I hope you had an extra special day with the ones you love! I hope you enjoy these photos of my Valentine Branch. Don’t you just love this sweet little owl. He was a gift from my friend, Sharon. The branch hangs in my living room throughout the year, all decorated for each season.
I also wanted to post a quick note to apologize for being MIA for a while. I didn’t realize how long it’s been. There’s so much to report and there has been so little time to report it.
This past weekend we were in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. It was the first time I’ve been there. The Catfish Hunters did a concert on Saturday night and we had a great time! Pictures to come soon.
More big news and probably a little bit of an excuse as to why I haven’t been on my blog too much. I just received in the mail the book that I created through Blurb.com! It was a (mostly) photo travel book about a trip that I was privileged to take to Israel and Jordan in October with a non-profit organization that I work with. The book is 12″ x 12″ and 200 pages (yes, you read that right). It turned out beautifully if I must say so myself! I’ll have pictures of that and a link soon too!
I also had the privilege of planning a celebration for a dear friend of ours…of course there are photos of that on the way too!
See, I really do have a few good reasons for not being online. Just sorry that it kept me away from all my friends here. See you soon. I promise.
It’s been a busy and somewhat non-traditional month for us. As you’ll see from these photos, there’s been a good amount of time spent with those we love, but somehow things were busy in other ways too.
We also went to the Musical Instrument Museum (the MIM) for our 34th wedding anniversary on Dec 9th, celebrated the holidays with a few of the non-profit groups that I work with and had a lovely evening with some other dear friends. All of those activities don’t have pics posted yet, but hopefully I’ll get to it.
I’m not quite sure how the month got away from me, but we didn’t decorate inside the house until December 19th which is VERY LATE for me! Originally we weren’t expecting to have any gatherings at our house this year, so I guess that gave me the freedom to put it off. Then we found out that we were hosting our family gathering, so I got busy and did a few things.
We still have at least one more celebration to come with our son, Kevin when he returns from being overseas in early January. That will be a special time to have him back home and in the U.S. hopefully for a very long time.
Here are links to a few photos that I’ve posted on Facebook over the last month. I hope you enjoy them! (Note: I was told that some of these links didn’t work for those that aren’t on Facebook, so I’ve updated them.)
Randy Thompson’s Christmas Concert where Terry played in early December
I’m interrupting my stories about Scotland to celebrate my 600th post by doing a little catch up on what’s going on in my life at this moment.
Today I’m in downtown L.A. I’m here to attend BlogWorld Social Media Business Summit & New Media Expo (#BWELA)! I’m really excited about the avalanche of workshops that I will encounter over the next 3 days and can’t wait to get started sorting out which ones I’ll attend in person and which I’ll listen to after the conference.
BUT, before I dive into the conference I wanted to share a little of what inspired me today. You see, not so very long ago I lived in a suburb of L.A. In fact I lived just about 40 miles north of here for 18 years. And while we didn’t come into the “city” frequently, we did have a chance to enjoy the benefits occasionally. I’m not really a city girl, I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t want to live here, but I love visiting. Something about the soaring skyline and bustling traffic energizes me. I get the feeling that important things are happening here. Deals are being brokered, historic decisions are being made and ideas emerge here that are changing the world.
These are just a few of the things that inspire me about L.A.:
Passing billboards about new TV shows and movies (do you see that in your town?)
Enjoying dinner outdoors in November
Landing on radio stations in 7 or 8 different languages
The city skyline – it’s breathtaking
Exit signs for Little Armenia, and Historic Filipinotown
Realizing that the Pacific Ocean is just minutes away.
Appreciating all the sculptures and great architecture in downtown
Remembering that they have an “all news-all the time” radio station (AM1070). I miss that.
Celebrating the fact that the L.A. Philharmonic plays regularly at two awesome venues – The Walt Disney Concert Hall (see below) and the Hollywood Bowl (one of my absolute favorites). I miss that too.
So here’s how my day went in this inspiring city…
I drove from the Burbank airport this morning and met my daughter and son-in-law for breakfast (which I don’t get to do nearly as often as I’d like). Amy and Andrew are a couple of inspiring people too, but that story will have to wait for another time. I enjoyed a few hours with them, then headed down to the hotel where I’ll be staying for the duration of the conference.
