partial reunion this sunday.

one sixth of the herd is visiting!
she is the second little one on the left.
she is stopping by to see Jackie and I on her way to fiji (so jealous).

back story

my sister visited this weekend!

we:
went to la
went to venice
went to hermosa beach
went thrift store shopping
went to dinner w/friends
took photos
went to dog park
went home.

Jackie's Birthday!!

My little sister is 20. 20 years old. 2 decades. 20 rides around the sun. Wow.

Jackie is my best friend, my sister, and my rock.  

She is a bundle of paradoxes: silently strong, painfully kind, steadily brilliant, artistic and rational. Athletic and graceful. Softspoken but a loud yeller. Bold and gentle. Surprising. 

Today I will celebrate her for her - Jackie and all her exquisite Jackie-ness.

 

I love you, little J! Photos from the last weekend in May.

I love: Papa, Marsha, Jeff.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but do not quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

I love: Money, Walshie, and Grama.

Money. 

 She is artistic, gentle, and British in her manner. Very proper. 

And extremely loving. Has a better eye for art, a more acute nose for the new, 

than any person I have ever met. 

Calls me "my darling" and "my love". 

Walshie and I. 

Grampa is a nut. He is a doctor, a smart but creative type, 

who marches to the beat of his own drum. His hero is Winston Churchill. 

Calls me "dear". 

Grama, Cassie, and Dad. 

Grama is a single gal living in Toronto. She flies to Las Vegas 

a few times a year. She has tons of friends. She always makes us 

oven pizza and serves bbq chips. We play cards and she secretly 

cheers me on. 

Calls me "Robin Ann".

I am blessed to have my grandparents in my life.

Who are your grandparents? What are they like?  

I love: poets of old.

A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning
John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a'love, so much refin'd
That we ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airey thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other do.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as it comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

Oh, for the days of poetic devices! the conceit, the metaphor, the old (olde?) english spelling.

Two varieties of love in this poem: of the body or of the mind... of the body lovers need to be physically close to one another, otherwise their affection vanishes.

Donne's love is of the mind - untouched by distance and earthly concerns. Lovers of the mind live in a world of their own making.

The two lovers are like the two points of a compass. One point controls the other, and vice versa... Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show, To move, but doth, if the'other do...

despite time, distance, strife, earth, heaven, death - ultimately the two lovers end where they begin: together.

I've only felt this way about one person.

How many loves do you think someone has in a lifetime?

I love: Edward Ruscha.

Twenty Six Gasoline Stations. 

Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, 1968.

Edward Ruscha is an American artist, still living!, who people associate with Pop Art.

I decided to include him in the I love series, because Southern California is a thematic thread running through most of his work –He has his finger on the vibe of LA in his book Every Building On the Sunset Strip – or his paintings Standard Station, Large Trademark, Hollywood.

I like Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, 1968. Perhaps the bland, banal, and neon images inspire memories of Florida – 

hot suburban days… the burn of bare feet on shellrock roads, the crunch of crab grass beneath 

a blanket… humid air smelling of chlorine, cut grass, and sulfer. 

What do you all think? Is this art, or are these dumb snapshots not worth your time?

I love: Dana May.

an old friend from my wolverine days, allow me to introduce you to miss dana may. 

I didn't grow up with pets. Well, I did have parakeets for a number of years, but that was an experience far different from the dog/cat tradition that it seems most Americans have at one point in their lives. While I would treat you all to the dramas of my childhood gang of budgies-Elvis, Roxanne, Snoopy, Woodstock, and Jimi-it would ultimately be self-indulgent, and no one seems to like parakeets anyway.

I have been thinking a lot about what having a pet does to/for a person. Having very little experience with both cats and dogs, I have only started interacting with them as an adult. I currently live with my girlfriend, whose house mate has a black mutt that she adopted while living in France a few years ago. Her name is Mistral, and I don't think she likes me much. Living with Mistral, and being partially responsible for her while the said roommate is away on vacation, leads me to constantly contemplate this institution of domesticated animal and its master. How the relationship is different for cats and dogs, who are "cat people" and "dog people," and why people get involved in owning them in the first place, among other related tangents on the subject.

