Great way to start the day! With French Press Coffee

Fabulous day! Ordered my iPad yesterday with Zach's help :). Today will update my Livescribe Pen - oh yeh! Heading out on a walk with Moye soon. Then finish reading Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk.

Might even check my ap scores that apparently were uploaded and available yesterday!!! Maybe. 

I have the two most handsome men in my life: Zach played groomsman to Adam Eakman's groom and David played the proud father. I am lucky!

Writing Day- Goth / Cariani cont'd

Spent yesterday as a writing day with my good friend, Lannae, who imbues me with a writing spirit. We started out on mundane outings: visit to the Broad Ripple post office to mail a box to Jake and Liz. Am sending Jake a bottle of Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey for his 26th birthday. Love that boy! Wonderful old post office with high ceilings and a musty old letter/paper smell.


Lannae carts me around in her convertible mini cooper! What fun. I have been on "house arrest" since my car is being worked on for the past week. Quite painful...no wheels. So, we coop off to Zest a lovely restaurant in a section of Broad Ripple called Monon Shops. Lannae - a vegetarian - ordered the mushroom sandwich and I ordered a lovely green apple, pecan, current, assorted greens salad with olive oil. Restful lunch. Then because Lannae brings out the larger than life part of me we stop at The Food Emporium and choose cookies to take back to her home for coffee and cookies.


We walk out into the sun room preceding to each take an end of the long, white leather couch and write. As I read through the Marie Goth: Painter of Portraits I begin to visualize the book that follows her life and note parallels with my own. We both lived fully in Nashville, IN. Here's a few parallels: havens, cabins, personality, passions, self-analysis...the list will continue as I envision the book.


I like this quote from Goth: "Art is a jealous master and will not permit you to do anything else."  Sort of shows me how her art was pivotal to her lifestyle and anchoring in Brown Co. Nicest time in Brown Co for me was the winter when none of the "tourists" clogged the narrow streets and lingered in the eateries or shops. Selfish - yes. 


I do not want to pause, halt, stop this project. AS Sharon Slazburg states in From LovingKindness, "...And when you know what you're supposed to be doing, it's somebody else's job to kill you [not you kill yourself and stop doing or creating]."

New Book: Goth and Cariani [Cari] and Me

Musing about Marie Goth and Cariani. Last summer I researched at the Historical Society. Now I am ready to approach the BC Arts Guild to let me into their archive which they seem to deny the existence of. There must be letters between Goth and Cariana somewhere. What was his life like before Marie? He seems to have been so dedicated to her art and life....his art if spectacular and full of passion...he is a very attractive man! Hm. 


Marie Goth

                                              Varaldo Cariani [Cari]

AP Reading in Louisville Going Well

Reader's Table complete with "book", headphones -radio frequency, pencils and post-its. I think the AP Lang Readers numbered about 300 per question room [3 questions...~900 readers] AP Lit Readers here as well at the same time.

Returned June 18th from the 2011 AP Lang and Comp Reading in Louisville, KY. What a great, professional experience. I have graded Q1 [2010], Q2 [2009-2007], and now Q3 [2011]. Thanks CollegeBoard for preparing me for all 3 questions. Certainly this experience impacts the strategies I pass on to my students each year. 


Lots of fun! Listened the Edwidge Dantica discuss her Haitian life as she focused on her mother at this reading...roomed with Erin in a great suite at the Galt House that overlooked the river and Belle of Louisville steamboat. Can't beat separate bedrooms with private baths, in room wi-fi and then a huge "meeting" room in the center complete with Citizen Kane dining table in the middle. We loved our accommodations!

Followings

Had the most scrumptious meringue cookies with a creamed icing filling lightly hinting of grapefruit. Mmmmm so good on a 100 degree Indiana day. Am becoming friends with Gina, French teacher, who is full of knowledge. I love meeting new people and sharing knowledge. Absorption is a gleeful event.

Here is the blog from whence this recipe came: Tartelette  If it's French it has to be good! Reminds me of the books Why French Women Don't Get Fat - a great read -  Champagne figures in the mix :) and The Sharper the Knife the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn.

Helene Dujardin blogger

Mirelle Guiliano

Well off to walk with Moye: cool morning and heat is on the way! Mush Moye!

Parental Units - Arrrrg!

Seriously, I am 63 and my 89 year old mother looked at my nails - nice azure blue with essie- indicated after several glances at my nails and disapproving facial - mouth frowning expressions increasing with every "look" stated: "You look like a witch with that color on your nails!" Retort: [duck], Mom, you should have seen the black I had on before!!!" OMG. Now I know why my visits are seldom - not often. Sigh :(.  I do love her. She does love me. I just do NOT like to be around her sometimes.

Hibiscus in Fort Myers

Went with my daughter Sarah to a beautiful Hibiscus flower sale in Fort Myers, Fl. Our first foray into the land of zealous flower growers. Lunched with Mimi's Cafe with Julie, a friend of Sarah's who is also in the nurse anesthetist program.

Yesterday we decided to have manicures, and I am estactic with my first French manicure...definitely will do another one of these and pedi too. I promise to improve the pics here as well.

Heading to AP Reading in Louisville, KY!

Staying at the Galt House again this year. Love the glass "lounge" with lucite bar complete with fish swimming around. Bourbon and mint juleps. Mmmmgood.

Lilly and Moye Pics

Click on Picture to see album. Enjoy.



Just learned how to upload all those "great" photos from my phone to my blog. Lilly is my daughter Anna's dog, a red-boned hound from the humane society, who lives in an apartment with Anna and Adam and comes for outdoor time at our house on occasion. She has been in our life for about 2 years. Moye came to us via our daughter Liz who currently lives in Missouri. Moye is more of a cat than a dog. Loves to curl up with me to watch a good movie or as I read my Kindle. He has been with us for maybe 5 or 6 years. Hmmmm. Good news is that "Jake the Snake" just left after 17 years to go live with our 6th grade godson...same age as Zach when he bought Jake....California King Snake.

Catch Up!

IMHO I have the greatest children EVER! Liz is helping Jake set up a hunting business and her blog BusyLizzie is just a hoot! She and Jake moved from the wilds - and I mean wild- of Jackson Hole, WY to a slower pace and more focused life style in Missouri...wildlife centered.

Check out her blog because she is in the throes of being a mother hen: literally has 5 new baby chicks [complete with pics on her blog] and Jake is building a chicken house [coop] for them. So cute. First pic is of Buttercup [Princess Bride?] now and the second is her projected hen look.

Zach just finished judging a Sun King homemade brewer's competition. David,his dad, just went to drive him back to our house [designated driver role seemed pertinent after hours of beer tasting ad judging. Zach will head back to Dayton, OH tomorrow - back to the scholarly life of working on his master's in mechanical engineering.

On another catching up note: reading The Paris Wife: a Novel on my Kindle and WOw - highlighting to make a note and my Kindle indicates that I can post on my Twitter if I want. Oh, I want...but technical difficulties ensued. Have to try that again. Wonders! I recommend reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast before reading The Paris Wife bc namedropping makes the Paris book easier to understand...much more engaging. I HAVE TO TRAVEL!!!