Tag: blogging (Page 5 of 10)

just dropping By to say Hi

February 4, 2019 / laura bruno lilly

Okay-Okay, I’m still on my blogging break, but what say you to a quick hello?

Perhaps a bulleted update will suffice:

Our 2003 Toyota Camry – 400K 12/28/2018

400K reached at MM 64, I10W on hubby's 64th Birthday

400K reached at mile marker 64, I10W on hubby’s 64th Birthday!

Our 2003 Toyota Camry reached 400K on hubby’s 64^th birthday at mile marker 64 on I10W about 40 miles south of El Paso, TX while we were driving on our way to CA from SC for the Rose Parade…turns out, that trip also counts as a literal ‘coast-to-coast’ roadtrip. Interesting, eh?
The Rose Parade was not as great as last year’s, but still nice to experience in person. Plus, we just like the West Coast better than the East Coast (no offense intended, just personal preference).
We switched health insurance companies the beginning of this year. Not only have our monthly premiums and deductibles gone down by an incredible amount, but the procedure that was denied on our old plan yet aggressively deemed as a medical necessity by my doctor is now 100% covered and approved on this new plan. So, I’m slated for my long overdue foot surgery on Tuesday. The worst part about this is that I’ll be unable to continue my meager exercise routine for several weeks and I’m already starting out at my Winter Weight High…mostly due to all those days in the car traveling cross-country. 🙁 The best part is that I probably won’t be aware enough to really care about whatever happens during the State of the Union Address! No, really, the best part is that I’ll be in tip-top shape to take on my normal rigorous hiking routine when we get back to*…Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself here…back to the bullets…
On January 21st, around midnight, hubby and I were blessed to see the Super Blood Moon in all it’s glory. It’s not often the skies above our little rental here in FloTown are clear, but that evening was perfect for viewing this spectacular heavenly show.
I’ve connected with an artist/layout person who really ‘gets’ my vision for the artwork, packaging and branding of my Swimming with Swans project. This is a major achievement. She is amazing. Bless, you, Rita. 🙂

