So, I just got back to town after two weeks and had limited food in my pantry and fridge. I whipped up this meal and it was really pretty awesome! Just thought I'd share. It took only about 10 minutes to make.

( Mmm.. picture in here... )

Anyway, that's that. It was super good.

1. how did you spend the first day of 2000?

2. when do you first remember staying up for the new year?

3. what traditions do you observe on new years?

4. what do you want to happen in your life in 2010?

Below the cut I have collected the first lines from my first entry for each month this past year. It's amazing how unrepresentative they are of my year! I was also surprised with how little I posted during the middle months.

I suppose I can't complain about this year. It's been one of the better ones for me and my family. My parents retired, my sister got engaged, I spent xmas with my family for the first time since 2006 and I didn't lose anyone who was close to me.

I spent my first winter in Antarctica. I experienced some of the coldest, windiest temperatures I ever have and survived without getting frost bite once. I had toes so cold that they took all afternoon to thaw out. I had a beard so long it could have supported a small colony of chipmunks. I counted stars at noon and watched grand auroras fill the sky. I got to crawl around in sewage and submit an entry to Antarctica's only 48 hr film festival. I drove vehicles with tires as big as me and mastered the art of driving the archaic m4k forklift.

I set foot on my final continent and then traversed the whole thing on a train. I observed up close and in person wildlife that previously I had only seen in a zoo or on wikipedia. I experimented with fruits and developed a taste for the delicious durian. I jumped out of a plane and then got to meet Locke.

I turned 30, and although it was at a place I never imagined I would visit, I am still as lost as I was when I turned 29. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I decided to return to McM for another winter although with much more hesitation than I did the first time. I didn't fall in love this year, I didn't meet the person that has been promised to me by fairy tales. And even though Astrology.com begs to differ I don't think that will change in 2010.

So, yeah, a good year. I suppose. Hopefully 2010 will be more than more of the same.

( Read more... )

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I enjoy this, burrowing myself away like a mole in the cold hard earth. Hiding is good, just for one day. Then back to the grind. Holiday over. More worry, stress, anxiety. I'm losing that can-do spirit.

Originally published at Imagine Your Reality. Please leave any comments there.

I visited my family for the holiday season and one the flight over the air plane company I flew with ended up turning what was expected to be a short layover of an hour into a seven hour ordeal of waiting, excuses, and ultimately poor service. Now some latitude can be given because its the holiday season so there’s more travel than usual and this can effect things badly, but when excuses keep piling up and activity doesn’t seem to be occurring, people get angrier and angrier.

Certainly the people I was waiting with got more and more frustrated as all of us were told that it was a mechanical issue, then an issue of getting paper work signed off on, and then the mechanical issue again, until finally we were directed to another plane and flown to our destination. I remember one of the people asking the stewardess of the plan if they were going to give us anything nice like a free snack or alcoholic drink for the delay and was told no. Would it have cost the airline some money to give out a free snack or alcoholic drink? Probably some, but when we compare that with the customer dissatisfaction and the propensity of those people to tell their relatives and friends, that cost is small in comparison to the loss of customers. One of the people came up with a pithy phrase using the company’s name and while we laughed, I couldn’t help but wonder how that phrase could come back to haunt that company.

Customer service sometimes has to become customer repair, where a business makes the extra effort to make up for the mistakes that occur, in order to repair the relationship with the customers. This isn’t the ideal situation and the reality is that the customer will remember that their trust was damaged. But when customer repair occurs, it shows the customer that the business is aware of the mistakes and is willing to do what is possible to repair the damage.

When a business doesn’t engage in customer service or customer repair, the likelihood of retaining the customer sharply decreases and can ultimately hurt the business. A business is only as good as its reputation with its customers and when those customers are upset they want to be heard. If the business won’t listen, they’ll find someone who will, whether it’s in person or on social media sites.

What do all of you think?

I'm pondering the signficance of the Blue Moon. Tonight's full moon is considered by many to be a Blue Moon, because it is the second full moon in a calendar month.

