Some Random Sentences on a Thursday Night

Sitting down at 11:30 and expecting brilliance in a blog post is a huge disappointment. But it is the whole point of NaBloPoMo. Just write!

For the third time in an hour, my dog has randomly started barking at something only she can hear. Shut up, dog.

So glad that we moved from the stuffy rehearsal room to the choir loft at the church for Sine Nomine practice. Instant morale boost - you can't help but sound terrific in that space.

Airing our dirty laundry - there is clean laundry all over the house. The couch is covered with towels and the bedroom has three overflowing baskets of clothes. If we had more baskets, we would never fold clothes.

I am about ready to finish The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Look for a review here soon. I have nine books to read by the end of the year to make my goal. I am looking for recommendations on short interesting books. Leave 'em if you got 'em.

Really ready for the weekend. Anyone else?

NaBloPoMo - Day One

Hey look! I have a blog! And wow, no updates since June 2010? Tsk, tsk...for shame, Hassell.

So for some reason, November in the interwebs tends to be a "National To Something Every Day" month. There is Gratitude Months (a fine idea, I might add), NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which I seriously considered) and then NaBloPoMo. Writing a blog post a day sounded less daunting than writing the 1600 words per day required to get a novel done and slightly more challenging than writing one thing per day for which I am grateful.

Not that I am not grateful. As a matter of fact, several of these blog posts over the month of November will probably be brimming with gratitude. Cuz it is November and that's how I roll, people.

Anyway, welcome back to Best Day of Life. Let's see where this all goes.

My Life List (part the first)

When I first read Maggie Mason's Mighty List project, I was intrigued. Her theory is that the act of writing such a list is in and of itself transformative and secondly, if you put what makes you happy on the list, then doing the items on your list will contribute to a happier life. It's basically a bucket list, but without the whole "kicking the bucket" aspect - something which I, a detester of "over the hill" parties and the like - certainly appreciated.

I played around a bit with some of the things that I would put on my own list, making vague notes here and there, and when she finally posted this, I was inspired enough to write my own.

So without further ado, here is the first part of my own Life List...I plan on blogging about the good stuff (which, because of its virtue of being a Life List, is all of it.)

1. Read the entire Bible - CHECK
2. Visit five Colorado landmarks (Royal Gorge, Dinosaur National Park, etc)
3. Take the train to Glenwood Springs
4. Taste 100 cocktails
5. Climb a 14er - CHECK
6. Visit ten Colorado museums
7. Visit ten national museums
8. Scrapbook my Life List
9. Sew something that I actually wear
10. Visit Hadrians Wall
11. Eat pho in Saigon
12. Cook my way through an entire cookbook
13. Visit all 50 states (continuing from where I am at now)
14. Design and create a font
15. Go on a girls-only trip with my best girlfriends - CHECK
16. Taste 100 unique desserts
17. Attend a taping of The Daily Show or the Colbert Report
18. Write my freakin' book
19. Go a full week eating all my food made from scratch (by me)
20. If it isn't beautiful or useful, get it out of my house
21. Submit a funny picture to I Can Haz Cheeseburger
22. Host a really swanky dinner party
23. Read the Big Read 100 books as ranked by the BBC
24. Leave a secret in a Post Secret book
25. Get a tattoo to honor my heart donor
26. See the glaciers in Patagonia before they disappear
27. Read Entertainment Weekly's list of new classics
28. Dine at the French Laundry
29. Learn how to alter/tailor my own clothes
30. Grow my hair to my waist - CHECK
31. Volunteer for Meals on Wheels
32. Learn how to knit and make scarves and handwarmers - CHECK
33. Learn how to use my DSLR on its manual settings
34. Get in the habit of grand loving gestures
35. Create family archive scrapbooks
36. Get paid to write

There you go! The first 36!

Twilight v. The Bear

This post is treading on ground that some might hold near and dear...but it is all about keepin' it real, so,

Internet, I confess that I just can't get into Twilight; however, if I am honest, I should preface this by saying that I was starting reluctantly as I am not a fan of vampire stories in any media form, but had received several glowing recommendations with most noting that Twilight wasn't really a vampire story and besides, I needed something light since I had just finished this...

The outstretched neck she clove asunder, and the hewn head fell like a stone. Backward she sprang as the huge shape crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread, crumpled on the earth; and with its fall the shadow passed away. - Return of the King, JRR Tolkien

and going from that to...

