Where We Write

As I mentioned on Sunday night (Monday Morning), I've joined a Blogging Campaign.  It's my first time so I don't know what to expect. So far, I have been exposed to a core group of bloggers that share some of my interests. In turn, bloggers are also introduced to me. The theory is that if I share an interest with these fellow bloggers, we may also share an audience.  So, there are several bloggers that are shown in the "Following Me" category on the left sidebar.  If you enjoy my blog...or blogs in general, you may enjoy their blogs as well. 

So...after you read my blog post(s), you may want to check out the blogs of my colleagues. I can tell you is that I have read each of the blogs of my followers and I am hooked. The only downside I can see about the campaign is that now I have even more really good bloggers that are grabbing my attention.  Which is not really a downside. I find myself wanting to read not just the most recent post(s) but as many previous posts as I can read in a single sitting. Yeah, like I said, I'm hooked.

In addition to finding pure enjoyment in these new blogs, I'm following, I'm finding new sparks of inspiration. I read a blog and I'm like: "Yeah! I get that!" And I want to go home and write.

So, today, I'm giving a shout out to Megan of the blog: Paws Fangs and Smiles. Specifically, the first post of hers I read was: "Where Do You Write?".  The blog had a photo of a really cool desk.  A really cool desk (go take a peek and come right back). Anyway, it got me thinking...where do "we" (the royal "we") write? I've written in many places...and I will mention them as we go on. But I find that I find it fascinating to see where others write. 

A while back I stumbled upon this post:  "Where I Write" by Nova Ren Suma. This post stuck with me. It moved me somehow. I ran across the post earlier this year and thought: "Cool. I'd like to write there". Then several months later, I had a vague memory of a post I'd read about an NYC writer's loft. I wanted to read it again. --I wanted to imagine myself there. I needed the visual to get back to what I imagine to be my zen place.  I did not immediately remember where I had seen this. After several days (yeah, days) of wracking my brain and combing my Internet history logs, I started to think I would not find it. I became possessed to find the blog.  Well...my work to find and bookmark this blog is a gift I give to you. 

Since Nova wrote this particular post, she's written several others that are about different places that she's written.  I'd love to visit every one of those places. You'll see that Nova has published several YA novels. They are now on my list of books to read.

Coincidentally, on Sunday, another of my new blogger friends, Kimberly Zook of Zook Book Nook, was also thinking about where writers write.  Her post "Writer-Mamas Favorite Places" also resonated with me.  I especially like her photos of where she writes. With several photos, I was like..."Huh...I do that too".

This post is longer than I planned and I still have so much I want to say. Like, I want to tell you about my visit to Margaret Mitchell's house. I saw the desk and the typewriter where she wrote Gone With The Wind. --Actually, the furniture and the typewriter may be replicas (I can't remember), but the house and the window...all real. 

[They did not allow us to photograph....so I have to use photos from the Margaret Mitchell House Museum site.]

And, of course, I can't resist a photo of Carrie Bradshaw sitting at her window...writing at night. (Or is she really reading blogs?). I really get that though.  Writing at night. My muse strikes and doesn't let go until 1:00 a.m. many nights. 

I promised to tell you about where I write...but, I haven't been able to find a single photo of me writing. Or even of my prior writing desks...and I've had a couple.  So, I will have to keep looking and share with you another time. I did, however, find a photo of me from MANY years ago. The photo is from my Husband's and my first apartment.  I was sitting at our entertainment center talking on the phone. I found very many photos of me talking on the phone.  None of me writing, but many of me on the phone...go figure.

Anyway, I've put some labels on the photo of some items we actually owned. Some of the items are making a come back as "Retro", which goes to show: I was cool before cool was retro.

A Bouquet of Newly Sharpened Pencils

Creative Commons

Don't you love New York in the fall?  It makes me want to buy school supplies.  I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

One of my favorite lines in one of my favorite movies:  You've Got Mail.

It does not feel like fall here but school is starting back and that always makes me think of fresh starts and school supplies.

