I hope you like the extreme makeover to my blog. Goofygirl is pure MAGIC. I recommend her unconditionally if you’re looking for somebody to take your ideas and make them come alive on your blog.

I suddenly have the urge to post HOURLY!!!! I finally feel like I have a place on the net that’s truly me.

Thanks, Heather! You are the absolute best!

Indeed. . . .What a great weekend.

Friday night, we kicked things off at the Paper Moon Diner, which is like no other restaurant in Baltimore (or anywhere else I’ve been, for that matter).

Things got a little pricey when we started adding on fries and drinks, as is the case anywhere else, but the food was five-star all the way. Even my 2-year-old ate his homemade mac and cheese (and I mean homemade. No pasta-in-a-box here).

Then, on Saturday, we spend the day day-tripping in Fells Point, something I have never done (and, as a Balti-moron, I feel pretty bad about that).

Beautiful day to do it, too. We could have walked all day (especially with The Boy in the stroller).  It’s like a small-town Annapolis–lots of eclectic shops with the sporadic chain store or restaurant for the tourists who are afraid to try the world’s best croissants at Bon-Aparte, or the best pizza at Brick Oven Pizza. Kids loved it. We loved it. We’ll be back.

Then, today, we enjoyed the unbelievably perfect weather outside, as we worked relentlessly on the yard, digging out the underbrush that’s been choking the boxwoods and the azaleas for at least five years. They leaned in, as best they could, to offer their hugs for the freedom we’ve given them. Makes me want to write a mushy book about the whole damned thing….

But now it’s time to get back to work and plot out my week ahead. Much to do, much to do…..

Hope your weekend was nice, too!

Hello, World. . . .

The rush of the school year’s end collided with getting ready to teach grad school, and when I looked up today and took a breath, I realized that I had not blogged in a good while.

Shame, shame, shame.

I think, though, that as I gear up for my book launch in November, the focus of the site might change ever so slightly. I don’t know yet. Maybe. What I really need to do is figure out how in the world I can change the URL for my blog to be something like rusvw.net/blog so that I can use my home URL as a true home page.

I would think that such a thing could be done by sheepdogs deep in puppy REM sleep, but I know better. The last time I tried to do this, I nearly destroyed my site completely. It was only through the great kindness of others who posted how-tos for blog-clogs like me that I was able to return my site to its near-natural form.

So, if my site disappears for awhile, please pray for me. Thanks.

Be back soon….(i hope!)

My goodness, I do believe there is hope yet.

Beyond my wildest imagination, I witnessed something today that I thought could never happen again–especially in my own back yard (figuratively speaking, of course). But there they were, all three of them, laughing their heads off as if they were in hour three of the mega-Disney Marathon indoctrination.

Was it KimPossible? maybe Hannah Montana? or even a little Suite Life of Zack and Cody?

Nope.

It was a little bit of Bugs and Daffy and Elmer Fudd, doing the same thing they’ve been doing for over 60 years now.

Was it politically correct? Hardly. Was it ridiculously simple and repetitive? You bet. But it was also funny as anything, and my kids–the junkies for all things hot pink and green, joined me in being vewy, vewy quiet (except when we laughed knee-slap happy) as Bugs and Daffy duked it out.

I have always feared that someday I would lose my ability to find such things humorous, yet here I am, a full-blown 42-year old, laughing right next to them as if I were still 10 years old myself, longing for more episodes….

So here we go. If you know of any bugs/daffy links on the web, please feel free to pass them along. I’ve got several favorites (”An aardvark? No….I’m not an aardvark! I’m a…a, um., well, let’s see just what the heck it is that I am. . . .), although I love all of them!
Thanks, all!

Monday greetings to you all:

I had a power weekend in many ways, where I was filled with energy from 20 other teachers on Saturday during a 7-hour writing workshop–our first of 21 that will conclude on July 20. There is no greater feeling than being surrounded by like-minded folks who have strong, healthy attitudes about teaching, writing, and the the teaching of writing. We meet again in two weeks, and I already know that it will refill my energy banks until our next gathering. They really kick off on June 25, when we’ll see each other daily, Monday through Friday, for four straight weeks.

Nothing like it. This will be my third time leading this experience, but every time I do this, I end up feeling like I am being led by 20 great, inpsiring writers/educators into a new school year with limitless potential.

Then the family went to see Shrek the Third late yesterday afternoon. The girls loved it, but it was The Boy’s first movie in a theater, so he was a little freaked out by how dark it got at the beginning of the movie. He settled down for a while, and he made it until about 20 minutes before the movie ended. I’ve offered free movie passes to my wife so she can watch the entire show with the girls and without interruption…I hope she takes me up on my offer.

I’ve got a lot to do today, but I’m afraid the motivation’s just not there. I have a meeting in 15 minutes, and I have to prepare a final evaluation for my end-of-year conference this afternoon. None of this is getting done, though.

I feel like I need me-time, just to sort through all that’s happened in the last month. We put ourselves on auto-pilot so easy, and when we take over the wheel, we sometimes think the goal is to keep driving in the same direction, at the same speed. What’s hard is to get us to cut the motor entirely, to drift, to spend some time off the road, to stop and get out, knowing that we’ll have the power and the control to get behind the wheel again when the time is right.

That’s what I need to do. I know that.

But if it is what I will do, I’m not as sure.

First attempt at bringing my blog back to life with pictures. Maddie joins us below as she works on a very important project at school…

To get this photo in the blog entry, I simply uploaded it from my desktop…something I can do on my PC laptop but not from my Mac, for some reason.