The meadow, so spectacular to me at first, paled next to his magnificence. - Twilight by Stephanie Meyers

was jarring and boring (I hate to say it), but since I wanted to give Twilight a fair shake, I put it down to read, at the request of a friend, The Bear by William Faulkner all the while expecting, to be honest, to hate it and harboring the hope that that perhaps I could alternate the heavier reading with Twilight remembering that

I had avoided Faulkner like the plague in college although I think now, that I was confusing him with James Joyce, but even so, I'd heard that there was a sentence, one sentence, that was SIX pages long, but I hardly even noticed, so riveted I was by the startlingly deep beauty of the prose, the feeling that I am alongside this deeply involving drama that isn't just about a hunt for a bear, but the hunt for a past and redemption that isn't easily forthcoming and by the time I hit the climax of the hunting scene, I found myself reading faster to pace with my breath and my heart was pounding when I put the book down...now that's some good writing:

He watched it for the next two years from that moment when Boon touched Lion's head and then knelt beside him, feeling the bones and muscle, the power. It was as if Lion were a woman - or perhaps Boon was the woman. That was more like it-the big, grave, sleepy-seeming dog which, as Sam Fathers said, cared about no man and no thing; and the violent, insenstive, hard-faced man with his touch of remote Indian blood and the mind almost of a child.

I think Twilight's going to have a wait a little bit longer.

Friday Link Round Up

I don't know if anyone else's week has been exceptionally long, but mine has. Whew. So yippee for Friday. Especially because tomorrow is the Lafayette Oatmeal Festival - where I plan on consuming my weight in oatmeal - and also a much-anticipated Sister's Day.

So to celebrate the close of another week, here are some links that I found inspiring or moving in some way. Enjoy!

• America: Too Stupid to Cook - a mini-manifesto on America and cooking by Michael Ruhlman. Preach it, brother!
• Cutest stamps ever. So love the argyle patterns you can make with these.
• A powerful and moving essay by Roger Ebert (yes! the movie critic) on life without what most of us hold sacred.
• And last, just what a craftygirl needs before the weekend starts...100 Best Craft Tutorials of 2009. I already have fabric for the bags!

Have a great weekend!

Mashed Potatoes for Another Night

No lists today! How will I write?

If you haven't noticed, I've been posting a lot lately. I may or may not be trying to post every week day in January. Maybe. Okay, yes. I am. But no pressure. So let's all just be cool.

So I've been on this writing tear - every night a great topic (at least to me) and then it strikes! On the fourth night in? Writer's block! Yay! Well, that's why I'm doing this - the best practice for writing is writing so I'm just writing and hopefully it won't suck.

Blog writing for me is the thrill of writing on the fly. I just sit down with my topic (hopefully!) and write. I do revise and sometimes will even go back and rework a post months later, but it's relatively unpolished.

I do a lot of writing for work - mostly standard corporate writing - letters, reports, and marketing and promotional materials. It's one of the best parts of my job. It's writing that is the exact opposite of my blog - revised, carefully wordsmithed and refined. The kind where I can take ten minutes to find the perfect adjective.

But like this post? This one is just to get the words on the page. A meta-post on writing so that I can practice. So bear with me...this started as a post on mashed potatoes and look where my words took me.

See? That's the thrill of writing.

This Week in Blogs

It's been a tough week in my particular blogosphere. Two of my favorite bloggers have lost aunts - one of them being my own great aunt. Still two others have sick babies. Not just colds and flus, but real serious illnesses. Like stay-in-the-hospital for months illnesses. Still more are moving and others are simply not blogging because real life takes over and blots out the writing.

I am one of those blog readers who isn't ashamed that I get emotionally attached to the blogs I follow. My favorite blogger, the incomparable Heather Armstrong just realized every bloggers dream. She's written a book based on her life - a life carved out of this new medium and now on paper.

Ms. Armstrong's blog is pretty typical of the blogs I follow. Most, but not all, are about moms raising any number of kids. Single atheist moms raising only children, married non-believing couples raising only children with more on the way, blended families with kids from adults to infants, Christian families raising many small children - you get the picture.

I can identify with at least something with each of the blogs I read. As most know, I don't have kids - and although each of those above blogs is about motherhood, all are about making a connection with the reader regardless of child status, marital status, gender preference or even belief. And most importantly, all the blogs I read - whether I am looking for an art fix or fun food reviews/recipes - have one thing in common:

All these bloggers are incredible writers.

Because of this, I find as much satisfaction reading Michael Ruhlman's highly opinionated food blog as I do Tara Whitney's Just Be Blogged or Carol Blymire's opus - The French Laundry at Home.

And see, in my fast paced, busy world where reading one book can take months, I find my writing inspiration here in the tiny whizzing packets on the Internet. All those beautiful writers you knew in high school? The ones that should be making millions as authors but instead are raising families, taking pictures, working at their jobs? They are now (or should be) blogging.

Bloggers don't write for themselves. Well, we do, but we are the journalers who could never get into journaling because ultimately, we want people to read what we write. If you find out your friend blogs, I urge you to find a reader you like and subscribe. Read what your friends write - we want to share our lives with you.