new normal

My thoughts are all over the place after this week of utter insanity.

I think about the 7 Boston Marathons I’ve watched from the Crate and Barrel store on Boylston Street, where this year the windows were blown out by the blast a few buildings away. The attack happened at the time when the majority of runners were approaching the finish. Not the elite runners, but the everyday folks who run for personal reasons, in pursuit of a goal they may have never achieved before. These are our mothers, brothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, coworkers, neighbors, teachers, and friends. Unlike 9/11, there was no political or economic significance to the time or place. The marathon attack was at a community event, on runners and spectators just like you and me, and the only motive was to create fear, pain, and extreme suffering for this entire city and nation.

I think about this new reality we live in, and are raising our children in, where we are constantly aware of the possibility of an attack by evil people. Evil people aren’t just leaders of other countries with nuclear weapons, they are not just targeting people with money and power. Evil people are hurting our children, and it breaks my heart to think of how many children have been lost all too recently.

I think about what I’ve told my first-grader about this past week. “Some very bad people put bombs in Boston where people were watching the marathon. Yes, it is near where I used to work. Lots of people got hurt, but even more people were helping to rescue them.” And yesterday, “The police want us to stay home today because they are trying to catch the bad man who hurt so many people. It’s okay to be scared, but I will protect you, and we are safe here.”

I say it in a calm, almost matter-of-fact tone so he doesn’t get scared. A tone that tries to makes it seem normal. But I don’t want this to be his normal. I don’t want him to think that bombings and man-hunts and sirens and helicopters flying overhead and lock-downs are normal.

I want him to think that normal is having a picnic at Jamaica Pond, walking to the top of Peter’s Hill with his little brother and dog, meeting up with friends at the playground at Fallon Field, going to school that doesn’t have to close because of a “situation.” This particular situation is over, but, pardon my language, this shit is still fucked up.

I want him to think that normal is watching the runners cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Patriots Day. Will we? I don’t know yet.

i miss film cameras

I miss the days when you had to take your film out of the camera, and bring it to the developing place, wait a week, and go back to pick them up in order to even see your pictures. The anticipation of getting your pictures back from your vacation was almost as good as the trip itself. Back then, I always had prints of the pictures I took, hundreds of prints, so I was motivated to frame them, make albums, scrapbooks, send them to friends and family, all that good stuff.

Now, I take pictures constantly, but with my phone. And they stay in my phone. I try to upload (or is it download?) them onto my computer, or to a photo sharing service like Shutterfly or Picasa. But it takes a long time. Or at least, in my mind, it’s going to take a lot of effort, and so the pictures stay in my phone.

What I do love about digital pictures are these handy-dandy, pretty, and easy-to-order photo books! Once I get it together to get my photo files up-or-downloaded, it’s insanely simple to pick out ones to put in a hardcover bound book. Click click click, and you have an album.

So, 3 months later, I’ve finally ordered a photo book of my little guy’s 3-year-old birthday party. The cutest part is when he asks, “Can we read the Dash book again? No, the Little Kid Dash book, not the Baby Dash one.” So cute.

Someday, I will be organized enough to take pictures of my kids’ artwork and doodles and projects that I don’t have space to store. I will updownload them onto Shutterfly and order compact, color-coordinated, and chronological books. We can all dream, right?

the throw-down 3s

For both of my boys, the terrible 2s were a walk in the park. The 3s, on the other hand, look out, mama!

Age 2 is when kids get upset because you don’t know what they want. Age 3 is when they’ve told you exactly what they want, but you won’t give it to them. Ice cream for lunch, wearing shorts in the snow, ice cream for snack, watching another Little Einsteins episode, ice cream for dinner, you get the picture. They’re ready to throw down the gauntlet at any second.

Gotta remember this when my 3-year old gets me riled up….

via repurposed playground: On being 3.

martha’s calendar

Today is January 29, 2013. Martha Stewart suggests we “Organize tools and supplies in greenhouse workroom.”

Thanks, Martha. I’ll get right on that.

tulpendag!

