Now That's What I Want!"

 My "fieneighbor" (friend + neighbor, not that you didn't figure it out), Sue, always gives me a heads up when the Gloucester Temple has their musical shabbat services. She alluded to this week's Friday  night service as being special. The guest was running late due to traffic. The service was going along as usual: wonderful music and community spirit. Enter Joshua Nelson.
   He bills himself as the "Prince of Kosher Gospel" and if you can picture yourself going to central casting to fulfill that character you are right on target. There were  a few moments spent setting up his keyboard and getting him and his singing partner set up. And then he opens his mouth and out comes a voice that truly almost knocked me out of my seat! It was not just the greatness of the sound but also the complete release of what he had within him backed with the power of knowing who he is and his surity behind that knowledge. I want that.
   It has taken me to now to fully understand the cost of growing up in a critical environment. Since my main goal for this time of my life is to rewire my emotional responses I am taking time to feel when discomfort arises and follow it back to it's origins. So often I come to understand how that  life long response was built on the insecurity of adults around me.
 With that understanding comes the responsibility to update to a healthier attitude.
Blog On!
Leslie

A Totally New Cable Needle Necklace

   I was standing in the shower thinking what I could make to send to Linda at Sunset Fibers for prizes for her Spin-a-long. My best ideas come to me at such moments. I think that if I had the time and enough hot water I could figure out a way to realize world peace. This new idea allows the two different sized needles to hang until needed when they can then slip through the tubing and are easy to use. These needles are size 0 and 2 and are in two different metals (sterling and bronze) and shapes to be easily differentiated. Also, only the straight on can pass through the tube making it secure.  I am already thinking of variations on this idea.
Blog On!
Leslie

The Summer List

  One minute it is Memorial Day and the Summer stretches beyond the horizons of the mind. Blink and, poof, it is Labor Day. What happened?! More importantly, what didn't happen? Determined to make the outcome for this year a new trend, I enlisted my "friebor" (friend + neighbor) Sue to make a list of all the things we wished to do together this Summer.  I loved the idea of sharing my favorite Summer rituals with Sue who along with her family is a recent transplant from DC.  We started emailing a list back and forth adding to it as we went. here is the list so far: 

1. Send this email

2. Picnic at Good harbor after 5:00 PM

3. Walk in Dogtown

4. Crafts

a. card making

b. crochet (trust me)

5. Meet downtown Gloucester at the sandwich shop on your way back from work.

6. Run a marathon

7. photo on Bearskin Neck

8. watching the sun rise at Good Harbor Beach

9. eating lasagna Robyn's lasagna with Robyn

10. Watching for falling stars

I threw #6 in just to see if she really read the list.

  Last night we decided to  drive the turn-a-round at the end of Bearskin Neck. At the end was a member of The Gloucester Area Astronomy Club with an impressive telescope who generously offered us a view of Saturn. I can not explain the feeling of seeing that live image so familiarized from a lifetime of pictures of it in books. And so begins another list,  Unplanned High Points of the Summer.

 Blog On!

Leslie 

Finally a Valid Reason for an Exercise Bicycle

  At the recent New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Show I was across from the great folks of woolambia who had this genius idea for taking an old exercise bike and rigging it to spin fiber while you pedal.
Blog and pedal on!
Leslie

The Marlborow Man Explains Cattle 101

 I love Ree's Frontier Woman blog. She is the best example of "bloom where you are planted". You could get lost in her blog in the best possible meaning of that term. But on this posting her husband, "The Marlboro  Man" explains the business of cattle. It is a powerful, honest and informative explanation of cattle ranching. Please stop reading me and go read him.
Blog On!
Leslie

Another Good Harbor Low Tide View

This was taken in the morning but I prefer real early or real late day lighting.
                                                       Blog On!
                                                         Leslie

Low Tide Silhouette

For her first walk on Good Harbor beach, Sue was treated to the endlessness of a low tide beach with a unblemished sky (if one can call a cloud a blemish) and more than a hint of warmth.  Did I mention that this was mid March?  Being a faux summer day we had to have ice cream so we went to the drive through  at McDonalds for the 49 cent ice cream cone. We went through three times.

 Blog On!

Leslie