Bubbles, books and broken eggs

This weekend, my sister brought her boys (the cousin brothers) to visit. We planned to hit some thrift stores and fabric stores, but the kids were too worked up to safely enter a store with anything breakable.

We did manage to make it to this weekend's library booksale. We got there during the last hour, when they charge $1 per bag. So, we did the Supermarket Sweep version of book shopping and shove anything that looked interesting into a grocery bag while trying to wrangle three little ones (two of which had just been cooped up in the car for three hours).

The weather was rainy and a little chilly, but we did manage to make it outside for a little while to blow bubbles and draw on the sidewalk.

When the wind got too chilly, we went inside to plant egg herb gardens based on Darby's. We planted basil, rosemary and cilantro. Connor is eight and I think he was the only one that actually kept all the same seeds in a single egg. Ava and Jamie were a bit more free spirited.

"Mom, look how pretty I look"

On an innocent trip to the bathroom, someone thought she would try mascara.

We had a nice long talk about not using makeup (or anything in the bathroom) without permission.

Book Review: Prodigal Summer

I'm a little late on the Barbara Kingsolver bandwagon. I'd never read anything of her's before, but I saw this one at the library booksale and decided to pick it up. I am so glad I did. Let me just tell you that I read this entire 444 pager in one day. One. I could not put it down.

The book jacket says Prodigal Summer is about human love, but I disagree. I would say that, at it's heart, Prodigal Summer is a book about family in its many forms. It's set in southern Appalachia and Kingsolver's descriptions of the setting are magical. But even better are her characters. Each one was so well-crafted I found myself thinking about them days later (the sign of a good character, I think).

Prodigal Summer centers around Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist who identifies with coyotes more than she does with people; Lusa Maluf Landowski, a scientist who marries a farmer and moves to the country only to feel like an outsider among her in-laws; and Garnett Walker, an old man convinced his neighbor is God's test for him. Through these three interconnected lives, we see how families are created and destroyed, how widely encompassing they can be -- beyond genetics, beyond species -- and, overall, how just how important they are.

On top of all of this are Kingsolver's rich descriptions of the flora and fauna in Zebulon County, a sign of her biologist roots, but done so seamlessly that it lends a richer layer to the tapestry of the story rather than distracting from it.

This is the book's first sentence: "Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits. But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed."

It gives me shivers. This is the kind of writing that inspires me to run for my comupter keyboard and just write and write with the hope that I can come up with something a fraction of this good. I can't wait to read more from Barbara Kingsolver. This is why I like discovering writers after they've been around for a while, she's already written lots more novels for me to read ; )

Progress!

What a weekend! It was 50 degrees and sunny. And, best of all, it smelled like Spring! I opened all my windows and let the fresh air in Sunday afternoon. It feels like Spring is just around the corner and I am so ready for it.

So, in the spirit of Spring, we scrubbed and repaired and organized. We even Spring cleaned the car Saturday with a car wash and oil change : ). Afterwards, we went to the thrift store, paint store, the market, and about a million other places running errands and working on Ava's big girl room. We had lunch Founder's Brewing Co. I'd never been before, but I'd heard good things and it lived up to the hype. Mmmmm, BLT and pale ale. And, we got to go to a library book sale (one of my favorite things) to stock up for reading month.

We also just got Ava's costume for her dance recital. She has begged to wear it almost every day since we got it, so I think this one will live on in her dress up trunk. After I took this photo I realized those things on her legs go on her arms. Oops.

After lots of thought, and anxiety, and research, I think I have landing on the right direction for Ava's room. I want it to be reflective of her (very girly and outgoing) personality, but also be a calming environment that can grow with her.

 The paint color is a soft bluey grey from Benjamin Moore called Glass Slipper (perfect name for a princess!). I also found a lot of incredible artwork for the room (from Kiki and Polly, Erin Tyner, Anna Bond ). The butterflies I bought are from Meijer Gardens butterfly show.

For the windows, I'm thinking the Moda orange floral for roman shades with the natural linen as drapes with grosgrain ribbon trim that will match the shade. The problem with this plan is that I have wide windows. Wider than the fabric already, before hemming. I think I have a possible solution, but I'm going to have to play around with it a little. More on that later.

I'm looking for a vintage bed that looks like this Ethan Allen one. I know I've seen them on Craigslist, but now that I'm looking for one they are, of course, no where to be found. 

I'm thinking the Amy Butler sunspots fabric to reupholster a chair and ottoman that will sit next to the dollhouse bookcase my dad built.

Unfortunately, the weekend flew by and now it's back to work.

March is reading month!

I come from a family of readers and I think nothing beats curling up in a cozy, sunny nook with a cup of coffee and a good book. My husband...not so much. So, I'm trying to nuture Ava's love of reading by reading to her and by showing her how much I enjoy reading.

Her daycare has a contest every March where the parents keep track of the books they read to their child and the room with the most books read has a party at the end of the month, which I love. So we're reading up a storm this month. Right now we're reading The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L Konigsburg. It's a chapter book, one of my favorites as a child. As I mentioned a while back, I think reading chapter books to younger children is a great way to encourage their imaginations (and maybe even increase their attention spans). Sarah Jane just posted about this a little while ago with a list of chapter books I can't wait to search for at the next library book sale.

And, in honor of Reading Month, I'm going to post reviews and recommendations on what we're reading lately all month!

Dirty Little Secret

I think most people who know me would say I keep my house pretty tidy. But what they don't know is I have a dirty little secret....I'm a closet shover. I tend to shove things into my closets until they look like this:

Yikes. This is the coat closet and the pantry. We'll call these the "before" shots, because I spent a few hours on Saturday to turn these from this into this:

I found some random things in these closets, including a power drill, 3 flashlights and tons of sidewalk chalk and bubbles.

The baskets in the pantry were on clearance at Meijer for $9 for the set. Pretty much everything else was already in there, buried under all the other junk. I now have a bag of coats and another of shoes/boots for Goodwill and, best of all, I can actually find things.

I was wondering as I was working on this if I like them get like this intentionally (subconciously) just for the sense of accomplishment I get when I clean them out.

Next up, the office *shudder*.

Book Club: Firefly Lane

This month I hosted my very first book club! I've always wanted to be part of a book club, but it never worked out for one reason or another. Then, about a month ago, I found a special offer from the publisher to host a party and in return get a free book for everyone you invite. I'm lucky enough to know lots of fabulous ladies who love to read, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The Party: The book follows two friends from when they meet in the 70s as children to today, so for the party we listened to lots of Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty and drank Faygo and "fireflys" (grapefruit juice, citrus vodka, and grenadine) served in canning jars just like the ones we used to catch real fireflies in. I love how the chips are (unintentionally) 70s colors. We ate them with warm goat cheese dip, so easy and delicious.

I also decorated a little with tealights in jars. This party was totally easy to prep for, which is perfect for book club.

The Book: I've always loved reading, but it's a totally different experience to discuss the book with friends afterward. I really enjoyed hearing how others responded to or interpreted different things in the book. Everyone said they really liked the book. I, personally, had a hard time getting into it at first. Because there is such a large amount of time covered in the book, I felt like the author, Kristin Hannah, did a lot of "telling" rather than "showing" in the beginning 1/3 of the book. So, it took a while for me to get to know or care about the characters. The rest of the book I spent either hating one of the characters for being so self-centered and or the other character for being such a doormat. That said, I thought there was a lot of really good stuff in the book and everyone who read it could relate to something in it. I would definitely read something by Hannah again.

For March, we're (re)reading The Time Traveler's Wife, then watching the movie.