rakshi

Evidently John King Tarpinian the very dear man who has allowed me to post his 'Leviathan 99' images on SANET is a personal friend of Ray Bradbury's and he seemed quite taken with Sean.

He said this to me in his email: I do wish I had a photo for you of Sean’s expression when he learned that Ray was the founder of what became the Writer’s Guild.

I can just imagine.... LOL!

( Just look at this picture. It's simply wonderful. )

The wonderful John King Tarpinian has gracious shared his marvelous photos from the Leviathan 99 event with SANET. We are very grateful!

The gallery for these photos is here. And John has promised to send me even more photos that he took of Sean at that event! Wheeeee!!!

His report is here.

( And a couple sweet previews here.... )

The perfect gift to celebrate Wood-day, these images of Elijah are some of the most amazing you'll ever see. The photographer seemed determined to capture the beauty of his face from every possible angle. We thank, as always, our beloved karin_woywod for finding and sharing. These were posted first at the elijah_finds community. If you haven't visited there... please do.

Gallery his here....

( And a couple sneak previews.... )

..... added to the gallery for the Tribeca Film Festival! He looked so cute that night!!

Gallery here....

AND... I guess he was out celebrating that night!!

From the Pop Tarts Scene & Herd

Hilary Duff, Chevy Chase and Sean Astin celebrating their comedy film Stay Cool at NYC hotspot Tenjune on Thursday night.

( Here's a couple adorable new shots.... )

A few adorable shots of Sean at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of 'Stay Cool'!!

Gallery is here....

( And a couple sweet sneak previews.... )

It's Wood-day, my dears... and it's karin_woywod's birthday!! And in honor of these two events I bring to you the beauty that is Elijah Wood in one of the most beautifully photographed movies he has EVER been in. I don't know who did the lighting for this film... but they deserved an Oscar. I'm talking about 'The Bumblebee Flies Anyway'... one of my very favorite Elijah movies.. in spite of the crappy screen kiss.

( I hope you enjoy this walk down Elijah memory lane. )

I will have other treats for you later today.

Author: rakshi
Title: Words
Challenge: 'My Baby Just Wrote Me a Letter' from waymeet
Rating: PG - for language
Pairing/Characters: Sean and Elijah
Warnings: None
Summary: Things aren’t going well for the boys. Can they solve their problems in e-mail?

Author's Notes: For those who didn't see it at waymeet, my very first offering. I enjoyed this challenge very much. I deepest thanks and love to my dearest abandonada whose suggestions and editing skills made this a much better story.

( Words )

I don't claim to know him. But... I do know what I believe about him. I believe he is a good and generous soul. I believe he is kind and loving to family, friends, and fans. I believe he trys, always, to live up to a higher ideal in life. To be someone we can all look up to. And I believe that most of the time, he succeeds.

I thank you, Sean Astin. Thank you for Sam... and for Rudy, and for the 'Bob place', and for Mikey, and my beloved Mister Smith. Thank you for incredible moments. Thank you for being a loving friend to Elijah.... and please do another movie with him soon!!! Thank you for bringing me together with some of the best friends anyone could ever have and for unlocking my creativity in more ways than I could count.

I am your biggest fan... silly though that sounds. And I always will be.

I hope you have the best year of your life. I hope your every dream comes true.

And.. I hope you come to Dragon*Con again this year!!!!

Happy Birthday, Sean. We love you.

And to celebrate, here are 38 pictures of the birthday boy. Some are big.

( Happy Birthday Sean!! )

I spent about 14 hours yesterday trying to move SANET to the new site. Had to call their customer support a couple times to get info they didn't send me and I could barely understand the guy on the other end of the line. I mean.. I normally LOVE the Indian (as in India) accent... but jeez!! You just know they farm their support calls out to Bombay. *sigh*

Anyway I got about half of Sean's gallery moved and none of Elijah's. I'm cutting back a bit on Sean's gallery. I mean 17000 pictures was a bit much. I'll keep all of the most recent event pictures and I'll keep SOME from every gallery. But I am easing back a bit on the overall number of pictures I post for every single move and tv show and event.. etc. I don't think anyone will notice the lack. I mean did I really NEED 400 caps from Rudy? No. Quality.. not quantity.

Except for the Sean and Elijah or Sam and Frodo pictures of course. I would NEVER cut any of those!

I've also decided to give myself a break on this. I'm paid up at Midphase for a year. And the new site is paid up for 2 years. So.. there's really no big rush. I'll get it done as fast as I can then switch the domain name. I was making myself crazy yesterday and it occurred to me after around 14 hours of it to wonder why. It's probably a good thing. Give me a chance to cut away a lot of the dead wood on the site. There's a lot of things up on SANET that could have been taken down a long time ago. Stuff that isn't even part of the site.

