A long distance dedication

It rained for days.
You packed tiny speakers and plugged them into a discman that played this CD. I looked down at the street, that looked much like this one, and felt like my heart would fall into the river drop by drop if I couldn't stay with you.
Years later, you played this song when you proposed and you couldn't finish the question before I said yes.
Thank you for asking and for making my heart so full.
happy anniversary.

Getting Stronger

A word of encouragement for those of you who, like me, are feeling exhausted from the end-of year business push and holiday to-do lists.
You really can do it.
As the 1976 poster for Rocky reads, "It aint over til it's over. Rocky Balboa. Christmas."
I'm putting on my grey sweats (well, technically suit) and running up those damned steps.

To enjoy with red sprinkles on a peppermint mocha

Confession. I've been following about 100 photographers this year through bloglines. I admire so many photographers and learning from their thoughtful, generous blogs has been a tremendous help to me in starting my tiny little photography business, mostly working with families and children. It's growing fast this time of year. I practice law full time, and it's amazing how the time to pursue this endeavor just opens up without any effort: a great testament to The Secret in action.

I thought I would put in plugs for my favorites. A word of thanks and a display of their tremendous work. I wish I could make a blurb coffee table book of my favorites.

Today's favorite is my favorite for the year. The Gold medal.

Jasmine Star. (I couldn't get the link to work to her home page, but you can get to her from the link below.) I love, love, love her work. It has so much chi. Check out this "after the wedding" slide show and the link to the wedding shoot which was, by far, the coolest thing anyone did this year. Good God. I love the 1959 vintage Vogue aesthetic. This couple is amazing and I love Jasmine's creamy palette. She has a distinct, fresh signature. Perfection.

Just when I was complaining to my husband that the arts never talk about marital love, only courtship, here's the most fabulous love letter to marriage. AND it features my favorite song EVAH from Spoon's new album which is so great. Thanks to photographers (and their subjects) for sharing so many insights and their inspiring work.

A Quick Clean-Up Idea

Some dear friends of ours have a new sweet little 4 month old baby. We are all in love with her.

The daddy came up with what he calls, "The Dirty Thirty" where the first 30 minutes that he is home in the evening, he runs around the house to pick up and clean as fast as he can.

I love this concept. It compartmentalizes what we all dread and limits the time so you can move on when it's over.

We try to throw in a load of laundry any time the tv is turned on. Now, if only my Tivo were connected to the treadmill - or even better, my computer- so that these devices would only operate under the power of me exercising.

I heart Etsy

Twice this month, I found something for my daughter for the holidays that was promptly recalled because of lead paint (a Curious George tool bench and a Fisher Price Medical Kit). This has me thinking about a trip I took to Munich in December and how all of the toys sold in the square seemed like they were made in Santa's workshop: wooden parts, hand-painted without chemicals. If you ever get the chance to go to Munich during their Christmas market, GO!






Photos courtesy of the Munich Christmas market site. I'll try to post some of my own closer to Christmas.

So, in search of thoughtful, hand-made goods that support artists, I've found some beautiful, affordable things for her at Etsy.

For example, at this lovely little Etsy boutique called Robin's Egg Pink (how sweet is that) I found these pretend cupcakes...



...and a precious apron


to go with the wooden pastel kitchen that Santa has indicated he will be bringing. I bought them late Friday night and they were at my door in the most adorable robin's egg blue and brown decorative box with pink ribbons on Monday morning. I just love it. I may have to go back to her shop to get one of her toddler afternoon tea jackets.



Etsy has gifts for everyone. Where else can you get a shirt like this?



I keep an Etsy link in the right hand column of this blog year-round to search for items by color which is so much fun. This time of year, searches like "mittens" "christmas cards" and "scarf" yield great results. Happy searching!

Christmas Pajamas

Inspired by The Pajama Program, I'm collecting new pajamas for children living in shelters in my area ranging in ages from just-born to 17. There are about 100 children, many of whom have never had pajamas, who will be eating at the Salvation Army on Christmas morning. My amazing fellow daycare parents are donating toys and books, but I decided that in addition to a meal and new toy, each child really should have something warm and clean to sleep in.

