back on the web wagon

You may have noticed that I have finally added a banner to my blog and I even have a new template.

For those of you who have not visited DC, this is the Chinese gate that graces H Street in Chinatown. And yes, we live just beyond the Friendship Gate. According to Wikipedia, it is actually the Friendship Archway given to the city from our sister city Beijing in 1986. It is the largest gate like this in the world. One of my favorite views of the gate is from the escalator leading you out of the Gallery Place Metro.

I have also updated my Remembering Life web site. Over the 2005 holidays, I planned a web site for my Remembering Life Memorial Journal eBook. Then I decided that maybe I should publish it instead. I pitched it to a couple of people. But I kept thinking, I just want this to give this project its own life. I want to put it up to see how people will respond and use it. I have received a few contacts about the web site over the last few years. But I am hoping that now that I have finally expanded the site and linked it to the url, more people will find it. I love the idea of collecting stories about people that we love. And sadly funerals are often the place that we openly share our stories with everyone, expressing how much we love, appreciate and admire the person.

My grandmother died as I was writing the introduction. The timing was uncanny. But I love to look back and read the stories that people wrote. These are a couple of my favorites. The first is a woman from my church, who I had never really talked to, told me about walking to see the new twins. The second is a little girl, who would always look for Memaw when she visited her grandmother at the rest home. And I thought that Memaw had only slapped me before. Um, it was not forceful, but shocking.

So I still have lots of web updates to do, but I am excited that I am finally back on the web wagon. Maybe as a treat to my readers, I will reveal the True Hollywood Story of Club 575. But I have to make sure that everyone is reading my blog again.