(Ma’s Uncle) Tran Mawicke poster
I found a reasonably priced piece of vintage poster art by my Ma’s Uncle Tran Mawicke. My favorite fine art piece of his isn’t for sale, but I’m hopeful one day I’ll snap it up…However, for now this purchase was inspired by the fact that sailboats are one of hubby’s favorite activities after motorcycles. It’s set to arrive just in time for Valentine’s day. Just feels good to have this connection to my past here with us in the present.

~~~~~

That’s it for now, dear readers. Thank you for allowing me to pop in & say hi during my blogging break. Bye for now.

*will fill you in on details as we get closer to timing on all of this

longest night, Reflections during

December 21, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

Winter Solstice: a day with the least amount of sunshine potential; the shortest day and longest night; a time of reversals.

To me, the Winter Solstice feels more like the ending of the past year with the dawning of the true ‘new year.’ An organic New Year’s Eve, so to speak. What better time to reflect on the past year, letting go and easing into the ‘new year’ as each day from this point in time gains length.
With these reflections comes the announcement that this will be my final posting for 2018 with an undetermined first post date for the upcoming year. That’s just my convoluted way of saying I’m taking a blogging break!
😉
That said, let us continue.
In reviewing my Morning Pages* over this past year I realized it has been a full and satisfying 12 months. No family or close friends died or declared any horrific medical diagnosis, the selling of my folks’ house went smoothly and the settling of their estate is almost completed, we visited and celebrated with family members and friends throughout the year and throughout the country, and the scary emergencies we did encounter were accompanied by His ‘peace that passes all understanding’ as we walked through those life-paths.
It seems we landed in a junction of respite from several years of elder care, personal pain, disappointments, grief and such.
Fielding the good with the bad, several themes** emerged as well – often revealing forward movement on goals, desires, hopes and dreams; working through the ups & downs of life; grappling with deeper issues in living a purposeful life.
Why then this lingering sense of sadness?
Is it the darkness? The longer nights and shorter days? Grey black skies, claustrophobic fog?
Not really.
I relish this Winter Solstice evening – prolonged darkness, giving permission to hunker down, and delve into soul searching, validating this yearning to be still and listen to what the Lord through His creation and past events is speaking to me.
Then what is contributing to this heaviness, this disheartening sense of impotence in making a difference in life’s inequities?
Ah yes, of course. Events over this past year, worldwide and oh-too-to-close-to-home local happenings.

Parkland school shootings, Las Vegas, Nevada concert shootings, synagogue slaughter, humble town of Florence, SC massacre and on & on infinitum…
Manchester arena bombing anniversary representing terrorism in a free country with strict gun control.
Never ending hordes of everyday people fleeing their beloved homeland for a safe place to stay alive…Syrians, Central Americans, Africans…
Governments killing their own citizens in the name of advancing their own personal agenda.
Free world border ‘wars’ using displaced, desperate persons, families & children as fodder for unwinnable negotiations.
Increased homelessness in the midst of hardworking middle class professionals – and all the ramifications of undeserved shame while struggling to continue to survive in an ever increasing hostile American society.
Constant bombardment of Trumpian Temper Tantrums affecting everyday Americans (sorry, I don’t normally specify political opinions…please give me latitude during this Winter’s Solstice)

And yet, this is all not new…the poor have always been with us, the rich and powerful have always manipulated laws to benefit themselves, increasing their wealth and opportunities, to the detriment of everyday people, and, what of the ever presence of war – always with us.
1968 was a bad year – Vietnam War, numerous assassinations, student protests…Decades earlier, WWII, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, the Holocaust…
The world’s suffering is so personal.
It hurts.
And yet, I am reminded:

“God wastes nothing – not even our darkness”

*from which I am taking an indeterminate break also, after 28+ years of faithful jottings!
**my music, hubby’s new business, finding home, strengthening relationships…

The Eclectic Blogger Award

October 3, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

Sometime In July, writer Sue Ranscht of Space, Time and Raspberries nominated me for the Eclectic Blogger Award. She’s the creator of the serial fiction series, Elliot’s Adventures. I’ve enjoyed reading these stories and heartily recommend them to readers of this post.
Started by The Shameful Narcissist, the Eclectic Blogger Award
“…is presented to those blogs that are both eclectic and engaging, where conversation flows freely, where new and different ideas are always welcome. It’s to recognize blogs that always have interesting content to match the amazing, creative, and hard-working creators that make them possible. These are the blogs that inspire you to read, watch, play, and/or create content to further enhance not only the blogosphere but also the general zeitgeist, because they themselves enrich it with their existence.”
The Rules

Nominate whomever and however many bloggers you want for the award.
Share links from your blog for some of your favorite (or most eclectic!) posts.
Laura’s addendum: I am including links to some of my favorite posts on these nominees’ blogs.

My Nominations Continue reading

40 years and counting

June 17, 2018 / terry w. lilly

Terry’s take on these 40 years…

June 17, 1978 – June 17, 2018

Many months ago I was rooting around on the internet looking into some music. I happened to come across a young jazz saxophonist named Grace Kelly and was watching her Livestream studio session. I started watching the video and really enjoyed her enthusiasm and music. I thought of our son Joe who is a jazz saxophonist also, but I decided not to send him a link to it as he was off touring New Zealand/Fiji/Australia at that time and wasn’t sure how good his internet was. I also thought of my late father-in-law who had died less than a year and a half before. He also was a jazz saxophonist who played with Benny Goodman and other greats in Chicago and who up to nearly the time that he died was always looking for new trends/music.
