Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Imogen.

You're 5 and you're wonderful!

Immy and Deia
Photo by Sarah L.

Tulip May Sky

Imogen says if she has a baby girl when she's grown up, she's going to name her Tulip May Sky.

Monster & Maiden

House Life

My friend Sally says instead of actually cleaning your house, you just keep your vacuum cleaner in the living room. Then if a friend comes over, you say, "Oh, I was just about to clean!"

Turtle

A Card for Mom

Front

Inside

Banana Slug

Back to the Sea

A Blog Blossoms

I started this blog four years ago today with a post called "A Blog Blooms." Imogen was 10 months.

In a Marine Light

Overwintered

Poppy Daisy Petal Buddy

Jamie ("The Naked Chef") and Jools Oliver's children are named:
Poppy Honey Rosie
Daisy Boo Pamela
Petal Blossom Rainbow
Buddy Bear Maurice

Marketplace

Eyeshot

Port Angeles Coast Guard Station on Ediz Hook with
Cascade Mountains in Background and
Port Angeles Harbor in Foreground

Council on Women and Girls

Did you know the White House has a Council on Women and Girls? Barack Obama created it by Executive Order on March 11, 2009. Valerie Jarrett, the Chair, will be part of a live-streamed discussion on March 30 about women in the workplace, education and work-life balance called "Women in America: Continuing the Conversation." You can submit questions or thoughts for Valerie Jarrett here.

In a World of Stories

There is the Softening

("There is the softening" is from the poem "Wisdom, Logic, Light" by Kate Reavey)

Children in Emergency

"Gwen Stefani donated $1,000,000 on Wednesday to Save the Children's Japan Earthquake-Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund to help in the relief and recovery effort."

Reuters via Hollywood Reporter via Google News

Image: Wikimedia Commons

You Do the Best You Can

"Today's woman is expected to be well-read, faultlessly groomed, a nursemaid, chauffeur, laundress, seamstress, hostess, cook, gardener, painter, appliance repairman, wallpaper-hanger, carpenter, exterminator (for those awful bugs of all sorts) and jane-of-all trades!

Being a homemaker is a big job for anyone, and you and I are going to make mistakes. But so what? That's the way we learn!

So, relieve your mind of a lot of its frustrations by simply accepting the fact that you are a woman. Next, make yourself believe that you do the best you can. Probably you do! Tranquilizers are expensive...so are doctor's bills."

From "Dear Fellow Housewives," Heloise's Houskeeping Hints by Heloise, 1962

Image from Baby Dear, illustrated by Eloise Wilkin, 1962

via try-whistling-this on flickr

Life Happened

Remembering Elizabeth Taylor

And Celebrating the Power One Woman Can Possess

“Being alive for Elizabeth Taylor meant a near-constant spotlight, starting not long after she was born…[i]t meant a tumultuous relationship with her own beauty and her ideas of love. ‘I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands,’ she told Kim Kardashian (yes) not long ago. ‘For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else.’”

Carmon, Irin. "Remembering Elizabeth Taylor's Outsized, Unapologetic Life." Jezebel.com. March 23, 2011. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Take Up a Challenge

“Sarah Burton tells British Vogue in the February issue that - perhaps shockingly given her critical acclaim - she nearly didn't take the position as creative director of the Alexander McQueen label after its founder's death. The 36-year-old designer says: ‘For quite a long time I didn't want the job. I thought: how would I ever even begin to begin?…I thought about what I wanted. What was best for me. Like many women my age, I do want children, but I came to think that that's not a reason not to take up a challenge. In the end, I decided to just get on with it: do my best.’”

Hilbrenner, Jill. "Sarah Burton's Interview with Alexander McQueen Included UFO Questions."  The Fash Pack. January 7, 2011. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

His First Memory

"Rufus Wainwright watched, uncomprehending, as the family's dining-room table disappeared into the back of a U-Haul. It was the fall of 1976 and he was three years old. He didn't fully understand that his parents, singer-songwriters Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, were splitting up, for good, after having endured five stormy years together. The image of that table being loaded into the truck would burn itself into his brain as his first memory."


Windolf, Jim. "Songs in the Key of Lacerating." Vanity Fair.com May 22, 2007. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Child of the Pacific Northwest

During my pregnancy with Imogen I first heard of the photographer Imogen Cunningham. HistoryLink.org, the "Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History," has an essay that details her inspiring life.

"Dream" by Imogen Cunningham, 1910

Wikimedia Commons

Kids Fest

Today

Captainess Hook

On Ediz Hook on Sunday

Ediz Hook is a narrow sand spit projecting into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in north central Clallam County. It has a Coast Guard installation and a lighthouse, and was once the site of [the Lower Elwha Kallam village Tse-whit-zen].

Tacoma Public Library

Washington Place Names Database

Binoculars

Immy likes making the cardboard rolls
Teacher Ginny brings for crafts
into telescopes and binoculars.

Making Pancakes

Sunday

Fort Angeles

Cave Man

More Than They Can Do

"All women have more than they can do because they take on more than they have strength for. A woman did not (in the old days) paint her kitchen, wash the car, drive the children to school, weed the lawn, pay the bills, worry about budgeting and insurance. Her husband did these things or hired someone."

From "Dear Fellow Housewives," Heloise's Houskeeping Hints by Heloise, 1962

Image from We Help Daddy, illustrated by Eloise Wilkin, 1962

via Cassandra Considers… blog

Empress of Escapades

"1949: The famous children's author Enid Blyton

with her two daughters Gillian, left, and Imogen

at their home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.

Photo: Getty Images"

The Sydney Morning Herald via Google News Alert

Mlles Dressup

Snow Flowers

Lose the Future

Paul Krugman at The New York Times says American children will be hit the hardest by spending cuts:

[W]hen advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.

Bowled Over

At first, Imogen didn't think she wanted to bowl
because the shoes aren't beautiful.
When I saw these, I thought oh no!
But they turned out to be a big hit, and...

really fast!

Snow Day

Go Canada

The Economist Intelligence Unit has released its 2011 Liveability Ranking and Overview, also known as the world’s 10 most liveable cities. Three Canadian cities made the list, including Vancouver at #1. No U.S. cities made the top 10.

-Information from The Huffington Post

Worthy of Belonging

“When you hold those perfect little babies in your hand, our job is not to say, ‘Look at her, she’s perfect.  My job is just to keep her perfect, make sure she makes the tennis team by 5th grade and Yale by 7th grade.’ That’s not our job. Our job is to look and say, ‘You know what?  You’re imperfect and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.’  That’s our job.”

-From Brené Brown’s TED Talk “The power of vulnerability,” given in Houston, June 2010; via Babble and Google News

In Your Life

Bill Clinton to Nevada voters, October 12, 2010:

"I am old enough to tell you, if you forget about politics, any time in your life you make an important decision when you're mad, there's an 80 percent chance you're going to make a mistake. I don't want people to abandon their anger. I want them to channel it so they can think clearly."

Quote via The Washington Post, Google News and MSNBC

Three-Story Building