Mommy's Running List

Hello, Blog Reader!
This is my artsy blog, which I only update occasionally.
Click here for my other blog, Mommy's Running List, which is updated more frequently.
Thanks for visiting Space Pebble Mountain!

Love Canal update

Just happened upon a very interesting, in-depth update on the chronic health problems suffered by members of families unfortunate enough to have called Love Canal "home" back in the 1970s.
Love Canal, is the neighborhood that established the EPA's Superfund list of contaminated sites in need of clean-up. In the 1920s, the site had served as a chemical dumping ground for the Hooker Chemical Company. In 1953, Hooker covered over the 20,000 tons of chemical stew including such ingredients as Benzene and Dioxin and sold the property to Niagara, N.Y., officials for $1. The city -- even though warned by Hooker of the dangers posed by the buried chemicals (the deed to the property stipulated that Hooker would not be held liable for the toxic mess) -- developed the acreage, building an elementary school around which, by the late 1970s, some 800 single-family homes and 240 low-income apartment units had sprung up.

Please do read the article. It's very interesting, stomach-turning and eye-opening.

Not interested in what's happening hundreds of miles away from home? Click here for a list of Superfund sites in Sweet Home Alabama.

My New Favorite Blog of Note

The Junkraft is making its way across the ocean to raise awareness about the plastic soup we humans are creating in Earth's waters. The above link takes you to the crew's blog which follows their journey. This link, takes you to a post describing why they're doing what they're doing.
Recently, when asked what I'd do if I were a billionaire, among my list of answers was:
Try desperately to help figure out some way to stop and clean up the Trash Vortex, also known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
That's apparently the goal of the wonderful folks aboard the Junkraft. I plan to follow their journey from here on out and I'm absolutely thrilled with the folks at Blogger for featuring the junkraft blog on their Blogs of Note page!!!!

Don't believe the plastic in our oceans is a problem? Check out this photo of the stuff found in the stomach of one dead albatross.
Or this photo of where stuff ends up when it's throw out the car window (as people around here do all the time and several high school seniors even admitted it to me earlier this year!)
Blah!
OK.
There's no list today.
I just really needed to share this. I'm so glad there are people out there, getting all yucky dirty trying to clean up our Earth. The least I can do is sit here in my nice comfy home and try to help a little by spreading the word via computer.

My OutdoorsMen

Interactive Interview

A friend and former co-worker posted this tag-game on her blog but didn't really tag anybody. She left it open at the end for anybody who reads it and just wants to go with it. I like that! I don't really like tag/chain games but since I haven't updated Space Pebble Mountain in three months, this seemed like a fun way to launch myself back into the blogosphere.

1. What was I doing ten years ago?
Going to UNA full-time while serving as editor of the school's weekly newspaper, doing freelance work writing two or three advertorials each week for the local daily paper and working third shift at an answering service.
All that busy-ness pales in comparison to motherhood. But at least motherhood is enjoyable!

2. What are five things on my list to do today?
1 - call various roofers to schedule estimate visits
2 - pay the cable bill
3 - clean out the fridge
4 - do laundry (I don't even know why I put this on my list, since it'a daily chore)
5 - go for a run

3. Snacks I enjoy:
pan-popped popcorn (not the microwave stuff)
red delicious apple slices dipped in peanut butter
Edy's Double Fudge Brownie Ice Cream
Oreos
Doritos
Pop-Tarts

4. Things I Would Do If I Were A Billionaire?
1 - Set up trusts for my deserving friends and family to be provided for for the rest of their lives
2 - Buy massive amounts of undeveloped land that would otherwise be purchased by some greedy developer
3 - Help the homeless, hungry and otherwise downtrodden
4 - Try desperately to help figure out some way to stop and clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch


5. Three of my bad habits?
1 - I drink way too much coffee.
2 - I pick at/nibble my fingernails.
3 - Procrastination.

6. Five places I have lived?
1 - Fountain Run, Kentucky
2 - Manchester, Tennessee
3 - Fayetteville, North Carolina
4 - Fayetteville, Tennessee
5 - The Dismals Canyon in Phil Campbell, Alabama

7. Five jobs I’ve had?
1 - Newspaper Reporter for The News Courier
2 - Recycling Coordinator for Keep Athens-Limestone Beautiful
3 - part-time DJ at a country radio station (WXFL Kix-96)
4 - Assistant Director for a large (we were licensed for 173 children) Child Care Center
5 - Attendent at The Dismals Canyon in Phil Campbell, Alabama

8. How did you name your blog?
Check out a previous post,How This Mountain Did Arise, for this answer.


The rules of the game: Each player answers the questions about themselves in their post. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

I'm gonna tag some folks, but they only hafta play if it really strikes their fancy to do so! No pressure!
Here we go: Rebekah, AZ, Michael, Tim, Laura, Stephanie, Sam, Gretta, Kim, Marty, Barry.

Spring Flowers on a Saturday Afternoon

I should've know better

Yesterday's supposed SBC declaration was by a seminary student and while, signed by a handful of Big Dogs, is not endorsed by the Southern Baptist Convention. Here's a really, really long article from the SBC website:

and here's the stance they took (and stand by still) in June 2007

On a positive note, while last year's stance is not quite as environmentally promising as I personally might like, it does contain the following resolution:

RESOLVED, That we continually reaffirm our God-given responsibility to care for the earth by remaining environmentally conscious and taking individual and collective efforts to reduce pollution, decrease waste, and improve the environment in tangible and effective ways.