On the third song of the Livestream, Grace started explaining how she had come to write the song she was about to play. What she said, and more importantly what she played and sang touched a chord in me. I knew then that the song she wrote was a song that described how I felt about Laura and that that song was going to be our 40^th anniversary theme song (not just our 40^th but our lifelong song). Our anniversary was still many months away, so I tucked this song away so I could share it with Laura during our anniversary.
I started researching Grace Kelly a little more and it turned out that she was going to be playing in Las Cruces, New Mexico on May 27^th. It just so happened that I lived in Las Cruces during high school, went off to serve in the Navy and after the Navy came back to Las Cruces to go to college. While in college on a co-op assignment for NOAA in Boulder, Colorado I met and married Laura and we moved back to Cruces to finish my college education before moving on.
We were planning a trip to Colorado to take care of business in early May and I wanted to go to New Mexico to both see Grace Kelly and to visit my parents’ graves. The timing seemed to be aligning to be able to spring on Laura this song at a Grace Kelly concert. Las Cruces is not a tremendously large town so I even hoped to run into Grace somewhere around town so that I could request that she play the song for Laura (not like trying to find Mr. T on Mulholland Drive or in Bel-Air or Hollywood – inside family story).
Unfortunately, our plans changed and we needed to go to Texas for business purposes before we went to Colorado which meant that we would end up in Las Cruces weeks before Grace Kelly was going to play. Knowing this I sat down with Laura before we left, told her that what she was going to see was the way I felt about her and that it was our anniversary song. I put the Livestream on our TV and jumped to 19:03 for the beginning of the story and the song. We sat there and watched the song (multiple times) trying to hold back the tears of our love for each other.
There are some songs that have a special meaning to me about Laura, like Leon Russell’s “A Song For You” and now Grace Kelly’s “Feels Like Home”.
Our anniversary this year falls on Father’s day and I can’t think of a better Father’s day gift than sharing this song which beautifully expresses the way I feel about Laura.
Laura shortly after found the song (sans Grace’s explanation) which is shown below. The full video is here, start at 19:03 for story before song.
Thank you Grace for this beautiful song and thank you Laura for a lifetime of “Feels Like Home”.

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #3

April 25, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

Here I am doing my favorite blogger-tag game again: The 3 Day Quote Challenge. Half the fun is getting nominated, so I thank you Heather and Dizzy for the nomination.

The Rules:
– Thank the person who nominated you
– Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day)
– Share why this quote appeals to you so much
– Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #3

Quote written on the wall at the entrance of the Women of Abstract Expressionism exhibit, Denver Art Museum 2016 (click on photo for details)

“I’m always going to be Mrs. Jackson Pollock – that’s a matter of fact – but I painted before Pollock, during Pollock, after Pollock.” Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner Abstract Expressionist Artist: 10/1908-6/1984

Lee Krasner Abstract Expressionist Artist: 1908-1984 (click on photo for credit/source)

(From this article here) “Abstract Expressionism is largely remembered as a movement defined by the paint-slinging, hard-drinking machismo of its poster boys Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. But the women who helped develop and push the style forward have largely fallen out of the art-historical spotlight, marginalized during their careers (and now in history books) as students, disciples, or wives of the their more-famous male counterparts rather than pioneers in their own right…Throughout her career, Krasner, one of the earliest and most innovative AbEx practitioners, would struggle against the marginalization of women artists, even changing her first name from Lena to the gender-ambiguous Lee in the 1940s. While she introduced her husband, Jackson Pollock, to the ideas and key progenitors of the movement for which he would become the posterboy, her relation to Pollock often superceded her own reputation as an artist.”

Lee Krasner, The Seasons, 1957 (click on photo for credit reference)

My three nominees for day #3 are:
– Deborah at Living on the Edge of Wild
– Annika at Annika Perry’s Writing Blog
– Ms Zen at NorCalZen

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #2

April 24, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

Here I am doing my favorite blogger-tag game again: The 3 Day Quote Challenge. Half the fun is getting nominated, so I thank you Heather and Dizzy for the nomination.

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #2

From her autobiography, “Seams Unlikely” (click on photo for more details)

‘Sewing with Nancy’ has been a PBS staple since the 1982 – the same year my firstborn came into this world. Echoes of Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers rang throughout our home during those early child-rearing days, along with trips to the park and reading storybooks. However once kiddos were safely tucked in for their afternoon naps, it was my turn to plop down on the couch, turn on the TV and watch Nancy create her masterpieces. It wasn’t until recently that I realized her facial disfigurement was a symptom of a progressive disabling disease, Bell’s Palsy. Yet, she lived her life, pursued her dreams and made a difference in this world one stitch at a time.

My three nominees for day #2 are:
– Mary at ZippyQuilts
– Cindy at InAStitchQuilting
– Irene at Living: The Ultimate Team Sport

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #1

April 23, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

Here I am doing my favorite blogger-tag game again: The 3 Day Quote Challenge. Half the fun is getting nominated, so I thank you Heather and Dizzy for the nomination.

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #1

