John and books, books and John. What more could a girl ask for?
(note: the kidlings were upstairs at the bookstore, searching for ways to spend their Christmas money…)
January 2008
Yesterday the kids and I packed up our Christmas decor. I took a pic so you could see how we keep the holiday simple at our house. CatGirl is sitting next to the one box of decorations (wreath, tree skirt, a few xmas figurines, 4 stockings, a snow globe musicbox, tree ornaments, and two creches). Behind her is the box that our tree goes in. And that’s it. It all fits tidily on top of the storage shelving in our closet.
TobyJoy is sneaking around in the background of the pic, because she’s never far from her girl.
Night noises:
The rain in the gutter on the other side of the wall from me that is alternately bubbling and then thudding. Odd sounds, indeed.
John is snoring loudly. Rather unusual for him, actually. In a moment I will head into the bedroom and encourage him to roll over by tickling him with cold fingers and toes.
My thumbs cracking. My joints are all funky and poppy because of the rain.
Th gentle whirr of my dutiful junebug and the clack of my fingers on her keys.
What are you hearing?
having a bit of insomnia. not a rare occurrence for me, but one that’s not so common anymore, either.
i am a night owl, prowling around the house and poking around. all is quiet and i feel a kind of wicked delight in being awake while i know i really should be in bed. like those nights when i was a kid and i would stay up reading long beyond my bedtime…
speaking of reading, here’s a 3 question literary quiz from Rafe Esquith. he says this quiz would do away with all of the standardized testing that plagues education today:
1) Have you ever secretly read under your desk in school because the teacher was boring and you were dying to finish the book you were reading?
2) Have you ever been scolded for reading at the dinner table?
3) Have you ever read secretly under the covers after being told to go to bed?
*My bonus question: Have you ever been teased by your parents for reading your books instead of touring the Eiffel Tower?
so…did you pass or fail my little quiz? and tell me, what books are on your nightstand right now?
“I was born in ancient times at the end of the world in a patriarchal, Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist, although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me. I would soon find out that there was a high price to pay for my freedom and for questioning the patriarchy, but I was happy to pay it because for every blow that I received I was able to deliver two.”
~Isabel Allende
In this vein, some of you may be interested in reading my SunstoneBlog post about attending a friend’s Bat Mitzvah ceremony and my “Leaving the Garden” story at MindOnFire.
Tonight it’s raining bucketloads outside. More rain than we’ve had in years around here. No doubt houses will be falling off of cliffs soon, but for now I’m reveling in the sound of wind and water coming through my window screen…
This evening I’ve been reading Rafe Esquith’s Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire. I’m thinking about his teaching philosophy, of the miracles that occur in his 5th grade classroom (if you haven’t heard of Rafe, do check out the youtube below). He challenges educators to teach with such passion that they wouldn’t even notice if their hair was on fire (as happened to him during a science experiment gone wrong). I don’t agree with all of Rafe’s methods, but I admire his passion and I aim to bring that to my classroom this upcoming quarter and year.
As I read about Rafe I thought of another teacher, Ms. Frizzle, whose methods I admire. Her mantra is to “Take Chances, Make Mistakes, and Get Messy.” It’s a simple philosophy, but one worth emulating. IMO, life is too short to live with restraint and fear. Sometimes you’ve got to just be daring and take a leap into the uncomfortable, into the unknown. So this year I’ll look to the example of Rafe and Ms. Frizzle as I pursue my goals and dreams.
As I was making broccoli soup (CatGirl’s fav) for dinner tonite, I noticed a few tired apples in the produce basket. I decided I should whip up something to use them up, but what to do?…
I ended up peeling and slicing/dicing them and put them in a saucepan to simmer, just to see what would happen. Would they soften? They were mostly fuji and gala apples–not exactly typical cooking apples. I added a dollop of unsalted butter, thinking that that might help them not to burn to my fav little flame-colored le creuset saucepan…
Then I added a shake of cinnamon so they would smell good as they cooked even if they didn’t turn into anything edible. Oh, and just a small squirt (like a tsp) of agave nectar for sweetening. And put the lid on.
As I cooked the soup I stirred it occasionally and noticed some softening of apples.
By the time the soup was done, the applestuff was a bit mushy. A quick zip with the immersion blender finished the job. Voila–the easiest-ever homemade applesauce! I served it in petite bowls with chopped locally-grown walnuts (hand-shelled by my brilliant bambinos) sprinkled on top. So sweet and tasty!
Next time I might add just a few drops of lemon juice to prevent browning. But this batch was eaten so quickly that it didn’t even have time to turn, so maybe that’s not even necessary….
:)
CatBonny brought me this alpaca shawl/scarf from her recent trip to Chile. I love how it is so blue, so soft, and so warm.
I am one lucky girl.
Even though I have so much blue in my wardrobe now, today I am wearing the groovy new red corduroy skirt that I scored on a recent goodwill run. Beside the skirt I found myself a shiny blue SIGG bottlefor 43 cents (woohoo). I have had SIGG-bottle envy for several months….
This is me, on one of my gift mornings a few days ago. I was cozy on the futon at my in-laws, reading an escapey book (Twilightif you must know) and just relaxin.’ (okay, and so I was dreaming just a bit about a vampyric nibble on my neck from this particular photographer, too)…
This morning was a bit more hectic for me. Had to open my computer first thing to check appointments and deadlines. I fear that the peace of the holiday break will soon be over…
My New Year’s resolution: to fill my life with more vanilla. Seriously, it is my favorite scent (apart from the musky odor of John’s skin).
I’ve had several goes at growing heliotrope (pictured above) and each time I’ve either given it too much sun, too small a pot, or forgot to tell a garden-sitter to water it (they are surprisingly unobtrusive and thirsty little plants). This year, I commit to growing it successfully. Because life is so much fuller when one grows vanilla-scented flowers…
Oh, and now that the new year has begun, I will indulge and buy some of my very favorite vanilla almond tea with a bit of my Christmas gift money. I tried to go wholly fairtrade with my tea and it just hasn’t worked for me yet. I need my afternoon cup of comfort…