Thank you for your books which have meant so much to me and to my children. Thank you for making art and for sharing it with the world.

If you have not already seen Stephen Colbert's interview with Mr. Sendak, do yourself a favor and look it up. It's wonderful.

Still reading the Robinson book. Still very impressed. Now I'm going to have to learn more about Calvin as I think my initial impressions from very limited reading may have been completely wrong. Still think "Imagination and Community" is my favorite of the essays, but am also partial to "Wondrous Love".

Also had Blue Bell Red Velvet Cake ice cream this week. Holy cow, that's good stuff.

And so far tonight, Josh Hamilton is four for four with three two-run home runs and a double. How's that for slugging percentage?

ETA: Make that four home runs for Josh Hamilton. And the fans in Baltimore are a classy bunch. They just gave him a standing ovation. I hope I get to go to a game in Camden Yards sometime. Beautiful park, lovely people.

Life's been busy. Some good, some bad. Not sure if I want to talk about life right now or not. I do, however, want to talk about one book I read and one I'm reading.

First, the book I read: When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd

Ever have one of those just-when-I-needed-it books? Well, that's what this was for me. It's not one I'd recommend to everyone I know because (a) not everyone I know is Christian, and this book is definitely about spirituality, especially coming from a Biblical point of view, and (b) it's for people who are in or around mid-life and are going through all the changes, internal and external, that causes. I definitely needed this. It's all about learning who you really are and what fundamentally matters in your life. I am still learning that. I know what I want to matter in my life, but that's not always the way I choose to live. I'm going to try to make better choices.

The most important part of this book for me, though, was its emphasis on waiting. Taking time to think, to meditate, even to completely empty yourself and think of nothing at all. Just breathing and not reacting all the time. That is next to impossible for me. I want to do something. When a crisis presents itself, I want to solve it. And I want everyone else to jump in and start doing their part too. But life doesn't work that way. At least not in my experience. I can't always fix it. I can help. I can do some things, but some things are not up to me, and I have to wait, step back, let them happen, and try very hard to have faith.

I'm still thinking about a lot of what I read, but mostly I'm thinking about how I live and how God wants me to live. I don't know if I know those answers yet. I think I'm going to have to wait and see.

The second book is Marilynne Robinson's latest book of essays: When I Was a Child I Read Books.

Robinson is just brilliant. I adored Gilead and thought Home was exceptionally good too. I'm not completely through with this book, but am completely taken with the essay entitled "Imagination and Community". A couple of quotes from the essay:

"I would say, for the moment, that community, at least community larger than the immediate family, consists very largely of imaginative love for people we do not know or whom we know very slightly."

"I am convinced that the broadest possible exercise of imagination is the thing most conducive to human health, individual and global."

"...wisdom, which is almost always another name for humility, lies in accepting one's own inevitable share in human fallibility."

I wish I were able to express myself with even half the clarity and preciseness of thought that Robinson is able to.

When I finish that, it's back to Amigoland by Oscar Casares, a story I started and think I'm going to greatly enjoy, but I set it aside to read Sacre' Bleu by Christopher Moore (a fun, lighthearted look at the Impressionists) and these two books.

40-0. Wow. Just total dominance. I couldn't be happier for them!

Two of the guys in my department (which only has eight people) quit this week.

Last night Little G and I spent three and a half hours in Children's Emergency. She had classic migraine symptoms. Having never had a migraine, I wasn't sure what was going on. I think she was mainly just dehydrated and that's what brought it on. As soon as they gave her an IV, she perked back up. This morning she's wide awake and ready to go to school (thank goodness).

I've been in a training class most of the week. It's over at noon today, and I'm taking the afternoon off. I can't wait. I'm going to try very hard to completely ignore my work cell, no matter how many times it dings at me.

But I'm sick again. I'm never sick. And I've had some sort of virus for the better part of three weeks now. I know I had the flu to start with. I don't know if what I have now is just the remnants of that, or some new virus. But either way, I'm ready to be healthy again.

Big G fed me chicken soup tonight. Last night I had a small quesadilla. And I've had two small granola bars. That's pretty much it for the past three days. Even Diet Dr Pepper doesn't taste very good. Oh, well.

The kids have been at my mom and dad's since Sunday night. They're having a good time and actually being civil to one another. I was worried about that this spring break. When they don't have school to distract them, they tend to get on one another's nerves, as I guess most teenage siblings do.

Everything here is warm and green. The grass (and weeds) are growing like mad. And we're going to have to give the pool some serious attention this weekend. I hope I feel better by then. We also still have painting to do and flooring to put in. Being sick put a dent in getting things done.

Am continuing to learn new things and get more confident with my (admittedly very basic) programming skills. Have produced a couple of really useful reports this week. Of course, that sends me off on rabbit trails analyzing the data I've come up with...which really isn't my job, but I find it just as interesting as developing the reports in the first place.

Am also reading John Irving's Until I Find You. I love Irving's writing, but I can't say I'd recommend this book. It's all about a man who was sexually abused as a boy and the ramifications of that carried through his life. It's fascinating, but in a car crash sort of way. But, it's Irving, and I'm having a hard time putting it down. Since it's 800 pages or so, it's taking a little while to finish, but not as long as some of the 300 page novels I've read lately.

Haven't done any knitting for some time now. Will again some day, I'm sure, but not until we've got the house a little more put together.

And we've been playing music, as usual. I gave my banjolele to one of the guys in our band. I wasn't playing it, and it really seems to have brought him joy, so I'm glad I did it. I could've sold it and made something off of it, but this seemed like the better thing to do. He's played three or four songs with us on it already!

And that's about it from here. Another boring report...