Take the case of Mistral. She spends most of her days in the apartment by herself. She sleeps, she chews on a toy, she barks at the mailman or at any noises she hears. The highlight of her life that is not derived from human interaction is when she masturbates. She licks herself and then rubs her bitch-parts with her rather dexterous paw as she slides around in circles on the carpet. We have been witness to her self-loving, and find it to be her most redeeming quality. Yes, I may get short with her when she barks at black people, or presses her cold wet noise against me while I am trying to eat and watch TV. But her pursuit of pleasure exposes a deeper, complex desire that I can at once relate to and be impressed by her ingenuity to obtain it.

But there are aspects of domesticated animals and pet ownership that concern me, and would keep me from ever being a "pet person," or at least a "dog person." 

Every morning she waits anxiously for someone to take her out for a walk so she can take a shit. She depends on someone to fill up her food bowl in the morning. When she does go outside for those brief moments in between long stretches of boredom and sleeping, she is kept on a short leash that keeps her from exploring her over-stimulated senses. The leash tells her to walk where it has been designated as a walking space, on hard pavement that must hurt her paws. Her ancestors may have run through open fields in the French country side, or scavenged for food in the streets of the city, making alliances with some dogs and fighting it to the death with others. Now she lies on her side, trying to go to sleep to kill the hours of her day. What she receives in security she exchanges for her freedom.

We can relate to that, can't we? We pay taxes so that the government will pave our roads, educate our children, and buy lots of weapons to protect us from other people. We are layers upon layers of domesticated and coddled, constantly wrestling with our desires to be out of someone else's control and to live by our own determination. 

What are our leashes? Currently, mine are money, desire to start a career, wanting an apartment in a city where I can walk or ride my bike to a show. I remember a few years ago listening to an NPR report on pets in China. The government started to tax the growing middle class for their trend of buying a new class status marker-pets. The government said that they were charging because pet ownership is ultimately "reactionary," the act of taking away something's freedom for one's own amusement or other selfish reasons. Of course, the CCP looks for any opportunity to make some cash on its people, but it shows not only cultural and economic variance in what it means to be a pet owner, but the significance of choosing to be one. We domesticate some animals to harvest their flesh, milk, or eggs. We initially domesticated dogs to hunt, herd, and protect and cats to eat rats. Now what purpose do domesticated animals serve us now, to rich Chinese people, or to people in a modern, suburban, post-industrial setting?

I know Robin has a dog, and that he has been a rock for her at this point in her life. I am starting to understand and appreciate the role animals can play as companions to their master. It is here that the relationship is not so much about enslavement but about symbiosis. Yes, man does take an animal away from its natural state of the wild (which humans are much too detached from to ever return to, for better or for worse), but he provides the animal not only with food and shelter, but with love, and the animal returns the same. I do question still whether this love an animal exudes (it is never guaranteed, much like human love) is out of a state of mind similar to Stockholm syndrome or out of an actual capacity to love its owner. Perhaps its a mixture of both. Again, we are not so far removed from that state of affairs. 

Regardless, I do not mean to sound overtly critical of pet owners, because I have known a few such people who really connect with their pet on a level that shows tremendous capacity to relate and communicate with another sentient being, a capability which is void of selfishness and abuse of power. I commend those bonds, but sadly, they are less than the whole of pet-master arrangements.

