I finished my February socks with days to spare and I meant to pick up another project but didn’t.
Reread Anne of Green Gables it was wonderful to revisit with an old favorite. I can’t decide what to read next. One of my friends recommended “The Nightingale” but told me to have tissues ready, and I just don’t feel as if I want the kind of book where I need to have tissues ready. It’s been sunny and warm but it’s still February. Rainbows and happiness, please.
Violet and Abram finished their basketball season and my parents came to watch their last game. Sitting on the porch (it was 50° on Saturday) while my dad and Abram played whatever ball related sport Abram wanted at the moment and Violet rollerbladed was awesome.
I made sweet potato and black bean quesadillas and (pat myself on the back) they were delicious.
The little things sure do add up, don’t they? It’s the little things I treasure most in our home, and usually not so much for what they are, but for what they represent. I just love your photos. I wish I could come over for a visit. It’s so nice and rare to find a kindred spirit. If you want rainbows and happiness and a good old-fashioned read (that Violet might like, too), have you ever tried the Betsy-Tacy books? I haven’t read them in decades, but I do remember loving them. Or All-of-A-Kind Family? Turn of the (last) century family stories.
Hope you are enjoying the turn toward spring.
I wish you could come over for a visit too! I’d love to sit down with you a glass of wine and some handiwork of some sort and have a good long chat.
Thank you so much for your comment on my photographs. I realized the other day that I have been neglecting my camera and I really want to be better about using it.
AND thank you for the book recommendations. I haven’t heard of Betsy Tacy books or the All-of -Kind Family so I’m going to go look them up. But good old-fashioned rainbows and happiness reads sound PERFECT to me!!
I’m with you and Rita — the little things sometimes spark the most joy ( 😉 ).
Is that a card catalogue the blue glass is sitting on? If so, you should do a post on it — I would love to see what you’re using it for (and hear about how you got it).
Have you read the entire Anne of Green Gables series, Kate? I read them all alongside my daughter (many years ago now) — they’re such lovely feel-good stories. Are you a Jane Austen fan? About a year ago I read Longbourn (Pride and Prejudice: The Servants’ Story) by Jo Baker. It was a good read, lighter than my usual fare (so maybe just a bit tough going in some places, in other words). When I went to look for Longbourn on my shelf this morning, I also came across The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain by Christopher Monger, which I read probably 25 years ago; I do remember it being a really funny and light and feel-good read.
We had record-breaking temperatures on Saturday too. It certainly felt like spring was in the air 🙂 .
Yes, it is a card catalog. I wish I could say I use it for something but it’s mostly a treasure trove of bits and bobs that get randomly stashed and forgotten. I just checked a few drawers and found a spool of white thread, a couple of matchbox cars, a travel size de-static cling spray, and some lego. I should probably go through it! (I try to at least once a year.) I should do a post on it, but I did once in another blog ages and ages and ages ago that has since been removed so I’ll just share a brief history with you. I had been dreaming of getting a card catalog for ages when I decided to see what I could find on eBay. And as fate would have it, when I happened to look there was one from the very first library I ever had a library card from (and in the town my dad still lives). I called Jesse, got a “don’t go over this price” amount and then proceeded to completely ignore it because 1) it was a card catalog 2) it was from my childhood library (and one of the most beautiful libraries I’ve ever been inside). We drove the 10 hours to Michigan the following weekend, picked it up from a woman who worked at Hackley Public Library (she also gave me a Christmas ornament with the library etched in glass and a postcard with some historical snippets), had breakfast with with my Dad and Grandma, and then drove home. With a three month old baby. Besides my kitchen table (my grandpa built it), it’s the most cherished piece of furniture I own and I don’t even use it for anything.
I read up until Anne of Windy Poplars and stopped somewhere during that because I just couldn’t do the epistolary format. Thank you for the book recommendations! I seem to be in a bout of wanting to read but not knowing what to pick up so it’s wonderful to get recommendations! 🙂
I am now completely and thoroughly jealous of your card catalog. I believe they’re fairly impossible to find any more because the hipsters have snatched them all up. Yours is legit. The real deal. What I would give to own a card catalog from my childhood library! It would need to serve no purpose at all but to delight me. Though it might be awesome for storing craft supplies…
Well, if I can’t have one with such a wonderful story, I’m so glad that you do. 🙂
Oh, and another read that just popped into my head: Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast. It’s a bit old now, but I remember really enjoying it. Good, light, clean fun.
See, I told you I was going hipster with my white paint and macrame. 😉
Another blogger I follow used hers to store scrapbook supplies but she had to take the rods out of the drawers and make bottoms for them. At least in mine (and I’m guessing hers too since she made bottoms for it) the bottom of the drawer has an opening about one inch – to make the cards slide easier on the rods? I know it’s ridiculous, but I just couldn’t do that to mine.
Oh, I couldn’t do that, either. That you couldn’t probably means that you’re not a real hipster, after all, despite the white and macrame. 😉
I LOVE the story behind your card catalogue! And I’m with Rita — it needs to serve no purpose other than just sitting there and making you smile when you look at it 🙂 .
And I second the Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast recommendation — I read those (there’s two, plus a “pillow book”) around the same time as the Up the Hill book, and thoroughly enjoyed them (and ahem, a Canadian author to boot 😉 ).
Yay! Thank you both for the book recommendations. I’m writing them down so I have them when I go to the library tomorrow!!!
Whoops – the second in the series IS the pillow book, and the third is the “bedside companion” (not that it matters, really; I just wanted to be accurate!)
Oh…and spring was definitely in the air but we’re back to cold temperatures at least for a few more days yet here! Rumor has it we are going to warm up a bit next weekend and possibly stay spring like but I’ll believe it when I see it!!
We are in full-on spring mode here. I have daffodils blooming. Blooming daffodils! In February! (I know it’s March today, but they’ve been out for several days.)