Polkadot Sparrow is FOR REALS!

Well faithful readers, I have some special news for you!

Polkadot Sparrow, my quilting blog, is REAL. It exists. And not just in the fantastical recesses of my mind. It's floating around in cyberspace, too! 

I am excited for this new adventure. And also grateful to all of you who have supported me in my endeavor (Tommy for snagging my site and giving me technical advice; Aunt Helen, Sarah, and HeatherN for rooting me on; and all you others who thought that this was a good idea). 

I'm hoping it's a smashing success! And if not, I'm still pretty darn proud of myself for crafting my blog banner in Photoshop. JB and I were actually wondering about paying someone to make a professional-looking one when the Lord inspired me to make this baby:

No, I am not a professional web designer. This was just a pretty little divine accident.

Feel free to comment on it all you want if you'd like. I love comments! :)

April goes to Washington

 _________________________________________

A couple of weeks ago JB and I went to Washington D.C. to visit his bro Austin and our new(er) SIL Lauren. I had never been to D.C. before, and as someone who likes America and History and Family, I was set to have a good time.

And I did! (So did JB!)

Here's our Top 10, chosen by me (you'll be able to identify the usual suspects in most photos, but Lauren is the ghost in the long shot of the Lincoln Memorial):

10.) Went to a fabric shop in Fairfax, VA. Fail. The place was nice, but all the fabric was sorted by color. Which defeats the purpose of buying matching fabrics from a particular line! Which is what people like to do! The fabrics are spread all over the place and you cannot find what you're looking for. I got a few things. But it wasn't as exciting an experience as I hoped it would be.

9.) Watched the series finale of LOST with JB. We cried and cried and cried. It was a great finale. 

8.) Went to the MegaMall in Tyson's Corner. Money,  money, money. They had stores there that I've only seen in magazines. Like United Colors of Benetton. Naartjie. L.L. Bean. Shopping there really hammered home how downtrodden the Michigan economy is right now. This mall had big name stores, little to no sales or clearance racks, bright lights, and even brighter, happier shoppers. Michigan malls seem so funeral-like compared to that place. However, I still scored a megadeal at L.L.Bean. There was one lone sweater on the sale rack. One lone red cashmere sweater originally $100. I got it for $25. My first cashmere sweater. Or part-cashmere. I don't care. Even 10% cashmere would make me feel glamorous!

7.) Lost all four games of Ticket To Ride (Europe) that we played. I tried and tried and lost and lost! But you can't go wrong with building your own trains through Europe so it was fun anyway.

6.) PUPPIES!! Puppies, puppies, puppies!! Took a harrowing car ride in and around curves, up and down mountainous road, to see Austin and Lauren's future black lab puppy (and 9 others). By the time we got there JB, Lauren and I were about to vomit. Austin was perplexed at our sickness. JB explained to him it was because he was the driver and was not subjected to the chaotic ride. He drove as carefully as he could on the way home. We all felt much better. Though perhaps we were just riding in on our puppy euphoria. 

5.) Smithsonian! There are a ton of Smithsonians. We hit up the American History one. Most of the exhibits were not as impressive as I had thought. Perhaps the hundreds of people milling about everywhere were the problem. JB and I dug seeing the Julia Childs kitchen and now he has agreed to do our next kitchen with all wood cuttingboard countertops. I am thrilled. My other huge memory from there was the Vietnam War exhibit. I saw an actual helicopter that had to fly in and out of the warzone chaos, picking up dead and wounded. It wasn't like the big helicopters that rich people buzz around in. It was dinky. Like smaller than my kitchen. Vietnam vets are some brave mother f'ers.

4.) Went to the Holocaust Museum. A great experience. Very disturbing, though. Why didn't more Jews or good Germans revolt??? How did that much mass murder happen in modern day?? I held it together until I walked through the boxcar that had taken Jews to one of the concentration camps. I thought of all the babies and little kids who had to squish in there and who died by the time they reached their destination. Imagined being a mom and a.) watching your child die in front of you, and then b.) having to hold that dead baby for days in a cramped car. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

(Did you know that Denmark refused to play the Nazi's game? They resisted till the end. Go Danes!)

