After finishing my digital collage card for the week, I thought the subject was important enough to make it a soulcollage card, too.

The Blogger - Committee Suit
I am the One who spins a network of discussions and friendships out of written words, chosen thoughtfully and posted digitally. I use my words to reflect upon my life, obsessions, annoyances, loves, and family and thus spark conversations that open my heart to the world. I follow the principle: I told no lies and of the truth all I could.



I had the idea early on of framing the card with some of my key icons. I finished it up pretty quickly, and then about a half-hour later went back and added some of my most frequently used tag phrases.

where we had a simply splendiforous time. The girls were extremely satisfied and we count it as an entirely successful vacation.

Infinitus was held at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. I moderated the luncheon panel on Friday, about fanfiction. I was able to relax and enjoy the conference more once that obligation was over. The panelists all seemed to think it went quite well. There were papers delivered about the books, but a large part of the draw, of course, was the newly opened park. On Friday night, there was a special event held privately for about 1500 of the conference attendees who were fortunate enough to score tickets: a private party, just for us, held in Hogsmeade, between 10:00 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. (well, actually about 2:00 a.m., when they turned out all the lights in order to convince us to go home). We went through the shops and did the tour of the castle, which culminated in the signature ride: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The queue for the line snaked through the castle itself, which was great fun: you got to see Dumbledore's office, the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, the Mirror of Erised, the Gryffindor Common Room, etc. There were amazingly convincing moving talking portraits on the walls, occasionally squabbling with each other. It was just so much fun, and then the ride was worth the wait. You actually felt as if you were really flying!

Fiona and I went on the ride that night, but Delia and Rob didn't get a chance to do so before they shut down for the night. At the end of the evening, we got into a conversation with the Sales Manager for Orlando, who was in charge of keeping our group happy. She offered to take my family on a private VIP tour of the park the next day (!!!!).

So the next day, Saturday, that's what she did. She couldn't have been nicer. The daytime crowds were much bigger, but with her accompanying us, we simply walked to the head of all the lines. She gave us her employee discount in all the shops, too, so we happily explored Honeydukes and Zonko's, and each bought souvenirs to take away with us. We had lunch in the Three Broomsticks. She gave us complimentary Chocolate Frogs when she dropped us off at the hotel again. It was a truly incredible day.

Besides the papers at the conference, there were Wizard Rock performances, and the video premiere of A Very Potter Sequel. Which was hilarious! Fiona and I also saw the musical performance of The Final Battle, which was composed by Lena Gabrielle of The Butterbeer Experience.

The girls had a great time in the vendors room. They'd been saving for awhile, and we gave them some money, too. Fiona finally settled on her house--she's a Slytherin--and got a set of robes. Both girls got posters for A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel and got the cast to sign them. Fiona also got a wand (Sirius Black's, very striking). Delia's wand was sold out in the park (she wanted the Elder wand) but she plans to get it later.

It was wonderful to see so many friends at the conference. The girls, of course, had people greeting them everywhere, as they were recognized from my Livejournal. A real highlight of the week was finally meeting aome for the first time.

Sadly, we had to leave eventually. We drove back to Minneapolis, stopping to do college visits at Beloit College, Lawrence University and Eau Claire University (of Wisconsin) along the way.

I have to go back to work tomorrow. Wah.

Best. Vacation. Evah. Sincere thanks to HPEF, which did so much to enable our family to go.

Read this. vichan says:

LiveJournal has done something stupid again.

Let me rephrase that: LiveJournal has done something REALLY f*ing stupid.

Links to about 150 e-commerce sites that users post to their LiveJournals are being redirected through a 3rd party website. These redirected links also open in a new window.

Among other things, this redirection strips any existing affiliate links and inserts a different affiliate link.

I first heard about this from my sister. At first, I wasn't having the problem she was talking about, but I poked around some more and finally figured out how to get it to happen on my end. If I click on this link: GlutenFreeBay.com (a website containing gluten free recipes) while logged out of LiveJournal, the link pops up in a new window and doesn't appear to be gluten free recipes at all. Instead, it takes me to eBay.