I know many of us will be getting Christmas pjs for our kids. If we could each pick up one extra pair, it would make a tremendous difference. If you have my address, please feel free to drop them in the mail and I will see that they are there for the children on Christmas morning. If you are a faraway reader, please think about donating to The Pajama Program whose mission is this:

"Thousands of children go to bed cold and without clean pajamas every night. You can help us wrap our arms around them."

Gratitude on Veteran's Day

Special thanks to my dad for his service. Safe return home and sincere thanks to the men and women serving today. On my last flight back home, I saw a large group of soldiers in Dallas waiting for a connection. It was all I could do to not go up to each one and thank them. I probably should have.

Speaking of Tea Worthy

Check out this painting-a-day painter who has done a series of beautiful tea cups. I love it! Many of the pieces are for sale starting at $100 on ebay too.

Email subject: 6 weeks until Christmas

The email subject alone has me more than a little freaked. My family is spread out throughout the country so this means pre-order, pre-packaging, pre-paring which I have not begun to do. It also means there's a loud ticking noise reminding me that I only have so much time left to meet my annual billable hour requirement. (Hence the sparse Teaworthy posts lately.) But I digress...

Tonight, I'm getting serious. Christmas triage has begun. It will begin something like this:


PLUS



EQUALS



Just kidding. Though I do recommend a candy cane in the gin and tonic. A swizzle stick with pop!

Here's a preview of a few holiday gift discoveries I have found so far:

Precious for your preschooler's stocking. The animals actually appear to be running!

Sephora has a new blockbuster palette for the holidays for $48 which is a lot, but cheaper than the department store versions and I believe they are offering free shipping.

Last year, it sold out by Thanksgiving, so order early for the make-up maven in your life who has everything.

Garnet Hill's collapsible basket now comes in new colors, has an optional cover and is $24.

Great for the Farmer's Market, a quick eco-friendly trip to the grocery, or for picnics.

Feel free to leave comments about your favorite holiday finds.

A Gift For Wu

For my mom-in-law, Wu as my daughter calls her, who is much cooler than I am, and who loves Mick. This is the new documentary...

On Writing & Confidentiality

Rebecca Walker mentioned in a lecture I attended once that she tries very hard in her writing to be honest, but to do no harm. I struggle with that too and primarily with feeling that so many stories I have to tell are not mine alone and that I am somehow stealing part of another's individual experience. Our lives are all tangled.

Anne Lamott says you have to write as though everyone you are writing about is dead. I can't do that. But having read her work, I don't think she does either. She seems to be careful with people too, though probably more ruthless when commenting on herself.

There is that concept in the law that my rights end where yours begin. This is a problem for a writer. What belongs only to me and no one else? Very little.

I haven't written here in a few weeks because everything I have been wanting to share has involved the intricacies of other people's lives and deaths and I'm hesitant to share other people's stories without their consent. I'm left with only cliches about how life is precious, how the balance of work-family is kicking my ass but I'm enjoying the ride, and that, as O mentioned in last month's magazine, "Parents, I bow to your endurance!"

What I can say is that I'm inspired to write by people like the brilliant Jonathon Safron Foer who has said that he writes the kinds of book he would like to read, but can't find. Lately, I have come across novels that have titles that are exactly the title I would write, in fact much better than anything I could come up with, but inside the cover, it fizzles.

As the weather turns colder, my body reminds me of every broken bone, every muscle tear. Injuries I forgot I ever had, my body remembers. There is a novel called What The Body Remembers (by Shauna Singh Baldwin). It's a lovely book, but not at all what I was looking for and I left it feeling this title could have been cultivated in so many different ways.

The body having a separate memory from consciousness is a concept with endless story telling opportunities. All of our bodies are this way. Infinite possibilities.

