Breathe, Balance, and Joy

I'm at my parents' house for the holidays. The change of scenery has been good, especially now when it's hard to not think about what was happening at this time last year. I've been spending lots of time with family and old friends. I've already seen 22 children--cousins' kids, niece and nephews, friends' kids. So many kids!

It's been pouring rain pretty much every day in Southern California, but today the sun is finally out and I took a walk in my parents' backyard. Where Greg and I were married.

This song popped in my head:




Greg used this song when he proposed to me. I haven't listened to it in a while. The lyrics have taken on a different meaning.

So many memories. It's hard to believe it's been a year since he was taken from me.

I do hope he's a peace and not haunting me. I've been at peace myself, overall. No magical thinking for me--at least, not after the first few months.

Here are a few things I'd like to share, ways I've been able to honor Greg this past year.

On what would have been our wedding anniversary, I got a tattoo in his honor:

If you notice the necklace I'm wearing, it was a gift from my friend Rose. It's a necklace in the shape of Iowa, with the geographic coordinates of where Greg is buried.

It was such a touching gift, and I wear the necklace almost every day.

Speaking of touching gifts, my company, Hachette Book Group, who has been so supportive, gave me the gift of a paving stone in Central Park, where Greg and I were engaged, and spent a lot of time together going on walks during the summer he was first getting chemo.

It's on one of the bridges to the reservoir, around 85th Street on the East side. Go see it if you're in Central Park.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I decided to have Greg's ties made into a bereavement quilt. He had a lot of ties! He wore them to teach.

I found Rosie Rhine online, and will say that she does beautiful work:

I'm going to hang it in my new condo. (Did I mention I'm a homeowner now?!)

Right after my closing with my keys!

moving in

Oh, and I ran the NYC marathon! I do still intend to blog about it (I got a little derailed by the election results--more grieving!), but for now, here are a few photos:

Alvina's Team for Greg raised over $26,000 for cancer research! Thank you to all who donated.

Alvina's Team for Greg! Clockwise from left: Kate, Ellen, Kirk, Jackson, Frank, and me.

photo by Mariko Nakatani

(By the way, I'm considering running again next year, so let me know if you're interested in joining my team!)

It's been a challenging, but rewarding, and amazing year. A year filled with lots of tears, and laughter, a few breakdowns, incredible stress, work challenges and triumphs, therapy, new friends, old friends, family, travel, great food and drink, adventure, and love. Despite everything, I do feel that I have a blessed life. I wish Greg were still here to share it with me, but I know he's rooting for me.

When I packed and unpacked, I did unearth many more memories of Greg. He used to leave me notes everywhere. Here is one of my favorites:

My mantras this year were imprinted on my rings. Breathe, Balance, and Joy.

I've ordered three new rings for next year. New year, new mantra.

Wishing you all a happy holiday season, and a peaceful and joyful new year.

So long, 2013. Welcome, 2014!

The view from my parents' backyard deck.
This is also where our wedding ceremony was held.

My two-week+ vacation is coming to an end. I spent it mainly in Southern California at my parents' house. The last time I was there was for Greg and my wedding a year and a half ago. That was also the last time I had seen my family, before the craziness that was 2013 happened. I think the CA sunshine did Greg a lot of good, and he's getting stronger each day. We're settling into our "new normal"--trying to get back to living life, yet with the shadow of the possibility of recurrence hanging over us.

It was wonderfully relaxing to be in CA for so long, and save for the first rainy, cold day, the rest of our time there was greeted with sunshine and 70 and 80-degree days.

My vacation in numbers:

Days I played tennis with my Dad: 11

Sets won: 1 (while playing doubles and partnered with my HS friend who was the star of our championship tennis team)
Children played with: 12
Dogs played with: 2

Me and my brother Ben and future sister-in-law Iris's dog Oreo on Christmas Eve.

