weekend update: weekend at home

I usually enjoy having Saturday afternoons/evenings to myself when the girl's visit with their father (my one day solo) but this weekend his family was away so I had them all weekend long.  It was a rare treat for us to have the whole weekend together.  I felt as if I wasn't trying to squeeze everything into one day.

It was truly our first fall weekend.  A blustery crisp day on Saturday and we trekked out to the far part of the lot by the edge of the woods and built teepees.  Last year I was surprised to find they had built a teepee by themselves, but they built it in the middle of the yard and we had to take it down for mowing.  This time we built one each, Karelyn's in a mossy spot at the edge of the woods, and Emily's in a little section off to the left side in a little grouping of trees.

The tropical storms we had a month ago had left us a multitude of fallen branches so we lugged as many as we could from around the back path, looking for the perfectly pronged first branch to get the whole thing started.  Nothing fancy here, no canvas, no string, just a nice collection of branches forming out a little secret spot for each of them.

Karelyn of course couldn't keep shoes on her feet (she never can) and had her toes nestled in the cushioning moss.  While they finished up I went inside to bake the oatmeal cookies Emily had made up earlier in the day and there was no better feeling than taking three of the first cookies out of the oven out to sit in the teepee and eat, warm and cinnamon tasting, sitting on the soft moss.

Later we went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, and we were in luck they had a fire going and we got a prime seat in front of it.  So after a light dinner we filled up on dessert (chocolate cake for them pumpkin cheesecake for me) and headed home to curl up on the couch together and watch a movie.

Today I realized something.  My life is pretty amazing.  This IS the life I have always wanted for my girls and they are happy.  Happy to spend the day scouring the woods, happy to bury their feet in starry night moss, happy to stir up a batch of cookies in the kitchen, happy to run leftover cookies, and chili and cornbread up the path to my grandparents next door, happy to spend time in my grandparents living room, Karelyn dancing in my grandfather's hat, Emily lying across the couch her head on my grandmother's lap her feet in mine.

Perhaps I should not always be thinking of the future, perhaps the best thing is to just enjoy the here and the now.  I have the rest of my life to become.  Right now I think I am content to just be.

Here and There: favourite childhood books

Books from my childhood, all well loved and well read. Four of them were passed down from my Mum, but the rest are mine. I loved them all.

Enid Blyton's Anytime Tales and Pixie Tales. Pixie Tales was the book I bought with my 50p book token, a prize from the libraries' Good Readers Club. I was invited to a special presentation where I had to go up on stage and collect it, I was the youngest child in my school ever to win a prize in this yearly competition, I would have been five or six. As I recall, it involved reading a lot of books, writing the occasional essay about them and being quizzed by the librarian about each book I read. I still have my orange 'Good Readers Club' badge. Enid Blyton's Fairy Tales type book are quite sinister, I remember being rather scared by them. I also loved her Famous Five books. I read many of them, but don't seem to have any now, though they could be in the loft. Probably I just read them so much they fell to pieces! I loved reading about the adventures of the Famous Five - Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog as they solved all sorts of crimes and mysteries. When the Young Philosopher was young, I bought him the entire set, and I think he read one before deciding he didn't like 'old fashioned books' and I gave them all away.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, of course. We read this at school when I was about eight, and I was just young enough to try my own wardrobe hopefully a couple of times... years later I acquired the whole set. I am not so keen on the films, but then I never am. They never live up to the book.

Four books of my mother's - Katherine at Feather Ghyll, the Little Countess, The Ruses of Ruby-Anne, The Daring of Daryl. All delightfully old fashioned when I read them in the seventies, and even more so now.

Downy Duckling, a rhyme and picture book from when I was very small. It was from my Uncle's work Christmas party, when all the workers' children were given a gift. I think he may have put me down as his daughter so that I wasn't left out. In fact, I know he did, as I was coached that I had to go up when they called out my first name with my Uncle's last one!

Tom's Midnight Garden. I adored this book, and still love the idea of a garden which only appears when the clock strikes thirteen. Wonderful!

The Secret Garden, I loved the tale of Alice and how she, Dickon and Colin slowly become friends and bring the garden back to life.

Little Women. Of course I wanted to be Jo.

Mary Jones and her Bible. An unusual choice this one, and I have not known anyone else who has read it except the girl who gave the book to me. It is the true story of a little girl in Wales who so wanted to be able to read the Bible she saved for six years and then in 1800,  at the age of 15 walked 25 miles to buy one. I wasn't brought up in the church, nor am I a believer now, but I was and remain very inspired by her dedication.

I also remember loving my Hamlyn Children's Illustrated Bible, which I know I still have somewhere, battered and with the front cover missing. It was a fifth birthday present from my aunt and uncle. The pictures were fantastic, I particularly loved the Plagues of Egypt.

