Lila Rose is growing up!

Attn: all pray-ers

This sweet little one year old, Mikey, is suffering from a serious infection.
He's been receiving chemo treatments, and doing well but, as sometimes happens, he developed a serious infection at the chemo port site. If you are a prayer, please say one for Mikey and all the Vanis family.

Prayer from today's Magnificat

O God, You have loved us without our deserving it. You have forgiven us without our earning it. You have blessed us when we could not bless you. Grant us the grace to love as we have been loved, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Outliers

Not being a fan of nonfiction I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The Outliers, The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.

I learned (and actually retained) a great deal about how people get to the top of their game. It turns out to be a combination of luck, i.e., being born in the right year or even in the right month of the year or in the right place of the right parents AND hard hard work, up to 10,000 hours of hard work. I found it fascinating.

Here's an article on Laurie's new line from Style.
Can't wait to see it for myself!
This proud mama's bustin' her buttons!

Rebuilding Equipment
February 17, 2010 3:45 pm

Once upon a time in the late seventies, Christian Restoin—the longtime partner of Carine Roitfeld—married the aesthetics of Network and disco with a line of breezy silk menswear-styled shirts for women called Equipment. Throughout the eighties and nineties, they were the linchpin day-to-night item in a smart city girl’s wardrobe. For a label to shutter because of family and business politics, as happened here, is a familiar nineties story. But it’s a promising one Equipment’s telling for the aughts: The line relaunches for Spring 2010.

Last night, Becka Diamond hosted the long-awaited unveiling at Saks, where designers Rebecca Minkoff and Victor Glemaud and stylist Keegan Singh stopped by to check out the action. Serge Azria—brother of Max, owner of Current/Elliott and Joie, and now informal “guardian” of Equipment—attended both the cocktail party and the intimate dinner that followed at Indochine. “Everyone here is too young to remember the original line,” he said, gesturing at the youthful attendees around him. “But ask your mothers—they will remember Equipment! And I guarantee you they loved it.” He reveals that Restoin, who remains connected to the newly relaunched brand, has kept every Equipment shirt ever created in his Paris archives—all 3,500 of them. Meanwhile, the 135 new Equipment styles do the brand’s “new vintage” legacy justice and integrate seamlessly into the tailored, menswear-inspired trends hitting New York’s runways this week. That’s something mothers and daughters alike can appreciate.

Equipment is currently available exclusively at Saks, and will come to Barneys later this spring.
—Colleen Nika
tags: Becka Diamond, Christian Restoin, Current/Elliott, Equipment, Joie, Keegan Singh, Rebecca Minkoff, Serge Azria, Victor Glemaud

Noah's Compass

Since all I've been doing is reading, it's hard to believe that I only have one book to recommend and I only recommend it with reservations.
Some of Anne Tyler's books have been so pertinent in my life, particularly Back When We were Grownups and Ladder of Years, so I had high hopes for Noah's Compass. I have to say it only fed my depression instead of easing it. It's the story Liam, a 'laid-off' aging teacher with no real connection to his family and no meaning in his life.
Early on he is attacked in his bed and has no memory of the incident. "This was not his true self, he wanted to say. This was not who he really was. His true self had gone away from him and had a crucial experience without him and failed to come back afterward." Those words seem to describe my own self as well.
The title comes from a discussion with his four year old grandson about Noah not needing a compass. "...Noah didn't need to figure out directions, because the whole world was underwater and so it made no difference." That little bit alone didn't justify.
Liam begins to find some joy and meaning in his life, but this too is pulled out from under him. I had a hard time feeling anything other than pity. While there are several parts in the book I could've, might've cried, I didn't, which is telling in itself.
My final thought would be, don't bother.