On the way there, I passed the AMAZING, Frank Gehry designed, Walt Disney Concert Hall just a few blocks from the hotel. After checking in, it was such a gorgeous day that I decided to walk there. If you’ve never seen it in person, you really should make a point to go. I would love to take a tour and would especially love to attend a performance there. I understand that the acoustics in the auditorium are nearly perfect. Another fun tidbit is that there’s a small theater and gallery space in one corner of the Hall, called REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater). I used to work at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) when REDCAT was being built and the staff and student body were anxiously awaiting it’s completion, so I have a bit of a vested interest in the place.
Anyway, here are a few photos of this awe inspiring complex.
Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater
The amazing thing is not so much imagining the building, but actually making it come to life with all those curves and waves. It’s spectacular!
While there I stopped in the gift shop because these places are just dripping with culture and creativity. I saw this great T-shirt and a bunch of other inspirational items, but it wasn’t really a shopping day for me, and I can’t really afford a $120 scarf no matter how beautiful it is, so I had to pass on all but a couple of little things that I picked up for Christmas gifts.
L.A. Philharmonic Tshirt
After dinner, I had a chance to go out and play a little with my camera and here’s a fun shot.
Los Angeles Downtown
So now, it’s off to bed to rest up for 3 days of inspiration and information to come.
Have you ever been to Los Angeles? If not, what do you find inspiring about your own town?
O.k., so its clear that you’re probably not getting much inspiration from me lately, but I do have a recommendation for you to check out someone who is a prolific blogger. And this week, she’s running an online Blogging Workshop on “Lemon and Raspberry” called Better Blog Content 2.0. You can find all the details here.
Full disclosure: she happens to be my daughter, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have great stuff to share and to help you in the blogging world. In fact this might just inspire me to start posting again. See, this post is proof that it’s working already. 🙂 I love this picture of her from some recent “outtakes” at her home photo shoot. Note the raspberry lemonade in the photo for her “Lemon and Raspberry” blog. Clever huh?
But, it’s getting more and more difficult for me to choose what to blog about. We just added a few more events to the list. Last week I helped my dear friend, Linda on a photo shoot with her daughter-in-law and granddaughters, which was a blast! I’ll post more on that.
Then I went with my husband and the Ryans to Tucson to hear my husband and Bob perform at the Tucson Folk Festival. I promise, soon I’ll post about that trip, as well as an awesome Mexican restaurant that we visited there. It’s a place that you won’t want to miss if you’re in the Tucson area and are hungry for Mexican food. Stay tuned for all that and more to come.
Thanks for hanging in there with me during this busy time of life.
O.k., so I know that the last few months have been pretty sketchy as far as my blog posting. You wouldn’t believe the back up of fun things that I have to post about though. Here are a few of the activities that I have piling up in my photo files. I can almost bet that I won’t get to all of them, but if you see something that sounds particularly interesting, let me know and I’ll work on those ASAP. Besides the busy schedule, I also have been having some technical problems with my laptop AND just hit the wall with the message that my external drive (where I store all my photos) is full. Looks like I’ll be shopping for a new external drive. Hopefully we won’t need to get a new laptop, but I’m a little concerned that it might breakdown on our trip in August. Hopefully it will be resolved one way or the other before then.
Here’s a little sneak peak for one of the events. This is Steve Larson and Bob Ryan performing in The Dubious Brothers Radio (Stage) Show for the Open Door to the World Annual Fundraiser last weekend. Sorry, I don’t have the exact name of it. Click to enlarge. Lots more photos on that to come.
Steve Larson and Bob Ryan - The Dubious Brothers
Here’s the list of my latest activities that are waiting to post…any preferences?
My sister’s new branch (it’s decorated and hanging on her wall)
Dinner at the Mozingo’s with the reunion team – can you say AMAZING!
This time they’re not going as far as Bosnia, but The Catfish Hunters are scheduled to perform at the 26th Anniversary Tucson Folk Festival. The Festival is a FREE two-day event offering over 20 hours of music, dance, and entertainment. Spread the word! We’d love to see you all there.
Terry and Bob will be playing at 1:30 PM on Sunday, May 1st on the Museum Stage at the Tucson Museum of Art. If you’re looking for a fun day trip or even a weekend getaway, come on down and see them and dozens of other artists perform. Be sure to arrive early so you can get to the stage in plenty of time to find a seat.
The center of Festival activity, including the TKMA Kitchen Store (where performer CDs and T-shirts are sold) food & craft vendors, is in El Presidio Park in old town Tucson.
Here are a few pics of the Festival last year when Terry had the privilege of accompanying his friend, Dave Argentati who was one of 10 finalists in the songwriters contest.
Unexpected Wonder 