Hiatus.

My loyal readers (all two of them!) have mentioned to me that my blog has been awfully quiet. My desire to express myself seemed to completely dry up in April, and in May, I was either traveling or gearing up to travel again. Spring has whizzed past and now summer has begun. Amazing!

In April I was trying to reassess whether keeping a blog was something I wanted to do. It's been five years since I started blogging and the emphasis of blogging has shifted in an interesting way, as more and more people create money-making enterprises around their blogs, or connect their blogs to their businesses, and track their followers and their ad revenue.

In this climate it seems downright quixotic to just jot down my thoughts and post a few pictures for the tiny handful of people who might see them. On the other hand, I've never had a problem before with pursuing my own little interests down my own little-traveled path.

And blogging is a pleasure. I realize that particularly when I go back and look at a given day in several different years and see what changed and what remained the same from year to year. I've always had a good memory, but it seems to be letting more and more things slip through the cracks, and my blog helps me hold onto some of those things.

All that is my long-winded way of saying "I'm back!" (For now, anyway.)

Pictures to follow, once I get some time to work on the upstairs computer where they're stored.

Catching back up with the Women's History Month questions. Some of the questions are things that I have no clue how to answer, so at this point I'm just picking through them.

Shining star: Did you have a female ancestor who had a special talent? Artist, singer, actress, athlete, seamstress, or other? Describe.

My mother and my grandmother are/were both excellent seamstresses. Grandma made quilts; Mom made most of my clothes when I was small, plus clothes for my dolls. She sewed my wedding dress and three bridesmaid dresses and then whipped up a lovely suit for herself to wear to my wedding. Nowadays she sews projects for the grandkids.

Here's a picture of me and my mom together in matching dresses that she made.

Have you discovered a surprising fact about one of your female ancestors? What was it and how did you learn it? How did you feel when you found out?

Ten years or so ago, my grandma Martin found two pictures while she was rummaging through things, pictures she didn't remember ever seeing before but was sure they were of her mother Fannie Martin Weaver as a young woman.

I still remember how pleasantly surprised I was by these pictures--almost all of the pictures of Great- Grandma were taken when she was in her middle years, and she was in poor health for many of those years, with what may have been epilepsy, so to see her as a young woman with a mischievous twinkle in her eye was a delight.

I should add that we don't know 100% for certain that this is Fannie, but Grandma was very sure, and comparing these photos to other photos of her, it seems very likely. The second picture looks very much like my cousin Krista, another of Fannie's great-granddaughters.

This is not one of the official Women's History prompts, but in looking through the old photos in my computer files just now, I was struck by how many pictures I have of my female ancestors with their sisters. I know that several of my ancestors, including my mother, have/had very special relationships with their sisters, so I thought it would be nice to show some of the other women in my family.

This is my great-great-grandmother Frances Lesher Weaver (on the left) with her sisters Elisabeth and Susan.


This is my great-grandmother Velma Collins Clark (far left) with her sisters.

This is my grandmother Mary Fenton Clark (second from left) with her sisters Helen, Esther and Florence.

This is my grandmother Martha Weaver Martin (in the center) with her sisters Carrie and Edna, and their parents Noah and Fannie Weaver.

This is my mother Lucille Martin Clark (second from left) with her sisters Kathy, Charlotte, Molly and Carol.

And here is me and my sister Jenita on my wedding day...

...and on hers.

It's a great thing to have a sister or two. Or four!

Whassup with me.

Todd is downstairs watching a DVD of "How I Met Your Mother," and I am up here surfing around and actually feeling like writing, which I have not in several weeks.

I can't remember if I ever mentioned it before, but spring is hard for me, for some reason. I just do not like most things about spring, especially the capri pants. This is what I look like in capri pants:


The left image is me, the right image is my reflection in the mirror at the clothing store, and I am shouting that I do not like capri pants and wagging my finger to emphasize the point.

My brain slows down when spring arrives. I don't know if it's the pollen phlegm or what, but I always go into a mental coma. I feel like I'm coming out of it today, hence the ability to blog-write.

In spring, the neighbors and their kids and their dogs come out of winter hibernation at the exact same time when I start to feel the need to open windows and let in some fresh air. But opening windows also lets in the neighbors/kids/dogs noise, too. Winter is so nice and quiet!

