Something old...

I am someone who loves the idea of antiquing and foraging for old stuff.  Notice I say "the idea of..."  Sadly, the reality doesn't appeal to me anywhere near as much.  I am not patient, I find many "antique" stores either dirty and smelly or highly overrpriced and I seem to lack that commitment to searching that leads the the "great find".  Enter the internet.

A few weeks ago, Sarah Bessey, on one of my favourite blogs, posted a list of her ten favourite books each day for a week on a different theme.  The day of spiritual memoirs really caught my attention.  I am always looking to read books by those, especially women, who can inspire me and lead me to a new way of seeing the world.  I scanned her list quickly and immediately, a name jumped out at me.  Madeleine L'Engle.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE her (or, as Sarah says, "I'd like her as my patron saint.")  I'll write about her books and their meaning to me another time but right now, I'd just like to talk about buying some vintage books myself.  Swoon...

Enter Abebooks.  My mom, a former librarian, introduced me to it.  It's a kind of clearing house for used books.  It took me about two minutes to find the set of four that comprise "The Crosswicks Journals".  I wasn't buying first editions or special hardcovers so I was able to buy the entire set for about $20.  

The most interesting part?  The books came with interesting things inside.  I'm nosy and love a little mystery.  The first book contained someone's completed overtime sheet and a bookmark from a bookstore in Levettown, NY.  I looked it up an apparently, it's a community that holds an interesting history as one of the first suburbs in the U.S.

The second book seems to have been withdrawn from a church library from "Church of the Holy Spirit" in Orleans, Mass.  It seems that's on Cape Cod.  Again, quite fascinating.  It makes me wonder who might have read this book before me.

The third book was boring but the fourth came with a bookmark from a bookstore in Brooklyn.  Again, I found that interesting.

So, now I have a set of books from a favourite author and each with its own history.  So much fun!

HISMSV - 34

After the constant, frantic pace of the last few days, it was such a lovely treat to have a day to do as little as possible.  

We started with a leisurely morning.  The animals certainly got into the spirit of things.  There was rain in the forecast and when I saw the sun shining through, I immediately thought of our yard that definitely needed work.  Dh desperately wanted to watch the "Community Shield" (a major Premier League Football game) so the kids played outside with bikes and sleds and I weeded and weeded and weeded.  It was hard work but I had such a sense of satisfaction when I was done!

 The only other thing we did today was to take the dogs for a run.  It is still humid during the day but there are definitely sure signs that fall isn't too far away.  The intensity of the sun is waning, the crickets are deafening in the field and I even saw a few autumn colours peeking out of the trees.  Some people may be disappointed but while I enjoy summer while it's here, I am very happy to see signs of fall, which is definitely my favourite season.

 We were a bit concerned that we would be rained on when we were out but fortunately, the rain held off until we got home and gave us the perfect setting for cozy afternoon naps.

 I love my new rainboots.  I have wanted new plaid boots for ages.  These colours weren't my favourite when I first saw them but the lining is a lovely yellow flannel that brings me sunshine on a rainy day.  I most definitely have a "thing" for wellies!

Hope you had a lovely, quiet Sunday!

HISMSV - 33

HISMSV 32

I am going to batch a bunch of days together, otherwise I will never get this done.  Suffice to say that a. it was a crazy week and b. I had a check-up and I always get extremely paranoid before a doctor's appointment.  Not only did it all end up to be well (all my bloodwork numbers, including blood sugars and cholersterol stuff were amazing, which had worried me for some stupid reason), but a persistent oddity in my bloodwork has resolved itself.  Hooray!  I was pretty distracted with my nerves, though.

Tuesday - a former university roommate, who I really liked, came through town.  We haven't seen each other in probably 10 years as she had moved to a different continent.  I was a bit anxious that we wouldn't have anything to talk about but given that she is in education and competes with her dog, it didn't take us long to start yakking and we kept it up for about 6 hours.  In the middle, we took the dogs for a good run and a swim.

Wednesday - Pk spent the day with her favourite Aunt and Dh, LB and I went in to start some work in my classroom.  The school daycare was in there so I couldn't take any photos but at least now, my bulletin boards are done and the room looks great, if I do say so myself.  I hope to go in once a week until the end of the summer.

As a thank you, I took Dh and LB to an "all you can eat" sushi restaurant.  It was lovely.  The food was great and LB thought that a restaurant that gave him his own drumsticks to eat with was amazing.  Fortunately, like so many cultures, the Japanese spoil little people and will forgive anything.  He was definitely spoiled by older Japanese ladies.

Of course, the evening ended with soccer.  It's strange to think that next week will be our last week.  It's been such a nice part of our summer!

Thursday - the entire morning was taken up by check-ups.  Our doctor is quite a drive away so by the time we got home, there was just time for a quick nap and then we had friends for dinner.  It's pretty cool when best friends even manage to close their eyes for photos in sync!

Friday - this was definitely "wet noodle" day - I really get myself worked up about going to the doctor. We were so thrilled to have a day of quiet in the midst of all the frenzy.  We ended up going with a friend to the Lego programme at the library.  The kids loved it and the dads had fun chatting.  I got involved in a fun game of Jenga and even managed to keep LB from crashing the tower down, which I felt to be a significant accomplishment!

In the afternoon, the skies opened up and it POURED.  Our basement flooded a bit, along with most of the rest of town.  Fortunately, there doesn't appear to have been any damage done.  It's been so dry, it was nice to see things damp again.

We all had fun with our boots and umbrellas!  I'm just happy that LB didn't poke anyone eye's out at the grocery store!

HISMSV- 31

The "Friends Olympics" day.  We have a group of friends who get together monthly and do a theme dinner at someone's house.  It's become something that we all really, really enjoy.  Sadly, this month, we couldn't get all four families together but we did manage to get three and our theme was Olympics.  I haven't laughed so hard in a LONG time!

In the morning, we went to house #1 for the aquatic events.  The pool temperature was perfect and we had a wonderful time!

We took a break to go home for lunch and naps and in late afternoon, we reconvened for a spaghetti dinner and the rest of our events.

 There was wrestling (the teacher in me really cringes at this).  We weren't sure how LB would feel about this since it isn't something that is allowed to happen in our house.  When he did flying tackles on the group, we decided that forbidding it here is a good plan!

 We did floor routines.

 There was archery.

 This was a kind of biathalon.

 We had shotput.

 There was high jump.

There were equestrian events.

 We had luge.

 We had cycling.

 Of course, we had to have an energy break!

 Our final event was bowling.

 As always, LB had to reinvent it to a new sport - soccer bowling.

 Finally, our team were awarded their medals.  It was such a fun day.  I think the kids will remember this for a long time!