I am very interested in how and why such a thing becomes significant. The popular belief seems to be that the Blue Moon is a special, or particularly magickal time. I have heard it said that extraordinary things are possible during a Blue Moon, that it is a good time for spellwork and to overcome odds. Why? I can't help asking. What is the mechanism by which this full moon is enhanced? What power is made available that differs from other full moons, and by what mechanism?

I'm asking these questions because I can't help feeling that there is something arbitrary about this Blue Moon. If it's only Blue because it happens to be the second one in a calendar month, then is its power all in our heads, or in our culture? If there really is a magickal quality to the Blue Moon, it seems to me there must be some natural force in action to empower it so; and that force should be perceptible to us. This is so with all other cyclical natural occurrences: the seasonal tides of power that move through the land and create seasonal holy days; which may be celebrated on an arbitrary calendar date within the season, but the changes in natural forces underlying the event are real and perceptible, and are independent of the Gregorian calendar. The land goes through its changes and shifts, and would do so regardless of whether we were here to call them "Beltaine" or "Samhain" and choose calendar dates to mark them. So also the cycles of the moon: there are full and new moons, there is waxing and waning, there are eclipses; and we and all living things sense and respond to the changes in the moon's tides and Her pull on the earth. Were there no calendars at all, this would continue to be so. Can this be said of a Blue Moon? Does the land feel the difference between this and any other full moon? The creatures, the plants? Does the moon itself?

I had an environmental philosophy professor who talked about First and Second Realities. The First Reality, he said, is the one that our senses perceive - the experienced reality. We of course experience it subjectively and therefore differently from one another, but (unless you are a solipsist) it can be understood as having an existence beyond our sense perception of it. The Second Reality is the constructed reality - the meanings, categories, systems of thinking *about* the First Reality that we construct. For example, in the First Reality my mountain range stretches from Diablo to the Pinnacles, covered in a gradually shifting matrix of ecological communities. In the Second Reality, the part south of a certain line is Santa Clara County, and the part north of that invisible line is Alameda County. In the First Reality, a cougar kills and eats a deer; the deer dies, the cougar is fed. In the Second Reality, Nature is a bloody heartless bitch, red in tooth and claw. You see where I'm going with this? In the First Reality, the moon grows full and pours power on the earth every 28 1/2 days. In the Second Reality, we have calendars and give numbers to those days, and call this one a Blue Moon. It isn't that I question the magickal qualities of the moon's cycle, or the possibility of certain moons being more powerful. I just have a hard time seeing how power is arising from a calendar artifact. It doesn't suit my understanding of how power works in the natural world.

We of course have plenty of events that are completely artifacts of the calendar, and still have real power. It's just that the power in that case is derived from the collective spiritual sentiment of the human beings who are participating in the creation of that consensus reality. New Year's Eve itself is of course a perfect example of this. We could have the end and beginning of our year any time. It happens in our culture to be the end of a particular calendar month, but now that we've built up a culture around this constructed transition, it probably has some real power. Does this mean that a thing can, through collective belief and human energy, transition from the Second Reality into the First? Of course. Come to think of it, that's a fine alternate definition for magick itself. So yes, the Blue Moon can be magickally meaningful that way, and Gregorian New Year's can be too. For me, these calendar-based events are hard to access spiritually. I personally find that I can engage much more fully when there is a perceptible natural phenomenon directly underlying the event. That's just my mountain-witch self, having as usual a hard time plugging in to the more urban currents that many of my friends are tuned in to.