On the bright side, my tulips and daffodils have nice green shoots poking up, which the bunnies are already sampling. My chives and parsley are looking very promising, too. One thing I do love about spring is the GREEN of it all.

I cooked a recipe from a book tonight. Not a cookbook, but one of those novels with recipes included, which I have found can be pretty hit-or-miss. The book was American Cookery by Laura Kalpakian, which I really enjoyed, and the recipe was a simple pork chop thing, which would have been better if I hadn't overcooked them. I do that a lot with chops and steaks, it's frustrating.

All you do is season the chops with salt, pepper and cumin, brown them and cook them with garlic and orange marmalade. I added a tiny slurry of red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and cornstarch, shaken up in the empty marmalade jar. It definitely had promise.

I bought some Skechers Shape-Ups on Sunday, since I needed new walking shoes anyway, and these are supposed to tone your legs and butt, improve your posture, increase your IQ and make you ten years younger. Lots of promises on that shoebox!

They came with an information booklet and a DVD to show you how to walk in them, which seemed like overkill to me. I think I must walk pretty well already because I haven't had any problems with them so far. They have a rounded sole that replicates the feel of walking on a soft surface like sand, which is supposedly more of a workout for your legs. I find them very comfortable so far, but I don't look any younger. Darn.

That's it for now.

Ladies' lunch.

The Women's History Month prompt for today is an intriguing one.

If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) or any famous female who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?

I would love to have lunch with my grandma Clark who passed away in October. I lived far away from her for most of my life and I feel so strongly that I did not get to have enough time with her.

I would have her come to my house, which is something she was never able to do, and I would make lunch for her. Just something nice and simple, maybe beef barley soup and wheat bread. Wouldn't that be lovely!

It's also interesting to think about what famous female I would want to have lunch with. The first person who comes to mind is Dorothy Parker--except I wouldn't want to have lunch with her, just be one of the crowd at the Algonquin Round Table on a day when she was at her wittiest. Say, a spring day in 1922. I'd have a famous Algonquin popover and a Manhattan. Or two. She'd have scotch.

Grandma and Dorothy Parker--you couldn't find two more different women, that's for sure!

Catching up.

This has been an odd week, I have just not felt like sitting at the computer for more than a few minutes at a time. But here are a few of the Geneablogger prompts for this week that I've been meaning to address all week.

What role did religion play in your family? How did your female ancestors practice their faith? If they did not, why didn’t they? Did you have any female ancestors who served their churches in some capacity?

I come from a very religious family. My mother and both of my grandmothers are/were Mennonite. Three of my great-grandmothers were Mennonite, and one was Baptist. These were women who were in church every Sunday, who cooked for church meals and for members in crisis, who sewed quilts and taught Sunday School. So yes, they served their churches, but not from the pulpit or from the front of the church, but quietly in the background, the way women have served the church for two thousand years.

Here is my grandma Martin with a church sewing group...Grandma is third from the right.


Did you have any female ancestors who died young or from tragic or unexpected circumstances? Describe and how did this affect the family?

Two of my great-grandmothers lost their mothers at young ages, and had a hard time adjusting both to the deaths and to the step-mothers who came along afterward. I don't have my Family Tree Maker software set up on this computer, so I'll have to come back and add some of the names, dates and ages when I can get to them.

My great-great grandmother Mary Ziegler Lehman died at age 25 giving birth to her third child, who also died. She was buried with the baby in her arms. Here is Mary:

Mary's daughter Anna, my great-grandmother, was very young when this happened, and never really adjusted to her father's re-marrying and having three more children with his new wife. She never had a good relationship with her step-mother.

The only pictures I have of Great-Grandma Anna are from late in her life. Here's a scrapbook page I made, showing my great-grandmother Anna Lehman Martin with her son, my grandpa Ira Martin, her granddaughter (my mother) Lucille Martin Clark, and little old me, her great-granddaughter, at about age three.

My great-grandmother Velma Collins Clark also lost her mother at a young age. Family lore has it that Velma's mother killed herself with poison, overwhelmed and overworked.