My mom and dad never wanted to get a cat or dog when I was at the age to demand such a childhood/suburban living milestone. I understood vaguely then and clearly now how big of a responsibility pets are, how they alter your life and space, how they can be just as demanding and expensive as children without the hope that they will ever graduate from college or wipe your ass when you are old and gray. My mom had plenty of reasons, from her allergies to her desire to keep a germ-free house. But the biggest reason for her had more to do with growing up in the wide open spaces of the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She grew up seeing dogs hunt with their owners on a regular basis, living outside and being allowed to run and bark and be dogs. I imagine she was pretty disgusted moving from suburb to suburb with my father and I, seeing expensive designer dogs pent up in houses and cages all day, reduced to furry accessories that had to have their poop picked up off the grass on a daily basis. She talks now about getting a dog when they retire up North, how she will let it run free and be as close to a wolf as it wants to be. But, as both my dad and I know her, she will most likely become overprotective of it, and spoil it with fatty people food and be scared to let it out because of the risk of it being hit by a car or stolen. She knows this about herself, that she would as an owner be unable to let the dog be free, for it would go beyond the definition of their relationship, would be emotionally and logically nonsensical. Because of her inability to reconcile these conflicting feelings of wishing boundless freedom for animals and the human nature of love tangled with possessiveness, she will go petless. I am too young to say that I will never be with a pet, but it will be a reconceptualization of self and priorities, and just like many young couples before me, it may just break me in for a child. But that is another subject to dissect via blog ramble (on my own turf, again, thank you Robin for your generosity).

I have been focusing on dogs mostly, probably because I am living with one now, but I have considered cats as a potential future pet. I got a bad impression of them at first when an ex worked to domesticate a feral one. But all and all, cats seem like less upkeep, use the bathroom, and need less attention than dogs. That sounds like more my style. But then there is all that hair! And I did inherit my momma's allergies. I will have the rest of my life to think about the meaning of pets, most aptly as I watch Mistral squat to make a turd, and before I have to use all my nerve to pick up her shit, and gather all my energies to make sure my hand is fully covered in plastic...

dana: i am not a dog person, i am a sampson specific person. you will have to meet him - he will change your view on pets and domestication forever! cross my heart.

and thank you for your post, i find it funny, intellectually stimulating, and a further insight into your personality! <3 

I love: Cassandra M.

introducing my sister, Cassie.

cassie, me

this is scribbled on the back of the picture of both of us:

Cassie: gentle/fat/happy/ giggles a lot/ likes classical music

Robin Ann: (2 years) likes to party/ rowdy/

can beat up any kid in the neighbourhood/

stays up later than her Daddy

Where do you live?

Evanston, Chicago, go to Northwestern.

Who are your favorite sisters?
Well, I do have all my tridelta ones that I pay every quarter for : ). JK. You two of course.


What is your favorite Dorset, Canada memory?
Hmmmm. This is a Shanty Bay one: but I remember when the Tornado ripped down like 8
hundred-year-old trees...one MASSIVE one randomly plopped into the lake like a sort of
god-given dock and we got to spend days hopping around on its limbs until Uncle Chris
sawed it up...The cottage was great too; being 8 years old and playing “property”...selling
and buying rocks with leaves...We got very competitive with it...Dad’s influence perhaps?
...ahhh and who could forget “the shed”: an old electrical hub we found mid-woods and
spend days swinging on electric cords....wow there are too many options really


What is your favorite Bobism? (quote from our Dad)
Toughie, because the man speaks in proverbs...maybe “optimists wake up and say good
morning god. Pessimists wake up and say Good God Morning!”. I use one of his quotes
almost every day for some situation in my life...Or actually, here’s a clip of my most recent
conversation within him:

“Robert McIntosh” (10:22:00 AM): going to read for a while before flying, enjoy this day,
the present!
cassiej1488 (10:22:41 AM): thanks dad! haha where did that come from
“Robert McIntosh” (10:22:58 AM): the grace
cassiej1488 (10:23:38 AM): ahah
cassiej1488 (10:23:46 AM): a book?
“Robert McIntosh” (10:23:56 AM): are you on your i phone!
cassiej1488 (10:24:23 AM): haha nope the mac
“Robert McIntosh” (10:24:58 AM): what's past is history, what's future mystery, today is a
gift that's why its called the present
cassiej1488 (10:25:30 AM): yeah i agree
cassiej1488 (10:25:38 AM): i actually think someone stole my phone when i was out again
cassiej1488 (10:25:42 AM): but i am waiting on it
“Robert McIntosh” (10:25:59 AM): how's Devin
“Robert McIntosh” (10:26:56 AM): I just called your # and got a message saying that they
are not accepting calls at this time!