Maybe my life will be much easier blogging from the PC…..

off to school now, but plenty of play time ahead this weekend!

[image deleted]

Happy Friday, all!

This weekend, I’ve got a mix of pleasures on my plate, but the one thing I’m looking most forward to is spending a little more time with the intricacies of my blog. For some reason, I’ve lost the ability to add images to my entries, so I have to send candy and roses to the Flckr goddesses and see what I can do to patch up our relationship. I think our break-up was just a big misunderstanding last year. But hey, I’m ready to take that first big step and offer my apologies for me being a part of the problem.

If they accept the offering of gifts and apologetic words, you will be the recipients of their kindness, as I will jazz up my next post with pretty, pretty pictures….

:)

Enjoy your Friday, all! What will you be doing to bring a little pleasure to your days ahead?

All:

The Saturday before Easter Sunday, my mother-in-law died suddenly in her apartment.

Two days later, we moved my own mother out of her house and into my brother’s home, as she is not able to care for herself.

Five days later, fire ripped through the motel behind our house, killing a well-known tenant of 12 years.

We continue to work on packing for our own move, as we pack up my mother-in-law’s belongings and help my own mother along in her adjustment away from her home.

I am getting sick as a dog. Worn down. Too much moving swirling around me as we all keep our heads down and focus on what needs to be done.

More soon. I had prepared a lengthy post, but none of it sounds right at this time. I just wanted to give all of you the scoop on my temporary absence.

Love to all,

Rus

Well, Janet’s the inspiration once again! Thanks to her, I’m motivated to play along…After reading my list, be sure to visit her site as well and drop a good word or two!

1. My favorite thing in an Easter basket is…definitely chocolate over jelly beans. The best non-chocolate thing I’ve ever received has been a new fishing rod…What a thrill to go fishing with my dad later that morning!

2. Easter means…the official beginning of spring, although that will be hard to imagine this year with it snowing before and during the sunrise service…

3. The best parts of the chocolate Easter bunny are….the ears! It’s usually the most solid piece, and there’s nothing like taking that first bite!

4. My memories of Easter as a child include…going to church with my mom and coming home to an Easter Egg Hunt designed by dad….Great memories!

5. The jelly beans that I eat first are…definitely the red ones, then the orange ones. I cocktail the others to make some interesting combinations….

6. I like PAPER grass in my basket, but when we have our heads on straight, we actually plant grass seed in the baskets so that by the time Easter rolls around, they’ve got baskets filled with bright green grass…

7. On Easter, I’ll be…with my family for church, egg hunts, a big breakfast, and a trip to see Mom to bring her some Easter flowers and tons of love…

Your turn!

Nearly 9 years: I think this is the longest stretch of time I’ve gone without moving.

When I moved out of (and then returned to) my childhood home during college, I began a sojourner’s life, living in 17 different homes in a 13-year period. I lived in wonderful places, with wonderful people, for various reasons that chronicled a life lived, as Thoreau would have called it, as more of a saunterer than a sojourner.

Saunterer: perhaps derived from sans terre, without a fixed home, where every place may then be called home. . . .

So, it’s been a while since I’ve planned the purge-and-pack strategy of picking up a life and moving it elsewhere. When I was single, it was easy to do. My life fit in the back of my 1987 Chevy Sprint Turbo (white), with my childhood packed away in this storage area, or that barn, or worse, some garage. For years I moved that oversized sack of my past with me from place to place, afraid to be done with it.

Actually, I was terrified of following in the footsteps of another relative who, upon meeting the man she would eventually  marry, she fulfilled his demand in exchanging the burning of all things past for a walk down the church runway. Together, their life symbolized a new beginning, where past boyfriends, memorabilia, and stuffed animals won at crazy carnivals were reduced to ashes that flew to the sky, returned to some place that, perhaps, await them both.

I argued that my past was a part of who I am, the individual, and no person, living or dead, ever had the right to come into my life in any capacity and dictate what I must do with all that comes with being that individual.

I still feel that way. I genuinely do. But I guess that I am being more selective about what represents that wholeness of me, the individual, past and present.

Before, I believed that it meant holding on to everything, every little memory, every little trinket. That’s no longer the case. The memory of my father is not erased if I discard the Alice Cooper album he bought me when I was sick. That was a big deal for him to buy Billion Dollar Babies, but it was just a record album.

I will have a harder time parting with the baseball glove he used to slip over his left hand every time we’d play catch in the back yard. That comes with me to the new house.

My books are another thing. Friends, I have over 2,000 books, and I’m ready to part with nearly half of them. I’ve got Stephen King’s collection, all hardback, nearly complete, that I’m ready to give away. Koontz, Clancy, Sandford, Cook, Straub, and others. You name it, I’ve probably got it. Then there are the classics: Twain, Wells, Dickens, Fitzgerald. The nonfiction books on writing, on blogging, on art, music, diet, food, spirituality.

I can’t give them away. I mean–I can, and I want to, but I invited a book trader in to my  home the other day to look at the books, and he wanted to give me $20 for 200 good books. I couldn’t do it. I’d much rather see them go to a good home.

In fact, let me throw the offer out to you right now: You pay for media shipping, and I’ll send you any books you want for free. Tell me what you are looking for, and I’ll tell you what matches. I would much, much rather see them in your hands than in a warehouse stacked against a wall, never to be read.

Back to packing…I hope all of you are having a Good Friday…. :)