3.) Walked through Arlington. I don't care what the liberals say: God Bless the U.S.A.

 2.) Saw WWII and Vietnam Memorials at night, as well as the Lincoln Memorial. If that don't make you proud to be an American, nothing will.

1.) Rode to the top of the Washington Monument: AT NIGHT. Tours are closed to the public at night. Unless you flirt with the security guard like Austin did. :) The view was amazing. Unfortunately the windows were clouded over on the outside, so I didn't get a stellar shot, but I'm sharing what I did get anyway.

Recovered from Bad Day

Thanks for your sympathies over my bad day. The ended up being better overall, which included:

1.) Finished piecing the top of Krystal's quilt, planned the backing, and got as far as I can on it before having to spend more money on materials. Yay!

2.) Kept to my new workout routine. It's nothing as intensive as Biggest Loser, but it's something that I can maintain. Though I'm still a little bewildered that I didn't lose like 30 lbs in the first week. Whaa? I have to workout continuously for the rest of my life in order to be healthy?? I can't eat 5 brownies a day anymore?? Agh!

3.) Tom Turkey visited us this week. He liked our yard, as he hung out in the garage and yard for 2 hours before I let Lucy out to chase him off. I had laundry to hang. And I didn't trust him not to peck Olivia's eyes out. And you can bet that Olivia would have tried to pet him. When she saw him out the window she cried, "Ducko, ducko!" over and over again (she now knows it's a turkey). She loves animals. Last week at my parents she kept trying to pet the band of wild calico cats that my Dad keeps. They'd come up on the porch and she'd yell, "Kitty!!!" and try to go out to pet them. She didn't understand why they kept running away. To be honest, I think even a tame cat would run away from such exuberant yelling. Poor Olivia. I guess we'll have to take her to a petting zoo some day.

4.) O got her teaset for her unbirthday (though there was a theftery fiasco involved in that, but this will be a positive blog post). Every morning when she gets up she remembers her new toy and cries, "TEApot! TEApot!!"

5.) A regular activity with O is to make tall towers that she can knock down. Today we built the tallest one yet, with our imposing and impressive Teapot topper. It lasted about 1 minute.

The Mother-lode

After seeing Olivia's new wardrobe today, JB said, "Aunt Rhonda made it in just under the buzzer!"

Olivia received a package from Great Aunt Rhonda on Saturday, containing what Rhonda hoped would be Olivia's first purse:

1.) It IS her 1st purse!

2.) Isn't it the cat's meow?? I love it! (And not just because the purse reads, "My Mother, My Friend." haha.) It's the perfect size for her, and as she loves containers, she's going to put some major miles on this thing. Thank you, Great Aunt Rhonda!! :)

3.) The reason JB commented on Rhonda's timing was that today Grandma Marian brought back The Mother-lode of clothes for Olivia, after her recent shopping sprees in Florida. She and her friend Lizzy (aka Nanny Liz) are shopping professionals. They hit all the right stores and know all the right ways to find deals, etc. And they never tire of walking the  malls. When I spoke with Marian yesterday she said that she bought so many things for Olivia that she to pack O her own bag for the flight. When I got to her house today, I saw that it was an Adidas duffle bag full.  Not, say, a plastic shopping bag. But an entire duffle bag. (Okay, so there were some pretty shirts in there for me, too, but it was mostly O's!) Included was another beautiful toddler's bag. Marian pointed out that this is a beach bag, though, so Rhonda's is still O's only purse.

Here is a shot of most of the clothes. I am amazed at and grateful for Mark and Marian's generosity. I won't have to buy O anything for Spring/Summer except for rainboots. Isn't that incredible?? The beach bag is in the top left corner, with a matching blue polka dot sunhat and polka dot outfit. There are polka dot sunglasses, too. I wish that half these things came in my size.

There is an outfit, a sunhat, and sunglasses missing in the above shot. But don't worry, you still get to see them, just on the model. O was so enamored with the pink sunhat that she insisted on wearing it at naptime:

Agh! I can't resist! Here's her in the polka dot hat. I wish they made this in MY size!

Name that Blog!!