THOUGHTS:
*What is “the grace”, seriously?
*How did I get so lucky to have such great parents? What kind of parent doesn’t blow up at
their child for losing her phone again...


Who do you like better, Picasso or Chagall?
Picasso

If you weren't a Libra, what would you be?
Gemini probs. I bury my emotions. Perhaps an Aquarius for my quirkiness and
independence, but I think I'm more attached then most aquariuses.

Who are the five closest people to you?
I am also excluding family because that would take up four spots.

Devin Drowley, Sara Parker, Katie and Liv, Beth, Pam and Lily, Kirstin and Nicole, lot of
different little groups im close with

Where have you lived?

Florida! Breckenridge! Canada!

Evanston, Ill: Allison Hall, Tridelta Sorority House (yikes!!!), Park Evanston, Evanston Place,
Public Affairs Residential College: it’s been a long run here
Salamanca, Spain
Madrid, Spain
COSTA RICA WITH THE JACKIE


What is your boyfriend, Devin, like?
Haha. Well...Devin is a wonderful, grounded, intelligent engineer with a conscience of steel
and a heart of gold. I hope he will be in my life for a long time, at the very least as a great
inspiring friend.. BUT my biggest fear is being seen as a big mushy codependent unit with
him so I try not to talk about him much...

I don’t believe that romantic relationships should
be the driving force in ones identity. Obviously, I feel very very strongly about this issue : )
I’m grateful for Devin but also for all the wonderful kaleidoscope of stimulating people in
my life and would like to emphasize that.

What are three things I don't know about you?
-I’ve traded a lot of my old quirks for new ones. I don’t ask thousands of hypothetical
questions any more or flip a coin when it comes to decisions...I do a bunch of other weird
OCD things now which I won't detail here hahaha.
-i'm a huge flirt. w/ both guys and girls.
-I love winter...snow flurries falling like “polite confetti over a the dark surf of lake
Michigan”, waking up to a new white-crystalled world, ice slips, wind tunnels, love it all. I'll
complain like everyone else but I secretly hope it lasts till april.


What are some additional things readers should know about your personality?
-Like Jack, I’m super sensitive as well. I’m also a sucker for flattery...sometimes I take
form over function and beauty over honesty....I like delusion: I’m working on that....also
being worked on: when I’m offended I whip out a cutting McIntosh trained tongue that
could probably rival robin's. It gets me into trouble.

A little more about Cass: she is one of the most interesting and inspiring people I know. She is unusually intelligent, always has been, and is piercing in her observations. We don't talk daily, like Jackie and I, but we might as well, because when we do talk it feels as though no time has passed. We share the same voice, and a lot of the same mannerisms. We used to pretend we were twins. I absolutely love her- she's my sister and my best friend!

Just out of curiosity: do you find us similar? I always thought we had

similar writing styles.

I love: Mands.

amanda pushing me around...

yes, I had the world's largest noggin...

this was on my dorm room wall -

middle school, two cool kids on a train.

in college, at the lox.

Amanda is my oldest friend - allegedly she was in the hospital waiting room when I was boring (so says mum).

Would I be friends with her had our parents not been friends? Probably not. But, then again, who knows… maybe yes. Perhaps our friendships are marked beforehand – before before - despite changes in the plot.

She is kind and strong, wise and loyal. She looks at the world clearly, in color, and helps me when all I can see is black and white. We will never not be friends, and that knowledge is the stuff of great friendships.

