Commit-February Recap

I'm really enjoying setting intentions on a monthly basis. For February, I started out with four, and added a fifth shortly after the month began.

1. Complete the Simplified Photos class: I watched all the videos. Frankly, I knew 85-90% of the material presented. I did learn about a new iPhone app called Color Story. No surprise to me, I already had it on my phone and had never used it. I’ll be giving it a try, but most of the time I upload the photos to my computer and edit them in Lightroom and/or Photoshop Elements.

        2. Take a photo-a-day. Accomplished! Here are 29 of them; there were several more.

It's a good mix of wintery photos, home activities, a couple family events, and quite a few wildlife photos which surprises me some. 

3. Complete the Colored Pencil: Jumpstart class. Also done; I learned a lot in this class and will be applying what I learned over many months. I started a sketchbook for practice images some of which I’ll probably use for cards.

4. Read one book for the Unread Shelf Project. I finished five books in February and three of them were from my unread shelves: Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith, and Hashtag Authentic: Be Your Best Creative Self via Your Instagram Online Presence.

               

I enjoyed all of them, but I particularly liked Timothy Eagan’s A Pilgrimage to Eternity which includes among many other things, a wonderful history of Christianity and Europe—much of which I didn’t know well. I also got a lot out of Hashtag Authentic. I don’t post much on Instagram, but much of the information in the book was a wonderful refresher about photographing the mundane and the everyday.

In addition to the unread shelf books, I read two new books I borrowed from the library Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains, and Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God. After reading the last book, I enrolled in Sarah Bessey’s email subscription program. I’m already using her Forty Simple Practice for Lent and am enjoying the emails she sends with links to many fascinating and inspiring articles and videos.

   

5. After reading about Honoré’s LOAD (A scrapbook Layout A Day) project, I decided to do a card-a-day. By the end of the month I had completed 29 cards—most of which have been mailed or are ready to be mail in the next month. I didn’t made a new card every day, but some days I made several. You can see some of them here, here, and here. And more will be posted once the recipients have them in their hands.

All in all, it was a great month for the the OLW commitments. March will be much lighter in intentions as we are only at home for 12 days, and most days are pretty packed with appointments, volunteering, meetings, and of course, some social engagements. 

Simple Leaves & A Peek at the Book Journal

All the valentines have been received, and now it's on to making all the birthday cards I need for the next month and a half. Yesterday I had a little while after we returned from our Valentine's Day road trip to make a very  CAS birthday card for two challenges, one calling for no more than 1/3 of the card stamped, and one looking for white space. This card definitely fits the challenges, and is also a one layer card. Admittedly, that's pretty unusual for me, but I'm pleased it, and decided it needed no additional embellishment. 

The first challenge is AAA Cards: Up to One Third. No optional challenge this time.

The second challenge is Seize the Birthday.

 I hope to be contributing to this challenge on a regular basis for the next two weeks!

Simon Says recently offered a new stamp set called "Be Kind." As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be really versatile, and ordered it when I needed some other card making supplies. Since then I've seen several wonderful cards created with the set, and am quite sure you'll be seeing a lot of it.

You can see that I used Copics to color the leaves this time. I know I'll be trying colored pencils (finished the Colored Pencil Jumpstart class this week), as well as watercolors. I thought all it needed was a simple sentiment, this one is from Papertrey Ink's "Birthday Bash," an oldie but a goodie.

For those of you following along with my OLW: COMMIT for 2020, you know I'm participating in the Unread Shelf Project. Whitney, who runs the project, shared a book journal she created for her project. I liked what I saw and had a lovely Filofax notebook I wasn't making good use of, so I started one, too. I keep track of all the books I read on Goodreads, so I don't have a page for the titles, but here's what I included.

This might be my favorite page. Since I photographed it, I've finished another book, and can see that I've read 3 fiction and 3 nonfiction books. As it turns out, those six books were written by 3 men and 3 women. Just coincidence, but I'll be interested at the end of the year how those percentages end up. I'll also be interested what genres I read. 

I belong to two book groups. Our couples book group started in 1990, and my interfaith book group just about three years ago. I decided to devote a page to each group. The date following the title is the date we discuss the book.