When I saw the cover, I instantly thought of my mother begging us as children not to bump into her chair because the jarring sensation made her re-live falling from the attic, through the Pink Panther insulation and hitting the concrete garage floor. She was looking for baby clothes that had been stored away because she had just learned she was pregnant with me.

When my father came into the garage and found her, he knelt down, held her face in his hands, Viet Nam still fresh in his mind, and told her, "You're not going to die." They still can't get through the story today, 30 years later, without a bottle of wine and tears. I remain amazed that through the course of the pregnancy, her broken pelvis healed in time to deliver a 9lb 12 oz baby. The intensity of that trauma is most likely blocked out by the mind. But the body remembers.

Getting Mother's Body (Suzan-Lori Parks) turned out to be a literal title about retrieving the physical body. Now I love Suzan-Lori Parks. I'm excited she won a well deserved McArthur and to hear her talk about studying with James Baldwin is inspiring. She compared his students to flowers, all turning to face his sun and all more radiant in his presence... or something like that. She's amazing and I raced out to buy her book. But the title had a million places to go, and chose only one.

I foresee feeling this way again about a new film Things We Lost In The Fire. What an amazing title. Bret Lott teaches that writing is all about making choices. This title made all of them and none all at once. Damn. It could be anything. And, it should be said, there is a beautiful 2001 album by Low of the same name and I hope they are getting some kick back for coming up with such an amazing phrase.

This title made me think of *Fran, a Southern comfort food cook who now has a low country restaurant. When she showed me a recent grease fire scar, conversation drifted to stories of other fires. She told me that she kept a journal every night of her children's lives for 15 years that was lost in a house fire. Her husband passed when the boys were young and most of her photos of them together were gone. She told me about the pages and what the journal looked like with a hollow expression on her face of loss beyond measure. Watching the news this week, I thought about her and her journal and all of the things lost by each family- the vacuous nature of things lost in such a disintegrating way.

I'll keep writing. Though not about work, or where I live, or confidences shared. It's difficult to leave so much out and get to the root of things, but I have to write. Foer was interviewed about a year ago, when his child was 10 wks old and said:

"How do I put this? I love being a writer, but I don't love writing. An analogy might be, right now, I love having a kid, but man, oh man—it's so hard. Twenty-four hours a day. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. If you were to ask me each step of the way, "Do you feel like doing this?"...

As in: Do you feel like changing a diaper? No. Do you feel like jiggling a kid at four a.m.? No. Do you feel like cleaning barf off your shirt? No. But at the end of the day, if someone said, "Would you have wanted to spend the day any other way?," I'd say that's how I wanted to spend the day. When I write, I don't find it enjoyable page-by-page, but I'm really glad that it's what I do."

Thanks for reading.

Speaking of Designing Women

Last one, I promise.

It Just Never Gets Old

You may remember this scene: moments after Suzanne Sugarbaker's name has been trashed by a couple of caddy women in the dressing room, her sister comes to her defense. Taken out of context, Julia (Sugarbaker played by Dixie Carter) seems a little harsh, but it's so on point in the moment. (Particularly because Julia seldom loses her cool). I channel this scene, and let's face it, all scenes involving Shirley MaClaine in any of her films, when I have a particularly tough oral argument on the horizon or when I'm feeling vulnerable and life requires some zealous advocacy. These girls wear their pearls while they kick down the doors.

This Week's Good Chi: Perfect Fall Colors

Something about the peppers at the Farmer's Market this morning inspires red patent leather accessories. I'm thinking shoes, handbags, a rain coat, bangle bracelets. Maybe I'll just wear the peppers. What a perfect color. I love that the seller put them in such a comfy container.

Gratitude

From Dr. Randy Pausch's final Carnegie Mellon lecture this week, How To Achieve Your Childhood Dreams and Enable the Dreams of Others. The entire lecture can be viewed here. Here's the article in the Wall Street Journal. He concluded the lecture by saying, "This was for my kids," who are 5, 2 and 1 to watch when they're older.

Ours is a home that celebrates academicians. This one makes it so easy to see why.

Cams Gone Wild

National Geographic has live web cams set up in 7 locations. Take a trip to Botswana after dinner.