Thank you for all of your kind words and support regarding my job search. In addition to making a new freelance contact (thank you, brother!), I got word today that I get a 3-week extension on unemployment! Aaagghh!!! :)

During my job search I have learned something startling about myself: I am not a risk taker.

Gasp!

Not being a risk taker is like being a stick in the mud, isn't it? It always annoyed me to have to deal with someone who was afraid to try something new--whether it be an ethnic dish, an unusual outfit, a new haircut, etc.

And now I've realized I'm one of them!!! Please don't judge me world! I didn't KNOW!!

Okay, so I do take some risks. In fact, I'll take just about any risk that doesn't involve money. (...or dining on animal brains...come on, people--that's disgusting!). I never took an unpaid internship in college. I never took a job that couldn't pay the bills, but that might advance me professionally. In college I never claimed a major (of the 4 or 5 that I chose) that didn't have a relevant job attached to it (no English major for me! "English" isn't a job. But Journalism, well, produces Journalists! And ironically, journalism is now a dying profession, too. Boo.) I have wanted to take photography classes but since a photography profession is extremely risky, since everyone does it, I didn't want to make an investment that wouldn't pay me back. 

But life is SHORT. And I don't want to be a wimp. 

So I am starting out on a venture that could fall flat on its face. Because of that, sometimes I do not want to start it. I want everything that I touch to turn into gold, and it's easier if you only touch sure things. Yet, I am going to make myself do this. 

I am starting a quilting blog. 

I have done a lot of research on making money blogging. I believe that I have all the necessary skills: writing, photography, a passion for my subject, interest in good website layout, etc. One question potential bloggers need to ask themselves is: would I do this, even if I didn't get paid? 

The answer for me is YES!!!!

It takes about 2 years before you start making $$ on a blog, and I am willing to invest that kind of time.

But I need help picking out a name! If you want to be a part of quilting history (as this is going to be the most fabulous, amazing, quilting blog EVER), give me your two cents! I am also open to suggestions. What do you think? 

I personally wanted SassySewNSew, but it's already taken. Many sites are. And there is already a popular site, "Crazy Mom Quilts," so I should avoid "crazylady" names.

Bird Update

Baby Olivia saw Dr. Hofman today for her 15-month checkup, so I thought I'd post a little update.

Dr. Hofman said that, "She's the best one out there!" and said that I could share that.

So there. He DOES think she's the best baby ever (but probably after his own kids and grandkids, naturally--though he didn't clarify that...).

She's taller than the average 2-year-old. And not quite that heavy, but close enough. He gave her a clean bill of health.

On the home front, she has become a very busy girl: walking, almost-running, playing with her toys, playing with Daddy, playing with the doggie, dancing, trying to talk, etc.

Here's what she's been up to.

Hanging with JB:




Channeling her inner Axl Rose:




Reading (she dons all these headpieces on her own):


And shaking' her booty (she prefers to dance w/o audiences, so I had to sneak up on her):

My Mom says she gets those moves from her, and I believe her. Because I didn't teach her any of this, and she's never seen it on TV.

Christmas Part III

After our Berkley Bonanza we hiked north to Mayberry for our part of Teague Christmas. I was pumped to give my family all my homemade gifts. JB was tired. Olivia was FLIPPED.

We got there ahead of the other car of Teagues, so it was just Aunt Annie and us for a little bit. Which was perfect for Olivia, who loves Aunt Annie, and who also needed some quiet times. So Annie changed O and put her in her jams and the little girl started to feel a little better.

Then we opened presents. I made something for everyone this year except for Dad, who got fishing gear. I cannot make fishing gear. Though I did give him and Mom a copy of the Les Cheneaux calendar that I'm in. So that was kind of homemade.

Anyway, I did not take photos of everything, but here are some of the things that I made:


Okay, so I didn't make the French drawing on the left that Annie got. But I did dig it out of a pile of art at an estate sale and took the time to go back the next day when everything was 50% off. I think my favorite thing I made for Teagues was Tommy's MSU Vernor's picture in the middle there. I self-matted a double mat for that sucker. And I like it so much I'm going to make one for myself! I also made Mom an upholstered cushion for her kitchen bench, and matted for Krystal a photo I took of our beloved pet, Reba.