Since the point of The Unread Shelf Project is to read books we've already acquired, we're encouraged to not make any purchases on alternate months. I did buy both these books during January (a shopping ban month), and have since purchased four others. Not a good beginning, but one of them was my Lenten devotional book, so that was necessary. 

You can see here that I finished two books from my unread shelf in January. I've read one in February, and that is the goal of the project. Personally, I'd like to read two each month, but my reading time has been way down in February. We're doing a lot of traveling in March, and usually that means more reading, not less, so I'm hopeful I can catch up!

And finally, a page to record books loaned. I've "lost" several books I loved because I don't remember who borrowed them, included a first edition copy of one of my favorite books. This, hopefully, will help me keep track of my books. Some books I keep because I want to be able to share them, but I do want them to be returned!

I'm also hopeful that the journal will be another way for me to keep track of my intentions for 2020. Thus far, the changes I've made in that regard seem to be working great, and it's hard for me to see that I won't be able to keep up with the tracking system I've created. Next month, while we're away will be the first big challenge.

 

 

 

OWL: January Assessment

We're nearly at the end of January, and Honoré is hosting a link-up today for our monthly assessment of our OLW. 

COMMIT is my OLW for 2020, and so far it has proven to be a good motivation for keeping track of my intentions. One of the best decisions I made this year, was to set intentions month by month, rather than a longer list for the whole year.

For January, I set three:

1) The Unread Shelf Project:  Actually this will be a year-long goal, but each month has a different focus. This month we were to count our unread books. I was not surprised to discover we have over 200 books on our shelves that have not been read. Many have been started, but not completed. Frequently, for me, that’s because I have to abandon a book in order to complete the books for my two book groups. Hopefully, this project will help me get back to some of those. I also counted the unread books on my Kindle. Tracy and I share a Kindle account, so I counted only those books I hoped to read someday—another 27 in addition to the books on the shelves.

We were also asked to reorganized our books so all the unread books were in one place. Now all the books on the bookshelf in our bedroom are unread books, and there are a some more in the guest room. In the process of reorganizing we identified 36 books that we would probably never read, and donated them to a good cause. (I think that’s part of February’s plan, but I’m guessing a few more could go then as well.)

The second part of the commitment to The Unread Shelf Project is to complete one of those unread books. I read A Gentleman in Moscow, which had been recommended to me multiple times by multiple people. They were right, it was a wonderful book, beautifully written.

2)  Taking two online coloring classes was the second goal. I’ve written about them here and here. I did complete the Coloring Challenge Road Trip class, and I've completed half of Sandy Allnock's Colored Pencil Jumpstart class. I had hoped I’d be able to move on to another project in February, but clearly I need more time with the Colored Pencil Jumpstart class. Each of the lessons so far has included three to five videos with worksheets for each of the new skills. Here’s a sample of one of the many practice worksheets, we’ve been asked to complete.

3) The third goal for January was to prepare three meatless meals each week, and to create a meal plan on the weekend. This has been totally successful, and my “meat and potato” husband has had no complaints. I’ve finally figured out how to do the meal planning on my recipe app, Paprika.

I can’t recommend this app highly enough. Paprika 1) stores any recipe I download into categories of my choosing, 2) links the ingredients from recipes on the app to my grocery list, 3) can be set so items that are put into my cart “disappear” from the list as I shop, and 4) allows both of us to add items to the list, and to divide up the grocery shopping on the rare occasions we shop together.

So it’s been a productive month. In addition to A Gentleman in Moscow, I’ve finished How to Read the Constitution—And Why (our couples' book group choice for January,) and Olive, Again. Before Friday (then end of January), I will have finished The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. It’s this month’s book from my interfaith book group and a book from the Unread Shelf! This keeps me current with my year-long goal of reading a minimum of four books a month.

I'll be back in a few days with my February intentions.

 

 

Something Blue

Yesterday I had time to play around for awhile with watercolors. Although I've been following the CAS Watercolor Challenge for some time, I don't often have a chance to play. The current challenge is "Something Blue."