Interestingly, it turns out that there is actually a seasonally-based, non-arbitrary rationale for the Blue Moon. But under that definition, tonight isn't one. It seems that the traditional understanding of what a Blue Moon was historically was different from the modern popular notion. This has to do with the old custom of seasonal names for the moon cycles. These were determined based on the astronomical reality of the Solstices and Equinoxes. If you observe the Solstices and Equinoxes, the year is naturally divided into four seasons, or quarters, by them. Within a typical quarter, there will be three lunar cycles. The first would be considered the "early" moon, the next the "mid-season" moon, and the last the "late" moon. Thus the lunation beginning with the new moon nearest the Winter Solstice in any year would be the Early Winter Moon, and so on. This in turn gave rise to the system of naming the lunations: Corn Moon, Hunter's Moon, Blood Moon, Frost Moon, etc. But since the moon has a 19-year cycle with regard to the solar seasons, we end up with a 13th lunation that doesn't quite fit within the solar year. So occasionally there will be a fourth lunation within a natural quarter. This fourth moon is the Blue Moon. It would be the one that is not either an Early, Mid, or Late season moon - the third of the four occurring in that quarter. It was called a Blue Moon because it wasn't one of the ordinary quarterly ones and therefore didn't have a predictable seasonal name. Under this system, tonight's full moon would be the Early Winter Moon, not a Blue Moon at all. What I find interesting about this is that while the particular names are somewhat culturally specific and arbitrary, the system itself is entirely based on natural realities, and has nothing whatever to do with when our calendar months begin and end. It makes the notion of the Blue Moon having extra power or magickal potential come to life - since every full moon marks a crest in the natural tides of power, it makes intuitive sense that a season which contains and extra full moon would represent a special opportunity to harness that moon's magickal potential. It becomes a supernumerary or "supernatural" moon, in the sense of being a gateway beyond the ordinary patterns of life, similar to an eclipse which is a natural phenomenon with "supernatural" qualities.

Where did we get this idea of a Blue Moon as the second full moon in a calendar month? Apparently it is the result of a misunderstanding of the above system, by a writer in a 1946 astronomical publication. The above complex, naturally-based system was misunderstood and simplified to "Seven times in 19 years there were — and still are — 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon This misunderstanding somehow got propagated throughout the culture via magazines and radio, and it has now become the popular understanding of the Blue Moon. Does this mean it is meaningless? Not necessarily. It just means it is modern, constructed by popular culture; if it is spiritually real, it was made so by us rather than being a naturally occurring spiritual event in the life of the planet.

So there you go. By modern notions of calendar, tonight is the eve of New Year and a Blue Moon. For me, the New Year was a couple months ago, about 40 days after the Fall Equinox; and a Blue Moon won't be occurring until November of next year. But if tonight is magickal for you, then I wish you grace and power in your celebrations of it.

I have a musical question for you. On the "Best of Medieval & Romantic vol 1" CD, there is a band called Cedar that does a really lovely song called Nigra Sum. (Link is to an mp3 file - please download rather than clicking.) I have been searching the intartubes in vain looking for albums from this group and am not sure if I have found anything. Does anyone know where their music might be found? I want some more of it, greedy thing that I am.

Please, LJ Oracle, show me the way!

Dear Hollywood: Stop making movies like fucking Leap Year, a film so empty and backlash informed it makes Amy Adams gently parodic role in Enchanted seem like an act of deep feminist subversion.

I am a fan of "they hate each other then they love each other" setup and the wacky road trip. One of few great TV movies I've ever seen is an old rerun of "Just Me And You" with Charles Grodin and Louise Lasser doing the animosity-to-amour pair in a rather minimalist, low budget, coast to coast trip. But then, it was two imperfect looking comedians shooting on location approximate to actual reality.

In this film, we have the usual desperate for marraige woman displaying an absurd disconnect with the macguffin boyfriend. These scenes rarely play well because the actors in them have developed a more human connection on the first day of rehearsal than their characters have in x number of years. Amy Adams might as well be crushing on a poster of Edward Cullen which is then mailed to Ireland.

It's partially because he is the macguffin and Hollywood has developed a near phobia about expanding on secondary elements, even at the expense of coherence and plausbility. What makes rigid genre work palatable is detail, background and digressions which is apparently viewed as a liability in the rom com department. Imagine The Office stripped down to just Jim and Pam with everyone else getting a few minutes in the first two acts. You'd want to stab them by the end.

Without grounding, her desperation seems anachronistic, unreal and ugly. The most memorable rom-coms when marriage had more power as the status quo seem almost edgy next to this (like the Philadelphia Story and His Gal Friday, both of which use divorce as a way to evade code rules against depicting infidelity).

EDITED TO ADD: foxfirefey's comment reminds me I didn't mention the central premise: Adams grand gesture results from a strict social taboo against a woman proposing marriage, only lifted for one day in magical Ireland. Trying to seize this fleeting power results in a hapless journey in which her long held choice is proven wrongheaded.