Velma resented her new step-mother so much that she moved out to work as a hired girl as soon as she was old enough. This was one of the few jobs available to rural girls then, living with other farm families and providing extra help for other overwhelmed, overworked women with too many kids to take care of. I believe all of my great-grandmothers, and quite a few of my great-great aunts, spent time working as hired girls before marrying.

Velma ended up working for the Clark family, and caught the eye of their son Lewis. They got pregnant, and got married--in that order, I imagine it was quite a scandal--and then lost the baby girl Velma was carrying, either at birth or soon after. They had four sons after that.

Here is Great-Grandma Velma later in life with her husband Lewis and their first grandchild:

Working girl: Did your mother or grandmother work outside the home? What did she do? Describe her occupation.

My mother worked several different jobs when she was young, including waitress at Howard Johnson's and grocery clerk. She was a stay-at-home mom when I was small, and then worked as a teacher's aide, and then as an aide at a nursing home. At about age 40, she went to school and got her LPN and has been a nurse ever since, working at several different nursing homes.

My grandma Mary Clark was a one-room schoolhouse teacher for several years before and after she was married. When she and my grandpa split up, she ran a nursing home and then became an LPN. She worked at a hospital for years, and then worked at a nursing home for many more years, and didn't retire until she was well past 70.

My grandma Martha Martin never held a job outside the home that I know of, but spent most of her life raising eight kids, which is the hardest job I can think of. I love this picture of Grandma Martin, surrounded with kids, but with a real look of contentment on her face:

Moment of Strength: share a story where a female ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation.

My grandma Mary Clark spent fifteen years in an unhappy marriage to my grandpa, scraping by with a very difficult man in a very impoverished life. She finally took it upon herself to leave him, build her own home, go to school, get a nursing degree, and finish raising her five kids on her own. I have tremendous respect for her strength and courage. Here is Grandma with her hard-earned nurse's cap:

Meals.

Today's Women's History Month prompt from Geneabloggers:

March 7: Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen.

My mom is an excellent cook. My favorite of her recipes is her whole-wheat crescent rolls, which I just searched my kitchen for and cannot find; I know it's tucked into a cookbook somewhere. I've only just become comfortable with yeast baking and haven't tried making her crescent rolls for myself, but someday I will...as soon as I find that recipe! There's just something about the smell of yeast and flour that says "home" to me.

I don't remember either of my grandmothers cooking much, although I know they did. When we would visit my grandma Clark in Missouri, she was often working nights while we were there, and so there would only be one or two "big" meals that I can recall, with all the family together, or as many as could cram into her tiny eat-in kitchen. Here's a picture of a meal from the mid-1980's; pictured are my sister Jenita, my dad, my cousin Marissa, my aunt Mary, my cousin Dan, and me and my brother Jeremy with our backs to the camera. Grandma loved having a table full of grandkids.

I don't have a picture of Grandma Clark in her kitchen, but here she is looking fetching in a hostess apron, gathering up Christmas bows to re-use them, no doubt. This would have been Christmas 1972 or 1973. My aunt Gwena is at the bottom admiring her new sewing box.

I remember more meals at Grandma Martin's table, since we lived closer--we had holiday meals at her house until the extended family outgrew the house and we had to start meeting in the church basement for get-togethers. But I don't remember anything specific that she cooked.

Here's a picture of a meal in Grandma Martin's kitchen, probably around 1975. Pictured are my uncles Ron and Larry, one of my twin cousins (either Darrel or Dennis, but who knows which?), my mom, me, my dad, my uncle John and my aunt Molly. It looks like we're eating assorted casseroles, with peanut butter and homemade jam for the kids.

Here's Grandma Martin in her kitchen in the early 1980's with three of her many grandbabies: Melanie, Pamela, and Michael. With eight kids and sixteen grandkids, I think Grandma must have spent the larger portion of her life in that kitchen with a baby on her lap and a pot on the stove.

I think I need to get a picture of my mom in her kitchen, and maybe some shots of the family crammed around her dining room table next time I'm home, don't you?

Heirloom.

Today's Women's History Month prompt from Geneabloggers:

March 6: Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.)

When I got married, my grandma Clark gave me several family dishes, and this was one of them, a small glass jelly dish. It belonged to my great-grandmother Velma Collins Clark, and is one of the possessions I take extra-special care of.

