Rambletown

Helloooooooooooo.

Let's see....what is going on?

Things are going pretty well here. I have been having lots of epiphanies lately about all sorts of things, so I am still walking my journey of personal discovery and figuring out what I am doing and how things are now. It is still a difficult walk, but I like to think that I am handling it a little better lately than I did before. (maybe just a little?)

Today I am a month away from 30! Waaahooo! I got some exciting news this week that my oldest friend in the whole wide world Melissa will be coming to town that weekend--I am so excited! I was talking to Mom yesterday about how her coming up might break the bad birthday curse that I have, and she wisely retorted "don't count your chickens..." HAH. So yeah, I need to still be realistic and not allow myself to get too excited about things, because whenever I do, there is only disappointment...

This also means that I am only a month away from my self-imposed deadline of photo scanning! When Fuzzy and I cleaned out Memaw's house in September, we brought home all of her photos--about 5 boxes worth. For the last several months, I have been casually scanning them in, with eventual hopes to make cds of photos for everyone in the family and then divvying up the physical prints. I was also planning on taking all the photos of Papaw from India and around that time to layout and publish along with his memoirs to give to Memaw for her birthday. The clock is ticking! But when you take a lifetime of photos, along with photos from another lifetime (my great grandmother's,) this project takes forever! So I need to just knuckle down and DO it. Even if it means limiting social interaction. It will be worth it in the end.

I think that is a good goal for 2009--this will be the Year To Finish Projects. Team Gerdes is full of unfinished projects, but as Steve brilliantly stated: That means we have a lot of started projects, which is a creative blessing. But when you don't finish them--they weigh on your mind and shoulders. So--I am determined we will finish a lot this year! Projects include: editing countless hours of video footage for Blewt and for personal, transferring VHS tapes to DVD or computer hard drive, framing the unframed art, sorting cds, sorting dvds, purging, among others.

Yesterday was so pretty, and it was a great day. For all my Southern readers, today it is a high of the 20s. COME ON SPRING!

Fuzzy asked me to post my comments on the movie Sita Sings the Blues. I enjoyed the movie, but found the multiple styles and segments to be a little disjointed. My favorite part was the narrated telling of the story with the papercut style gods and goddesses--it was a perfect mix of humor and education. It was very enthralling. I didn't know that the modern story line was her personal story line, but I didn't think it was neccessary. The intermission and "dance numbers" felt like filler. The Betty Boob style animation with the Annette Hanshaw songs was cute, but it didn't flow for me, and in my opinion, it wasn't worth the heartache that it is putting filmmaker Nina Paley through. (I realize that last statement is harsh--why do any of us create art? I understand why it is there and her love of this, but as a viewer, it didn't do much for me and the songs were so out of the element of the Indian style that story line contained.) In short, I think that the movie could be chopped down to just be the narration segments and you would have a 45 minute really interesting really educational film, one that could even be shown in schools. But that is just my opinion.

In other news, I chopped all my hair off and I love it.

I will end this post with a shout-out to my brother: You have less than 2 months to go! You can do it! You are the most brilliant person I know and I have no doubt you can make it and will come out on top. Go Christopher! Show that grad school who's boss!

xoxo