Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Night Rider

I was listening to an interview and live performance with Dan Wilson tonight on my way home from work (on my favorite radio station in the world, WFUV) and it reminded me just how much I love to drive at night, with the windows down and the music blasting! His acoustic guitar was reminding me how I have yet to fulfill my desire to learn to play this instrument. I've got to get moving on that!!

I also discovered that one of my favorite songs, Easy Silence, that I thought was solely a Dixie Chicks song was actually co-written by Dan Wilson and the Chicks. This song is available on both of their albums, with each artist performing their own version. Watch both below and decide for yourself which you prefer.





Can you tell that I've learned how to blog with hyper-links and embedded videos recently?! Learning new stuff is cool!

So to wrap it up... life is good because of night driving, warm breezes, the existence of acoustic guitars and the people who can play them, and beautiful songs that make you cry while you're driving home from work.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Slowing things down for a visit

Tonight we had dinner in the backyard, the culmination of a week-long visit from my boyfriend's sister's husband's father. I know that was a pretty long string of people that I listed there, but it isn't really that complicated... the dad of one of my house-mates was up from Georgia and stayed with us for a while. And it was a pure pleasure. This man has such a quiet way about him, but he is filled with such wisdom and patience. When I was talking with him, I found myself immediately calming down... it was quite strange actually how consistent that feeling was over the course of the week. He had interesting stories that took a while to tell, but I found myself fascinated every time. And his kindness was so honest and genuine. He spent his time here visiting with his family, of course, but also found time to do things like trim the rose bush out front and fix a car in the driveway that needed repairs. And when he wasn't doing any of the above, he was perfectly content sitting in the rocking chair by the front door, smoking his cigarette, and taking in nature.

So tonight, the night before he was set to leave, we had a wonderfully delicious dinner: barbequed pork chops (which we all learned that if you boil them beforehand for about 20 minutes, they barbeque quicker and stay juicier), green salad, roasted corn (don't get me started again about roasted corn), and wine. Between 3 of the 5 of us, we polished off an extra-large bottle of some tasty, tasty wine. And not that I'm going around promoting alcohol or anything, but I have to say, there is something special about sitting outside on a beautiful summer night at a picnic table in a rather large backyard with really cool tiki torches nearby setting the mood, eating a delicious meal, and sharing a bottle of wine. Something about the slowness of a glass of wine... it just makes you want to linger and talk all night.

It was a good night- and a good week. I got to meet someone really cool and I got to watch as a father and son re-connected and a daughter-in-law and father-in-law got to know each other even better. It was wonderful all around. Thank goodness for opportunities like this.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Summer barbeques

Life is good...
  • because of the smell of a barbeque while cooking hamburgers at 10:00pm on a Wednesday night
  • because of the first person who decided it was a good idea to roast corn, still in the husk, on an open grill
  • because of the mixture of sweet corn and salty butter, leaving an unintentional pool of dropped corn kernels and the hint of a buttery-salty sludge on the plate that I just can't help but run my finger across and sneak tiny inappropriate licks, hoping no one notices

Monday, July 21, 2008

And so it has begun...

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while now. Ever since I became one of the contributing writers to the blog we recently started at work, I've been saying, "I should do this for myself."

But the truth is, I've been blogging all my life. It just wasn't called that. It was called "keeping a diary" when I was little- where I started every entry with a detailed account of the weather, what I had for homework, what food we had for dinner and the names of the boys I currently loved. You know, the basics.

I then moved on to poetry- god help us all. I would write a poem dripping with teen angst and emotion and then proceed, in a strangely jovial way, to visit each room of the house to show my work off to anyone who would read it. (Hey look at my pain, isn't it nicely worded?!)

I worked my way up to "journaling" as an adult- a fancy way of saying "keeping a sporadic diary." To this day, my journaling ranges from traditional entries that span a certain time period, all the way to hastily scrawled "to-do lists" housed in fancy notebooks. Either which way, unknown to me at the time, I've documented a life.

And that's how we arrive at this particular venture. Blogging. I'm that same teen-age girl, all grown-up, with that same fascinating need to have people read my stuff. And I'm still documenting a life, just in a different venue- with a potentially wider audience. "Potentially" is the key word... I'm not kidding myself to think that millions will read this. It's not like when Patricia and I were little and decided to paint rocks and sell them outside our house and I went to bed that night having dreams that we stopped traffic with the line of people who wanted to buy those rocks. (The next morning, we set up the table in the driveway and had three sales- our Mom, our Grandma, and our next door neighbor. Reality sort of bites sometimes, but when you break it down- we were 75 cents richer in our youth because of that venture!)

So basically, I'm out to share my thoughts with the select few who will choose to read this blog. But more importantly, I'm out to spread some positive vibes while I'm at it. The whole point of this blog, as partially evidenced by the title and URL name, is to share the reasons why I think life is good. It would have been even more apparent had the name, "Life is good" not been taken already. (Damn you mystery blogger who thinks life is good also, damn you!)

Looking back at past diary entries/journals/poetry I've written, one of the most overwhelming things I've come across is an undying sense of hope. Even in the darkest of days, I can see hope in my writing. I can see optimism where you think there shouldn't be any. And for that I am grateful.

And so now, hopefully without being too saccharine about it, I want to try my hand at the next phase of my writing. Whenever I come across something that makes me remember why life is good, I'm going to write it down. Here's hoping this list will never be complete...