Present breakdown: Again, too much to name, but most memorable gifts were a mega-giftcard from Tommy to my favorite quilting shop, Smith-Owen. He was sneaky and picked it up when he was in Grand Rapids a few weeks ago. I had no idea he did that. V. cool! K embroidered each of us a pillowcase that she (er, MOM) made. K does beautiful embroidery. And since my old purse was dead (I bought it over six years ago when I was in Nashville for cousin Sarah's wedding!), JB and Annie put their dollars (and Anne's Macy's discount) together and got me this:

(Note also the new MSU shirt, and the cool Christmas tree that we picked out of Mom and Dad's front yard a few weeks ago. I think it was a Norwegan Pine. Very good branches for hanging ornaments.)

After presents were opened and Olivia went to bed, it was game time. Our last game of the night was Apples to Apples, which by that time, our Czechoslavakian maid, Rachel, was there to play.

Some quotes:

Krystal : "I think Abraham Lincoln was ugly!"
Tommy, looking at K: "People have told me that I look like Abraham Lincoln."

"If you pick Broadway, the terrorists win!"

"I did not tie a couch to my back!! It was a (upholstered) chair!" (True Story.)

And of course, as many family conversations tend to do, the talk came around to bodily functions. Don't everyone's family conversations do this?

So a few hilarious stories were told, causing tears to come to our eyes.

Then it was my turn to pull out a card for people to choose a definition for: Nasty.

The entries were thrown into the middle of the table and I picked them up and flipped them over, revealing two "fill-in-the-blank" cards. Anne shouted out, "FECES!" for her entry. Tommy couldn't top that one, I thought. But I didn't give him enough credit, as he said, "Dad's horseshoe-shaped turd!"

No contest.

"Tommy's feces wins!" I said.

Hope you all had a wonderful, horseshoe-shaped-turdless Christmas!

Christmas Part I

Since we did so much over the Christmas holiday, I'm blogging about it in a few parts.

Part I is what we did first: Hunt Christmas.

It started on the Sunday before Christmas, with Grandma and Grandpa's annual Carol Sing party. There were around 24 people there, including some talented musicians to accompany our singing. There were a handful of children there, but the one I remember best is a little boy from our church named John. Well, he's not really little. He's like 9 or 10. He was very sweet and really enamored with Olivia. Every time Olivia started to fall as she practiced walking, he would try to catch her and keep her safe. I told her that it was okay if she fell, but he didn't believe me.

John and his brother Lars were shooting a nerf gun type thing and laughing as Olivia laughed when all the balls shot out. John said many entertaining things, best of which were, "Olivia is an awesome baby. Most babies don't like me, but she plays with me." And, looking at me, "Olivia looks like you," and then, turning to JB, "But she doesn't look like you." Pause. "Except for her red eyebrows." (Out of the mouth of babes--she's going to have red hair!! :) )

On Christmas Eve we were back at G&G's for dinner. I wasn't sure we were going to make it because freezing rain had been coming down all afternoon. Many many churches had canceled their evening services and the cars were covered in ice. But we made it! After dinner we hung out while we waited to go the church's midnight service. Olivia provided some entertainment:



The midnight service is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. The chapel is filled with candles and we sing all the good hymns with our awesome choir. We have a great new worship leader at Thornapple and apparently the service this year was excellent, according to Grandma and Marian. I cannot vouch for this because JB, O, and I did not go.

...please pardon me while I wipe the tears from my eyes...

JB and I had to admit to ourselves that we cannot do everything we used to do, now that Olivia is in our lives. She was not doing well by 10:15, even after I had tried to get her to go to bed until we had to leave for church. She was too riled up to sleep in a new place. On top of that I was feeling like crud (I got better!) and JB was exhausted. So we went back to the Hilton and went to bed. We were really bummed about missing the service.

But THEN, we woke up, and it was CHRISTMAS! Jesus had been born in the night and it was time to celebrate.

We celebrated with a hot fire in the woodstove, Mark's famous delicious eggnog, a cute baby in her green velour leisure suit, egg souffle, family, happy dogs, and by singing Joy to the World.

Oh, and with PRESENTS.