"Leap Year" shovels on an extra layer of stupid by having Adams travel to Dublin to propose and get stranded a whole six hours away in Cardiff. Although a time/space rift has dropped it into a pocket dimension of pre-modern quaintness, through which she must drive because there are no fucking trains in the UK.

The problem, I think, is Hollywood's lack of respect for women constricts the already tiny creative space within forumlaic exercises. It's hard to meet even minimum standards when half of humanity is mosty an annoying/threatening afterthought, be they girls in Sherlock Holmes inserted as a token against homoeroticism, or girls with entire dull movies to themselves.

Beneath New Year's Resolutions is always the beating of either want, need, or desire. But sometimes these "I wants" are really a variation on "I should". Those sorts of resolutions are usually not kept. A resolution where we have examined the underpinnings, and decided this is an actual want that we are willing to engage will around for our own betterment and further strength or joy, often get kept. A resolution built on true desire - where want and need have joined with our life force and activated our intention - can blossom.

What keeps us from desire? What plunges us into self-loathing or the punishing nature of "I should"?

"I should" is not good enough for the heart and soul. If that is all our resolution is about, perhaps we can set it down for now, allowing space, time and energy for a deeper want to arise.

This coming Gregorian year, what do we actually desire? Are we willing to do some cleansing work, put intention into action, and move our life's energy toward that desire?

When we can say truly, "I want", we can then resolve to say "I will".

We can say "I do" to desire.


As usual, I leave you with one of the most successful spells I have yet written, that stemmed from a great desire I had around five years ago. It is still working marvelously. I would be pleased if you would pass it on as a toast tonight. Repeat after me:

"Love. Health. Prosperity. Knowledge. and Great Sex!"

Well I guess I was wrong again, and new guy is totally interested. We saw each other out again last night, hung out for much of the evening, then made out for like two hours after the bar closed.

I learned a lot of stuff about him last night. If we can work out the logistics, I think we have a lot of interesting things to share with each other.

He's a kinky son of a bitch and says he's never really explored that with anybody. That might pose a challenge for my boy, who doesn't bring out much of that side of me. We've talked about a situation like this as a possibility. Now we get to figure out what we do with it in actuality.

Oh god, we danced too. Neither of us know more than a step or two of formal couple's dance, but the untrained eye wouldn't have known it from looking at us. I even let him lead most of the time, something I've never been able to do before.

*swoon*

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http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2009/12/31/weekly-meal-wrap-up-x2-2/

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/?p=17385

On a weather note.  We got some rain yesterday.  Pretty much rained/drizzle/misted all day. What a blessings.

Ok now to what we urban homesteaders have been eating.

I’ve been behind it the meal wrap up so going to combine two weeks worth in one. Though our plates our not as bleak as Laura’s in the Long Winter, our ingredient selection is limited.  You’ll notice from the menu that we are heavy on the rice, dried beans, winter squash and the occasional salad.

How our mouths water as we look over at the growing broccoli, onions, cabbage and kales.

As we combat the winter doldrums, dreaming of spring, enjoy this latest meal wrap up.

Oh love emails like this one - glad these post are such an inspiration (that’s what we are hear for!) to your life and tummy!

Okay, so I was so excited by what I just ate for dinner I had to tell someone and couldn’t think of anyone (my husband and four children won’t care), so I thought I’d send you folks an email.  I’m surrounded by several inches of freshly fallen snow here in Utah and I just ate a homegrown acorn squash cut in half, scooped and cooked, and filled with homegrown, home-canned spaghetti sauce.  It sounds weird but it was FABULOUS!!!  I’m so tickled I grew it all myself.  It’s all because how inspired I am reading your delightful blog!  So, I thank you and my tummy thanks you.

