Theo and I, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

There is so much to say about the addition of a new baby into a family. My brothers God Father is not really family but he’s always been close enough. I see so many wonderful things for Theo. The way his family sees the world reminds me of a Mary Oliver poem.
With excitement:
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Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

~ Mary Oliver ~

Theo and I, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

There is so much to say about the addition of a new baby into a family. My brothers God Father is not really family but he’s always been close enough. I see so many wonderful things for Theo. The way his family sees the world reminds me of a Mary Oliver poem.
With excitement:
=va=

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

~ Mary Oliver ~

Fi, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

Here are a few of my favorite things….

Mendon Ponds Fish Hatchery, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

Mendon Ponds Fish Hatchery:
I didn’t expect to be in NY this long. I thought at best I would come home, gain some perspective on a long, exhausting year and then zip on back to my Dixie home. I’m so used to things working out, so used to wading through the crap and doing the work and in time it all fleshes out into something great. I didn’t love Atlanta the first year I was there but I stuck it out and it became a better home then I could have hoped for.
But this, this is starting to ware me down. I know that my insolence and bad attitude about the current state of affairs is unfair, and I should be grateful to be spending time with my family. New York is beautiful in the fall and it’s always been my favorite time of year. What has been so obvious lately is the redundancy of my habits. As soon as the leaves started falling something in me marched my feet into a YMCA and started a routine of swimming drills four days a week. As soon as the roads and ground started to get a colorful sheen from the castaways of summer I knew it was time to search the attic for my corduroys and paint my nails copper and red. It was just too easy, to find the coco and tea kettle. To know that when the dryer buzzes jumping for warm fresh socks will be the best part of your day. This is what’s wearing me down, finding the parts that fit. The things that are so easy in contrast with everything I want going forward. For now I can only hope that what I’m doing is the right thing and that coming here will turn out to have been the right decision.
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Just a little note: I’m participating in this little project called Brown Paper Packages. It’s all kinds of fun and just wanted to share. (http://abrownpaperpackage.blogspot.com/)

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Chimney Bluffs, Central NY, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

Just an afternoon hike with the parents at Chimney Bluffs, Lake Ontario.
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update:  just a quick note I change the permissions on my flikr so more of my of my photos from the past six months are viewable.

Used Books, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

I’ve suspended this day in my memory. I think I felt this day that moving here for a few months was the best idea I’ve made in a long time. Rick and I had an impromptu meeting in Canandaigua and spent some time together searching through the back of an old book store looking for antique Boy Scout manuals. Central NY has an element of “kitsch” that I’m learning to embrace in the same way I’ve embraced the souths folksy roots. It’s small strangely connected farm neighborhoods settled around scenic lakes, possess a charm that if found in a small European city by travelers would be pointed out and discussed at cocktail parties on their return as the kind of charm lacking in the United States. (wow holly run on sentence!)

As many of you know I’m the queen of all things Apple. I love them and all of my analogies about life, health and economics end up relating back to the apple market. So for all the apple afficienatos (sp?) out there October in Central New York is heavenly. The trees are swelling with fruit and fragrant leathery branches are bent deep to the ground. It’s like I’m living in this big forest of growth and shinny red fruit that’s a bad literary reference about life and plenty just smacking me in the face. I can’t wait for the chill that brings spiced cider and cinnamon bread.

For now I’m going to keep on keeping on.
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papa, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

Papa’s Bread, good for the soul, good for the tummy.

Polaroid_01, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

Taking a cue from Connor and trying my best to enjoy these days.

moms birthday cake, originally uploaded by GinaMoe.

First off I have to apologize for the grammar in my post last week. I know some of you read my blog regularly (thanks for indulging me) and had to suffer through that horribly worded mess. But I can’t promise this week will be any better;

Well things have hit the breaks pretty fast and I’ve been in Newark working my little fingers to the bone trying to find some honest employment. I sort of feel like I’m in career purgatory right now and all I can hope for is that I’ll soon get out. Newark is the perfect setting for purgatory; my friends and my favorite “lil’Big” (as Bert so affectionately calls him) is not around, there are more fast food restaurants then stop lights and the closest airport is an hour away. The same way I couldn’t expect things to stay the same up here I have to remember that things are changing and ticking forward in Atlanta as well.

Sometimes I hear a song or smell a certain dish and I’m hit with the memory of someone. The best parts of these trips are the connection between the person and the trigger. It’s often not something they would be happy about. For example; the song “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap reminds me every time I hear it of an big burley guy I went to undergraduate, or how the mention of Ithaca reminds me of a friends Mom and her tendency to be a “close talker”. Today I was shoveling in birthday cake lamenting about the economic state of the country when the taste of box cup cakes and coconut sugared frosting reminded me why I came up here to begin with. A friend interpreted it well after I regurgitated my usual answer to “what are you doing now?”. He came back at me with “I’ve…..decided that my decision was a decision I made after all”. He’s right, amidst all this gallivanting around and wavering on what will happen next there was a goal. Butter cream may be simplifying it a bit but it’s a big part. Enjoying birthday cake with my Mom, Aunts and cousins is something I haven’t done on a whim in over eight years. I just keep reminding myself of what Oggie tells me; I have plenty of time.
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