This year I stepped back from the maelstrom of activities I was engaged in during 2011, and shifted my focus to a few new things. One of those new things is a blog – the one you’re looking at right now. It’s not devoted to any one subject; rather, it’s about anything that interests me. Which is to say, almost everything.

But my major new focus is the company I joined this year, Celebrations of Life. I’m responsible for design and implementation of our web presence and social media strategy.

 

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Last year I began my annual letter with this picture of Duncan the coonhound, taken in Powderhorn Park on a November afternoon.

In April, we unexpectedly lost Duncan to cancer.

Cyndie painted this portrait with watercolors:

Duncan was a Good Dog.   We miss him.

Cyndie is now helping people to memorialize their pets by writing stories about their lives.

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Cyndie and I and a few friends have been entertaining ourselves with visual journaling.

The rules of visual journaling are simple:

1. Open a book to a page that hasn’t been changed.
2. Change it.
3. Pass the book on.

 

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For my birthday, Cyndie arranged a surprise trip to The House on the Rock in southern Wisconsin, which I’d been curious about for some time. It is a wondrous, surreal, and genuinely spooky place.

 

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My son Ben is studying graphic design, making his own art, and creating beats for local hiphop artists. My stepdaughter Emery is growing her fashion design business, GutsGlamGlory, designing and selling clothing, jewelry, and accessories. A lot of spikes are involved.

 

 

This has been my 57th trip around the sun.
More and more I find myself pondering
the profound mystery of being alive and awake
in an astonishing universe.

 

 

I wish everyone everywhere more peace, more joy, and more compassion.