& company:

I would feel remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the rest of the clan. Amanda’s brothers and sisters, my almost-cousins. Sara: strong, Adam: hilarious, and Carmel is… Carmel is unique.

& the parents:

My almost-Uncle and almost-Aunt. My second pair of parents. Now they have been friends with my parents for... well Sabina and Dad went to high school together. So basically when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I love you, mands: )

I love: Diane Arbus

I was 14 years old. Living in Toronto, at BSS, the boarding school where my Mum was sent (banished?) when she was in her teens. I was so impressionable, so unworldly, and so profoundly lost. I saw this photograph and I fell head over heels for a woman named Diane Arbus. 

She infuses her work with delicate humor and dark self deprecation. 

I think it was love at first sight, for me, because with rare exception she photographed people. She focuses on the unique and the individual, specifically people found on society’s fringes.

The epitome of suburban life. That kid in the background is me. 

John Szarkowski, Director of Photography at MOMA from 1962-1991, wrote about Arbus privileging private above social realities, triumphing courage above subtlety.

Recently there was a movie about her, called FUR? Did anyone see it? 

Is it worth seeing? 

I don't want to subject myself to any view of Diane Arbus 

that differs from my 14 year old star vision. 

I love: Jackie M.

Jackie. 

one of her and max. you know... there is no makeup, no surgery, no outfit in the WORLD that can make a woman look more beautiful than when she is in love.

and believe me friends, she is a woman in love. 

what a looker!

i remember that face. see below. 

Here is an interview with Jackie. My comments are in blue (sorry Jack I had to add them).

Who are your favorite sisters?

In no particular order.
I think you know this = )

What is your favorite Dorset, Canada memory?

I think I have to go back to Shanty Bay, where I played the baby Jackie, Robin played Miss Annie, and Cassie played Auntie as well as cousin Gloria and sometimes I really did believe she was two different people. Shanty Bay was like a different world to us. There were endless possibilities. I remember I used to sneak off to see Money and Walshie in their log cabin. The big McIntosh family kicked them out of their house for the summer =). Money would give me triskits, cheese and salami, and Walshie and I would chat. I think Money thought that I didn't like her because I would always do a bee line right for Walshie. I don't think you guys knew where I was so this was one of my favorite activities because it was such a nice escape after being bossed around all day- haha.

I also played Jackie's Mom. And no, I did not know you used to sneak off to the log cabin - I would never have let you!

What is your favorite Bobism? (quote from our Dad)
Comparing yourself with others can only make you bitter or vane.

Who do you like better, Picasso or Chagall?
Chagall- I like this question because I just framed I and the Village in my new room. Looks great on turquoise.

If you weren't the fun loving, sharp minded Gemini you are : ) what would you be?

ooo this one is a toughy.
I think I might be pisces because I am rather introverted, I really do seem to have split personalities though and sometimes I keep to myself so much. I also think I feel very deeply which seems to be a pisces quality, I am not sure though this may be because I know so much about this sign.

WOOOO!

Who are the five closest people to you?
I am excluding family because that would take up four spots.
Max. Becca. Amber. Jazz. Carmel.

Where have you lived?
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Posadas, Missiones, Argentina - (5 weeks)
Breckenridge, Colorado
San Francisco, California

I hear you like acting. What was your favorite role?
Cherry from the Outsiders

Your boyfriend, Max, I think he's a real keeper. What is your favorite thing to do with him? (make this PG, please J )
That's disgusting Robs, obviously I would have to make it PG. haha. I love talking to him when he is willing to talk, it's one of my favorite activities in the world. I love how he still sort of makes me nervous and how I can never stop smiling around him. So anywhere that will give us the opportunity. I love being alone with him, maybe going to the beach at night.

What are three things I don't know about you?
- I am a huge pack rat, I have so much trouble throwing away stuff from the past.
- I am a pretty sneaky person, especially when I was younger, I used to do all kinds of stuff and get away with it.
- I was founder of a book club, even though I barely read books in high school.

haha I knew all these things!!

