The Joy of Unpacking
The best (and worst) part of moving is discovering exactly how much stuff you have. It is exciting to find things believed to have been lost and frustrating to discover how many little plastic junk toys have infiltrated the house. Unpacking and rearranging the books is my favorite part.
These blue booklets are part of a series put out by the Fish and Wildlife Service Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. I found them at a Goodwill Outlet where they sold items by the pound.
I love the shrimp cocktail recipe that calls for an entire cup of horse radish and the crab cakes for 100 that begin with a pound and a half of butter. It all sounds delicious.
What joys will be in the next box?
Things I Love: Fall Clothes
Fall clothes are my favorite. Cold year-round and rarely without a sweater, I suddenly blend in to a crowd of other layered dressers. Tights. Thick, warm tights. A long scarf wrapped around my neck twice over. Sweaters in browns and greens and oranges. Not wrapped up in our marshmallow coats yet, but happily insulated from the beginnings of the chill winds.
Rest
The fall cold has hit me hard. I was supposed to teach about proteins this morning, but trusted my heart and taught about rest instead. It’s week sixteen, I told them. In a normal semester system this would be a break week. Let’s go have breakfast.
We sat at a long table in the cafeteria and I let them tell me their stories. So many roads to the same place. They are dedicated and tired. Rest is important.
We’ll pick up the proteins with an extra lecture on Monday. After the weekend. After a little more rest.
Some lessons I am still learning too. We stayed in tonight and I played in the kitchen, practicing pot roast. I am pleased to report I am getting better at that too. And resting is an important step.
(I used Ina Garten’s Company Pot Roast recipe from barefoot contessa’s back to basics. We didn’t have cognac or onions -howisthatevenpossible- and I am rarely a celery fan. It was delicious.)
Lady Bug’s Evening Pursuits
This smallish bear of mine has been on a Greek and Roman mythology jag for a year or so. She can’t get enough. Tonight she spent the evening “studying”.
What are you studying?
This!!
I need to find a greek tutor.
Pretending to Read
So many books in the to-read pile! I’ve been reading some, but between bears, work, moving, and life, I haven’t made as much time as I’d like. Ten minutes before bed feels like a treat. My plan is to read longer, but sleep is the greater need of the moment and I don’t last too long. That is all right. I trust my body knows what it needs. And so I rest and rest more. And soon the moving will be done and work will be in a less-busy phase of the cycle and I’ll have the chance to read chapters instead of paragraphs. Soon. For now, it’s more like pretending to read while dreaming of the real thing. Soon.
A Mess of Sparkles
The bride, her attendants, and all of the flower girls were happily sparkling. After the wedding, my dresser tray is a mess of sparkles too. Such a beautiful feeling to be surrounded by so much joy. Mazel tov, my friends! Live and love well.
What He Said: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest…
To stay at home is best. – From Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Something Right
We must be doing something right – tonight she wanted to stay up just a little bit to finish copying out a Keats poem she found. And as if that wasn’t enough to warm this mama’s heart, she looked up two words in the dictionary all on her own! Shoon and ingle. Good looking up words. She’s going to turn out just fine.
Things I Love: Light & Whimsy
Pablo may be close to right when he says I already have all the blue dresses with flowers on them, but I didn’t have any leafy, flowery shoes until yesterday, so there. They are the happiest of hand-me-downs and I just don’t want to take them off ever.
The light in the new apartment is just as nice as the light in the old one. And there are more doors and corners here.
Good for light and beauty and startling each other as we go in and out of rooms.
Whimsy found its way into Lady Bug’s room too. We discovered the art of Stephanie Fizer Coleman and are thoroughly enchanted.
As we continue to make our home sacred living space, I am enjoying all of the small things. The curtains and picture frames and botanically kissed shoes. This is good.
Fabric Fun
I unpacked most of the fabric tonight. There wasn’t too much I’d forgotten about, but WOW there are so many things I want to make! We’d better hurry up and finish moving so I can start sewing again.
There is fabric for two more quilts in the closet still. Can’t wait to get back to it!
I uncovered one of my childhood treasures.
My Grammy embroidered this for me when I was a baby. Besides these five pages, I have two extra pictures she made of these bears hanging in my hallway.
Look at her stitches! Her work inspires me to do good work too.
Naming Mountains 