Love, Johanne

SATURDAY

Breakfast - homemade buttermilk pancakes with homepreserved strawberry sauce
+..Dinner - homemade flour tortillas, homemade spanish rice with black beans and raw cheese

SUNDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - leftovers from Saturday dinner
Dinner - homegrown/homemade pumpkin soup

MONDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - leftover pumpkin soup
Dinner - homegrown salad with macaroni & cheese

TUESDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - homemade lentil loaf topped with homemade ketchup with organic rice
Dinner -leftover lentil loaf topped with homemade ketchup, rice with mashed homegrown squash

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - leftover lentil loaf topped with homemade ketchup, rice with mashed homegrown squash
Dinner - homemade flour tortillas, black beans, raw cheese, homegrown tomatoes, cilantro and homegrown/canned marinated green peppers

THURSDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - raw grilled cheese sandwich with homegrown/made jalapeno jelly, homegrown tomatoes/homemade-grown zucchini pickles
Dinner - homemade/homegrown herb pizza crust topped with homegrown tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and mozzarella cheese

FRIDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - raw grilled cheese sandwich with homegrown/homemade jalapeno jelly, homegrown tomatoes/homemade-grown zucchini pickles
Dinner - homemade/canned tomato sauce with pasta and parmesan cheese and homemade no knead bread

SATURDAY

Breakfast - homemade buttermilk pancakes
Dinner - homemade flour tortillas, homemade spanish rice with black beans and raw cheese

SUNDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - leftovers from Saturday dinner
Dinner - homegrown/homemade pumpkin soup

MONDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - leftover pumpkin soup
Dinner - homegrown salad with macaroni & cheese

TUESDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - homemade lentil loaf topped with homemade ketchup with organic rice
Dinner -leftover lentil loaf topped with homemade ketchup, rice with mashed homegrown squash

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - leftover lentil loaf topped with homemade ketchup, rice with mashed homegrown squash
Dinner - homemade flour tortillas, black beans, raw cheese, homegrown tomatoes, cilantro and homegrown/canned marinated green peppers

THURSDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - raw grilled cheese sandwich with homegrown/made jalapeno jelly, homegrown tomatoes/homemade-grown zucchini pickles
Dinner - homemade/homegrown herb pizza crust topped with homegrown tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and mozzarella cheese

FRIDAY

Breakfast - homemade skillet granola
Lunch - raw grilled cheese sandwich with homegrown/homemade jalapeno jelly, homegrown tomatoes/homemade-grown zucchini pickles
Dinner - homemade/canned tomato sauce with pasta and parmesan cheese and homemade no knead bread

————–2010 URBAN HOMESTEADING CALENDAR!—————–

Like what you see here, looking for something to inspire you (and others) throughout 2010?

Buy a beautiful calendar of stunning nature and simple living photos–and be encouraged to grow more of your own food! Plus you’ll be supporting an important work of educating others how to be more self-sufficient.

The calendar is a wall calendar, and each month has a different picture. Some months have a group of pictures. The pictures are of nature and simple living topics and reflect the seasons of the year to a certain extent.

BUY NOW ($20 plus $4 shipping) and support this site.

Coming Up

We are going to have a little fun here a LHITC - stay tuned for our HOPESOLUTIONS for 2010 and fun (yeah, I said that already)

Tags: weekly meal wrap up

By way of keeping up with my computational needs, and the Windows and Mac OS...

I just ordered a Mac Mini (late 2009 Penryn, actually a shiny new one) to replace the loud, cased modded, and accelerated G4 Quick Silver. It's fanless, consequently quiter, and much faster than the old workhorse. I'll prolly try to sell the Quick Silver so it keeps on working. It'll be nice to not have that white noise generator in the house, tho' it's been enormously handy over the years.

And for my new microcurrent electrotherapy work I wanted a laptop, since it's programmed from a computer - and a Windows box no less. So I've not actually had much relationship with Windows since, well, since DOS. Learning curves a plenty ahead for the new year. So I ordered a refurbed MacBook from Techrestore.com. I'll run the Parallels Desktop emulator and Windows XP.

Here at the precipice of entering a new decade, I find that my New Year's Eve reflections are turning a little farther afield than merely the past year as they normally do. I find myself looking back to 2000, wondering where this decade went! My, how the previous decade seemed so much longer, fuller, and seeming to contain greater change in my life -- and yet, have I not lived in three states, entered two marriages, rebuilt my life and reinvented myself several times in these past 10 years? It certainly has been a very grown-up decade. I guess entering it at 28 and exiting at 38, I can no longer deny that indeed, somewhere along the way I did actually manage to grow up.

