I have, more than once on this trip, been rendered speechless and absolutely awestruck by beauty--and for that San Francisco, I thank you.

San Francisco!!! (Part Two)

San Francisco (and the surrounding area) is beautiful.

My first few hours in the city were a wonderful reminder of that. To start, the architecture is full of wonderful surprises, wherever you look. It says something about the people that they put so much pride and creativity into their homes and buildings.

Some people visiting San Francisco will make a special trip to Alamo Square to visit the famous Painted Ladies.  But I find 'painted ladies' in every neighborhood I visit.

And the natural beauty here is breathtaking.

The last time I was here, was about 10 years ago. I remember finding a spot in Golden Gate Park where about a dozen humming birds were feeding. I spent all day trying to get a picture, but my camera (and my photography skills) weren't up to the challenge. This time it was easier. This little guy lives in the back yard of the house where I'm staying.

San Francisco is definitely  eye candy, whether you're looking up

or down.

Next post...I go out to sea, Whale Watching!

San Francisco!!! (Part One)

On Friday the 13th, I flew out on my first vacation in two years. I'm out here tagging along. My sister is out here for a wedding and rented an apartment. I'm hanging out here and will be headed out to Berkley for a weekend to visit a friend for a few days before I go.

For me, vacation doesn't start till I am on the plane. I am a home-body by nature. Getting me to leave my home, my cats, my routine--even when it's all work and little play--generally involves a lot of angst and a crow bar.

I travel best with my husband, but this year, he's home. He's staffing an Instructor Development Course (it's a SCUBA thing) and taking care of our pride of cats, two of which are currently on medication.

But as I said, vacation starts when I get on the plane. So I will start there.

There's one thing I've wanted to do on a plane for quite a while--that is to watch Airplane!  It's an odd goal, but ever since I found out, via the director's cut, that the movie was only shown as the in-flight movie on one flight, I've wanted to view it on a plane.  So I rented it via iTunes before I left and there I was.

I'm so glad I did it. Travel in economy class is less than fun. It's cramped, cramped, and did I mention cramped? But watching Robert Hays buy his ticket "one way, no luggage" and being reminded why it's a bad day to give up smoking/ stop drinking/ quit sniffing glue really made laugh. And the guy next to me kept sneaking peaks at my laptop while the movie played, which was funny in itself.

The other thing I like to do when I fly is take pictures. I am fascinated by what we can see from planes, the landscape, the textures, the colors.  Paul got me a new camera for our anniversary and where I usually shoot a few pictures from the plane, thanks to the wonders of digital photography, I took over 400. I don't expect all of the pictures to be interesting to someone else, but here's a selection to show what catches my eye.

I never get tired of looking at the clouds.

I love how farmland looks like a patchwork quilt.

Round crop plots fascinate me.

I love that I saw so many wind farms. It made me very happy.

The textures of the natural landscape are beautiful.

I find it amazing that I can see a mountain range from the sky.

California!
This is what I saw when the pilot announced we were 100 miles from our destination.

The weary traveler has landed.

My first glimpse of the hills of San Francisco

More to come! Stay tuned for music, food, whales, rain forests, and birds--and I'm only here four days so far!

In the mean time, check out what I'm up to on my Facebook feed in the margin, or skip to the chase and become a fan!

About Last Weekend: Rescue Diving, Balloons and Tie-Dying

So here is my catch up post.

Last The weekend of Aug. 8-9 was amazing! For one, I finally did my dives for my Rescue Diver cert.  Special thanks to Chris Muller for playing the 'distressed diver' for me. I failed to rescue him several times and when I finally did rescue him, well I hauled him out of the water and dropped him on a pointy rock. Luckily he wasn't hurt and the exercise is as much about learning strategies and our own limits as it is about succeeding in the rescue.

After the dive, Paul and I went for dinner and after that, we took an unexpected detour. When we left the restaurant, Paul spotted a hot air balloon. So we gave chase.

We tracked it for several miles, eventually it passed over us, and came to settle in an athletic field--but not before we had the pleasure of witnessing some impressive, precision flying as the pilot guided the balloon through the goal posts.

