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Entries in life (211)

Saturday
Feb192011

The Great Backyard Bird Count

The spring-like weather is now long past. Yesterday when we got up the snow was gone and the sun was out but the wind was raging and the temperatures dropping. There is ice and snow in the forecast for tomorrow. We practiced the piano and read some favorite picture books and Calvin played with Legos while I hit the treadmill, then we packed off to the library for a presentation on Michigan wildlife. I think I've mentioned before how much I love our children's librarian for her rich and varied programming (I just hope impending budget cuts don't kill that).

A couple of days ago we finished our latest book of Oz so back at home Calvin wrote a summary of the book (I love watching his writing grow and develop) before dividing our house into the dominions of the Nome King King (the downstairs) and the lands of the Fellowship of Fairies (upstairs) and I enjoyed watching him scuttle around pretending I know not what. It is wise to stay out of the tube (stairs) connecting the two.

We've been looking forward to the Great Backyard Bird Count for a while now so we were more than ready for yesterday's kickoff. Calvin is keeping track of our observations in his journal and I'll grab a picture of that at the end of the count period, the last day of which is Monday. We observed our own backyard for one 15 minute block this morning, counting mostly grackles and our beloved bluebirds, and we descended upon my parents' house for a second block of counting time in the afternoon. As a general rule my mom, with her treed backyard, has a greater variety of birds at her feeder and we were looking forward to counting them. Instead we got a lesson in the importance of leaf cover, an the effects of a lack thereof, so we counted out her front window and saw about 13 crows zip by. After that it was all Legos. Today we'll stick to our own feeders and see what we get.

If the wind dies down tonight we will be taking part in a snow moon hike with the county parks and recreation, another thing we've been looking forward to all week.

Saturday
Feb122011

Make believe

A wizard is a fantastic thing. There's almost nothing he can't do, and you're wish is his command. The wizard in our Oz books has done everything from creating an entire campsite and meal from nothing to saving a poor man from spending his life as a mable statue.

I think a wizard could be a lot of help around the house. Laundry, sweeping, cooking...what about paying the bills? And I Have a veritable library I'd like to read by the end of the year, do you think he could help me with that? If nothing else, my wizard seems completely capable of making snacks appear, of erecting amazing Lego creations, and losing anything and everything he lays his hands on.

Is there really anything better for the heart and soul than a good dose of make believe? We open all the blinds, we put away all the technology, we done our self-chosen personalities, and sometimes we even unplug the phones, then we live the magic.

Thursday
Feb102011

Legos from the past

While having dinner with my parents last night Calvin, with those sharp child eyes that can spot fun and mischief from miles away, caught sight of my old Lego castle which was down in the basement. We'd been cruising the shelves down there looking for games from my childhood when he happened to see the logo on the side of the yellow box. Before Christmas he wouldn't have even known what a Lego logo looked like (alliteration anyone?) but at this point the jig was up. Being more complex than his lighting truck it took him a bit longer to assemble, and being designed for an older age bracket than his train he needed a little more help, too. But not much. And now he's happily flying witches all over the kingdom and scaring unsuspecting knights with the trap door skeleton. I had almost forgotten those joys.

Thursday
Jan272011

Books. 

We are members of our local library friends organization. As members Calvin and I go once a week to help sort recently donated books and get them ready for the monthly sale. When I first volunteered for this job, and was told that I would be assigned one day each week while other volunteers covered the remaining days, I couldn't imagine there would be enough books to keep us all busy. As it turns out there are enough books donated that I have yet to arrive and have nothing to sort. There is always at least one grocery back full of books, but more often we find four or five times that. I love being surrounded by the books. I love touching them, smelling them, and leafing through them. Calvin is rarely bored, either, especially since children's books make up the bulk of most donations.

Last Friday we were there sorting the handful of books we found on our arrival when one of the librarians came down to let us know that 16 bags of books had just been dropped off, music to my ears. Even better, this kindly patron had great taste and left us sorting through a real treasury of books, many of them from the 1950s and 60s. Possibly the best part was that two bags of these were not sellable by friends standards because they had that musty smell, and a few other undesirable traits, so I brought them home and sorted them here. Did you know that kitty litter will take that musty smell out of books? Just leave them in a sealed storage container with an inch or two of kitty litter in the bottom for a few days, sometimes longer. I owe my Godmother for that advice; it has served me well and we are now about ten 1960s treasures heavier on our bookshelves.

We find books irresistible.

Tuesday
Jan182011

The forgetting room, the growing room

I walked into our middle room the other day, the one we've been using as an "office" since we moved in. It would make a better "learning room" than "office," I thought. After all, we put our last desktop computer to bed a few years ago so other than the cable modem and Airport (and an old drive used to store music and movies we access from the TV only) there's no need for a traditional office in our home. That's why our office had really become more of a storage area over the years, storing mostly the "we're-too-lazy-to-file-these" piles of paper as well as our "rarely-used-now-that-we've-gone-paperless" office supplies. It had become the kind of room that you entered only to drop off more forgettable items, or to forage in cases of missing items unfound in any other crannies of the house. The forgetting room.

Really I had forgotten what a great space it was: big window, walk-in closet, lots of wall space for maps and artwork. Rather than a forgotten office it needed to be a light-filled, people filled, art and book filled space. So Saturday morning we started by rescuing the closet from the twin mattress set that had been inhabiting it since we brought home the bunk-beds from my parents' house two years ago when we were ready for only one of them. Calvin isn't old enough to sleep on the top bunk yet, but he is old enough to have it set up, so we started the office reclamation project by growing Calvin's room. Vertically. He's thrilled.

The rest of the weekend went to shredding, recycling, filing, dragging furniture, storing or giving away obsolete stuff, and moving in more relevant materials. It took two full days, but Monday morning Calvin and I sat our light-filled room and looked at the huge map on the wall, drew pictures at our desks and hung them up, and sat on the floor to play games, enjoying the open space. As an additional plus I got to move a good portion of our art and craft items out of our guest room, leaving more space in there for, not guests, but sewing.

Welcome to our new learning office.