It took a little bit, but I got the archives moved over. I have to say, it’s nice to have some tech support people to help out. They were great and I’m thrilled to have the archives over here. Because I didn’t really have official blog-enty headers over at Blogspot, the headers are both redundant and a little odd, but oh well. Things here in Montana are good — I had a wonderful dinner last night with some new and old friends, one of whom came in and gave me a big hug and told me how much he loved…

This is still just a test, but I’m moving the weblog over to Typepad. I wanted comments, and easier ways to update the blogs and reading lists than over at Blogspot. So, check into the comments and let me know what you think of the new design …

Busy Busy Busy My day job is in one of those crunch cycles, so no blogging for a little bit because my head is cluttered with the technical details of running telephones over the internet. Back next week …

Weather is hot, Blogging is slow I am not a hot weather gal. One of the things I loved about living in Telluride all those years ago, is that it was almost never hot (not at 9000 feet, it wasn’t). However, it’s hot here in Montana. High 90s by midafternoon, and since the sun doesn’t set until almost 9:30 — it stays hot. Now, I realize this isn’t someplace really brutal like, say, New York City (where I sweltered away two summers of my 20s, too poor to afford a summer share, just sweating in my tenement), but nonetheless, the…

Blog in Progress I loved my old template, but alas, with my new laptop, I can hardly read the text … it’s a very faint grey and my poor eyes were having a terrible time with it. So, for the next couple of days I’ll be fussing with the template. I know, change is hard … but after my Powerbook died on me last week, I’m in that state where one must get used to a lot of computer change all at once. That said, I must admit I love my new iBook — it’s so tiny, so compact, so…

Music Madness at LivingSmall Music– I’m in a music zone. I am not one of those people who buys CDs on a regular basis. In fact, I’m one of those annoying people who plays the same CD over and over and over again — which is one of the many reasons it’s good that I live alone. However, every year when the Oxford American Magazine Music Issue comes out, I wind up buying a glut of CDs, and this year, the Music Issue happened to coincide with both the death of Nina Simone (go, right now, and read Jeanne d’Arc’s…

Snoopy-dancing All Over The Room Run run run to the nearest good newstand and snatch up a copy of the Oxford American Magazine. This much-beloved Southern Magazine of Good Writing has been resurrected after a hiatus when some of us feared it was gone forever, and is back with the ever-astonishing Music Issue. Fabulous writing and a CD of amazing music. Here’s the playlist: “Why You Been Gone So Long” by Johnny Darrell “Total Destruction to Your Mind” by Swamp Dogg “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” by the Del McCoury Band “La Chanson d’une Fille de Quinze Ans” by Ann Savoy…

My acupuncturist diagnosed mental overstimulation. Mental overstimulation that has led to low kindey chi, which leads to dried out ligaments, which, along with the amount of time I spend at the keyboard, led to my hand spazzing out last week. What mental overstimulation? Holding down a full time job, writing a second novel (after being notified last week that the first one is going out of print), doing the reading that’s necessary to feed the creative part of the brain that the full-time job tends to deaden in order to write the novel, planning a garden, digging said garden, watching…

So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to live more locally, how to resist the siren call of consumerism, how to build a sustainable life. I bought a house this year, and moved to Montana. It was important to me when I was looking for a place that I didn’t buy a “ranchette”, that I didn’t contribute to the development creeping across the open spaces of the West. So I found a 100 year old house in a funky town, a house with an old established vegetable plot in back. Planning the garden has me thinking about eating…