All this was followed by the smoothest landing we've ever seen.

If you're curious, we spoke to the pilot after and he gave us his card:

American Balloon

And finally, tie-dye.

The next day, my niece had a tie-dye birthday party. Everyone was issued a white t-shirt when they arrived. On a table was a few boxes of rubber bands. Gloves, buckets of dye and fixer (I think it was vinegar) waited outside. (My sister did a great job getting all this planned.)

Anyway, I had never tried it before and was excited to try my hand at it. Paul picked up a couple of adult sized Ts for me so I could try. I close with the results.

Busy Weekend and Busy Week

I am up to my ears this week but I wanted to at least post a preview of some of the things I plan on writing about.

This weekend was a very full one. Paul and I got started on a few projects we've been talking about for a long time. One was to get me through my dives for Rescue Diver.

Now I'm contemplating going for Dive Master, a professional rating, over the course of this coming year. I am also thinking about getting trained as an EMT--if it fits into my teaching schedule for this year.

Saturday afternoon, on the way home from diving, we found ourselves on a spontaneous balloon hunt.

And then Sunday, at a party celebrating my niece's birthday, I tried my hand at tie-dying for the first time.

This week I am preparing for a trip. This means packing and planning and an a 2 hour activity that I call disarming my purse. (So many things you're not allowed to carry any more!)

And once again, I am posting well after midnight. So off to bed with me. More to come when I can catch my breath!

I Love a Diner

This week found us back in south Jersey to see Rich again. Paul and Rich went for a quick dive in Barnegat Lake and we ended the evening in this diner.

I love diners. They are the staples of dining out for me.  I love that you can get anything at any time of day and when it comes to the older, classic diners, I love the decor.

The Forked River Diner is one of those classic diners. Outside, it's clad in the prerequisite chrome. Inside, mirrors, chrome, teal vinyl, booths and bar stools complete the picture.

We arrived a little before closing on a weeknight. Paul and Rich ordered breakfast and I ordered a cheeseburger deluxe. There's a relaxed familiarity with diners in general that seems to settle in once you sit down. Maybe it's the expectation of comfort food or the timelessness atmosphere.

After we ordered, we settled in to discuss the afternoon and upcoming plans. I snapped a few pictures with my phone, trying  to capture the moment without disturbing it for the handful of other diners who were also enjoying the evening.

We were last out of the diner — a first for me; the diners near us are open 24/7.  After we dropped Rich off, Paul and I headed home. The parkway flashed by in a blur.

Each Lovers the Othr. Forever…..

You can take the editor out of the office, but you can’t take the editor out of the girl.

This is a picture of one of four identical window shades at a Chinese buffet where my husband and I occasionally have dinner. Every time we eat there, I am distracted by the typos. The er that changes what I assume should be Loves to Lovers doesn’t bother me as much as the period after Othr.

That period tells me that someone saw there was a typo and decided that, rather than redo the entire silkscreen, they would just add a period as if to indicate that “other” was intentionally abbreviated.

It’s a very odd solution to the problem and one that bothers me a bit.


[Post edited to make more sense. I shouldn't blog while tired. Thanks to OWG for pointing out what I missed.]

Vacation in a Day

In a household where one person officiates weddings (and other ceremonies) and the other teaches SCUBA, summer is not the obvious time for a vacation, it’s the busy season. And often our weekends are spent apart, each tending to our own clients.

That being the case, my husband and I have developed the habit of taking little mini vacations—usually of one day.  We’ve found that it’s not the amount of time, but what you do with it that counts.

The key to it all for us is a laid back pace. If we leave with a plan, but wind up doing something else, it’s all good, as long we we’re together.

Two weeks ago we spent Sunday SCUBA diving in PA at Dutch Springs with our good friend Rich. It was great. A little bit of a busman’s holiday for Paul as Rich was finishing his qualifications to become a dive master. The last item on his agenda was guiding me through a SCUBA refresher. It was my first time in several years and I was so happy to get back to it as SCUBA diving often feels like the only time I’m not multi-tasking or headed to one appointmment or another.

