Steinbeck

East of Eden is one of my favorite books of all time. Steinbeck is a genius in both his writing and advice giving... case in point. This letter written from Steinbeck to his son  is sailing around the blog world, but I loved it so much I just had to share....

New York
November 10, 1958


Dear Thom:


We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.


First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.


Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.


You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.


But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.


Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.


The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.


If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.


Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.


It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.


Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.


We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.


And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.


Love,


Fa

from this book

learned about via this and this blog

photo via the NYPL

Happy Valentine's Day

True.


Picture taken at The Lennon Wall in Prague, Czech Republic

carrotcakelove

In Germany you are expected to host a brunch / bring a cake into work on your big day.  A birthday celebration here has pretty much the opposite guest/host dynamic of a birthday celebration in the US; if you don't plan on picking up the check be careful about asking people out for your birthday.

This summer I doubled this great recipe from Whole Foods for carrot cake and for goodness knows what - ambitious? crazy? naive? - reason decided to triple it this time. In cake making, apparently, three is way more than two; each layer took over 1.5 hours to bake. It was an emotional ride. Thankfully it is uber tasty... super moist and chunky.

We love carrot cake so much we had a carrot wedding cake (with lots of delicious cream cheese frosting - see below yummmy terror).

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the best husband a girl could ask for.

Nagger v. Naggee

This Wall Street Journal article hit a sore note in our household last night...

While I have always been the type to organize my time and prepare days/weeks ahead, my husband is a procrastinator, last minute, pressure needing type. Although we tend to balance one another out well, sometimes our personality timelines crash and our communication devolves into eye rolls and frustrated grunts.

I read this article and couldnt help but feel offended.  I know nagging is wrong and always regret doing it when its brought to my attention, but the author is very accusatory of the Nagger and seems a bit enabling if the Naggee. As a Nagger, I feel I must argue the other side. It frustrates me to have to ask about things ten times, just as much as its frustrating to hear me ask ten times. We're not nagging for fun; we're nagging because things need to get done. Nagging: The Marriage Killer could have just easily been named Not Doing What is Asked of You: The Marriage Killer.

The article did bring up good points about ways in which I should ask for things that are not so annoying. I appreciate the tone I use while asking is a huge part of what qualifies me as The Nagger and I resolve to work on that...  and hopefully my man also resolves to work on being more responsive to my kindly spoken requests.

flikr photo