Sweetest thank you note...

This is the note that my sister-in-law sent to my son, Jared, for a gift that he chose and purchased himself, and sent to Iran for her (she has cute english:-)

Hi Jared,

Thank you for the Beautiful Fossil bag. It is the best bag that I ever have. I will keep it in in all my life because it is a gift from him, my only dear nephew that I never seen him. Thank you, I love you. Sorour

Charlie

I love how Charlie calls Manochehr 'Real Baba' and me 'Real Grandma' (or Grammie). This started when their Great Grandparents were coming from Iran, and Sarra, to help the kids differentiate us all, started calling them 'special'. Special is wonderful - it was meant to be well, special, but I love that Charlie calls us 'real'.

All three of the kids are here for 4 days, and I love, love, love my time with them! They are all happy, and so am I:-)

The Grand Canyon

We all went to the Odyssium last evening to see an Imax film on the Grand Canyon. First we went to have Persian food at a new restaurant in Edmonton called 'Sabzee'. The food was excellent. Everyone was happy, especially Baba who was starting to make Maman mad with his comments of how wonderful the food was...alas. So back to the Grand Canyon. This is where the lines were drawn in our family. We are at one of the wonders of the world. Some of us can't get enough of the magnificent view - would have spent a couple of days, maybe taken a mule part way down or something, ridden the train etc....others took a quick look left and right and were ready to head home. This was especially true of the one that parked our vehicle in a vast parking lot, right next to the only other vehicle in that vast parking lot - a huge charter bus, forgetting that we had a trailer behind us, and hooking onto the bumper of the bus. This was tricky in a number of ways, first, it was sorely tempting to hit and run...b/c we were alone, I can't say it didn't cross our minds as an option...but we were in the presence of 4 impressionable children...so we spent the morning tracking down the bus company so we could straighten it all out. They were shocked and amazed to hear from us. Also, it ruined the view for that person in particular, and that person proceeded to ruin it for others...you see the problem. I'm not sure whether to name names or not...it's not a bad thing not to want to see things...Pres. Hinckley did the same thing with the ocean...pulled up...let the fam out, and said 'well, there it is.' He was pretty much ready to go back home at that point. It's just that we solidly fell into different camps that day, and remain in those camps to this day. We all know who we are, and most of you who are reading this can probably guess. Yes, the film brought back wonderful memories of learning about our own family...travel does that I think. It's a wonderful memory for me.

Children & Grandchildren...

I love my children and grandchildren so much...in a really satisfying way - they are just wonderful to me. I love to look at them, spend time with them, talk to them, listen to them, and in the case of the grandchildren, I love to smell them...they smell so good. This is an olfactory characteristic that my kids will remember about me...Jared has it too. He will often take a lingering whiff of his food before tasting it...I'm not that bad! But when it comes to the kids....they are yummy to me. I will get to see them on the 26th of Jan. and I have all kinds of fun planned. We will play games, build a fort, bake, swim in the hot tub with toques on, read together, and whatever else we can think of. I can't wait.

Yet it's not just the little kids... I thrive on my adult children too...they are such amazing people, all of them. So diverse yet all share some traits...like tenderness (tender hearts for all), honesty, generosity...and they are all very intelligent and funny both. Eli is daring (he just bought a 40 ft. sailboat to travel down to Honduras in) and so affectionate. Sarra is an incredibly accomplished mother - she is truly amazing. Her lovely children show this all day every day. She is soft and strong both - a marvelous combination. Timmy is already becoming and I expect will be a rock for our family - he is so steady and sure. We love him! Jared...an absolute joy to be around - he is sensitive in the kindest way and a gentle soul, we love his quirks. Mark is someone I honestly relate to...he undesrtands me so well - I'm sure we would be friends if we were not relatives. We share a love of travel, we actually have quite a few things in common, and he has fantastic taste!!! Some girl is going to be very lucky some day. I just had to share this...a friend mentioned something about our Christmas photo today, and I pulled it out to have a look again. Heavenly Father was very wise and so very generous with us when he organized us into families. Waxing poetic about my loved ones is so easy! I could go on all day long. I will talk about the love of my life another day:-)

MacWorld 2009 Keynote Address

I love Apple; but I am an authentic consumer, having been an exclusive Mac User since 1993, when it was nerdy, not cool to use Mac. We've had a succession of Macs, iPods, Nanos, Shuffles, and iPhones...let's do a count: 1 desktop iMac, 1 MacBook, 2 MacBook Pros, 4 iPhones, 2 iPods, 1 Shuffle, 1 Nano. I'm probably forgetting something...but you get my point. We are fans. The keynote unveils the latest Apple projects and some of then are really cool. It's just so interesting to see the extreme creativeness...and you can tell that these engineers and executives are deeply and intellectually invested in the brand. They love it too. I, of course, own Apple stock...it's fun to watch (down today); I have high hopes for the company. That's AAPL if you want to check it out.

1. Publish frequently.

2. Have a team.

3. Offer hot news.

4. Have an attitude.

5. Be visual. 

Frequently - no problem. Have a team? Uh, no. Hot news? I'll try! Attitude - shut up! Be visual - finally an easy one. 

To view the expanded version of these tips, go to www.blogherald.com/2008/08/22/imitate-most-popular-blogs/w

Now that my blog is pretty - you can do this too by typing 'free blog backgrounds' into google, there are quite a few sites that make lovely blog backgrounds (try aquapoppy first:-) - I need some followers:-) 

Today was a typical day in Alberta where the temperature can change 15 degrees from morning til evening...I went out in a hoodie, to my first yoga class of the year, and came home needing a parka. Yoga was wonderful...I don't know why I don't fly out the door to get there - it feels so good once I'm there. I will try to reproduce the feeling when it's time to get up and go (and I'm tucked into my warm, soft, yummy bed). That's all I need...to remember that it will feel good!

Pretty Organization

I saw this pretty use of tea cups on the Martha Stewart website on April 28th 2008...I love the idea and have shared it before, but thought it worth documenting here again. Speaks to the soul much more than plastic boxes.

Yellow

In thinking about a name for my blog - a blog for myself at this point - yesterday I tried to order a passport cover on Etsy and I wanted one type of wallet, with a different fabric, and the Etsy seller wrote me back and said simply “order the wallet you like, and add ‘yellow bird’ to the comments”...so I did. That sparked an idea for  a name for this blog. I also love yellow because my little granddaughter wants to name her new baby sister, when she arrives, 'Yellow'. How sweet is that?