It was a great day, hot, but clear. The water had warmed up. The “vis” wasn’t the greatest, about 20 feet. But we were under water and having fun. 

Between dives, Rich grilled some steaks and made roasted potatoes. We chatted, celebrating Rich’s accomplishment and my return to the water. We soaked up the sun until it got so hot that we retreated to the water for another dive. And after that, we ditched our tanks and just bobbed at the surface in our wet suits chatting for another forty minutes.  

We wrapped up the day by stopping for dinner and filling out our Dive Logs on our way home before going our separate ways.  It was a full day, and included a weekend’s worth of fun, a drive in the country, two dives, a BBQ, and dinner out. I got home feeling as if I’d been gone much longer than a day.

Yesterday was originally supposed to see us back at Dutch, but a long and very hot Saturday, each attending our separate vocations, saw Paul and I in great need of a lie in. But the beauty of the long summer days, is that you can still enjoy a nice day out, even if you don’t get out till after three.

Paul and I managed to pry ourselves out of the house at around three-thirty. We were headed “down the shore” –which is Jersey talk for "we went to the beach."

And...

I was on my way home tonight and saw this guy waiting at a bus stop. He was wearing a shirt with an ampersand on the chest.

I had to make a stop and he was there as I drove past again. I have to wonder, are other random punctuation marks roaming the streets of New Jersey?

TEA!

Getting ready for a conference call this morning,  I couldn't stop yawning. Then I realized that it was finally cool enough for tea.

It's been too hot for weeks and I have been missing my morning mug of hot caffeinated goodness. I know this respite from oppressive heat is temporary and that there is some irony in celebrating with a hot beverage.  But when the morning involves listening in on a 2.5 hour conference call--as a technical writer many of my calls are more about listening than participation--nothing else will do.

On Picking our Paths

Photo © Cristina Kollet 2008

I work from home and I like listen to presentations or music as I work. It provides a substitute for the background noise that usually comes with an office and coworkers.
Lately I’ve been listening to the TED series of talks and one speaker has really caught my attention. If you get the chance I highly recommend these two talks by Sir Ken Robinson:

• Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
• Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the Learning Revolution!

In these talks, Sir Robinson talks (among other things) about how our Education system doesn’t recognize or reward individual talents. It’s designed to crank out professors and people to fill corporate jobs. He says it needs to change…I hope it does.

Like many, after high school, I went to college. Honestly, no other options were ever presented to me. I went to college because it was expected. That’s simply what one did after high school. I have no regrets about it. I am glad I went and I know there are many who want to go, that don’t get the chance.  But I didn’t exactly enter with a clear goal and I didn’t leave feeling very prepared.

At the time, my college program required students take a major, a minor, and a mini. The areas of study were to span three disciplines to make you a well-rounded student. I majored in English Lit and read mostly Shakespeare for four years. My minor was Anthropology (my backup because they didn’t offer a minor in Archeology) and my mini was Astronomy. Years later a friend, who happens to be an educator, told me "I never understood why you did that."

Fun with My New Camera

Paul got me a new camera for our anniversary last week.

I took it out tonight to try and catch the fireworks. I should have read the manual first, but I really like the results.  Enjoy!

Happy Independence Day!

Thank a Teacher Today

This weekend is first since last October when I haven't had a class to prep for or homework to grade. This was my second year of teaching for the Celebrant Foundation and Institute. I teach three courses for the Institute:

• Fundamentals
• Ceremonies for Families and Children
• Weddings and Other Ceremonies for Couples

This year was extra busy. I taught three sections of Fundamentals. Then, in the second half of the class year, I  earned my certificate in Funerals and Other Ceremonies for Healing while teaching a section each of Families and Weddings.  

I thought that was as busy as things could get. Then I was given the opportunity to create and teach a course I had proposed to the Institute, an introduction to social media for Life-Cycle Celebrants®.  Let me tell you, it was one of the most challenging things I've ever done.