Here is the tree. It looked larger when it didn't have presents under it. Then it got dwarfed as we started putting boxes under it.



I love giving presents more than getting. I love taking several months to think of the perfect gift for someone and then making it happen, which often involves me making it. I did a lot of making this Christmas but foolishly forgot to photograph my creations.

I made Austin some recipe cards. For Grandma's birthday earlier this year I had self-matted (double mat with two openings--hard!) a fringed gentian photo of mine and included a gentian poem that someone had written out for Grandma. For Christmas we got it framed and it turned out beautifully. Then JB and I put our creative heads together and made a Spring felt table runner for Marian. It has flowers on it with bunnies jumping over the flowers. And it has a sun. And the flowers have roots and bulbs. Lots of sewing. It's folk-art-looking. JB created the pattern, and then I sewed it. It took 2 months from start to finish. Eee! But it was fun. Maybe one day I'll remember to take a picture of it.

Olivia, JB, and I were blessed with many wonderful gifts. Here is Olivia on her Rody horse from Austin and Lauren, wearing the hat that Grandma Hunt knit for her. I got a matching hat. We're totally stylin'.



Okay, so I'll name some of my presents. MSU hooded sweatshirt (I've never had a nice one!). Custom shades for our front living room windows. Friendly Village pattern tea set. Turquoise earrings. Folksy vase from Colonial Williamsburg. iTunes. L.L. Bean cardigan. Lotto tickets (not winners, but I had fun scratching them!)

JB, O, and I enjoyed ourselves. We went home and packed our bags for rounds 2 and 3 of Christmas, which I'll publish later... :)




(The driveway on Christmas morning:



We were very concerned about Grandma and Grandpa making it into the house safely, so Austin went out to assist. Our elders made it in just fine, but Austin's feet slipped out from under him and he bit it hard. But he's okay.)

Birthday Goodness

Saturday was my birthday.

I love looking forward to my birthday, and it's not because of presents! When we were little my Mom said that we couldn't start decorating for Christmas until my birthday came (even though this did not mean that we would be getting a tree that soon. Trees were reserved for the last minute of Dec 23 or 24). So for me, celebrating my birthday symbolizes the approach of Christmas.

Then when I married my part-Dutch husband, I learned that for the Dutch, my birthday IS Christmas! Aka Sinterklaas Day. Children put their wooden shoes by the fireplace in hopes that Sinterklaas will leave them a present for being good. Ambitious children leave hay and carrots in their shoes for Sinterklaas' horses, which results in a thank-you treat being left.

(If you want a humorous take on this Dutch holiday and Sinterklaas' strange habits (like summering in Spain) listen to David Sedaris' essay, "Six to Eight Black Men". I promise you'll laugh out loud at least once. There's also a humorous bit on Michigan hunters in there.)

So on this Sinterklaas Day, we went to Meijer Gardens to see the Holidays Around the World exhibit, which includes several Christmas trees decorated the way different nations do it. While they had an England and Ireland tree, there is no Scotland tree. Fail, MG!

Mark and Marian treated us to lunch at the Gardens, where I had never dined before. Who wouldn't enjoy mushroom and artichoke salad? Weirdos. Oh, and JB. So he got something else.

Then JB made me a FAB dinner of a favorite I share with Garfield: lasagna. JB made Emeril's lasagna. BAM! The Hunts came over to help celebrate, and Marian brought me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Oh, and did I mention that I didn't have to manage Olivia while I ate dinner? Mega bonus.

And the birthday fun just kept continuing.

For there were presents (in addition to the dozens of texts, phone calls, and FB messages wishing me a happy day)!

Top presents:

• Membership renewal at Meijer Gardens for JB and I (one adult admission is $12, so a membership to get in for free anytime is awesome!)

• Art-deco topaz earrings
  

• Money

Toppest present:

Yes, there is a toppest present.

JB said he was going overboard on a Christmas/Birthday present, which totally blows the budget.

Wanna know?

Here are some clues:




I'M GOING TO SEE MIRANDA LAMBERT AND BRAD PAISLEY IN CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love going to concerts and haven't been to see a lot of my favorite acts because it is so expensive. Each summer I cry and cry when the wonderful concerts come to the county fairs, etc., and leave again, while I stay at home.