And last but most definitely not least, my favourite book, What Katy Did. I identified with Katy, she was impulsive, impatient, always doing the wrong thing - but then an accident transforms her personality to something far more gentle and kind. I read What Katy Did endlessly - I remember once setting myself the target of reading it front to back thirteen consecutive times, and I did, and then many more times during my childhood. I recently downloaded it for Kindle - I didn't realise until looking for my old books today that it was on the bookshelf, rather than somewhere in the loft packed away.

I have always loved books. I love fiction as a means of finding out about other people and places, and as a means of escape. I love learning, so I have many non-fiction books too, on many different subjects. I have a 'to be read' bookcase, rather than a pile, and still I buy more. My book wishlist is as long as my arm. I've never been any different.

Here and There: Favorite Childhood Books

my beloved Trixie Belden series

One of the first books I remember loving and reading and re-reading was called "The Adventures of a Brownie".  I don't know where it came from and I've tried to find it again but it is difficult to find.  I did find an online version here, but the illustrations seem different than from my memory.  I think they were different because I remember Brownie looking tiny and not so very scary and the book had an old brown or green cover I cannot remember which and the cover was very thready.  This is the same version of the story though for I remember Brownie living in the coal cellar and I remember the cat and Dolly the cow.  I see the publish date was 1947, so I don't know how we came to have it, whether it was my mother's or picked up somewhere, perhaps I will see if she remembers, but always I remember it being one I would pick up and read over and over again.

That is the one I remember from the furthest back.  There are others though that I have loved enough to hunt down and collect.

There were two other books I also remember reading over and over again and strangely they were about dolls.  I never remember playing with dolls growing up, but somehow I took to these books.  There was a pink book that was illustrated by Edward Gorey (I loved the illustrations before I even was old enough to know how cool Edward Gorey was) and it was called Merry, Rose and Christmas Tree June and I remember Jane's Great Aunt wanting to show her off and going to the Doll-Arama that had all the fancy dolls and always remember the description and crazy picture of one's hair falling out.  In the end Jane fancies a plain old doll that doesn't "do" anything on an upper shelf behind forgotten Christmas ornaments.

The other book was from when I was a bit older and it was called Behind The Attic Wall and an unloved orphan goes to live with her Great-Aunts (again with the great Aunts) and hears voices beyond the wall where she discovers living dolls, a mystery, love, and imagination.  I actually bought this book for Emily to read a year ago.  She didn't seem to be as fond of it as I was, but it remains my favorite and I'm glad to have it to read again.

Most of all though the one that has stuck with me was the Trixie Belden mystery series.  Trixie Belden is the thing in my family.  We have all read them.  My mother and my Aunts read them.  They are huge fans, my mother recently bought my Aunt a Trixie Belden charm.  My sister, my cousins and I have all read them, and recently some of them were reissued in Canada and my mother got them for me and Emily has begun to read them.  I have some of the original editions boxed up, but they are so delicate it's hard to read them.  Trixie was basically a Nancy Drew type except she wasn't rich, she was a normal kid, a tomboy and lived in a normal home and had brothers and a wealthy neighbor who became her best friend Honey.  They solved all sorts of mysteries and I loved them like they were friends.  Even now I can read and re-read them.

There are a million that I can think of but these are the ones that stand out.  I wonder sometimes which are the books that will stand out for my children.  There is an over abundance of books in this house.  It will be interesting to see which ones they remember fondly enough to hold onto or find again when they have grown.

Weekend Update: Dressing Up Rooms

happy monday!

It seems strange to be writing words here again.  As always the weekend has gone by too fast, back to school and work today.  Sunday we finished cleaning up the girls rooms.  Karelyn got these really amazing decals for her walls.  Owls, birds, hedgehogs and leaves and flowers over all her walls.  A new lamp that matches.  She wants to put a sign on her door that says "Welcome to the Enchanted Forest".


So I'm hoping it brings her the peace she needs to start sleeping again in her own bed.  We've been struggling every night and most nights I've been putting her in with me because I'm too tired to fight it anymore.  She spent some time in there herself Sunday afternoon.  I snuck a shot of her watching Prince Caspian on her bed.   We are all slightly in love with Prince Caspian, but as she says "too young for you, too old for me".  She loves The Chronicles of Narnia almost as much as Harry Potter.  I'm re-reading them right now, only on book two, but she is in bed now (because I'm writing this Sunday night) with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on at her bedside but closed so she can listen to it as she goes to sleep.  "Too scary"?  I asked, but she said, "No".


I guess we'll see.  Good to be back with you my friend.  

8.26.11

jennifer- did you want a serious 1st day of school shot?

oh, okay...

8.12.11

Jennifer-Evening At The Park

8.1.11

Jennifer-Sweet Summertime