it turns out i'm not very good about simple-blogging, am i?

and anyway, i was recently challenged with the idea that the more beauty is celebrated, the more beauty the celebrator has. so i decided to use this blog to celebrate the things in my life that are beautiful, and hopefully the more i celebrate them, the more beautiful my life will become. it is a way to view life as art, something that can be cultivated and executed and edited for beauty. life as art. art as life. beauty. i like that.

i'm not very good at painting, sketching, sculpting or photography. but i can live, so i guess i can still make art. i'll try. and you'll get to see how it works.

here's something beautiful: the vineyard alan and i visted in rocheport, missiouri. it's a place where rows of grapes grow on vines on top of a bluff, over looking the missiouri river. we cycled about seventy miles to get there, and we arrived sweaty and tired. we walked right up to those vines and plucked off a few ripe grapes. they were tangy and full of seeds, but they tasted wonderful...
and it was pretty good in liquid form, too. maybe you can see the river in the background of this picture. we were above it, on a patio built out over the bluff. for a moment, we were in switzerland or italy. the moment passed, we hopped back on our bikes and rode 60 miles home. (but the grapes made the whole trip worth while.)

Olly had to stay with Mark and Kathy while we were on our trip. don't worry. he came home with new treats and a toy. what more could a little boy need?