Please join me on Wordpress.

When Blogger changed and would no longer support blogging with my ftp, I switched to Wordpress. I don't update as often as I once did, now that I have a store and a kid, but my blog is officially lauraslens.com. My husband John and I blog together about our little boy here: dearbabyjack.wordpress.com. Thanks!

a good book and a dead book.

I finished up another book by Per Petterson last night. In the Wake was the first of Petterson's novels to be published in the US, though I managed to miss out on it until he'd had two more released here. This one was just as well written as Out Stealing Horses (my favorite book ever, I think) and To Siberia, but still wasn't quite as good. I think it suffered because my reading of it was so fragmented, reading 20 to 40 pages then not being able to pick it up again for another week or so...and it's only 202 pages long. Petterson's fluid writing is simply fantastic though and that was still easy to see. I get completely caught up in it.

After I added In the Wake to my LibraryThing library, I looked at the list of recommendations they've assembled based on my entire library. One of the suggested books on the list was Wendy McClure's weight loss memoir I'm Not the New Me. I remember this book very vividly now, but I had totally forgotten about it. We had it when I worked at Dutton's and I remember it had these awesomely terrible Weight Watchers recipe cards from the 70's with commentary about how awful they are. Those are actually online here at Wendy McClure's website. Anyway, I read the title and instantly remembered the book and thought, "Oh, I have to get that for the store!" I was so sad when I looked it up and found out it has gone out of print! It was just published in 2005 and it's already dead. And I never bought it! Poor little book. It's easy to find a used one online, but I don't really need it...and I feel stupid buying a book elsewhere when I own a bookstore.

john's first father's day.

While we were still in LA, I bought fabric for a bag to make for John, but I couldn't get my machine to work with canvas. I figured it was just too thick, but then, at Christmas last year, I discovered I've been putting my needles into the machine backwards...like a complete dope. When I tried to sew the canvas with the needle facing the right direction, it worked just like it was supposed to. Well, it worked anyway. I found canvas (technically, this was called duck cloth, whatever that is) to be incredibly hard to work with because it has no give whatsoever. It barely even folds. I could cut it like paper, but trying to turn it inside out to work on a detail was a little like working with cardboard...or something that doesn't want to be turned inside out or manipulated at all. So, all this means that I had to make special concessions throughout. I also made tons of mistakes, but I don't think most people will notice...but..you know...I do. John seems pretty psyched about it though.

Here's the front:



I have more pictures here.

Almost immediately after finishing John's bag (which, now that I say that, isn't totally finished because I'm thinking of adding a cell phone pocket to the strap), I started working on a quilt for Jack. I finished it up tonight. I'm in love with the contemporary, not-too-babyish fabrics.

baby blog and the new pixar release.

John and I have started a new blog for the baby. The baby, by the way, is a boy. His name is Jack. The blog, therefore, is called Dear Baby Jack.

We went to a prescreening of the new Pixar movie last night. One of our friends works for the local CBS affiliate and got us into their fancy pants screening in Green Hills. "Up" was very enjoyable. I'm not going to say it was the best Pixar movie yet, since I don't think it tops "Wall-E" or "Finding Nemo" and maybe ties with "The Incredibles" for the third spot. (Regardless of which ones I say are the "best," my favorite is still "Toy Story 2" because of Jessie.) "Up" is a good combination of far-fetched adventure and all-too-real real life. It's one of those "I laughed, I cried" movies.

I'm not sure if John agrees with my ranking system of the Pixar movies. He's the so-called expert, since he's an animator and all, but I'm sticking to my guns. He loved "Up" and might rank it higher than I do, which speaks volumes about how good it is.

adventures in bookselling.

Earlier this week, while waiting for a movie, John and I killed time in a Barnes and Noble to sort of check out the competition and get ideas for things I might want to stock in my store. It was a little overwhelming, seeing all those books...that we don't carry. John ended up pulling me out of there before I got really depressed.

Then, last night, I had a dream about the bookstore down the street. It has lots of gifts, since it's also a Hallmark. I don't want to sound catty, but it's mostly a Hallmark store. Anyway, last night, a had this dream that they had a sidewalk sale (or something else that would require outdoor shelves) and I happened to walk by (I never, ever walk by there, since they're at the end of the block and not even the same block we're on) and see all these fantastic kids books and I nearly hyperventilated right there on the street. I have the feeling most of the books were real, which is the first weird thing. The second weird thing is that the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was pull out my laptop and try to look them up.

I felt a little rattled, a little shaken up. The first call of the morning though, after I opened, was a repeat customer looking for two books that had been recommended to her and we had them both in stock! Not only did we have them in stock, I knew what they both were and was able to tell her the name of one of the authors. I felt like a rock star! Just a minute ago, a guy was in, and asked for help picking out a Faulkner book. Fantastic! I know about that! I want all further transactions to proceed in kind.

Meanwhile, I'm researching some more stock for a possible new section. I watched this video about an author who has a new book coming out this month and he starts out by saying he was raised in the jungles of Indonesia with cannibals. It was then that my eyes glazed over and I stopped paying attention. I mean, seriously, if that's your opener, when your book is not a memoir, but a novel that's not about a jungle, Indonesia, or cannibalism, where could you possibly be going with that line of thought?

crisis, shmisis. let's have a baby!

Last Sunday, John and I started officially telling people that we're expecting a new addition. Usually, when I say things like that, it means that we have a new game system, such as our much-loved yet under-used Wii, or a fantastic toy, like the vintage tie fighter I gave John for his birthday a couple years back. But no. Now that we can't really afford to buy a new game system or a vintage Star Wars thing, we're having a baby! Because they're like, cheap, right?