I want to give a shout-out to all the teachers I know. I'm surrounded by people who either are or were teachers. One person I know is entering into her first year of teacherhood (high school I think). Another has become a pre-school teacher. I know two kindergarten teachers and a retired English and Spanish teacher.  As well as a teacher who now specializes in English as a Second Language. In the blogging community, I've also found a couple of teachers that I feel like I "know" on some real level. As Kathleen Kelly said: "The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings".

I do love school supplies. Around this time I can find some really cool notebooks and organize things.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to teach.  Interestingly, I thought I would be a teacher when I first went to college. I wanted to teach high school English. But then I took a required course Freshman year and knew I would not be able to commit to the major. In fact, I dropped the class and started looking for another major.

Many years after college and well into my professional life (banker), I took some time off from the career track and pursued my desire to actually teach school.  I taught 7th-grade math in a school with a largely "under-served" population. I learned at least as much as the kids did.  --Probably more. I also learned how I would do it differently if I had the chance to teach again. I feel I better understand some of the realities that my students and their parents had to deal with. Their reality makes it difficult to really expect homework to be meaningful. 

Let me say I'm totally proud of the year I was a teacher. And I feel even more love and respect for our career teachers.

I also really love the movie "You've Got Mail. I found a published script right here: Script of "You've Got Mail". I was doing a search to make sure I had the quote above right.  I found that just reading the script made me fall in love with it again.

I leave you with this sweet email. 

Subject: RE: Brinkley Date: 9/16/98 7:28:50 PM Eastern Standard Time From: Shopgirl To: NY152 I like to start my notes to you as if we're already in the middle of a conversation. I pretend that we're the oldest and dearest friends -- as opposed to what we actually are, people who don't know each other's names and met in a Chat Room where we both claimed we'd never been before. What will he say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer, I wait impatiently as it boots up. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail. From you.

Celia Rivenbark's New Book



Celia Rivenbark

I want to give a shout out for Celia Rivenbark and her new book that was released today. Her new book is: You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool. Several months back, I wrote a blog that included discovering Celia Rivenbark at a local Independent Bookstore. I loved the title of the book "You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning". I basically read the first chapter right there in the store. Of course, I actually bought the book.

I felt like Celia gets me...or I get her. Neither of us would be mistaken for a "cookie-cutter" mother of the year. I felt like I was reading a kindred spirit when she explained why she yells "BOOOOO" whenever kids claim their perfect attendance award. I mean, I totally get that. Perfect Attendance? Let's put school and life into perspective, shall we?

When my daughter was in elementary school, they got all uppity because she was tardy once or twice (a week) or so. I drove my daughter to school each day...so often the tardiness was a reflection on me. I still remember her sweet voice saying, "Mom. You have to come inside to sign me in when I'm late." I'd be all "What makes you think you are late?"  She would say things like, "We are the only ones in the parking lot, Mom". So...I would park illegally and walk my cherub into the school office to "sign her in". The sign in late sheet was basically the school's record of me acknowledging that "Yes, I know my daughter is late (again)".  The sheet also required an explanation for the tardiness.  I couldn't use the "she missed the bus" excuse (after that first time). And, I never actually wrote, "Because, duh...I'm late," or "We're not morning people".  I usually wrote something like "traffic". But one day...I simply wrote: "You don't even want to know".

So, like I said, Celia gets me.

Tonight I went to another local independent bookstore to hear Celia read and talk about her newest book that was released today. My hubby went with me...and I grabbed his arm several times when the hilarity was just so right on. My favorite essay that she read was about her daughter's science fair project that was entered into the Science Fair competition. No spoiler alert here.  Suffice it to say Celia's impressions are dead-on funny.

So...I'm putting the word out.  The goal?  Helping Celia Rivenbark's book make it onto the NY Times Best Seller list. That could be really cool.

A Trip to a Local Vineyard

Last Saturday, some of my new friends and I traveled to Willow Spring, NC to visit Adams Vineyards. The vineyard is primarily muscadine grapes.  If you are from NC, you have probably eaten the native muscadine grapes off the vine.