Years ago, I used to travel to Amsterdam once a year for work. It will always be one of my favorite cities in the world, and not at all for the coffeeshops. The cloudy, rainy weather gives one an appreciation for light and color like nothing else. If you don’t get Rembrandt, spend a week in Amsterdam. While you’re there, go to the Rijksmuseum and stare at Night Watch. I was blown away.

these colors are amazing!

Tulip season in the Netherlands has got to be the most colorful time of the year. National Tulip Day was first celebrated last year, to honor the start of tulip season. Dam Square is a vast, gray, cobblestone plain at the heart of the city. To see it filled with thousands of tulips must be a magical, breathtaking sight.

And they’re all free for the picking. Heavenly.

This blog has been horribly neglected since last fall. I’ve been busy launching my interior design business! It’s called ROI Design, interior design and organization for busy, growing families. I am trying to figure out — philosophically and technologically — how to marry my two blogs, because I’ve learned that I don’t “work to live” or “live to work.” Work and life are not and cannot be separated. My work is an extension and expression of my self as a mother, woman, wife, and artist. I’d love to know what you think.

Happy Tulip Day!

via Tulpendag! A Day of Free Tulips in Amsterdam | Garden Design.

i miss my jersey shore

And, no, I don’t mean the ridiculously moronic television show.

While I sat in my Boston home, warm, dry and comfortable, Hurricane Sandy trashed my home state of New Jersey. Four days after the storm, my relatives are still without power, friends have lost homes, and entire towns lie underwater. The achingly beautiful coast of New Jersey is a disaster. Families who have lived there for generations have lost their homes, all their possessions, their mementos of childhood.

Seaside Heights, Funtown Pier after Hurricane Sandy

I am in no way belittling the horrible damage from the hurricane in New York City. The national media, however, is almost exclusively focused on the impact of the storm there, and only peripheral attention is being granted to the normal people and humble homes of New Jersey seaside towns.

I had no idea of what happened there until I saw a Facebook post from a high school friend. I Googled “jersey shore hurricane impact” and sadly, my first page of search results had 1 legitimate link to news, and the rest were what the cast of the aforementioned TV fodder thought of the storm.

Here are a few sources where I found local photos and information: 

• Jersey Shore Hurricane News on Facebook
• NJ.com news
• NBC News Channel 4 New York
• Greenpeace flickr stream

To donate money to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, here are some worthy options:

• Red Cross Disaster Relief
• The Salvation Army
• For pet rescue and assistance: ASPCA
• Or Charity Navigator’s recommendations here

If you are in the New Jersey area and would like to do more, the state has set up a volunteer emergency response hotline: 1-800-JERSEY-7. Also check listings from specific agencies at Volunteer New Jersey. Contact your local food banks to see what supplies they need – here’s a list from Feeding America.

We were so fortunate in the Northeast, an area I always thought was known for getting the worst of everything. It’s November 1st, and the holidays are coming up fast. My heart aches for my Jersey Shore, and for all the proud, feisty, good people in my home state.

part 2 of career shape-shifting: INFJ

– Apologies for the long hiatus. I hope you missed me. –

I’ve always been fascinated by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It was developed by a mother-daughter team and based on C.G. Jung‘s theory of psychological types. The test (“instrument,” they call it) identifies how you prefer to interact with the world across 4 categories.

Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).

Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).

Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).

Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).

– Myers-Briggs Foundation, MBTI Basics

There is no right or wrong, no value judgements, no “better than” positioning. You can take it online without a counseling session here. My results confirmed that I am an INFJ, though I have strong leanings to the center of the Thinking/Feeling spectrum. I’m also not nearly as introverted as I expected. My counselor (a lovely woman, by the way, who I need to thank for getting me on the right track) then gave me  a loooong list of careers that suit my personality type.

I expected the MBTI to be a magic bullet of sorts, that would zero in precisely on what I was going be when I grow up. I was also afraid it would tell me to become an astrophysicist or neurosurgeon — going back to school for that long sounds like hell, expensive hell. The careers on the list ranged from Psychologist to Lawyer to Reporter to Art Teacher.  Psychic was awfully intriguing, but I had to be pragmatic.

Interior decorator… now that was compelling. After all, I had set on that path 10 years ago when I was still working in marketing. What made me stray? Hope you don’t mind, but that’s a story for another post.