flawed but authentic

My goal today is to be as happy about something as this cat is at nothing. Photo by Puamelia.

I’ve long been an admirer of Kristal Armendariz. Her photos are amazing and I used some in the first issue of Creative Humans Mag. She also writes with a tender heart and you feel it. She is honest and all out there. It makes you want to read with care and you find yourself always rooting for her.

The Summer of 2010 is almost over, but The Fresh Air Fund (founded in 1877) still needs loving host families. They are looking for families in the following areas to host THIS summer – Red Hook, Columbia County, Saugerties, Delmar, Guilderland & Altamont, Latham and Rensselaer, NY. If you or someone you know is able to host, go here to sign up.

That is Alexandra, age 19, standing in front of the trees in blossom along the driveway to my in-law’s home in Roanoke in the spring. Beautiful all the way around. She is not, in fact, saluting. It was a sunny afternoon. Today I’m trying to notice all the pretty things I can.

When things are fuzzy and I can’t make out the details, my first reflex is to panic and rapidly try and bring things into sharp relief. I might worry and stress and get short of breath. Sometimes I obsess about it and try with all my might to try and mold the situation until I find safety, crying when it doesn’t work out.

I’m practicing patience. Breathing deeply. Slowing things down. I open my eyes slowly and appreciate the wonderful shapes and colors that are already there and wait calmly for things to come into focus in their own time.

A few years ago, Jason Kottke posted that Life Magazine up till 1972 is all online. It allows you to search for words in the magazine and find the story from the December 19, 1949 issue mentioning the building of the $25,000 Roanoke Star. You can also browse by year.

It’s fun to search for places you know, so here’s an image from La Jolla — a woman with state-of-the-art, now vintage surfboards from January 1, 1951:

At Eat the Damn Cake!, Kate covers so many subjects I can’t name them all here. But you should know that her writing is powerful and interesting and I agree with her on a lot of things.

Here she is eating cake in a photo taken by her friend Stephanie. Here is one of her readers, Stephanie, eating some cake. Kate encourages everyone to eat a piece and send in a photo.

My favorite part of her posts are the Un-Roasts she adds at the end of them. It’s like – I’ll go ahead and speak my mind, complain if I want to, but I’m going to end on a positive note.

Here’s an example from July 20th, 2010-

Un-Roast: Today I love how much pleasure I get out of eating strawberry rhubarb pie. It’s really heavenly.