Books read: 3.001 (read an ARC of Noggin by John Corey Whaley, re-read Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink, re-read final draft of Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor, read the first two chapters of IQ84 by Haruki Murakami)
Good Wife episodes watched: 14 (finished up Season 4, caught up on Season 5 so far)
Movies watched: 1 (Saving Mr. Banks with my mom)
Work emails filed/deleted: 600+ (more to go through today before going back to work tomorrow)
Walks taken: 10
Times jogged: 2
All-you-can-eat sushi meals: 2
Ramen meals: 2
In-n-Out Burger meals: 3
Massages: 3
Karaoke nights: 1
Friends' homes visited: 2
High school friends met up with: 6
Books given as gifts: 27 (mostly children's books)

My brother Felix reading MR. TIGER GOES WILD to my nephew

Different types of fruit eaten: 12 (pomelos, oranges, apples, cherimoya, papaya, guava, kumquat, grapes, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, watermelon)

Cherimoya. Also known as custard apple, sugar apple, and soursop.

New Year's resolutions made: 12

2013 was a tough year--but here's hoping to a better 2014. Happy New Year, all!

What I'm thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving!

As we've recently moved apartments, while packing and unpacking, I've found myself discovering forgotten things and re-reading old journals, which led me to reread old blog posts, too. I'm thankful for these journals and blogs, because I love remembering who I was and what I've done--and seeing how far I've come (and yet, how I'm still the same person). In one old journal entry, I commented on how my boyfriend at the time called me a "one trick pony" because all I ever did was work, and all I could talk about was work. And in that entry I said that the busy work time was only temporary. Ha! Little did I know...

But I'm thankful that I have a job that I still love, no matter how busy and stressful it gets.

Other things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving:

-That G is alive and relatively well, that we have this lovely life together
-For my health
-For health insurance and great doctors
-For our new, spacious apartment with a working elevator
-For friends and family, there for us in so many different ways
-For our cats, even though they've been waking me up in the middle of the night
-For good food and drink (especially brunch!)
-For leisurely walks
-For Zumba
-For escapist books, blogs, television shows (I've been especially addicted to The Good Wife this year), and social networking
-For my monthly Karaoke club, and music in general
-For my brilliant authors, illustrators, and coworkers

-For the little pleasures of life

-For the great pleasures of life!

Now I'm off to make an apple pie. Enjoy your day, all!

2010: My year in photos

I haven't made an animoto video in ages, and so when I saw Grace's year-end video, I was inspired to make one of my own. Except mine is quite a bit longer. What can I say, I'm still photo crazy!

Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone. It's been a good year overall, although one dominated by work--good thing work has been rewarding! But it hasn't been all work and no play. Here are a few highlights from my 2010:

work:
-Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, won a Newbery Honor
-Peter Brown won the Children's Choice Illustrator of the Year
-The Curious Garden won the E.B. White Read-aloud Award
-Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead was named a Morris Award finalist
-Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Shark vs Train, and Children Make Terrible Pets were all NY Times bestsellers
-I attended two ALA conferences, NCTE, and three SCBWI conferences (FL, SC, and NY)
-I was able to promote my assistant, and now have a new editorial assistant
-I hired two fabulous editorial interns who have gone on to great editorial assistant positions
-I was promoted to executive editor

Life:
-I moved to Brooklyn!
-I became the step-mother of two cats
-I took a vacation to the SF Bay Area, and then to Lake Tahoe for a family reunion
-I took a two-week vacation: CA for a week, then CO for another week
-I played golf, tennis, pool, and softball, went bowling, and jogged regularly in Prospect Park
-I biked over 50 miles in the MS Ride, and raised over $1,000
-I sang a ton of Karaoke, learned the harmony to the Jason Mraz/Colbie Caillat song Lucky
-I took a bunch of trips to CT to hang out with the Blue Rose Girls
-I went to the NATWA conference in Toronto with my mother, and we took a train to Montreal to visit friends
-I went to the beach three times and to Disney World once
-I learned how to shuck oysters, and make chocolate fondue, ravioli from scratch, and icing chrysanthemum flowers
-I attended three weddings, four baby showers, two wedding showers, and one bachelorette party
-I saw Lady Gaga and Bob Dylan in concert
-I saw President Obama speak in person
-I saw a bunch of plays and musicals, including West Side Story and Time Stands Still
-I watched too much reality television (Project Runway, Amazing Race, Top Chef), became addicted to Glee, and watched some movies, too (the Stieg Larsson trilogy, Inception, etc.)
-I met, visited, and played with my friends' kids
-I became entrenched in the cult of Apple (iPad, iPhone, iTunes, MacBook)
-I ate a ton of delicious food
-I lived!