I leave this decade with about half of my friends different from those who entered with me (and yes, there IS a reference to Thunderdome in here somewhere). Some left, more stayed, and wonderful people joined me along the way. My mother and I have been closer and better at peace this decade than ever before in my life. I met Ian, and he and I have been together for better than six years now. I laughed last night to realize that 2010 now marks 10 years since a particular break-up with a boyfriend who still makes me mad! Ex-husband? No blame. Past boyfriends? Only good will. Oh, but one? Guess if I'm still pissed off after 10 years, that ill will is here to stay! May as well shine it up all pretty for the new year since it's here to stay with me!

I enter the new decade happy, peaceful, liking myself, and with eyes open... hopeful, always hopeful. "I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope."

In the immediate past, I wanted to ignite the creative spark in 2009, and my journey through the Year of the Bonfire was enriching in ways I didn't expect. Last year when I made my pledge toward creativity, I didn't know what isolation would come with the move to Austin, and also what time and freedom. My crafts kept me connected with loved ones far away, kept my thoughts on absent friends (though it is arguably I who am absent) and happy smiles. This bonfire has burned through a lonely night in some ways, and kept alive a warmth that needed to be actively fed and nurtured.

I pledged to do the following in 2009:

1. Find ways to express creativity particularly through handcrafts; share handmade gifts.
The year has been filled with knitting, paper crafts, baking, glass marbles, greeting cards, glitter, photographs, a decorated house, and lots of excited anticipation. The good side is that it kept me in touch with people in many ways. The other side is that I realized how much acknowledgment means to me, how a good thing feels less good if not shared. Hearing "thank you" really is an important part of giving to me. I had a long meditation on whether I regret the apparent selfishness of my attitude. I don't think I can regret it. It's really the sharing that's most fun. I might not have chosen to draw my self-portrait that way given the choice, but the knowledge of self here is valuable, and I'm happy to discover it.

One other thing I discovered is how apt is the metaphor Ian and I often use about craft projects. It's something that allegedly you enjoy, but which seems to involve so much preparation as to be not worth the energy: getting the supplies, making a space, setting up, doing the craft, finishing it, cleaning up, getting it setup or delivered. Crafts are a lot of work! I was surprised at how often doing what I supposedly enjoy very much was a forced march because, gee whiz, if I made it the theme for the whole year, guess I better make good on it! Now at the end of the year, I have a bit of fear as to whether this good trend will dissipate once no longer in the spotlight. It's been such fun and so gratifying, I hope I can keep the momentum.

2. Share one chapter of my writing on my website each month.
If anything, naming this as an official New Year's Resolution made me resentful of the very idea and more stubborn than ever about not writing. This idea was a complete and unmitigated failure! I think I actually wrote less this year than any year in the past twenty!

3. Be the communicator I can admire; share photos with friends at least once a month.
This year I made accounts on Flickr and Facebook, and added the Photos tag to my LiveJournal posts. In the general spirit of the Year of the Bonfire, the willingness to share pictures of our life here away from our accustomed society also helped me feel more in touch. I've enjoyed this trend, and I hope you did, too.

4. Let myself be quick to share praise and slow to offer criticism.
Kinda forgot about this one. It was a nice thought, really, but unfortunately against my current nature. It helped in a few specific occasions when I remembered this advice, and I think I did better at letting go unqualified compliments without always feeling the need to temper them with criticism as well. That habit of mine is just very unpleasant. Overall, I don't think I'm much changed for the scant effort save that I depart the year with a keener understanding of just how quick I am to share both praise and criticism. If it is my nature to judge and express judgment, it must be a lifelong effort to favor expression of what's more positive and helpful than hurtful.

5. Try to negotiate everything; the worst they can do is say no.
Big success! This was great practice, certainly fun, and surprisingly profitable at unexpected times like with the cable company and my Biology professor, the wedding photographer, odd and unexpected situations. Absolutely worth the effort here! I recommend this experiment to others. You may be surprised what good comes of it.

Warm and contented, I am happy to close down the bonfire at the end of this year, and move forward into new wonders to be explored in 2010,

Trace

Just did a very small unfriending, only deleted journals or people who had unfriended me. If I unfriended anyone by mistake please let me know.

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