The Rain

Each year at some point in May the rains come. The first rains last for days it seems, with lightening and thunder and lots of rain. I find it peaceful, in a way. Everything becomes soaking wet, but the rain falling is serene. It is beautiful to watch and calming, even though the storm rages.

The Tale of Despereaux

Being the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread . . .

This is what I'm reading right now. It is actually quite good. And it won the Newberry Award in 2004. Medal, really, not an award. And it might be spelled Newbery, but who's asking?

Anyways, I find it interesting that it is a book (because I heard and saw previews for the movie, but did not see the movie) and find it even more interesting that although it is "children's literature" (more on that in future postings I aniticipate) it is quite good. I am taking a class that is entitled "information needs of children" or something to that effect, and it is nice to peruse one's memory of what one read (and actually remembers reading) as a child. This, of course, was not one of the books that I read as a child, but I do remember reading and being fond of other Newberry Medal winners as a child. So it is nice to read and understand that Newberry is still out there choosing good books for the future generations that are also still enjoyable for adults.

TTFN

Day 18

So I decided a while back that it would be a good idea to change my life, so I did. And it has been working out for the best. Really. It is amazing to be happy in one's life and have no complaints. Ok, really, there are still complaints, but not as many as there used to be, and generally are now on sillier topics than they used to be.

Some would say that what I chose to do was courageous. I don't know what that means. It is insane to me to think that it is easier to stay miserable than it is to try something new. Shouldn't it be harder to stay (knowingly) miserable rather than take a tiny step to try and not be miserable? Of course there is always going to be the possibility of failure. The idea that the grass will always be greener across the next fence, so you may as well stay put and deal with the misery you know rather than the misery that may occur that you don't know. But that just sounds silly, doesn't it? Doesn't that sound a bit glass-half-empty? And shouldn't you want to be glass-half-full?

I don't know. I don't know that I make much sense. I'm not really trying to make sense, though. I'm trying to just state what I think here, for whomever goes here to read.

And then there was a blog

Having discovered that I am going to spending an inordinate amount of time with free time on my hands, I've decided to blog. I already have an informal photoblog here: www.flickr.com/darkwillow, but no one really goes there (well not yet), only those special few that know about it. Which I guess is now anybody reading this blog.

So this is my first blog posting. It is a short one, because I started this project, and then (of course) I got busy.

Farewell for now, devoted readers.