Happy New Year, all. May 2011 be the best year ever, a year filled with laughter, joy, peace, growth, and, of course, bloomabilities.

ALA Midwinter 2010: an honor!

I'm so thrilled that Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon has been awarded the Newbery Honor! And also so happy that Jerry Pinkney has finally won the Caldecott Gold with The Lion and the Mouse. It was a good day for Little, Brown! See all of the honorees here.

Here are me and Andrea Spooner (editor of The Lion and the Mouse) celebrating at the hotel after hearing the news and before heading over the the awards ceremony.

Watch the announcements of the Caldecott here, and of the Newbery here. My apologies for the shaky, off-center camera work!

Grace posted a few pics of "the call." So cute!

Here are Grace's agent Rebecca Sherman of Writer's House and I fawning over the book and the nice, shiny medal:

And finally, Grace arrived triumphant to the convention center in the afternoon:

Yay, Grace! I love this book so much. One of the Newbery committee members said to me afterwards, "This book is going to be a classic." That is my hope and dream.

For an update of the rest of ALA as I posted on the Blue Rose Girls before the award announcements, read on below.

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I'm writing this post on Sunday night in my hotel room in Boston while watching the Golden Globes. I've been here since Friday for the American Library Association Midwinter Conference, and as actors and writers and directors, etc. all collect their awards, I'm trying not to think about our awards, the ones bestowed by the venerable American Library Association. I was burned last year, and on a roller coaster ride the whole weekend before the announcements, and was determined for that to not happen this year, and for the most part it's worked. I've managed to not think about it too much (yeah right).

That aside, I've set this the post automatically at 8:30 AM, so by now we all know which books have won, so I'll just give a general CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners! Although I have a few predictions and hopes, for the most part I have no idea what is going to win.

It's been a great conference so far. On my train to Boston on Friday, I saw a woman reading Grace's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Fun! Friday evening, Grace hosted a lovely dessert party at her home. Great company, conversation, and of course tons of dessert! Including Grace's delicious red velvet cupcakes.

Midwinter ALA is probably the most mellow of the conferences for me, as we don't tend to host authors at this conference--so no big events and lunches and dinners. Instead, we have one morning preview breakfast (Saturday morning) where we highlight some of our upcoming books to a select group of librarians. Here's the swag:

And then at the end of the breakfast, we had surprise secret guest speakers Andrea and Brian Pinkney, creators of the amazing book Sit-in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down.

Then I headed off to the convention center:

Saturday afternoon I attended the "Great ALA Midwinter Kids/YA Lit Tweet-up" along with Anna and Grace. The Tweet-up was organized by Mitali Perkins and Deborah Sloan, and was a rousing success. It really was the place to be, as shown by all of the party crashers who showed up! It was so successful and well-attended that there were so many people there that I didn't end up seeing at all. Ah, well. Next time!

Sunday I had a lovely breakfast with agent Lauren MacLeod, and then an equally lovely lunch with agents Erin Murphy and Ammi-Joan Paquette. Then it was off to the BBYA teen feedback session. There seemed to be fewer teens than in previous years, and the session barely lasted an hour, but there were still some gems. One girls said that Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia "Made me feel like a little kid again, in a good way. I loved it!! I loved it so much." Of Catherine Jinks's The Reformed Vampire Support Group, on teen said, "Yeah, it's another vampire book, but that's okay--it's a good one!" Another teen about an issue book: "I'm wondering if all authors think all teens have issues?"

The three favorite books on the list for the teens seemed to be Fire by Kristin Cashore, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, and Swim the Fly by Don Calame. Of the latter, one teen boy said, "This was my favorite book I read in 2009." Another teen said that she was so engrossed in Catching Fire that she forgot to eat.

I listened in on the Notables Committee for a bit as they discussed nonfiction (including a somewhat baffling debate as to whether giving animals names implies anthropomorphism), and then back to BBYA.

And finally, Sunday night I went out to Somerville again to have dinner at an old favorite, Redbones. Here's a pic of our feast, and friends:

And now it's past 11, the Golden Globes are over, and it's time for bed. After the awards announcements I'll be manning the booth until the convention floor closes, and then will sit in on BBYA again before heading back to NY. If you're still at the conference, come find me and say hi!