What are some additional things readers should know about your personality?
I would say that I am a pretty sensitive person, usually I don't like brutal honesty at first, but just this past year I learned how good it can be for one's character.

A little more about Jack: She's my best friend - I call her at least once a day. She has the sweetest soul, always has and always will. She is the kind of friend who would lay down on train tracks before she saw you hurt. I lean on her through the good and the bad. 

Mushy enough? I could go on for weeks. I am just happy I can introduce her to you all! Here is her blog, A WORD FROM SAN FRANCISCO, if you want to check it out. 

Everyone has to comment, because I begged her to do this!

I love: Donna and Nanette.

I love: Donna and Nanette.

Donna has “big hair and a short memory” – her words, not mine. She doesn’t harbor resentments in the same way I do, and maybe this is why she laughs so lightly, and from the bottom of her stomach – her laugh was my blinking billboard, my red flag screaming: “This is your new sponsor. Badger her until she says yes.”

Some words of wisdom from Ms. D:

God, thank you for everything you have given me, and everything you have taken away.

As God’s people, we crawl before no one.

I can sleep when I’m dead.

We are not a glum lot!

Robin, when you have one finger pointing at him, you have three pointing back at yourself.

You are my angel!

My first sponsor, Nanette, was old school. She did everything by the book – and when I say by the book, I mean BY THE BOOK – We definitely were not friends at first, we were sponsor/sponsee. Her objective was to lead me through the steps.

Over time we became closer, and laughed more, but never did the purpose of our meetings swerve too far from the main subject: sobriety. I still talk to her, and still respect her as much as ever. I admire her strength and resilience, her commitment to the program and her success.

She cut me free in December, explaining: “you need a new experience, with a new woman.”

I am so fortunate to have both of these women in my life!

Also, those of you in the program - who are your sponsors? What are your relationships like?

I love: e.e. cummings.

maggie and milly and molly and may. 

by e.e. cummings. 

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 

it's always ourselves we find in the sea

just between me, you and the fencepost.

Please don't moan: I used to leave love notes around the house for Pete. I cooked for him, I ironed his shirts, I paid for his meals.

I had this notion, inspired my old sponsor's relationship, that I had to do something kind for him every day- something nice and selfless. My problem? Not filling him in on my newfound vision for our relationship.

Between the iron and the stove I forgot to ask him if he agreed with this selfless, giving thing. I found myself alone on a ledge - glancing around, asking, "Um... hello?"

After I dropped Oms at the airport, I came home to find a note carefully hidden beneath my computer:


Robin!

Thank you for welcoming me into your home and soco life. Good luck tonight. You are a wonderful, beautiful person, and must not change for someone else.

In the words of Barry: Barry, Sampson, and I love you for the person you are regardless of temperament, outside forces, or physical beauty.

You deserve nothing less than unconditional love from the next boyfriend you bring into your life.

Love,

Omar Salazar II

PS. Thought it would be nice for you to find a mystery love note for a change.

I have never gotten a "mystery love note" before! Donna tells me: stop expecting it to look how you thought it would look.

Today I will try to appreciate my very first love note : )

I love: them.

I love: big timers.

a brief list of my favorite “pretty” blogs.

First, there is The Sartorialist - infallible style.

oh, joy! Who writes about “inspiration, design, style & other cool things.”

Second, a well known, often linked to blog called decor8.

Abby, who I have talked to on flickr – she is a sweetheart.

great prints, fabrics, patterns

The grandaddy of all photo sites (in my opinion) Shutter Sisters

Madti – long live the Polaroid! Oh, how I will miss that milky sweetness.

3191, a year of evenings. Also check out their year of mornings!

this one makes me happy! glad I found it - pun intended.

Noticing Project, appreciating the little things.

Another noticing little things blog: happy mundane.

Who are your favorite big time bloggers?