We have accumulated some pretty cool pieces of art over the years and yet the picture to which our friends are drawn is this giclee we picked up for a song as a lark. It's a reproduction of the Joe De Mers "I Want a Man" piece, it takes up an entire wall, and it's awesome.
"I'm looking for a man," she said. "Know any?"
We love it when we find a new chick lit author and were thrilled to find Beth Harbison. Her books Shoe Addicts Anonymous and Secrets of a Shoe Addict have been keeping us happily entertained in the car while we wait to pick up the kids from camp. Fabulous!
After, ahem, missing June entirely (albeit only by a few days!), we have published our July issue of Bliss Notes. Enjoy!
A couple of years ago, I was honoured to be part of panel that presented at the Association for Research on Mothering's annual conference. Our topic was mothering and blogging and I was thrilled to be part of a wonderful group of fellow mother bloggers: Dani, Ann, Marla, and Andrea.
After that presentation, I learned that May Friedman and Shana Calixte were editing a book about mothering and blogging for ARM's Demeter Press and I polished up the presentation I made and sent it over.
And then I made myself forgot about it because the lead times in publishing are long and things happen and I don't like to jinx things.
Only now I have a copy of this beautiful book, Mothering and Blogging: The Radical Act of the Mommyblog, in my hot little hands and I am just proud as can be of my essay, Blog for Rent: How Marketing is Changing Our Mothering Conversations. (My co-panelist, Ann, has a lovely piece in the anthology too.) Lovely!
Tonight's episode of Jon and Kate was incredibly sad but I found Kate to be very hopeful and inspiring. Her feeling that happiness can be found in any situation resonated strongly.
As for Jon, did he really say he's excited? We have strong opinions about that man but they don't really belong in a blog devoted to bliss...
Team Kate forever.
We adore Sam Mendes: no one quite captures middle class dysfunction better. American Beauty remains one of our favourite films of all time and Revolutionary Road proved to be life-changing. So when we saw the trailer for Away We Go last month, we knew it was a must see.
We were totally right. It was warm, sweet, and funny (how funny is Allison Janney) and we now have a girl crush on Maya Rudolph and a house crush on a lovely ramshackle place with a waterfront view. Nice!
The past few months have been tough ones for a myriad of reasons and we find ourselves getting down. But then someone shared their story of resilience and made us realize what we've always known but haven't always understood: happiness is a choice.
So we are back doing the things that make us happy: focusing on the good, exercising, eating well, getting enough sleep, reading gorgeous magazines, listening to great chick lit in the car, writing, reading, visiting with friends. We have decided not to let the daily grind get us down and to look for ways to make that proverbial lemon into metaphorical lemonade (turns out that the passport office is a fantastic place to get caught up on email.)
One of the books we are reading that reinforces all of this is Howard Cushnir's Unconditional Bliss: Finding Happiness in the Face of Hardship (naturally, we love the title). We've only just started the book (in the passport office, once we caught up on email and daydreamed a little about a trip to Harbour Island) but we adore the message that bliss is a choice.
Our favourite flower has always been the peony. We can never get enough of the gorgeous, showy blossoms. In our last house, we had gorgeous peonies in our front garden and will make sure that our next house has peonies as well. But until then, we will be happy to buy a gorgeous locally grown bouquet.
Last fall, I got hooked into Twilight and, while I adored it, I vowed that I would not read any of the other books. I'm very Team Edward and the other books seemed too werewolf-y for the required investment of time. But I was assured by my BFF that I would enjoy Breaking Dawn and so last week I caved when I saw that the books were $12 at Costco. But part way through Breaking Down, I found myself wanting to know the back story, so I stopped reading it and bought the penultimate Eclipse on Friday. Only now that I've read Eclipse, I want to find out what exactly happened in Italy and that will force me to read New Moon and -- oh Ms. Meyer! -- now I've been hooked into the entire series even if it is in a backward kind of fashion.
If only they'd cast someone with less good hair in the lead role in the movies and the two leads weren't appearing on the covers of supermarket tabloids all the time (even if the coverage is tiny compared to the drama of Jon and Kate), I could leave well enough alone and get back to writing instead of reading all the time.
But truly, I don't think I'm happier than when I have a good book on the go. And I've got Shoe Addicts Anonymous playing in my car so life is really quite grand.
We like to wear our hearts on our sleeves, and photos of our children around our necks. Currently, we are sporting a gate-style locket (we picked up ours for a song from Things Remembered but Monica RIch Kosann has gorgeous ones too!) but we love lockets of all shapes and sizes. Our children derive great comfort from knowing that we keep them so close to our hearts!