Colors for Tiny Hands

I picked up Cormac McCarthy's ash covered novel The Road when my daughter took a nap today and finished (hiding my sobs) just after she woke up. It's amazing, but I'm completely haunted. It is a particularly disturbing read for a parent. As Michael Chabon's New York Review of Books article concludes:

The Road is not a record of fatherly fidelity; it is a testament to the abyss of a parent's greatest fears. The fear of leaving your child alone, of dying before your child has reached adulthood and learned to work the mechanisms and face the dangers of the world... And, above all, the fear of knowing—as every parent fears—that you have left your children a world more damaged, more poisoned, more base and violent and cheerless and toxic, more doomed, than the one you inherited. It is in the audacity and single-mindedness with which The Road extends the metaphor of a father's guilt and heartbreak over abandoning his son to shift for himself in a ruined, friendless world that The Road finds its great power to move and horrify the reader.

I read it too quickly to put in the freezer until I could catch my breath. So, I did the only other thing I could think of to chase away the demons and focus on the beauty in the world: I bought new art supplies.

Crayola has a few new products for little ones that we checked out today. The TaDoodles are almost like little ink blotters of color in weeble-like shapes that are easy for toddler hands and they come in a little car caddy that rolls. They are fun, washable and there are no caps to keep up with so you don't have to worry about them drying out. My daughter (2.4) loves them.



The Crayola Beginnings triangle crayons are great too and come in a plastic case handy for the diaper bag.

"Picture it: Sicily 2007"

I love photography. For photo gifts, I often rely on shutterfly, kodak, and exposures online. But, there are a few new companies out there offering unusual photo gifts who have me interested and thinking outside the frame for holiday gifts.


Like custom photo night lights and Laptop skins.


Here's a sweet little site, Photojojo, that will show you how to make your own photo journals.
But my favorite is blurb which can help you make bookstore quality books for everything from your photos to cookbooks, children's books to even publishing your blog into a book!
Here's a sample:


Where to begin?

Ode to Nora Ephron

Every Fall, I break out the Nora Ephron movies and bask in the perfection of the built-in bookshelves, tea cups, perfectly located, well-lit apartments and twinkle lights. I love the writing and casting too, but mostly, I want to move into her movie sets. And in my mind, we are girlfriends. She gives me advice and we lunch together like Kathleen Kelly and Birdie, having chicken salad sandwiches and tea.

Internet browsing on the subject led me to a 1996 graduation address she gave at Wellesley, her alma mater. The entire speech is wonderful. But this part speaks particularly to the theme of this blog. Enjoy:

"This is the season when a clutch of successful women -- who have it all -- give speeches to women like you and say, to be perfectly honest, you can't have it all. Maybe young women don't wonder whether they can have it all any longer, but in case of you are wondering, of course you can have it all. What are you going to do? Everything, is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it will be like, but surprises are good for you. And don't be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I've had four careers and three husbands.

And this is something else I want to tell you, one of the hundreds of things I didn't know when I was sitting here so many years ago: you are not going to be you, fixed and immutable you, forever. We have a game we play when we're waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was your age, I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy. Whatever those five things are for you today, they won't make the list in ten years -- not that you still won't be some of those things, but they won't be the five most important things about you.

Which is one of the most delicious things available to women, and more particularly to women than to men. I think. It's slightly easier for us to shift, to change our minds, to take another path. Yogi Berra, the former New York Yankee who made a specialty of saying things that were famously maladroit, quoted himself at a recent commencement speech he gave. "When you see a fork in the road," he said, "take it." Yes, it's supposed to be a joke, but as someone said in a movie I made, don't laugh this is my life, this is the life many women lead: two paths diverge in a wood, and we get to take them both. It's another of the nicest things about being women; we can do that.

Did I say it was hard? Yes, but let me say it again so that none of you can ever say the words, nobody said it was so hard. But it's also incredibly interesting. You are so lucky to have that life as an option."

