A Mindful Life

Below is the New Yorker cover for June 29, 2009. Claire looked at it tonight, and this is what she said (note: she is still confused on gender pronouns):
“Man scared. Man can’t see, looking. He klunked. Yes, he’s looking, he klunked.” Klunked is Claire’s term for falling over. I can only guess that the look [...]

She spins in circles and says, “I’m getting busy!!” and laughs when she falls down.
She adds plural ending to words that are already plural: gloveses, shoeses, kidses.
She adds “ed” to verbs in current tense to make them past-tense: “It breaked,” “I eated.”
She sits in her wading pool, looks up at the trees blowing in the [...]

Apparently it’s all doom an gloom still in the housing market. We’re still looking to see what’s out there that we can possibly afford without risking our necks and also feel comfortable living in. Please note in the quote below what is considered the “low end” of home values here. We’re talking about houses, condos, [...]

A couple months ago, two blocks from here where I walk with Claire, a man brandishing a gun wandered the streets and was shot by police when he refused to drop the weapon. I think he survived. I haven’t heard anything about it since, but it’s disconcerting. We could have been taking a walk in [...]

Husband is a researcher. For months he has diligently tracked the housing market to see if house prices will enter a range we can afford. In the past couple of weeks, we have taken field trips to various parks in San Jose neighborhoods to see if we like the area, and to see what our [...]

The first week of January is nearly past! I have only a few minutes to write this post, so it’s a bit scattered. I signed up to participate in Creative Every Day 2009, so here’s my first post about it. For Christmas I received some culinary items: a jumbo muffin pan, four really heavy cookie/jelly [...]

After reading three different versions of The Night Before Christmas about 20 times each today (which I did willingly and happily), sweet Claire is now asleep. She is too young to understand who Santa is or what Christmas is really about, but our little parrot spent the day repeating Santa and (with prompting) Merry Christmas. [...]

It’s been entirely too long since I’ve sat down to write. Claire’s four molars are still cutting, and when she’s awake she is clingy with me. But she has changed remarkably — every day there is greater comprehension, and we are astonished. I want to make a note of this, so here’s a quick list.

One [...]

This image arose from listening to months of bad economic news and pondering the lifestyle that led Americans down the path of desperate consumerism.

“Consumed” / 7×10″ sketch paper with oil pastel

I’m thinking about autumn, and transformation, and what we just did as a country.

“Transformation” / 7×10″ sketch paper with oil pastel and colored pencil