Then when I learned that my two faves (after Keith Urban and Alison Krauss), Brad Paisley and MIRANDA LAMBERT were coming to town for a show in January, I was quite dejected. They will come and rock out without me.

But not any more! I am v. v. excited.

Thank you, JB!!!!!

Olive and the Prickly Pear

Those of you who have interacted with Olivia know that she doesn’t cry. Ever.

She fell down the side entry stairs the other day (okay, so it’s only 4 steps!) and let out a cry/yell until I came to her rescue; then she was fine. She stepped off the bench in Mom’s kitchen and hit the hard tile floor. No crying. She climbs onto the dogs while they maniacally wrestle with each other, snarling teeth bared. No fear.

So last weekend when she cried on and off for over and hour, even breaking out in hives, I knew that something was wrong.

We were in Mayville the Friday after Thanksgiving. Dad and JB were fixing my car in the barn. (THANK YOU, Dad!!—I had needed a new pump for my windshield wiper fluid. He just happened to have a spare laying around. Who does that?? My Dad. He’s awesome. Well, it also helps to drive the same kind of car as the rest of the family, too.)

Mom, K, Annie, O and I were in the kitchen. O was standing at the sliding doors, watching the birds, etc. Then she cruises (yes, she’s cruising now!) quietly over to the table on which sits Dad's giant blooming Christmas cactus and a pair of binoculars. She was interested in the binoculars, and as the Christmas cactus isn't that sharp, us girls let her continue to play while we talked. We failed to notice the prickly pear cactus living in the pot, too, which Liv did NOT fail to notice. So she grabbed it with her pudgy little left hand.

A million little fiberglass-like splinters embedded themselves into her hand. In the palm. Between her fingers. All over her thumb. Everywhere.

Sad, sad bird.

She cried and cried. We tried all sorts of remedies. She tried so hard to be brave. She would stop crying, and then reach her hand out for a toy, and it would hurt again and she would cry again. After trying lip wax (getting some of the pokers out) and soaking her hand in warm water (fail—baby uncooperative), I took her to the barn to get some duct tape from Dad at Mom’s suggestion. Dad agreed on the remedy and said to make little balls for her to grab in her hands that would pull the pickers out.

So we did that. A few times. And got most, if not all, out..

Unfortunately her hand was still sore from the poking of the needles. So she still cried some more.

But then Grandpa got out the spinning top and all woes were forgotten. Who can cry when there’s fun to be had in Toptown??

Weekend Update

We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend! Well, I did. JB had a horrible cold and lost his voice. Olivia had a run-in with a cactus. Lucy and I made out all right, though. :)

We spent Thursday-Friday in Mayberry.

Mom got to do what she loves best: play with her grandbabies:




Ten people came to Thanksgiving. We had 5 pies. That's a half pie each. Friday morning there was 1.25 pies left. We did our duty!



We did a Christmas photoshoot with baby Lilian, who is not accustomed to the camera like Liv:


O tried on her first pair of high heels:



Then when nightfall came Mom plugged in her lightshow. Tommy asked if she had called Consumer's Electric to see if they had enough ampage to power her display. She did not, but no power outages were reported as a result of her Christmas spirit. She lit up the whole front of her wraparound porch. And then a LARGE evergreen tree for each of her kids: she has 7 (I didn't count the trees, but it seemed like that many). And then the massive pine tree. And she had run out of time to do her MSU tree with the green and white lights that were sitting on the kitchen counter.

It wasn't until after she lit them all up that she decided she should redo the lights on the massive pine. She reflected that perhaps standing 20 feet off the ground in the bucket loader with a long pool-cleaning stick in one hand and a string of lights in the other, calling down instructions to a deaf old man who was driving the machine and had been drinking his share of spirits, would result more in a Drunkard's Tree than in a Christmas Tree. I am sorry that I did not get photos of this. I do not have a good tripod (it's on my Christmas list, hint, hint!) so it would not have worked anyway.

After returning home, we put up THREE Christmas trees (one for us, one for Olivia, and then we helped G&G set up their decorations). And outside lights. And I enjoyed a great Advent service at church while JB lay in bed, miserable.