Lucky, I am. I love that she says to embrace the mess and rejoice in the complications. This is particularly comforting coming from Nora because so much of what I like about her films is that everything has clean order, simplicity, and softness. In her films, the laundry and dishes are done. Everything is hung neatly in the closet so that the characters are free to watch a movie guilt-free or go to lunch with a friend. But it's more than just the housekeeping and decor. She creates seemingly close-knit familial communities in large cities where people who are not related love each other as though they were. And the greatest part is that the beautiful, picturesque, gentle community she creates seems just within our reach.

As parents, we stage our own films, introduce our children to the things that are most important to us and try to create an environment that feels safe and secure to them (or to us, or both). Part of what I've been striving for is to create a dreamlike place for my daughter to read books and paint and play and feel confident and supported by her community. It's nice to be reminded by girlfriend Nora, who in my mind creates the perfect kinds of those places (though fictional) that it's supposed to be difficult. It's up to me to sort through it all and find a new kind of peace for each new version of a (hopefully) evolving me.

For more Nora, she's blogging regularly now on The Huffington Post. Here's her link list.
Her most recent post, "It was you, Fredo," is spot on and so funny.

Something New

This month's Cookie, has a fascinating article about an American family living in Marrakech. The mom featured in the article, Julie Klear, talked about how hard it is to be so far away from family and to be raising children in a place, "without dance classes and children's museums as we know them, let alone Gymboree." My favorite quote from the article:

"I didn't have pointers for how to raise a child in this culture. Then I stopped thinking about what Morroco doesn't have and started thinking about what it does have." The family takes advantage of the Atlas Mountains where the kids can ride donkeys, and the flamingos and tide pools of the Atlantic beach. I love that. I'm so inspired by that kind of courage and creativity.

Whether it's Marrakech or Memphis, it's so much easier to focus on what is lacking in a community than the things that make it unique. I'm off to try to find something special and new in my community that my daughter will enjoy. I'll keep you posted.

The Creative Family

I'm starting to stock up on craft projects for winter and Amanda Blake Soule has written this very sweet book. Here's her inspiring blog. The fabrics remind me of my grandmom's house and there's just such simplicity and comfort in her work. Great photos too!

Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils

"Don't you love New York in the Fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would buy you a bouquet of sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms" Tom Hanks as Joe Fox in You've Got Mail. Or me, to you.

And on that note, check out See Jane Work.

What more can be said? I mean, stylish organization tools? It's like crack rock for the compulsive. I love every product and have already put the 8 day planner to use from Bob's Your Uncle and I love it.

Reader Poll

This month's Working Mother magazine focuses on balancing parenting and practicing law.

GREAT! It's definitely worth the cover price. But, when I reached the end of the articles, once again, I felt like they just scratched the surface of the conversation and only touched on one type of practice with little variation in the size of firm. The magazine repeatedly mentions "outrageous salaries" that statistically, most lawyers just aren't making. Several of my classmates work at firms listed in the magazine's 50 Best Law Firms for Women. What do you think? Has anyone else read this? Thoughts?

This Week's Good Chi

Photo by the talented and inspiring artist Ali Edwards

MaterniTV

We were incredibly blessed that for the first 4 weeks of our daughter's life, my husband and I were both home. Our daughter was very colicky (we now know because of a milk protein allergy) and it was a very sleepless time. I remember needing to laugh a lot. We watched Jimmy Fallon do impressions of Barry Gibb and the Sklar twins stand-up routine.

After chatting with girlfriends who are moms, it seems all of us had at least one show that for 6-8 weeks, was a source of comfort during the isolating first few weeks of parenthood, overwhelming responsibility and deep fatigue. One friend watched Judging Amy re-runs. Another Dawson's Creek. Thank God none of us watched these shows when they were first-run so that we would have years of seasons to catch up on out of order.

I became particularly attached to Gilmore Girls re-runs. My husband, to Food Network. Comforting, safe, good energy tv.

