Loose Leaf Notes

My blog is 7 months old! In honor of my 200th entry, which actually happened when we were in Colorado, I’ve picked out some past excerpts to post:
Shortest Post: In My Own Handwriting ~ Found on a scrap of paper this morning and in my own handwriting: “If no one is going to quote me, I’ll quote myself.” Is that a quote?
Post with a swear word in it: Ani in the Rain ~ …She played for an hour before saying to the crowd, “Oh shit, here we go, huh?” in reference to the rain that was soon to downpour, eliciting this from Ani, “What have we here? Whoooo!” And after describing the crowd as a light sculpture of changing colors that she was enjoying, she said, with a playful laugh, “And now you’re fixin to get wet… which would be very sexy.”
Post that got the most comments: Women Making a Difference (33) ~ …As I listened to her talk and watched her face morph into those of our various relatives, I got shivers up and down my arms, feeling like we were 2 long lost twins re-united and comparing notes. Not only did we talk about our families, attachment parenting, and the current Cesarean rates, we also talked about the possibility of an afterlife and messages we feel that we’ve received from our passed on loved-ones. She doesn’t like driving in cities. She gets shivers easily too. “Oh, one of those big softy-heart Redmans, I see,” I said to myself. Exploring and discussing the deeper aspects of life is also a Redman forte.
Post that made readers cry: Danny’s Shoes ~ …When Danny was almost four years old, he went to Florida with our grandparents for the summer, but they ending up keeping him for a whole year. A year might as well be a lifetime in the mind of a child, in the minds of children. I was five and was rummaging through the room that Dan and Jim shared when I found a pair of Danny’s shoes in the closet. They were a 1950’s style, brown with white in the center. Finding them was an abrupt reminder of the brother I used to have, the one I had forgotten about, the one I wanted back! I carried those shoes around with me all day while I cried inconsolably. I wanted my parents to witness my anguish, so they would get my brother back home for me…
Post that got published: Common Ground ~ …Abuse of power thrives in silence and silence is often obtained through fear. Name calling is one of the easiest ways to instill fear and stifle dissent. It can temporarily stop debate – debate that might be uncomfortable, but could also lead to understanding and change. But it doesn’t stop problems. In fact, without a constructive forum for dissent, resentments go underground, where they are fueled and can then cause existing problems to be magnified…
Post that I read on WVTF Public Radio: Let Me Clue You In About My Father ~ In a family photograph of my father, taken in Germany at the end of WWII, he’s standing in his army uniform holding a blonde German child in his arms. Her hair is parted down the middle, pulled tightly into two braids. She looks happy. When I was a little girl, I formed an opinion about that photograph. Regardless of the fact that I hadn’t been born when it was taken, I wondered why he was holding her when he should have been holding me…or one of my brothers or sisters at least. We all agreed that my dad was handsome and looked like Elvis Presley back then…
Most Romantic Post: I Met Him at the Laundry Mat ~ … Besides what obviously attracts 2 people who later get married, Joe maintains the two things that initially impressed him most about me were my enthusiasm for those foraged apples and the big pot of lentil soup I had on the stove the first time he came to my house…
Recent Visits to Loose Leaf from Exotic Places ~ Iceland; Riga, Latvia; Praha Hlavni Mesto, Prague, Czech Republic; Tomsk, Russian Federation; Sana, Sanaa, Yemen; Serbia; Canary Islands, Bahrain.