Archive for May, 2009

You Will Teach People to Find Peace

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Last night I had the good fortune to walk among fortunes embroidered on childrens gowns. Some of the fortunes were quite striking evoking strong emotions – I laughed, was sad and found one I hoped would be mine. I’m not sure I remember them verbatim but here are a few I remember:
You will be attracted to cruel women
You will be attracted to lazy men
You will never recover from the suicide of your parents
You will never be good enough in your parents eyes
You will trust your instincts
You will be a creative visionary
And the one I hope will be my fortune – You will teach people to find peace.

gsalr.com

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

For a few hours my friends and I drove around Ann Arbor hitting garage sales. Last night I used gsalr.com to organize our route. It’s a great site and did a pretty good job at giving directions. There were a few times where the route wasn’t exactly the most efficient, but only a few times.

The site is easy to use. Enter your zip code and it pulls in garage sale listings (I think from Craig’s list). It also allows you to enter in ‘custom addresses’ and I added sales I saw online and in the classified ads of the local paper. Once the addresses are in, they are displayed on the screen and you can reorder (by clicking and dragging) in an order than makes sense to you. It was fast, easy and made it a lot easier than a map!

We all bought something today. It’s always fun to find a bargain and a treasure.

Fortunes

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Friday, May 29 Washington Street Gallery (now on Main Street) is hosting an opening of Valerie Mann’s latest art work. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Valerie a couple of times. She’s one of those people I instantly like – she’s friendly, creative, supportive, cute and funny.

“Fortunes” is an installation piece of 50 vintage children’s gowns with ‘fortunes’ embroidered on them. There are certainly other things in the gallery. I think the Main Street space is larger (I haven’t been there since they moved) than the Washington Street space.

The opening is from 7-10 Friday and I’ll be going. If you want to go along, give me a call.

Recent Reads

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Our book discussion group got together Monday this week to discuss “Away” by Amy Bloom. The main character, Lillian, immigrates to the United States from Russia after her family is slaughtered. Lillian goes on a quite a journey in the 240 pages. It’s wonderfully written and I would highly recommend it.

The group is putting together a list of titles for the next six months. What’s your favorite book?

County Farm Park

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Yesterday I dropped my car off at Select Auto Care for an oil change. While I was waiting, I wandered across the street to the County Farm Park. It’s a nice, quiet piece of land with three walking paths, half a mile, one mile, a mile and a half. The longer path has ‘exercise stations’ along the way. Does anyone ever do those things? Anyway, I’m embarrassed I’ve never been there before. It was a nice space, with nice paths, and it was a beautiful day. I walked the one mile path and then found a bench to read on. There’s even a new playground there for young kids. Check it out if you’re in that part of town (Washtenaw and Platt Roads).

TED Technology

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

The TED talks are great. This short clip from TED is fabulous. See what you think!


http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

Morning Walk

Friday, May 8th, 2009

I pulled myself out of bed for a morning walk today. This is a nice time of year and a nice time of day – cool, quiet, with lots of flowering trees for my nose and birds for my ears. Speaking of birds, I saw what looked like an albino Robin. It was the size of a robin, the shape of a robin but white with a little bit of a rose colored belly. The best part about the walk, though, is the flowering trees and bushes. I love the smell and could stop at every tree and bush for a big whiff!