dreaminginthedeepsouth’s Neighborhood

This wonderful 8-minute film was written and directed by the inimitable Neil Gaiman.

Gigi and robin chick. A picture from my childhood:)  This wee bird fell from a nest or something, can't remember now... so we brought it in and made a lined  box and fed it with an eyedropper and then put it back outside I think. Must ask my mum. Gigi did not know what to make of it! We were always rescuing small birds and animals.
Our family had two Siamese cats, Gigi was neurotic and twitchy, Topaz was round and cuddly. To this day I still miss them. They both had separate litters of kittens in my bedroom cupboard! I remember how as soon as they were able, they would laboriously pick up each kitten by the scruff of the neck, trundle over to my bed, leap up with kitten clamped between their teeth, deposit in the warm covers and go back for another. I loved it!

loathes:

• it's really cold. wisconsin is january is colder than your freezer. 18 degrees right now. 9 for the low.
• i'm not really going to see matt until saturday...last night he had plans, tonight i have plans, tomorrow and thursday he has plans, friday night he works, etc.
• today at work really sucked. the sales lady i work for promises too much to her clients and unfortunately, it's my job to figure out how to make it work. this morning was ridiculous. seriously.
• i think i got drugged on new years. 4 glasses of wine in 4 hours shouldn't make for an incomplete memory and the inability to stand upright. there was something weird going on there...and we were in a kind of shady part of town, so i wouldn't doubt it. i was totally embarassed about it the next day.
• i had fun on new years, but i didn't. i missed matt. if i had been with him, non of that drugged nonsense would've happened.

loves:

• matt made reservations for valentines day already
• he's stopping by work tomorrow to bring me lunch since we aren't going to see eachother all week
• i'm going out to dinner with liz, amber and liz's sister, stephanie, tonight...should be a lot of fun.
• i teach my first real yoga class tomorrow! i'm a little nervous, but excited. i keep having dreams about everything going terribly wrong...
• currently - right now - i have nothing to complain about in my life. my health, as far as i know, is good. my job is lovely - with the exception of today...and matt's been more amazing than ever. it's rare that all sides of my life are going well at the same time.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude - feelings which increase with the years."

–Albert Einstein

This big spoon came from the set of the movie,The Shipping News  that starred Kevin Spacey. At the end of a production sometimes there is an auction of props and things. A  friend of mine who worked as the food stylist on that show picked  up some spoons. I had helped her create a "squid" burger for one of the scenes. lol. We tried to make it look great with bits of dulse hanging out and deep fried breaded fried tentacles but Kevin refused to even try it. The rest of the crew and director did and pronounced them delicious! His was eventually made with chicken. All this for a ten second shot:)

I uploaded this shot to Shutterstock on the weekend. It was was accepted and already has a download:) I have not been very consistent at all with my microstock stuff and plan to try to get a few uploaded each week. It is another way to make some extra dollars and fun too. With a bit of work, you could do quite well! I wrote about  microstock a while ago. There was some controversy recently about microstock taking  money from professional photographers but the shot in question that triggered the discussion was just a jar of coins used by Time magazine for their cover. Personally, I think why spend "big" money on a shot of a jar,  a classic "stock" picture.  Spend the"big"money on shots that require imagination and presence.

If you take a look around some of the microstock companies, there are AMAZING images to be found now. The advent of digital cameras has made photography accessible to so many more people and they are really pushing the boundaries of what can be done.

This is the "before" picture. Practically ALL my shelves look like this! Ah, January...the month that triggers resolutions, good intentions and lots of great plans. Can you guess what I am starting? That is if I can get off this computer and not get distracted by something else. I find that when I tidy up anything with words, I start reading.... :) oh yeah, where was I? Takes forever!

Our storm is over! What an event that was.  I don't think I've ever seen such change in so short  time. Raining, then snowing hard, then ice pellets and back to snow, now it is mild and everything is melting. Wonder what is in store for next week? Crazy weather everywhere!

Gretchen Rubin is someone we can all learn something from. She just published a book called The Happiness Project.  I 'd like to read it. Last year she test drove lots of theories about happiness and this book outlines what she discovered. One of the things I thought was interesting is that "random acts of kindness" don't work. People invariably end up suspicious and nervous. Better to help out a friend in need or help out as opportunities present themselves. Random scares people. Hmmm. Good stuff to ponder.

To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less.

~ Ronald Rolheiser

In the Chair
Greg White

Keynote Speakers
Caroline Brazier UK * Clark Strand NY * Gregg Krech VT * Daijaku Judith Kinst CA
Also
Yaya de Andrade BC * Kazuo Yamashita Japan * Franco Acquaro HI * Carol O'Dowd CO

Other centeredness, a principle derived from Buddhist psychology, transcends the boundaries of psychological schools and religious categories. That mental and spiritual well-being should be a function of the quality of one’s engagement with and ability to appreciate others is not exclusive to any one school or tradition. Here many contemporary concerns converge. Issues in ethics have other-relatedness at their core. Issues in ecology have our concern for the object-world in view. The practice of mindfulness raises the question 'mindful of what?' Yet psychology as practiced is generally heavily focussed on 'self'. In this conference we will present how focusing attention on what is not self - on others - is the key to a change of paradigm in therapeutic and spiritual practice.

::continue reading http://lotusinthemud.typepad.com/sujatin/2010/01/new-directions-in-buddhist-psychology-1st-international-conference-on-other-centered-approaches.html