Coming Soon!

My next post will be on alphabet cards, which I love.  But not writing the post about them - that will be long. But it's for Pip, who has been requesting it for a month.  Pip whose water broke this morning.  Pip who is outside putting in a garden while pretending nothing is happening.  Pip who is going to have the baby in the backseat of their car in a traffic jam on the way to Seattle :)

Keemosabee will get to practice his boy scout skills.  Oh, wait, that's right he didn't do scouts, he played on the basketball team instead.  So he will dribble the baby.  Babies like dribbling.

I'm a Wreck

Once again I couldn't sleep, but rather than while away the time Etsy-ing, I thought I'd work toward my goal of having more current family photos in our home, so towards that end I went to daughter N's blog and began scrolling thru all her posts starting from the very first.

What an emotional roller coaster!! Two years worth of remembrances, goals, photographs, passions, distractions, struggles, parties, births, accomplishments, -- all those valleys and peaks....   I began getting way too emotional so I thought, Ok, I'll take a break and go see what nienie's new movie is all about....... thinking it was going to be something light and frothy and fun.....  I had no idea.  It's an amazing spiritual powerhouse. So beautiful.  So reaffirming. I could have turned off all the electricity in the world and still would've been able to read by the light in the room, it was just Spirit Full.

All my words are just too clunky for the feelings of the night. My cup brimmeth over. I watched the sunrise, all quiet around me, thinking very deep thoughts, feeling grateful for my family and life, the gospel and meaningfullness.

The installation pictured above was one of my favorites, though an image does it no justice. Thousands of nylon threads hung from the ceiling, shimmering and drifting on the slightest breeze, like spiderwebs. Nearby, a plague displayed this scripture: 

"And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind, and earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire, a still small voice." 

~from N's blog archives, 5/5/2009

You Didn't See This

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Leftover business from my spy days; move along, move along. (Technorati  Claim Code)

Sleepless in Seattle

via

I cannot seem to fall asleep at night anymore. A day after being awake 36+ hours I can spontaneously and randomly plunge into a complete exhausted stupor at utterly convenient times... such as while driving; hosting a party; or in deep soul-baring conversation with a loved one... but once that sun sets - wiiiiiiiiide awake.

I could use that extra time to deep clean my house; discover my lost ancestors; edit decades worth of family films; write the Great American Novel; learn to speak Chinese; work my way thru all of MIT's open sourceware; but do I do that?  No, no,no, that would be far too sensible. No, instead I Etsy. I aimlessly click thru all the little shops on etsy.com simply to see where it takes me.  Like when my dad would take us on road trip excursions following back roads and logging trails until we'd be perched on the edge of a mountain looking at the prospect of backing up for three miles. Except the Etsy road never narrows or ends.  When I type "Vintage Toys" into the search bar and receive 978 pages of hits, do I decide that would be far too many to look at?  Oh no, I click away until carpel tunnel and restlessness starts to set in, and then I do something really clever - I begin clicking from the end forward, because we all know that clicking backwards thru the pages somehow doesn't count, just like calories eaten while the fridge door is open don't. So, alternating from front-of-the-line to back -of-the-line to front-of-the-line like that I zip thru those 900 some pages so quickly I don't even notice that half my life has gone by.

Of the many draw backs to this obsessiveness one is that there are very few uses for the information garnered from my persistence. I did learn that basically all the things I think are cool and would luv to own have very narrow market appeal, whereas glass bead trinkets and homemade soaps are some of the all time best sellers. Can you believe that?  It's true; I checked  the list.  I don't think I have much of a future as an Etsy Seller, which probably won't stop me from trying, though, because  I'm brilliant like that. 

While I sleep-walk thru the rest of my day ( I did find an off-Etsy  product that would come in really handy right now) here's my Etsy Show and Tell from last night/this morning:

Put some sprigs of lilac 
in this sweet vintage beaker
and it becomes a charming vase.

And these  would have a
tulip in each one - 
What a set!

You could store a year's worth
of family photos in each cannister
and then display the reels
in this open 1950's film case.

This vintage letter holder
would look really good 
with some family photos in it

If I were a finalist on 
Project Runway all my models
would walk Bryant Park
looking soft and sweet 
and wearing spikey eye patches!

How fun for the kidlets!  
Twoallbeefpatties
specialsaucelettuce
cheesepicklesonions
onasesameseedbun!

I have been looking all over
for a good M to display-
this one's perfect!  Luv the
character from the reflector holes.

This astronaut puzzle's 
70s' graphic is just too cool.

This seller cracks me up - she's 
selling mismatched puzzle
pieces and calling it 
Vintage Assemblage. Silly me,
  I've been calling it my junk drawer. 
Well, m'am, I'll see your
game pieces and raise you 
a Monopoly top hat and
a Clue candlestick!

More astronaut deliciousness!
It's the faces that make them
extra special. 

The Number 7 and the Letter Q!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  

When I first began this blog I wanted the name "justlooking" - with O's like a normal word, not zeroes.  But justlooking.blogspot.com was taken by Dan, so I couldn't have it.  Dan who last posted in 2003.  All one of his posts.  First and last on the same day. Good ole' Dan who will own the name forever. *sigh*  So I went with the zeroes.  

But now I find that there's an unsavory justl00king out there wandering the internet and I really don't want the association.  Soooo... head's up, in a week I'm changing my name and blog address to "merelylooking" - which is available and unsullied, as far as I can tell.  However, if you have clever name suggestions feel free to decloak and suggest!  All seven of you. (Counting my loyal spammer.)

image via

That Chair Will Kill You Someday

Business Week has a very interesting article about the health benefits of standing as opposed to sitting.  It turns out each position has a dramatically different effect on our bodies.  Who knew? Well, apparently King Arthur. It was fabled that he had a chair at the round-table called Siege Perilous (Dangerous Chair)  which only the Pure of Heart could sit at or else it would be Instant Death {dadum}.  I'm assuming Merlin must've read Business Week's piece and quickly hopped back in time in his Bermuda shorts to warn King Arthur of the perils of sitting....