While we never had any stupid misconceptions such as that, we have already made the first payment on said baby. It sounds ridiculous when I say it like that. We're not buying the baby...we're just buying the chance to have it "get born" in an actual hospital with actual doctors and nurses. My understanding of how health insurance works, no matter how many times various people have tried to explain it to me, is about as extensive as my knowledge of the history of Laos. (I know nothing.) So when John and I got this letter about how much it costs to have the baby, we both read it completely backwards. We're off to a smashing start! What we thought the letter was saying the insurance company was going to pay was actually what WE are responsible for paying. Ha!

I'm paranoid about what things can go wrong during a pregnancy. Not to the point where I'm worried or lose sleep, but I do think about these things. And it feels more than a little like a jinx to start paying for the birth when I'm only in week 14. Of 40.

Nevertheless, I'm excited. John and I kept waiting for a good time to have a baby. Well, that time was nowhere in sight, so, we're having a baby in the middle of a global economic crisis. I opened a business in the middle of a "downturn" which turned into a global economic crisis. And I understand all of it about as much as I understand insurance.

I'm not especially worried about the store or the baby. I want the store to be a success, I really do, but...if it doesn't work, it just doesn't. Since the move, our sales have improved greatly and I'm optimistic. But I'm also realistic. If things go south, as they sometimes do with young start-ups, then we'll deal. I have this view of the store like it's someone I like but don't trust to be there for me when I'm in need. I'm not worried about becoming a mom, even though I'm not especially maternal or even all that patient. Nothing annoys me more than women who already have kids giving me the "wait till it's your turn" speech, which is always accompanied by a condenscending smile or laugh that makes me want to slap their dumb little mommy faces. Well, soon it will be my turn. And I watch women with their kids all the time now. Every time a woman brings kids into the store, I watch. I look at the things she says and does and how the kids respond and what things, if I did or said them, would I be proud of or embarrassed by if I could watch myself as a detached third party. Some are horrifying, some are awe-inspiring.

For a while, I wasn't sure if we would end up having kids. I had this weird thing with cysts in my ovaries that scared me to death. Then, even when that was being cleared up, I started to wonder if being a mom was actually something I wanted to do. John and I have been married for 5 years now and they've been 5 fantastic years. We've travelled and had weird/cool jobs and awful jobs and bad apartments and big adventures from coast to coast. My life has been full and satisfying. But then sometimes I'd think about how life could be even more full and even more satisfying. In LA, we used to go to the zoo a lot and John and I would just hang out and he'd draw the animals. It wasn't hard to imagine having a little person with us that we could talk about the animals to and explain things, like how the cassowary is so obviously a dinosaur. Sometimes I think about what our home life might be like, reading books and coloring and covering pinecones with glue and glitter, but mostly I think about the places I want to go. The day trips to the zoo or ice skating at the SportsPlex and feeding the ducks in Centennial Park. I like babies, and I'm already totally in love with mine, but it's the pre-school and early elementary school years I look forward to most. I'm sure rocking a baby is just grand and fantastic for bonding, but I want the kid to talk to me. I'm not impatient. I'll enjoy the process, the way there. Right now, I'd just be happy to feel a kick to justify how often I have to get up in the night to pee.

John's family is over the moon and so sweet. Several of John's cousins on both sides of his family have really young kids and two of Mickey's stepdaughters have kids under 2, so it'll be really fun to see them all grow up together. When John made the announcement at church last Sunday, the whole place errupted. It was very surprising and kinda spectacular. I thought maybe people would go "aww" for a second and that would be that, but everyone gasped and clapped. We're the first of all our TN friends to have a kid and they're all excited and even a couple of their parents are excited. The kid is going to have a huge family, spread out all over the country, from my friend Anna in Florida to all mom's peeps on the west coast and several states in between. So, yeah, I'm excited. And not very worried.

don't let the pigeon make sense.

Through another blog I read, I found out Mo Willems (children's book author and illustrator) has a blog. Not a huge deal. It's cute stuff, which is to be expected since his books are adorable. But I had to share this post, in which Mo features drawings he's gotten from kids giving him ideas for his next Pigeon book. The fifth one down is priceless. The text says, "Pigeon Finds a Football," but the picture is clearly of the pigeon defending himself with a lightsaber while being shot at with a ray gun by what looks like a miniature duck. That kid is brilliant!

yay! it's captain planet!

I haven't had a chance to watch any yet, since I'm at the bookstore all day today, but this website has put up full episodes of "Captain Planet." I got really into "Captain Planet" as a kid, around the same time that the group Kids F.A.C.E. was popular. Well, "popular" is probably way too optimistic, but they were at least doing well enough that I had a bedspread with the logo all over it.

Someday, I swear, I will live up to my childhood aspirations: I will recycle.

aurora borealis.

I ran across this video today. The music/sound is lame, but the visuals are stunning. Seeing the northern lights is probably the only thing on my list of Things I Must See Before I Die. (I would like to see the Great Wall, but I don't know if I really want to go to China, although it does look very beautiful...)


Amazing Northern Lights Time Lapse

christmas crafting recap.

Now that Christmas is over and I have time to breathe again, I put up pictures of the gifts I made for Christmas. They are here. The gifts pictured are: a cross stitch piece for my sister that says "Life is a Journey," a lap quilt for Mickey (John's mom) that matches the pillows I made for her for Mother's Day, a tablerunner for my mom inspired by a Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window, and crayon rolls for my nephews. I also made a candle holder for Mom (it didn't photograph very well) and some raspberry rhubarb jam for my dad.

We went to Atlanta for my birthday and New Year's. It was nice to take a break after crafting at break-neck speeds and working through the holidays. I had a nice time and got to sit and read. And now January is half over already. Unbelievable.