Category: FreeForm

  • Weekly Photo Challenge: Mountains

    Seriously? Mountains? I’ve GOT those! Hoodoos in the Alberta Badlands: Striations: Banff from the top of Tunnel Mountain: And evidence that I was, in fact, with my children on this trip: Only, it looks green-screened. I swear, this is a real picture. It’s even from this week. 🙂 Top of Sulphur Mountain, gotten to via…

  • Chilliwack

    The place, not the band. That is to say, I have made it to Chilliwack, B.C. To reward myself, I have booked into a hotel that has a washer and dryer. I know, I know. Washers and dryers are everywhere. But this also has a bathtub, internet access, and beds I don’t have to make…

  • Cross-country-ness

    If you have been following the story so far, you will have left us in Wawa. Tonight, we are in Winnipeg, but we have been to several locales that did not start with “W” in between. I have learned several things in the intervening days. First among them is this: Ontario is really, really, REALLY…

  • So It Goes

    Day 22… or Day 4, depending on how you count. Here I find myself in Wawa, Ontario. Wawa wasn’t on the list, but things being what they are, it is where we wound up when it got dark and moose-y last night. I finally left the comfortable environs of friends and family on Thursday, landing…

  • Responsible

    Some time ago, I was trying to figure out the organization thing, and I was trying to figure out how to complete all the projects I had started, and I was trying to figure out what my real priorities in life were. And here was my strategy: I wrote down all the things I was…

  • Why We Lie

    OK. This has taken weeks. I’ve been playing it a little close to my vest since I started getting all these Emerson prompts, and they started messing with my head. This one is just going to have to do. Susannah Conway wrote a challenging post a couple of weeks ago, asking of her fellow bloggers…

  • Schedules, Routines and the Tyranny of Time

      I have a difficult relationship with clock-time. This will come as no surprise to those who have tried to make an appointment with me. I make appointments reluctantly, resent them when they arrive, and frequently arrive late (although usually only a few minutes so). One thing on my schedule at 2 in the afternoon…

  • Academic Interloper (Gets Cranky)

    Post-it Question by Jenny Blake That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare.…

  • Me, Unedited

    One of my previous posts touched off a stack of questions (all from one person). Since I answered them quickly, and rawly, and as honestly as I could… and since I’m working on the Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust30 prompts, which seem to be largely about being just so, I asked whether I could post the…

  • Trust30 – Your Personal Message

    What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say? Stop. Take a deep breath. Listen deep inside. All this frantic rushing about isn’t getting you anywhere. You don’t have to be “important” to matter. You have a story to tell.…

  • Come Alive (Trust30)

    Come Alive by Jonathan Mead Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add…

  • One Strong Belief

    One Strong Belief by Buster Benson It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance The…