Anyway... that's my update. More for my own record keeping than anything else.

Thank all of you for how supportive you've been. It's a huge job, but I'm going to take it slow and easy from this point on.

LOOK what karin_woywod found!!

I am just.... blown away. This is from the photo-shot by photographer Michael O'Neill but I had NEVER seen any shots of Sean/Sam from this shoot. Is this not amazing??

Thank you so much darling karin_woywod!! You are such a treasure in all our lives.

( Click to see an amazing shot of Sam. )

I'm always glad to see it come, but today even more than usual!!

Oh! Did you know that Josh Whedon has a new Sci-fi series? Dean sent me this because he and I both love Firefly/Serenity.

And on that topic.. if the 'Firefly' folks are at DC this year I am definitely getting my picture taking with Nathan Fillion. And.. I intend to ask for a hug while it's being taken. There are some advantages to being old. One of them is that you can get away with stuff like that at a fan con.

My income tax refund has come.... and is gone. LOL! BUT.. praise the lord, the lot rent on for my trailer is paid for the year AND I've paid a high interest loan WAY down. It will be totally gone before I retire. This is a good thing. This is a VERY good thing.

Work may be fairly busy today but I shall try my best to put some pics of our beautiful Frodo up before the day ends.

I hope you are all showered with blessings on this Froday the 13th!!

.... and the week is half over... which makes me happy.

Had some good financial news and Dean told me I needed to talk about it here since I'd done so much whining here when I was feeling all financially depressed! And, he's right. God, I hate being a whiner. I really do. But there's a real release in being able to come to my LJ and just spew about the things that are worrying me.

Anyway! The good news is that when I signed up for Medicare (my GOD I am so OLD!) the very nice lady at Social Security told me that I should call her back next January to sign up for SS benefits. I told her I would still be working, but she said that didn't matter. That I was entitled to the money from the time I turned 66 and even if I had to pay the IRS tax for it, I'd still lose money if I didn't sign up and start getting my checks!! She didn't have to twist my arm. I told her I'd call next January to sign up.

And to that bit of news I have only one response: ♥ Woot!! ♥

That extra money will be just enough to cover the bills I was fretting over and thinking I'd have to keep working another 6 months to pay off. So.. I can retire at the end of June next year. I won't be rollin' in dough by any means. But then right now no one IS. But I'll be debt free (except for my car) and able to retire with some degree of... I want to say comfort but that might be stretching it. I won't have real 'comfort' 'til the market rebounds and I can sell my house. But with some degree of security at least.

And.. upon hearing that news I decided that once I retire I'm going to go spend a month in Seattle with abandonada. Just hang out at her place, look around Seattle, get the lay of the land, look at apartments maybe, check out opportunities for volunteer work, and enjoy being retired. Then I'll come back and begin the serious business of finding a renter for my home. There's no way I'm going to sell it for $37000 less than what I owe... so I have to wait. Hopefully it won't take too long... but we'll see.

So.. I'm happy... or at least happier. It's not the situation I wanted. It's not what I envisioned for myself upon retiring. But it's a damned sight better than many people have it. I have faith in our president. I have faith that he's going to turn things around in time. Unfortunately... I retire in a year and a half. I doubt there will be much change by then. But there will be change eventually.

I've had people advise me NOT to retire. To keep working maybe another five years and let the economy right itself. There's no doubt in my mind that this would be the more fiscally responsible plan. I make good money. I have enough seniority that they won't lay me off. And I work in education so the perks are amazing. But... I'm not going to do that. Not even if it would be the best financial choice. My mother worked 'til she was 80 years old. She died just short of her 84th birthday, a very angry woman... horribly bitter over the hand that life had dealt her. She felt she had been short-changed by life. That she'd worked hard and that all she got for it was pain and death. That she'd never done the things she wanted to do.

If I learned anything from that experience it was: Follow your bliss.

I might be more financially secure if I kept working. But I've been working since I was 15 years old. That is not what I want to do anymore. I want to have a different kind of experience in the last years of my life. I don't want to die a bitter, angry woman because I worked and worked and never did the things I really wanted to do. My mom could have chosen a different path. I begged her to retire earlier and travel! Go live in Florida with her sister for awhile. Enjoy life! But she sat in that little house of hers, refusing to have friends, refusing to be part of any senior group, refusing to travel, doing jigsaw puzzles and working.

Not me. Her life... and her death.. had a tremendous effect on me. There are some things more important than money. WAY more important. I'm retiring.

