Colourful Threads

Most of you know that we bought a fixer-upper ten years ago. We are almost finished the basement, but the main floor is pretty much in the same state that we bought it. My kitchen is in poor shape, aesthetically as well as functionally.

My father has done a wonderful job of repainting the kitchen cabinets in their home, but my cabinets are so warped that they do not close, and so tilted that jars will roll out of them if they happen to tip over. It seemed like such a waste of time, effort and money, to “whitewash the outhouse” that I never got it done. Many a time I’ve felt guilty about not doing something to make the place look nicer.

This past week I read Lynette Kraft’s thoughts on the matter of the Blessings of an Ugly Kitchen.

I went upstairs to my own ugly kitchen and gazed on it with new fondness. The knife marks on the drawer, where NotsoLittlerPage1 carved some “pretty pictures!”. The wall paper peeled back in the corner where many a child has waited silently for me to calm myself. The faded yellow counter top that absorbs ink from the labels of what little prefab food I buy. The rabbit chewed edge on the dishwasher. The cupboards where I’m not afraid to put away damp dishes, because you won’t notice any new damage to the wood. The hole in the countertop that once housed a sticky gouged cutting board that was impossible to clean. The piece of damaged table leaf that now covers the hole, compliments of Ikea, who sent a new leaf to replace the damaged one but didn’t want the damaged one back. (Perhaps I’ll find time to post some pictures too.)

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1. Meditation Challenge Day 2
2. Through the eyes of a child…
3. Kitchen Rabbits

I had to make a cinquain for a copywork assignment and I was really pleased with my efforts.

Lions
Toothy Kings
Sounding loud roars
Waiting til they’re hungry
Prowlers
-LittlePage1

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1. I Wrote a Limerick!!!

I saw these at a craft show. They made me smile. To see more hand-painted primitive signs pop over to the Home Spun Raven.

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1. Overheard at My House
2. House of Cards
3. Overheard at my House Today…
4. Overheard at my House – On the Road…

Mary Beth Chapman recently lost her five year daughter in a car crash.  This quote really touched me. I thought I’d share it.

How would I have lived differently if I knew that my time with Maria was going to be this short? Regretfully, I would have lived much differently. I would have purposely hugged and kissed more. I would have tried to memorize and lock away in my heart certain smells and smiles. I would have colored more and worked less. I would have laughed more and fussed less. Bedtime wouldn’t have become a chore to check off the list of things to get done. Instead it would have been more of an opportunity to listen about the day and offer whatever words were needed. The swimming pool wouldn’t have been too cold to swim in. The flowers in the garden would have all been picked, and definitely more ice cream would have been consumed!

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1. Meditation Challenge Day 5
2. Growing a Garden

Yes. I admit it. We are lovers of grammar. I remember dating MrPages and driving down the main strip of the city. Shoppers Drug Mart recently announced that they would be “Open to Midnight.” “Who is Midnight, and why is the drug store open to him?” MrPages queried. [Nota Bene for those of you who have lives: It should read: Open 'til Midnight]

So recently MrPages came across a great list of misused words and I thought I might share it as well as some of our other lovely links for any other grammarians that might stumble upon our blog:

The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words: “I do not think that word means what you think it means!” A wonderful listing of commonly misused words, especially in my own writing.

Words: Woe and Wonder: I love CBC. Programming for the thoughtful Canadian. This is an open forum where you can point out CBC’s mistakes and they will justify their uses – for the next time you’re up late and can’t seem to fall asleep.

Eats Shoots and Leaves and other books by Lynne Truss: Ms Truss is a kindred spirit. Her book came with apostrophe stickers so you could fix poorly punctuated store signs. Awesome reading.

KISS Grammar by Dr. Ed Vavra: Dr Vavra is a wonderfully insightful man who is trying to create a curriculum that helps people understand grammar. The site is so jam-packed full of stuff that it can be overwhelming. I’m using these materials with the oldest LittlePages. Someday I may find the time and energy to write how I’m doing it, but not just yet.

Guide to Grammar & Writing by the late Dr. Charles Darling: This is another educational site by a grammar lover. It has wonderfully thorough definitions and the online tests are kind of fun. [Go ahead and roll your eyeballs, but then come and try to explain Predicate Adjectives to a ten year old!] There is also a page of confused words here as well.