I wanted to move to Stars Hollow (the fictional Connecticut town where Gilmore Girls is set) where the diner has twinkle lights, all the homes have porches and built-in bookshelves, and everything I adore -books, learning, music, food, coffee- is celebrated. The entire town had a sense of an unconditional connectedness -something I still look for in communities. Even the town's strangest citizens were loved. And it's a show about mothers and daughters...a topic of endless fascination and anxiety for me. I was re-reading my tattered copy of Reviving Ophelia the day after the ultrasound told us that she was on her way.

This Fall there will be no more episodes of Gilmore Girls and I am so disappointed. The plot had sort of died. It was time for them to cancel the show. I just want to visit Stars Hollow, have a cheeseburger, get some new music recommendations from Lane (or Carol King who works at the instruments shop) buy some books and spend Thanksgiving on Suki's lawn with a deep fried turkey.

Organizing for the Type A

Organize Magazine Editor-in-Chief Joyce Dorny was kind to leave a comment a few posts back and I must tell you that I have read and re-read the premiere issue of Organize a few times now and have cruised their interactive site a good bit and I am so excited about this magazine.



I'm the first to admit that I am a label making, borderline OCD, alphabetizing, categorizing nut, so it's probably no surprise that this magazine would be a fave** but as such, I've picked up lots of these kinds of publications in the past and this one is truly unique. Here's why:

First, Joyce has started this magazine from the ground up and is the mother of 1-2-3-4-5-6, I repeat SIX children, so she must be the Zen master of organization. She brings humility and the genuine, real world experience to the conversation that has been missing. Other organization guides would have me hire a maid and build expensive-can't-move-with-me built-in-shelves in every room. Can't do it. Next. But Organize had some tangible, do-able advice on any budget without the condescension. And the ads are sparse but relevant.

I know life would be easier and more organized if we paid people to do lots of homeowner things for us like housekeeping and yard work. But what about those of us who budget with a different priority set, but still aspire to minimize the chaos? I'm hopeful that Organize Magazine will continue to offer some suggestions.

I have yet to assimilate the Little Tykes, Brio, Fisher Price mine field into the house. They are everywhere. I'm still polling girlfriends with small kiddos about how they are maintaining their sanity. Two girlfriends so far have suggested getting rid of as much stuff as possible and then initiating a separate container for every toy or group of toys. A home for everything. This is the seemingly unattainable goal, but I am willing to try. The Berenstain Bears and The Messy Room was my favorite book growing up because of that last page, with all of the labeled containers holding Brother and Sister Bear's toys. Even now, I get a warm, safe and comforting feeling just thinking about it.

**My favorite holiday tradition is re-organizing my loved ones' closets. Seriously.

2 "raisons" to get a babysitter

I can't wait for this one, 2 Days in Paris. Evidently Julie Delphy wrote, directed, produced, scored and stars in this one. Girl power. Her parents play themselves in the film. It looks very clever.

And then there are the Jane Austen nods this summer with The Jane Austen Book Club and Becoming Jane.

The Jane Austen Book Club looks reminiscent of The Love Letter and Becoming Jane of Shakespeare In Love, but in my mind, both bear repeating.



The voice over on the preview is cheeky, but I am a sucker for Miramax's use of costumes, heartache, a writer, and a bit on a beach. As Bridget Jones would say, "v. exciting."

Losing Labels

Click here for another great essay by Lee Woodruff in the Huffington Post today where she writes about losing labels in the new American family landscape. I think this is my third post mentioning something that she has written. Love her.

Summer Music

I put together a Teaworthy Summer Music Mix that you can download on iTunes called Sunkissed 2007 for picnics, road trips, clam bakes, and sandy afternoons.

The playlist includes Sam Cooke, Amy Winehouse, The Supremes, Jaime Liddell, Neil Finn, Ben Folds Five, Madonna, The Shins, Iron & Wine, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ceu, Bebel Gilberto, & Pulp. I don't get any royalties. Just thought it would be fun to share. You can practically smell the coconut.

Here's the link which you can preview for free:

Sunkissed 2007 Total Songs: 14 Date: July 21, 2007

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=260466991