click on photo for credit/source

Hair. My longtime nemesis. I learned at an early age, it is not one of my best assets. I enjoyed fooling around with it like most adolescents, but for all the time spent on getting ready to go out, the least return for my time was always with my hair. No biggie, but it does seem that those who worry the most about their hair are those for whom perfectly coifed styles come easily.

In light of the recent passing of former first lady Barbara Bush, here is another more poignant quote spoken to her son in her last days – on dying:

“Jeb, I believe in Jesus, and He is my Savior. I don’t want to leave your Dad, but I know I’ll be in a beautiful place.”

Amen and Amen.

My three nominees for day #1 are:
1 – L.Marie at El Space
2 – Anna at Anna Scott Graham
3 – Gracie at A Light in the Darkness

Kitty’s Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle

February 21, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
Psalms 34:8

Yes, you read that right, this second VBSC post brings Kitty to the table. Her human of choice is writer and yarn (he)artist, L. Marie, a native Chicagoan. She earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and continues to write, submit manuscripts and encourage others pursuing the writer’s path.
Actually, she encourages others, period. Skilled in crochet and knitting, she often yarns-up gifts for those she feels need a little unexpected lift or surprise.
Case in point, a few days ago, I discovered the owl featured in the photos below roosting in our snail mail box. I’m sure Kitty is relieved that she has one less ‘friend’ she’s obliged to share brownies with, but I’m touched at the thoughtfulness of my blogger buddy.
However, ‘owlie’ does not yet have a name…heck, (s)he doesn’t even have a gender designation. Soooo…if any ideas come to mind, please mention suggestions in the comments below along with any other thoughts this post may inspire.
UPDATE: L. Marie and I have decided that “Owlie” fits him just fine.

Don’t forget to take a peek at L.Marie’s blog and maybe try out the brownie recipe at the end of this, her guest post.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m L. Marie. My blog is El Space: The Blog of L. Marie. Many thanks to Laura for inviting me to participate in her Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle. And thank you to Heather who wrote the original post that inspired Laura.

Kitty and her friends. Not that she thinks she’s above them. But pictures don’t lie. . . .

Actually, Kitty, who is sitting here staring at me, feels she was the inspiration behind the sharing circle, because she’s trying to turn over a new leaf. Less crime, more altruism—that sort of thing. In fact, she thinks it should be renamed the Kitty and Friends Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle, since she ~~coerced~~ invited two friends to join her in a photo op.
Though she doesn’t consider me a friend (more like a slave, really) she expected me to do all of the brownie baking while she did all of the tasting.
When it comes to brownies, I’m not much of a baker. A year ago, I made a box recipe that was supposed to be kindergarten easy. But the brownies turned out dry and about half the height they were supposed to achieve after baking.

Ginger and her son, Johnny

My good friend Ginger makes great brownies. I’ve known Ginger for many years. Not only is a she a great wife, and mother to three offspring (two of whom are in college), she is also an administrative assistant at Covenant Classical School in Naperville, Illinois.
As if her life weren’t busy enough, Ginger also deals with Celiac disease. I’ll let her tell you about that.

Continue reading

Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle #1

January 31, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him
Psalms 34:8

Dizzy loves her brownies!

One morning after baking a batch of my ‘loaded brownies minus one ingredient’* I sat down in front of the computer with my cuppa joe in one hand and a bit of warm brownie in the other. Settling into my blog-reading I noticed over at dinosaursdonkeysandms that one of Dizzy’s suggestions for helping someone with anxiety was baking them brownies. (Dizzy’s favorite gluten-free recipe is here).
How serendipitous. Not that I was experiencing any sort of anxiety at that moment, but I got to thinking why not spread some brownie-induced happiness with Dizzy and her blogger friends? So in the comments, I offered a virtual brownie to any and all who needed one that day.
Dizzy always makes me smile, even when she’s cranky, which isn’t very often (and she and Heather have lots they could choose to be cranky about dealing with MS).
I credit her for inspiring me to begin my very own Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle (VBSC) series. Maybe knowing that will make Dizzy smile… Continue reading

NOMA: what are those round-y, tilted buildings?

December 2, 2017 / laura bruno lilly

Photo seen on my Manc* buddy Andy’s blog
(oh, yes, he’s a published poet, check out his books here – perfect for gift-giving, IMHO)

“Whoa, what are those odd round-y tilted buildings?” I asked him in the comment section.

To which he responded with a link to something called NOMA Earth Tubes.
NOMA? What the heck is that?

He further elaborated,
“The atrium is fundamental to the building’s ventilation strategy. Each of its three corners houses one of the building’s vertical service cores. Some 50m3/s of fresh air is sucked into the building from its landscaped forecourt through three giant earth tubes buried beneath the building; this helps temper the air, cooling it in summer and warming it in winter. Air is heated or cooled in a huge basement plant room before giant fans push it up the service cores to the floor plates.”

Huh?
Sufficiently curious, I clicked on his link reference thus beginning a fun google research journey for this lady on a pleasantly cozy, rainy Saturday afternoon. Continue reading

Tag: blogging (Page 5 of 10)

just dropping By to say Hi

The Eclectic Blogger Award

40 years and counting

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #2

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #2

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #1

3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #1

Kitty’s Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle

Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle #1

NOMA: what are those round-y, tilted buildings?

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