And to end: How about 274 lines of poetry that show just how crazy English spelling and pronunciation rules actually are. It gives me a whole new appreciation of the skill of reading when I reflect that my seven year intuitively understands a lot of the inconsistencies in this poem. Really, it’s rather an amazing feat that any of us can read and write at all.

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1. Ad Libitums
2. Do as I Do…
3. Wonderful Books
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We drove out to the country on Monday. It was cold. The thermometer read -30C when we left after lunch. The front windshield refused to defrost all the way, leaving me to slouch the whole way there; and because the heat was necessary on the window, my feet grew progressively colder.

The trip was sped along by the lovely addition of a Librivox recording of White Fang. NotsoLittlePage1 had just finished reading The Call of the Wild and was gung-ho for the next book. My, but what a riveting tale! Perhaps it was made even more real by the fact that we too were racing across a cold, frozen landscape.

We had a lovely visit at the McI’s. Great conversation, a little bit of time outdoors for the children who got up a roaring game of Fox and Geese, and a lovely cup of blueberry tea with banana bread to end a charming afternoon.

Then, being the taskmaster I am, we delayed our supper and stopped at the library and then the Post Office. It was very quiet in the library and we caught all the staff munching away on their dinners, but as always they were welcoming and friendly. The post office was not so welcoming. The young clerk seemed inconvenienced by her customers and in addition was apparently out of stock of necessary postal items, such as stamps! If she didn’t roll her eyeballs physically, they certainly seemed to swing back metaphorically, but my packages where finally sent off.

I am looking forward to the credit I will receive for my socks. (MrPages bought me some lovely socks from Sock Dreams, but they weren’t quite right.) And I hope that the letters to our Compassion kids won’t take six months to arrive because we finally got the Christmas cards all written up. (This is the reason that all of you don’t receive cards from us. Seriously. The last time I wrote out cards, I forgot to mail them and discovered them the following summer.)

And finally home to a late supper, a read aloud time with Rifles for Watie and early to bed.

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1. Library Love
2. The Year in Review – Books
3. But It’s A Dry Cold…
4. Library Elf – No More Overdues

I was recently reflecting on my lack of blogging and realized that most of my writing, whether for the blog, or in my own personal journal, happens when I am angsting over something or struggling with the black dogs of depression. I think I use the written words to help me unravel the chaos inside my mind.

When things are going good, well, even-keeled, I don’t feel the need to purge and so struggle to find things that I think others might be interested in reading. And many a night I’ve sat before the blog and thought, “Nope, nothing interesting.”

(Please, don’t argue. I realize that I am an interesting person, but the world doesn’t really need another blog that launches off about the best home school curriculum, the best way to menu plan, or the best way to organize shoes for a family of seven. I’m not really good at any of those anyway, and I’m not sure how much y’all want to hear about how to use every dish in the kitchen so you can go four days before your need to wash dishes or how to stack the laundry pile so it stands ten feet without toppling!)

Back on track.

I’ve been reading God’s Galloping Girl:The Peace River Diaries of Monica Storrs. Miss Storrs left a comfortable English life in 1929 at age 40 to become a missionary in the new settlement of Fort St. John in the Peace River Valley of northern B.C and Alberta. She came for one year and stayed for 20. For the first ten years she wrote home a weekly letter telling all the tedious little parts of her days.

The book should be boring, but it’s not.

It’s filled with the details of a woman who did wash every Monday morning, had a toothache that resulted in at least two teeth being pulled before the culprit was found, who began Sunday school and Scout and Guide troops, and who bravely visited rough and tumble pioneers spread over a hundred miles, mostly on foot.

She inspires me to like the mundaness of my life – because for the first time in a long time, I see value in it. She makes me want to blog about the mundane of my life.

So, it may not seem interesting. It probably won’t be earth shattering. And unless I get depressed or start angsting again (which is more than likely at some time in the future) it is going to be pretty mundane. But it’s life. And it’s my life. And I think I’ll share some of it with you all.

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1. WonderfulPages
2. Mid Life Crisis
3. The Year in Review – Books
4. Time Out