Here's my card:

Once again, I pulled out the Altenew 36 pan watercolor set. I contemplated using my good Daniel Smith watercolors, but that would have required a bit of mixing to get the blues I wanted. It was easier to start with the several blues in the Altenew set and do a bit of mixing both on the palette and on the watercolor paper as well. I love the rich colors in the background piece, and decided a white die cut would be most effective. 

This die cut is Simon Says' "Morning Glory Vine." The sentiment is from Simon Says "Tiny Words" white embossed on black and trimmed out. This will most likely be a birthday card since that's the most frequent card I send. The sentiment lends itself to other occasions so it's more versatile than usual. I decided to add some dimension by layering the watercolored piece on a smaller piece of Bristol cardstock and then again on the card base. I used a set of Spellbinder dies to cut each of the layers.

Ah, September!

It’s Labor Day, and the start of the school year tomorrow for most students in Rochester. Caleb started kindergarten in Illinois two weeks ago. September has always seemed like a second restart to me. I’ve been living with my One Little Word for eight months, and the list of intentions I wrote in January.

It’s a good time to reassess. Actually, I started the process in August when I became frustrated with my ability to get to some of the projects I love and have committed to, and printed out a new copy of my tracking sheet. It’s rather amazing how well this works for me.

I finally finished my #100DayProject, and only sketched once after that. My card making fell into a string of days when I made sure to have the cards I needed for August and early September.

And finally, at the end of the month, I got going on Project Life. I was nearly a year behind, but have finished all the pages for 2016 and have the title page for 2017 completed.

A lot of advance planning for the next several months is also done. I gave up on my Christmas Journal, and decided to include the holidays in the Project Life album. I think that’s probably the path of the future as well. The mail brought a package from Gossamer Blue this week. They had a Half Price sale so I bought one full kit as well as a Life Pages kit. This is only some of the goodies. I put away the stamps and several other items before I thought to take a photo.

Exercise was the biggest improvement. I scheduled a meeting with my personal trainer and started a new routine at the gym. That plus walking meant that there were only a few days in August that I wasn’t active.

Journaling didn’t happen, and it’s on the list for September. I’m trying a new eating plan which I added to the list for September and a 4 week shopping ban---only groceries, gifts, and necessities. I’ve had some serious issues with my feet, and have purchased several pairs of good shoes which allow me to wear new orthotics which were prescribed by the orthopedic surgeon. Somehow that seemed to give me leeway to go on a shopping spree.

You can see that I only missed one day of reading, and it paid off with seven books read in August, possibly the most I’ve ever read in a month. Two of my favorites were theology-based, but I can recommend two novels.

The first is our September book group book, A Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. It’s a compelling story of a young man who parks his car on a dirt road, throws the keys on the dashboard, and walks into the Maine wilderness. The next time, he emerges is 27 years later. How and why that happens is the plot of the book, but much of what I loved was the author’s inclusion of the research and history of solitude. How is it that one person can thrive on total solitude, but it drives most people crazy? (Sometimes literally.)

The second book is Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage. It’s a ghost story of sorts, but also a meditation on loneliness, solitude, memories, and grief. I've long been a fan of Gail Godwin, having enjoyed Father Melancholy's Daughter, Evensong, and Flora, among others.

We’ve had a busy weekend. We were invited to a lovely Shabbat Dinner on Friday evening, entertained two couples here on Saturday, and went to a Fantasy Football picnic yesterday. Today has been very quiet, but there are more good things coming in the week ahead.

Mail, Memo, Me: Musings

It was supposed to be a quiet weekend after a very busy week once we returned from Chicago. Somehow, it flew by, and here we are at Monday evening already!

Friday night we had dinner with Tracy’s sister and brother-in-law at a new-to-us Asian restaurant. Tom had a Sushi platter, but the rest of us went with a hibachi plate. There are a lot of family events this summer, and we got a chance to talk about logistics among other things.

Saturday, it was my Dining Room Ministry team's turn to serve lunch. We were short-handed, but managed to get a hot lunch for nearly 70 on the table on time. But it was a lot more hectic than usual. Matt, Betsy, and the girls came for pizza. I only got one good photo---of Madelyn once again. She sits still the longest, and hasn’t developed an aversion to Grandma’s phone or camera.