The other courses I've taught came with full curricula, all of the class materials prepared and ready.

My course was three, one and half hour sessions and I created the course myself from scratch. I taught three topics, one on each night, in a webinar format. I answered questions, but there was no homework to grade. The amount of time I put in to each course in creating and prep-word was a minimum of 10 hours.

My point?

I've always wanted to teach. And I am thrilled that I get to teach subjects that I love. Growing up, I always pictured myself as a high-school English teacher and I have many friends today who are educators. But when I looked into becoming a teacher a few years ago (I went as far as taking the PRAXIS exam) I realized that I just couldn't afford to make the change.  The pay cut I'd have to take as a teacher would my already struggling family too deep in the red.

From what I see in the news and hear from my friends it's getting harder and harder to be a teacher.  Salary cuts, layoffs, and an education system that makes teachers spend more time training kids to pass standardized test than learn to think critically aren't helping. It boggles my mind that teachers are so under appreciated. When I was a kid I couldn't understand how it was that baseball players made more than teachers. Now that I have a practical understanding of the investment of time and dedication--OUTSIDE the classroom, it absolutely astounds me.

So this is to all my teacher friends--thank you.

And to everyone--vote for people and programs to support education, ask your kids' teachers what you can do to help. It doesn't even matter if you don't have kids. We all benefit when we educate the next generation.

Gifts from my first Celebrant students.   

Every teacher should be so honored.

Updating this post to add a video I stumbled upon today.

Taylor Mali: What teachers make | Video on TED.com

The Ceremony Project

I admit a certain bias when it comes to weddings. I think the ceremony is what makes it a wedding. The cake, flowers, etc. are icing on the cake. But it's been my experience that ceremonies often get the short end of the stick when it comes to wedding planning. (Twice I've been contacted about weddings where the couple had all the details planned and then realized they forgot to plan the ceremony.)

I've wanted to write about this for a while, but I wanted to take it beyond my anecdotal evidence. Till today, I wasn't sure how to do that.

Today, I was playing with StumbleUpon and I had an idea. Take a random sampling of wedding-related sites as revealed by StumbleUpon and see what attention, if any, they give to ceremonies.

I set the StumbleUpon filter to weddings and clicked Stumble! 30 times. Each time I saved the website for review later. At a glance I have a variety of sites, wedding blogs, photographer sites, boutiques, wedding planners and more. It will be interesting to see what I find.

The results will be revealed on my Inclusive Ceremonies blog.

Observations on Creating and Teaching an Online Course

Tonight I finished teaching the very first course I developed myself. It was an introduction to Social Media geared toward my Life-Cycle Celebrant colleagues.

First, let me say I knew it would take a fair amount of effort to develop a course from scratch. Next time, however, I will take my original estimate of the time involved and multiply it by five.

From the outside, it might have appeared no big deal, teach a group to use the tools I spend a good portion of my time fooling around on. Toss in some screen shots and we're off--but there was much more to it than that.

In the last month, I've taught myself Power Point, created three slide show presentations averaging over 60 slides each and learned to conduct a webinar. (The webinars were made successful by husband Paul, who handled the organizer duties.)


In an unexpected turn of events, I also had to re-teach myself the very subjects I was going to teach my students because the two sites I was covering (Facebook and Blogger) had undergone some very noticeable changes since I first started using them.  (Two happy side effects of that were that my other blog InclusiveCermeonies got an unscheduled revamp and this blog was created.)

Over all, I am very happy with the experience. The course took place over three Wednesdays, but it dominated my June. Who would have thought I'd be glad to have only one ceremony booked this month?  My only other priority this month was our vow renewal--which was lovely.

So, from here it's back to ceremonies. This weekend I'll be writing a vow renewal for my good friend Dana and also a wedding ceremony for another couple. Both of these ceremonies will take place over the next three weeks.

For now, it's a three-day weekend. I'll be writing those ceremonies, putting together the take-away materials for my class and maybe getting some sunshine. That will be the least busy I've been for a long while.