These links are being directed through something called "outboundclick.net." From what people have been able to deduce, this redirection is triggered by certain keywords in the URL such as "buy" and "free."

This is a huge, huge problem, LJ. It's sneaky, it's dishonest, and it's a violation of our privacy.

Why else is this a problem? It is potentially stealing revenue from LJ users.

I don't have the tech knowledge to evaluate this first hand, but it sounds bad. Read more here, with links with further information and information on how to use the admin console to opt out.

Update: jimhines says: See Kyle Cassidy's update at http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/585577.html

Sounds like LJ is pulling the code, if they haven't done so already.

I was reading my friends list and ran across an entry by lollardfish, talking about his adorable son Nico. In the comments, gerisullivan mentioned in passing that she was eating some pumpkin ice cream. When lollardfish lamented his lack of pumpkin ice cream, I was suddenly overcome by an irresistible urge. So I went downstairs, dished up some vanilla ice cream, microwaved it for ten seconds, opened a can of pumpkin and threw a 1/4 cup on top of the ice cream and mixed it all together. I'd never done such a thing before, but it was so ravishingly delicious that I went down and fixed myself second bowl. Uh, because I need more vitamin A, right?

I find it funny that a passing comment from a woman in Massachusetts would set off a food craving for me here in Minnesota.

Tell me about an instance where something you've read on LiveJournal influenced you to do something, maybe something you've never tried before. Big or small--whatever. I know some of you started the 100 pushups program because you read about it here. What else?

I went to work today, but I was really quite distracted. I'm certainly better than I was Tuesday, but I struggled throughout the afternoon with coughing jags, and I continually popped cough drops and sucked down cup after cup of tea. I kept calling home to check on how Delia was doing (better, thank you, although she's still coping with neck and shoulder pain), and to talk with Rob about logistics and insurance matters. I called my parents and sisters, and I called Kij. At a certain particularly low point this afternoon, I sat at my desk and cried into my hands, hoping that no one would walk by and ask me what was going on. Fortunately, no one did.

When work was over, I rode my bike home, and came upstairs and checked my email. There, I found a message from madlori that ABSOLUTELY BLEW ME AWAY.

*stunned disbelief*

Friends list, how can I possibly thank you enough for your kindness and generosity? Since I learned of the drive that madlori organized to raise money for me and my family, I've been struggling with how to precisely articulate how unbelievably touched and overwhelmed I feel. Me, a writer, at an absolute loss for words! But I realized eventually that I could never hope to find words perfect enough to possibly be worthy of the gift you have given us. But you know, that's okay, because it's a gift beyond anything I deserve, no matter what I've done, no matter how well you think I write, and how much you love reading the stories I've crafted about my life and my family. When life strikes you as hard as our family's misfortunes have been hitting me, the only way to get through it is by grace. I have always valued you, you know that, and I've often told you that I consider you my posse, watching out for my back. Tonight, I sit here with tears in my eyes and humbly say that you are more than that. You are grace to me, both secular and divine, however you understand it. In this, the most terrible year I've had for a long time, I am so grateful to have found in you a grace to help give me the courage I so desperately need to get me through these trials. I will remember it and hang on to it, no matter what is still to come.

The girls thank you, Rob thanks you, and I thank you, from the bottom of all our hearts.

Blessings and kisses,

Love,
Peg

Maybe my life is a living example of what she's talking about here.

It's funny.

But I wince.