Yesterday after church, I went right to the craft room to make sure all the cards for May were finished. It was a marathon session, and I finished 12, but still would like to make two more before the weekend when we’re off to visit my brother for a few days. It’s been well over a year since my brother and I have been together. And there’s a trip to NYC planned for Saturday---haven’t been there for 16 years!

I finished a book this weekend (well, actually this morning,) and thought I share three books I’ve read recently that I can highly recommend. Two are nonfiction, and one is a recently published novel that I put a hold on at the library.

The first is Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippa. Many years ago, Sarah asked me if I listed to Tippa’s podcasts, “On Being.”  Sadly, I never did. Based on many years of interviewing scientists, novelists and poets, theologians, and philosophers among others, Becoming Wise distills wisdom from these interviews in five sections: "Words: The Poetry of Creatures," "Flesh: The Body’s Grace," "Love: A Few Things I’ve Learned," "Faith: The Evolution," and "Hope: Reimagined." It is a fascinating and thought-provoking read. My To Read list grew a bit longer as I added books written by people Tippa has interviewed.

The Women in the Castle was the featured novel in the Indie Book List pamphlet I picked up in Nashville in March. I had to wait a few weeks for it to reach my name on the hold list at the library, but it was worth the wait. I’ve read more than my share of Holocaust novels over the years. This was no less devastating than many of the others, but the points of view were dramatically different. It is a compelling read, and the current political situation came to mind more than once.

I think I’ve read nearly all of Thomas Friedman’s books. His ability to tell a story to teach a concept is unparalleled. I’ve learned so much from him. He’s latest book, Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Acceleration, is no exception. The New York Times calls him an “exploratory journalist,” and in this book he explores the rapid change of technology, and why it’s nearly impossible to keep up; climate change and the impact it’s had on our political and cultural institutions, and the spinning market so connected to the acceleration of the internet. It’s a long book, but a fascinating read.

I also wanted to share a few thoughts and links on “Choosing Joy” and gratitude. I recently joined a new interfaith book group---Christian, Jewish, and Catholic. We’re planning to read theologically interesting and thought-provoking books. Our first selection was Marcus Borg’s Convictions which I’ve now read twice, and could easily read again.

One of the members of that group sent a link to a piece she wrote on Mother’s Day. It’s beautifully written, thoughtful, and compassionate. When I read it I recognized, once again, that I am blessed beyond measure. Gratitude is something I recognize daily in many large and small ways, but for some reason I’ve never been able to keep a gratitude journal for more than a month or two. It’s always bothered me, but this week I read a blog post by Anne Butera (who hosted the Handmade Joy Exchange) in which she reflected that when “life is more joyful, it’s easier to see the joy. It doesn’t take the practice of writing . . . to be able to see it.” Her observation was very comforting, and I’m very grateful that my life is joyful enough not to need a written list.

Enough of rambling. The mail brought my birthday gift (partially funded by generous gifts from my mother-in-law and my husband.) I’ve been eyeing a mirrorless camera for several years, and in January got to see one Adam had purchased. It does most of what my big cameras do, much more than my phone camera, and is less than half as big as the big camera. It won’t replace my big camera, but it’s small enough to fit into a larger purse for a day in the city or a long walk. It’s the first Olympus I’ve owned, and I’m just beginning to figure out the controls. I'll be testing it out in New York City on Saturday. Also in the mail was the stunning Build a Flower: Magnolia stamp by Alenew and a charming pair of scissors from Etsy.

I’ll leave you with two of the cards I made with the new stamp set yesterday for two upcoming May birthdays.

I watercolored this image, and mounted it on a smaller A4 card from The Paper Source.

This one I stamped with a combination of inks from Papertrey Ink and Simon Says. The Altenew layering stamps are pretty amazing. It's adhered to an A2 card from Memory Box and I added a few rainstones from PTI.

Hope your week is off to a good start. I'm waving (a bit late in the day) to Sian at From High In the Sky and the other memo makers!