Election Time Again

I really don't want to get into politics on my "writing" blog, so I'll refrain lest my head explode like a watermelon being hit by a fast ball. But I must post the link to a video below, because it's hysterical. It's SNL actresses Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton.

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnRUKIMegn8

My newest article in Mountain Traditions magazine

Hey there, fine folks.

My most recent article is currently appearing in the Summer Issue of Mountain Traditions magazine. It features the Kanuga Watercolor/Watermedia Workshops, a gathering of painters and painting instructors held over the Spring at the Kangua Conference Center near Hendersonville, N.C.

If you're interested in reading it, go to:

www.blueridgenow.com
Scroll down to "Special Sections," at the bottom left side of the page.
Click on "Mountain Traditions," or on the magazine cover photo of white goats.
The magazine itself will appear, and you can flip through it online.
My article, "Brush Strokes," begins on p. 62.

Hope you enjoy!

On This Day in 1920...

Women FINALLY won the right to vote!

Today is the anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which on August 26, 1920 granted women the right to vote. It had been a battle waging for over 100 years, led by brave, strong, resilient women to whom we owe so much.

On this day 88 years ago, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify. A Nashvillian named Harry Burn (the youngest member of the TN legislature) broke the tie with a "yea" vote for women. The legislators had come decked out in their colors: the Suffragists wore yellow roses, the Anti-Suffragists red. Well, Harry came wearing red, but voted in opposition to the color because of a telegram he had tucked in his suit pocket--one from his MOTHER, urging him to back the women.

If you're interested, the full article is here: http://www.blueshoenashville.com/suffragehistory.html

Some of the arguments against women's suffrage included:
- Women are emotional creatures, incapable of making sound political decisions.
- If women become involved in politics, they will stop marrying and having children, and the human race will die out.
- Most women do not want the vote.
- Women are already represented by their husbands.
- Women are too "precious and innocent" to become embroiled in public life.
- The physcial nature of women "unfits them for direct competition with men."

Last night Michelle Obama thanked Hilary Clinton for putting "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling." Well, she is certainly only one of many, including all our mothers, aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and more. Hopefully we've all had a woman in our lives who urged us to speak with our own unique voice, to know without a doubt that the whole of our worth is most definitely NOT determined by our sex.

We've come along way, baby--but we've still got a long way to go. Currently, women earn only 76 or 77 cents to the man's dollar, for the same job. Equal work for equal pay is a dream that still has yet to be realized.

Rock on, sisters.

* Photos borrowed from www.womenshistory.about.com.

Backpacking in the Shining Rock Wilderness

Spent a glorious overnight with my fabulous friend Liddell, and dog Scout, in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area of western North Carolina--a pristine lay of mountainous land accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We hiked out from the Black Balsalm parking "lot" on Saturday morning, and headed 6 miles or more into Shining Rock, where we found a beaut of a campsite in an enchanted glen. We ate mac-in-cheese, woke to chill and mist, played on huge blocks of white quartzite, and had a great time. We hiked back out on Sunday, ran into a group of High Rocks Fall campers with an old friend of ours as their guide, and headed home in different directions. Scout and I spent Sunday on the same couch, sore and happy.

As Liddell likes to say, "We are good at life. We are definitely winning."

Bon Voyage Dunlaps!

Over the weekend we were in Athens, GA to celebrate some of our best friends: Rudy & Danielle Dunlap. Rudy has just completed his PhD and is now a "Doctor of Leisure," who will soon be professing at Texas A&M. Danielle, who's been busting her tail for years so the Rudeman could pursue this goal, has now been released--as her family calls it--from "indentured servitude." GOOOOO Dunlaps! We are so proud!

We wish them the best in their new home in College Station, Texas! Look for the Dodfords to visit in 2009!

Elusive, Irrepressible Summer...

Ah, summer: a time when--if you're like us and without air conditioning--you sleep on top of cool sheets, the fan blowing at full speed; thunderstorms rumble from afar in the late afternoon; and life seems to quicken and slow, all at the same time.

I thought I'd include some summertime quotes for your reading enjoyment. The photos here are from a wonderful week at the Lawdy Mercy beachhouse, with wonderful friends and family.

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."
~ Ada Louise Huxtable

"The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me."
~ James Russell Lowell

"The Summer looks out from her brazen tower,
Through the flashing bars of July."
~ Francis Thompson

"The summer night is like a perfection of thought."
~ Wallace Stevens

"Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood."
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."
~ Jane Austen

"Oh, the summer night
Has a smile of light
And she sits on a sapphire throne."
~ Barry Cornwall

Update on the Crawdod/Dodford Life

A couple of big events have occurred over the past couple of weeks: I surprised Stuart for his 40th birthday with a trip to Savannah, and to a Victorian Inn on Tybee Island. We had a lovely trip, and I've added some photos.

Yesterday Stu-baby and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. We celebrated with Jet's Pizza, time in our backyard, and a West Wing DVD watched on our laptop, since our DVD player hit the skids a few weeks ago. We are AWESOME.

I hope all your summers are full of lightening bug nights, cold drinks, good friends, bare feet, and long, easy sighs.