I got this meme from minnehaha:

Comment on this post. I will choose seven userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

Here were the icons minnihaha K. asked me about:

This is from the movie Sense and Sensibility (of the Jane Austen novel of the same name) and it pictures the actress Emma Thompson in the part of Elinor Dashwood. Throughout the book (and movie) the reserved Elinor ("Sense") stands in contrast to her sister, the romantic passionate Marianne ("Sensibility"). At the course of the novel, Marianne, who has always rather looked down upon Elinor for what she terms her coldness, learns that Elinor feels just as passionately as Marianne herself, except that she (unlike Marianne) exercises discipline over her emotions for a variety of reasons: because it is more honorable, more temperate, and because she does not wish to give her family and friends pain when she herself is hurting. My emotions have always been a difficult part of my own character to manage, and much of the process of my maturation has been learning how to handle them appropriately. I have adopted what I call my "Elinor Dashwood" mode (and I use this icon) to describe those times when my emotions may be tumultuous and painful, but I do not feel it is appropriate to make a parade of them, or to speak directly in my LiveJournal of what is bothering me. See this entry where I began the metaphor, and all of my entries tagged "Elinor Dashwood" here.

and Both of these icons (as well as my default icon) are representations of what I have come to call the Holy Tree. I first became aware of the term by reading Tolkien: he loved trees dearly, and they became central to his mythology, as depicted in The Silmarillion. (In the first manifestation of the world, there was no sunlight or moonlight. Instead, there were the Two Holy Trees, Telperion and Laurelin, from which shone golden and silvery light.) This idea has mingled in my imagination with my favorite poem of all, Yeat's The Two Trees. (I was introduced to it by Loreena McKennitt, who sang it as a song on her album The Mask and the Mirror.) The poet speaks of a magical tree which grows within the human heart, and contrasts that with a false vision of a blasted, barren tree, which may be seen when demons hold up their bitter glass (a mirror). To me, this poem is about one of the central struggles of my life, and it words it so beautifully. I am too apt to believe the demons who hold up the bitter glass, and show me a vision of a blasted and barren tree. I have been trying to see more clearly the holy tree, which the poet assures me grows within my own heart. The song is also a damn good description of cognitive therapy, one of the best I've ever read. When depression gets its claws into me, my tormentors are, indeed, the "ravens of unresting thought," who shake their ragged wings, alas. The key, the poet says, is to turn the eyes away from the bitter glass, with its false vision of the blasted tree, back to the holy tree within the heart. The first tree icon, highly stylized, I posted because I was considering it as a possible tattoo (it was on the cover of a devotional booklet distributed by my church). I still love the design, but I know it would have to be simplified and I am not sure I will ever do it (the idea of my getting a tattoo does horrify some members of my family). The second tree icon was taken from a watercolor done by Tolkien himself, picturing the Mallorn trees of the Golden Wood (from The Fellowship of the Ring).

This candle is an evocation of another important concept from Tolkien: A light in dark places, when all other lights go out. (This is a reference to the Vial of Galadriel, which was a source of light to Frodo in the cave where he encountered the spider Shelob. I use this icon when the depression seems to be waxing and the Light seems to be waning. I use it to remind myself that there is still light there, and I need to remember and draw courage from that.

This is a line from Pride and Prejudice, something said by the insufferable, bossy Lady Catherine DeBourgh. I swiped it from www.pemberley.com. I thought it might be good to use when I wanted to comment on other people's journals, although since I swiped it without permission I feel guilty about having it and so I haven't used it that often. It was actually these Pemberley icons that gave me the idea of creating my Tolkien icons.

This is a picture of the ice palace in St. Paul, taken from the air, at night. I was trying to write a fantasy novel, where the central character was the architect designing it. Unfortunately, I lost my way, and the book has been abandoned for now.

I just realized that this journal recently received its 30,000th comment.

My, you people are loquacious.

I have no idea what this means, but apparently my LiveJournal weirdness quotient is very low. My writing style is "simplistic," which I find mildly insulting. ( Clicky here for details )

I just realized: my guestbook link at the top of my journal disappeared. Where did it go and how do I get it back? (I am afraid I can't remember how I set the darn thing up in the first place, but I remember that it was a hassle to figure out how to do it.) Can anyone more tech-savvy than me answer this? (Er, legomymalfoy? Bueller? Anyone???)