And.. we'll see if I still feel that way when I'm a bag-lady wearing men's shoes, talking to buildings, and eating cat food for dinner. ;)

( And to help celebrate the fact that the week is half over and that I might <b>not</b> end up as a bag-lady... here is our beautiful Elijah! )

These are for my own recollection... and for my family. Pictures of Pam and I last weekend in Frankenmuth.

( Feel free to skip. )

We really had a super time. It was wonderful to spend some non-angsty time with my daughter. We laughed our butts off and really got along great. I want to do this again.

Well, it's FRODAY for openers... and that always makes for a good day. It's PAYDAY for another thing... which makes Fro-day even better. It's an EXTRA payday, which I get twice a year and which I use for NON bill paying options like:

1. Bought my Dragon*Con membership
2. Booked plane tickets to Seattle in April
3. Booked plane tickets to Atlanta in September
4. Payed abandonada for my share of our Atlanta motel bill.

So, daymm!! Great day!

Plus.. I'm taking the day off work. I was going to take only 1/2 day then changed my mind and decided to just stay home. I may go out to breakfast or do something else that's fun. OR.. I may just pack for tomorrow and play LOTRO.

And speaking of LOTR related things..... ( some pictures of our beautiful Frodo!! )

All from 'The Two Towers'.

And there's no way I'd let this day go by without doing a picspam of my two guys. I adore them. Always have... always will. They strike a chord of love, caring, and support within me that has never sounded in my heart for any other pairing... and I have had others. The beauty of the love they share... the love that is so very apparent in the images you'll see here... has inspired me, unlocked my creative heart, and moved me in ways that seem as endless as they are beautiful. Their love has brought me into contact with some of the finest people I've ever known and led me to the best friends anyone could ever hope to find. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

Happy birthday, Elijah. Happy Wood-day to all of you. And happy Sean & Elijah day to those of you who love this pairing as much as I do.



( On Eljiah's birthday... a Sean and Elijah picspam. Some are BIG so take bandwidth. )

Title: The Angels Among Us
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sean Astin/Elijah Wood
Summary: It's Elijah's birthday but Sean can't find the right gift.

Author's Notes: A small offering to celebrate the birthday of the wonderful Elijah Wood, and in MY universe the beloved of Sean Astin. I want to thank my dearest abandonada for her wonderful beta work. She thought she was editing a tribble and so did I! But this story refused to confine itself to 300 words.

( The Angels Among Us )

Here are a few Elijah backgrounds that I've posted before but thought I'd post again to celebrate his birthday. Click the smaller image to reach the larger.

I posted this same tribute last year, and can't think of better words to use this year. These words still resonate within me as reflecting everything I believe about this fine young man who has brought so much joy to our lives. I wish him every good thing on this, his special day.

He made our Frodo come to life... but more. When the world seems dull and gloomy, he is a place where we can go and find a bit of light. It's not just his blue eyes. It's more the way those eyes seem to just 'go' with the rest of that beautiful face... and the way that exquisite face is but a reflection of the beauty of the heart... the soul.. the person beneath. Many of us have met him and been struck by how he seems to give so much of himself to every moment that you feel, in his presence, as though you've found a friend. It has always seemed odd that such graciousness of spirit could live in one so young. But he never fails to give his fans every ounce of who he is whether it's in his movies or in his personal interactions with us. He never withholds. He offers, constantly, the full glow of that beautiful light.. and it is for us to decide how much of it we can bear.

He enriches our dreams. He inspires our love and loyalty. He graces our fandom with his kindness, his intelligence... and his unfailing charm.

I hope he has the best of all possible birthdays. I can't think of anyone more deserving. I hope that in the year ahead he enjoys even half the joy he has given to us through the years and finds the fulfillment of all his fondest dreams.

Happy Birthday, Elijah... and thank you.

( And to celebrate further... 28 pictures of the most beautiful young man alive. With thanks to the original posters. )

.... is full of grace. That would not be me today. But... I'm trying.

( Stuff... feel free to skip. )

You know... if for no other reason, I'd want to stay there because I love the name! 'Otter Hut'... isn't that just the most wonderful name? They called it that because of the otters that live nearby. I do hope we get to see them. Anytime I see otters I think of Elijah.

Anyway... this place has everything! Even wireless internet! God forbid we do without that! And right on Puget Sound, which I love. It's going to be a golden trip for abandonada and I. Port Orchard seems like a wonderful little town too. Be fun to explore. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to our stay there.

Right now April seems a long ways off. But I know how fast things like this can go... so I'm enjoying the anticipation.