A Green-Letter Day

Both the Vatican and the Southern Baptist Convention are now admitting an awareness that Earth matters!
This New York Times article details the Southern Baptists' about face from a previous stance that was somewhat indifferent on environmental issues
and this
Yahoo!Green article details the Vatican's update on sinful practices (environmental treachery now qualifies, it seems!).
WooHoo!
It's a real "Green-Letter Day" for all us tried-and-true "environmental wackos!"

Three Cats Napping

My two 13-year-old cats' current favorite napping place is a barstool in my kitchen.
The other day, much to my surprise, I found them curled up along with the wooden doorstop cat that usually stands guard in my living room.
My sweet little old rascally boy (not yet two years old) thought it made perfect sense, I guess, for doorstop kitty to cuddle up with Max & Janie.

I found a Space Pebble in my library book

So, I was at the library the other day and I chose a book because it had the word "moon" in the title.
Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen.
My sweet little old rascally boy absolutely loves the moon and stars so even though the book was for me to read to myself (and not to him) the title caught my eye.
That evening, with my boy settled in his crib snoozing and my husband settled on the couch watching TV, I settled myself at the kitchen counter with a heaping bowl of Grape Nuts cereal and blueberry yogurt and I began to read Keeping the Moon.
Munch, munch, read.
Read, read, munch.
Suddenly, I stopped mid-sentence & mid-munch.
I'm on page 7 and Colie, the coming-of-age teenager in Keeping the Moon, is eating Grape Nuts & yogurt!

Whoa!
Wow!
Huh?

Maybe it isn't so bizarre as it seemed to me at the time. But, come on, I've never heard of this author, never heard of this book which I picked from the shelf for no other reason than the word "moon" in the title and then as soon as I start to read it I'm eating the very same somewhat odd-ball, health-freak food as the book's main character?
Yes, yes, it is bizarre, too.
But also pretty cool.
And Keeping the Moon turned out to be one of the best reads I've had in quite a while, by the way.

That's bull

Two years from now, this herd may or may not be relocated. A new elementary school is slated for construction here but an alternate site is also under consideration. I don't think these guys really care, though, as long as they've got grass & hay to eat, a full water trough and plenty of room to roam and drop piles o poop.

The sunset stands alone

Though I'm writing a few words here, the brilliance of the setting sun composes its own poem ... at least it does for those able to look into the sky and quietly allow the unspoken beauty to etch an imprint on their souls.
In the early and mid-1990s I worked at a child care center that had a bank of windows all along the front of the building allowing for a wide-open and clear view of the setting sun each day. Whenever the sky offered a particularly spectacular display, I would point it out to the children who would always be duly impressed. Their parents, however, upon arrival to fetch their offspring, had never noticed the beautiful gift set before them as they drove to the center and most -- if given a "heads up" to the setting sun by a child or myself -- didn't care to pause even for the briefest moment to absorb the healing power of nature's wonder.
It baffled me then and it still does...that so few appreciate such a wondrous (and free) display.


Limestone County -- my favorite spot to view the sunset at Holt-Springer & Ezell roads.

Lauderdale County -- right at the spot where the Elk River meets the Tennesse.

Athens -- above the houses right across the street from my house. I took this one from my front porch just before rocking my toddler to sleep. He likes to reach his little hand up and say "kye!"

Limestone County -- Davis Road, where I grew up.

Ditto.

How this mountain did arise

Space Pebble Mountain.
What a flaky title, huh?
Well, yeah, kinda. Unless you know the backstory.
Having that info will make it seem even more flaky for some.
There are others, though, who will get it...who might even dredge from their own memories some place(s), some thing(s), some tiny wedge(s) in time - their very own Space Pebble Moment(s).

We were a motley crew in our late teens with our lives stretched promising before us.
We could do anything. We could be anybody.
Someday.
Someday.
Some Day.

We often gathered on the river's edge at a spot of which very few were aware.
We dreamed.
We planned.
We imagined all the wonderful somedays to come.

Each moment, each new epiphany, we held in our hands for just a moment, like a magical, mystical pebble snatched clean and fresh from space. We imagined our space pebbles piling up just below our bluff until they created an island rising up from the water.

We dubbed our imaginary island of youthful inspiration Space Pebble Mountain.

Twenty years have gone by since then and most of us have settled into lives of quiet conformity.

Sometimes, though, I still remember exactly how it felt; the awesome wonder inherent in the youthful imaginings of what lies ahead on life's long road.

Somehow, though, for most people, this wonder, this freedom gets swallowed up in adulthood; lost under the weight of real-world responsibilities.

So here I am, indulging my mind with memories piled high as Space Pebble Mountain.

Lately, as I rush about from here to there, caring for my family, shopping, cooking, cleaning, working, I've begun allowing myself to slow down...to see the space pebbles all around me still...that beautiful sunset, that tangle of tree branches against those dramatic twilight clouds, that tenacious clump of grass emerging from that meandering crack in the sidewalk, and so on.

And you know what?
I've discovered that I'm still just as free as I was back then.

My spirited, happy, creative inner 19 still exists even if my driver's license does say I'll soon be physically 40.

It's not about the trappings of adulthood.
It's about whether you get lost in those trappings and thus lose the ability to appreciate the beautiful things in life.
From the obvious beauty of a spectacular sunset to much more subtle beauties like the pride in a toddler's voice when he announces he's done his "bi-niss" (um, can we say "time to potty train?") every day I'm finding wondrous new space pebbles all around.

Yesterday...

Yesterday, the sky spent the day in a threatening smash of gray on gray.

But here

was a bright red leaf
that didn't care a lick about the gray skies or the
threat of rain to come.