Photo Credit: GAFRO via Creative Commons

The green grapes shown here are Scuppernong.  I guess I should have known but didn't that Scuppernong is a type of Muscadine. My Mother's parents grew muscadine grapes. My strongest memory of the grapes was that I often sought refuge from the summer heat under the vine. While trying to stay cool, I would often eat a grape or two. 

I want to tell you more about the things I learned and admire about the people behind Adams Vineyard. First of all, Joyce Adams, the owner, sat with us and told us the Vineyard history, which when you come right down to it is her personal history too. Joyce was so open about telling us how they decided to begin the vineyard and some of the things that she has learned along the way. I'm sure Joyce will not mind if I share this history--especially if you decide to try their wine sometime soon. (Check out their website: Adams Vineyards)

The land is over 100 acres and has been in the Adams' family since the 1700s.  It was granted to them by the King of England in a Land Grant and has not left the family since. The Adams family has lived on the farm for nine generations. Joyce lives in the same house that her husband was born in. 

In recent history, the land was primarily used for tobacco farming. Joyce said she knew of a time when there was a dammed creek or river and they were able to grow rice as well. The Adams farm (like most, if not all tobacco farms) were part to the Tobacco Allotment program which ended in a buyout in 2004.  

Photo Credit: Plantra.com

It was then that John decided to begin a vineyard. The first grape was planted in February 2006. It sounds like Joyce did most of the actual planting. John had become ill and was not able to plant himself, but Joyce said he supervised her from the truck. It is fun to hear Joyce tell the story. She says the vineyard was John's dream...not hers, and yet she was the one putting plants in the ground and putting grape grow tubes around the young plants.

Joyce and John had to learn to navigate the requirements of running this new business which includes working with the FDA for approvals as well as obtaining building permits and following a multitude of building codes. This was all in addition to the investment required for the wine tanks and fermenters and coolers. It takes a lot of fortitude to decide to undertake this business from scratch. Clearly, John and Joyce had that fortitude. The vineyard began with five acres of grapes that have now grown to eight acres with nine varieties of Muscadine grapes. The vineyard opened its doors to visitors in September 2008.

John had recovered enough to be the primary winemaker of the business. He had been doing well with his illness and had a good prognosis. But in October he became suddenly seriously sick. He was hospitalized and died within a week.

Joyce tells this part of the story sweetly. Being with her husband in the hospital was clearly another paragraph in their love story. They had been married for fifty years. Joyce told us that as she sat with her husband, he was very alert and still thinking of the vineyard. He kept telling her to remember to do this and remember to do that. Joyce told John not to worry...that the vineyard would be fine. She and their son, Quincy, have made good on that promise.

Quincy took over the management of the grapes and winemaking. Quincy's approach to winemaking is different from his father's. Joyce says that you can tell from the taste of the wine that was developed by Quincy or his father.

In all, we tasted 8 wines. For me, the clear favorite was Papa Johnny's White Bliss (one of their semi-sweet wines).  It was crisp and light and not overly sweet.  I liked it enough to get a bottle. I learned after buying my bottle that this was Quincy's first recipe. He named it for his father. Somehow knowing this makes the wine and the experience even sweeter.

Who's a Good Boy?

Jacob is the cutest poodle puppy I've seen...like ever. He is plenty rotten. Here is the first picture we ever took of our little guy. It was the week before Christmas in 2008.  Such a cute guy...who could resist.

Jacob did pretty well with his training, though there is much that he tries to get away with.  At one time he was able to hold a "Down Stay" for 20 minutes in the middle of Pet Smart.  Now...not so much.

He does a pretty good job of "Leave It", but can't resist giving kisses way past an acceptable amount.

He walks really well on a leash. He does his very cute poodle prance and is so happy on a leash because it means he gets to "go".

My sister in law surprised us with this watercolor as a "Just 'Cause" gift. I L.O.V.E this print.

Jacob is quite bouncy...like most poodles.  He has not been to the beach, but I believe he would bounce just like the watercolor poodle above. 

Jacob is now 2 and half years old. He's lucky he's so cute...that is why he gets away with so much. 

Jacob always wants to go for a ride in the car. Will go absolutely anywhere...just wants to ride.

At the end of a fun day full of excursions...Jacob can sleep anywhere.