We are officially in the Christmas spirit, yo!

Read with Me!

Back in 2003 the BBC conducted a poll on reader's favourite books. This list, the BBC Big Read Top 100, has been circulating the internets since it's inception in 2003. As the poll was conducted in Britain, it's no surprise that about 60 of the books are Brittish.

There are scads of "best book" lists out there, but this one had the most titles that I am honestly interested in. Maybe it's because I like British tales.

Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of these 100 books. When I first received the list, I had read only 14 or 15. I shared the list with JB, who ticked off 35 titles himself. Goody two-shoes!

I am an avid reader but when I tried to read classics in high school, I was BORED. I preferred my detective novels, thank you. So I never gave them another try. I didn't really believe that many people actually liked these stories and that they just raved about them so that they'd look smart and trendy. You know, like people who rave about "classic" black and white movies that in reality have light plotlines and so-so acting (Gone With the Wind excluded!!).

In 7th grade I did read all 1036 pages of Gone With the Wind of my own choosing. I loved it. My English teacher, Mr. Coopes, then assigned me to read To Kill a Mockingbird, believing I'd enjoy another Southern tale. After page 3 I was dreadfully bored and refused to read it. I took an E on the assignment. Nobody tells ME what to read! After that I left everyone else to their classics while I read REAL books, like Nancy Drew.

Then when JB and I were living with Grandma and Grandpa Hunt (during the Calvin restoration) I saw To Kill a Mockingbird on one of their bookshelves. It had a cool cover and I was itching to read, so I cracked it open.

And couldn't put it down.

How had I ever thought that this book was BORING??? Probably because I was a child. I don't think that teenagers can really get most classics.

Ever since then I've been interested in classic books but as there are so many, I never knew where to start.

JB and I are working our way through this BBC list together. Only I'm the only one that has started. Then again, maybe he's just waiting for me to catch up to him.

My sister Annie has graciously lent me several of her classics from this list, dubbing it my "winter reading." Annie, I won't let you down!

Here's the full list, for any of you fellow readers who care to see where you stack up and perhaps even read along with me! (I've bolded the ones I've read. I've started several others, but they don't count until I read the last page!)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (JB has read this, but I shall not)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Mitch is too self-important, so I'm not reading this one, either.)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Happy Birthday Tommy!

It's my brother's birthday today. Every few years it falls on Friday the 13th. Ooooh! Spooky!

I remember when we were living in the Lapeer house and our cat ran away from home. It was an outdoors cat, so I don't know why we were so surprised when he took off. I was sooo sad about it! For days I waited for that cat to come home.

Then Tommy's birthday came. On Friday the 13th. And we were all getting ready for his birthday party when the neighbor calls to say he found our cat. Or something like that. I was little. I just remember that after Mom got off the phone with someone, she said that our cat was found. So that Friday the 13th was actually a LUCKY day.

Hopefully this was another lucky one for you, brother!

In honor of his birthday, I did a Mohawk photo shoot with Olivia and Lucy for his birthday card. Unfortuately Lucy's 'hawk did not translate well onto film. Oh well!

As soon as I gave my name to the girl at the photo counter at Walgreens, where I was picking up my prints, she said, "I LOVE the mohawk photos! They are so cool!" Then she went on to tell me that she did the same thing with her son (who is same age as O) and how her fiance went bananas over them. He insisted that they be made into 8x10's and framed.

What can I say? Mohawks are awesome.

And mohawks on babies are priceless.

Here are some gems from the photo shoot. I hope you got your card already, brother, so that this doesn't spoil the surprise. But I couldn't wait any longer to post!!:

Getting started:

"Mother, are we doing ANOTHER photo shoot? Seriously. If you make me do another one of these I swear I'm going to feed Piglet to the dog."
"You shall put the camera down and stack blocks with me instead!"

The one baby and dog shot. Lucy was kind of nervous about sitting in a rocking chair. She had been even more nervous at the sound of hairspray being dispensed into her fur. She is so obedient!

Reflections in being a caged baby...

Oh, crap. Now that I've busted all my friends out of jail, who's gonna get ME out??

You know it's hard out here for a punk...