Love Notes

How do you use a keyboard to type the sound of a long slow exhale breath, like an extended sigh?  In yoga they call it ocean's breath.   Take a deep breath in, and with your lips closed, exhale slowly, audibly, and deeply.  It sounds a little like an ocean wave.   You can try it right now - it's ok, no one is listening and no one cares if you do weird stuff like that nowadays anyway.  Read more

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Oh Lana you are looking oh so fine.  I secretly want to spend an entire afternoon just hanging about in that big pink clam shell, lazing idly among all those pillows.   How about we throw in a good summer read and a bag of Cape Cod Waves potato chips while we're at it.   Ah ... what a perfect lazy summer day that would be. 

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Lucky me got to spend several nights over the last two weeks in both Charlottesville and Middleburg.   The Virginia countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, and I urge you all to consider it for your next domestic mini getaway.    Delicious food (and wine), inspiring gardens, and some of our country's finest farms await your visit.

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My husband suggested the title for this week's note, "Paean to the Peony".   "No one will know what that means", I said, not pointing out that no one included me.   Sigh.   I looked it up and learned:   paean: "a song of praise or triumph".    Well Lordy me, that's just what I had written.  Let's sing it out to the rafters!  

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What is it about the combination of lilac and green that soothes and brightens all at once?   Maybe the design scheme still seems a bit of a surprise, as opposed to say, a room decked out in soft turquoise and white, one which we all know and would happily move into tomorrow.   Or perhaps there's something wired within our brainstem - the part that knows without thinking - that recognizes the beguiling interplay of lilac and green as two of Mother Nature's favorite bedfellows. 

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