Here is Great-Grandma Clark with her four sons in the early 19-teens. She would have been in her early 30's here. My grandpa, Marion Clark, is the boy with the giant britches right in the middle of the picture.

One interesting thing she and I have in common is that we share the same birthdate: October 22, although I was born two years after she passed away.

Meetings.

Today's Women's History Month prompt from Geneabloggers:

March 5: How did they meet? You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents?

I told how my Martin grandparents met in my last post. On the Clark side, Grandma's parents bought a farm right next to my Grandpa's parents' farm, so they were neighbors. Grandma's sister Florence married Grandpa's brother Elmer, so I guess it seemed like a good idea for Grandpa and Grandma to hook up. I would love to know how that happened, though--he was twenty years older than her.

My parents met at a corn-husking party, in college. They both went to a small rural Mennonite college and I guess that was the kind of thing rural Mennonites did for fun in the late '60's while everybody else was listening to Jimi Hendrix and smoking pot.

Anyway, they were in a group of kids walking across a field, and my mom stepped in a hole and almost fell. My dad grabbed her arm and said, "Guess you fell for me, huh?" And the rest was history. They've been married for 40 years.

Here's a cute picture of Mom and Dad as newlyweds:

Weddings.

I have been looking everywhere because I know I have a picture of the four generations of "Maes" from my post below...of course it's nowhere to be found! Ah well.

Today's Women's History Month prompt from Geneabloggers:

March 4: Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.

I have dates of marriage for most of my ancestors, but I don't know too many details about any of the weddings. I suppose the most I know is about my Martin grandparents--they met when Grandma's friend married Grandpa's brother, and Grandma and some of her friends took a trip out to visit her. Grandpa's parents invited the group to their home for dinner, and that was how Grandma met Grandpa.

They were married January 21, 1943, and I believe they had the longest marriage of any couple in my family: 66 years. Here are Ira Martin and Martha Weaver on their wedding day:


I've mentioned before that since most of my family was Mennonite, and the ones that weren't were dirt-poor, we have a scarcity of fancy wedding portraits in my family! Here is the only one I've got...these are my Grandma Martin's parents, Noah Weaver and Fannie Martin, who were married November 26, 1908:


In their church at that time, young people could dress "fancy," I believe, until they officially joined the church. I remember Grandma telling me that her parents dragged their feet about doing so! No wonder--they were handsome people and looked very nice dressed "fancy."

Mae.

Today's Women's History Month prompt from Geneabloggers:

Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern.

I don't share a first name, but I do share a middle name that has gone through four generations of females in my family. My grandmother's name is Martha Mae; my mother's name is Lucille Mae; my name is Janelle Mae.

Knowing that I would not be having any kids of my own, I asked my brother to consider giving his firstborn the middle name "Mae" if she turned out to be a girl. She did! Now we have Natalie Mae in the fourth generation.

Women's History Month.

I've been out of town for a few days (more on that later) but I was catching up on my forums this morning and found some very interesting blogging prompts for the month of March, which, as everyone knows, is Women's History Month. You didn't know that? Neither did I!

I'll have to combine the March 1 and March 2 prompts, since I was in a car all day yesterday and in no position to blog.

March 1's prompt: Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about?

I can't say I have a favorite, but each of my great-grandmothers interests me for various reasons. If I could only pick one to resurrect and have a chat with, it would probably be my great-grandmother Emma Shank Fenton. She is the subject of one of the most vivid stories in the Fenton family, one that was obviously told over and over to her children and grandchildren, and told to me about ten years ago by her daughter, my great-aunt Helen.

Emma and her husband and two small children, plus her husband's father, were traveling across the West in the 19-teens looking for a place that would be better for her father-in-law's health than wet Missouri. They were living in Wyoming where Great-Grandpa was working on Buffalo Bill's ranch.

Two-year-old Helen and four-year-old Lewis were playing Sunday School one bitterly cold Sunday morning, and Helen fell off her little stool and landed against the red-hot woodstove, burning her face and her eye badly.

Great-Grandma put Vaseline and egg whites on Helen's eye, bundled her up and carried her, took Lewis by the hand, and walked across the frozen Bighorn River to find Great-Grandpa and someone who could provide a wagon to get Helen to the doctor. Oh, and did I mention she was pregnant at the time?

This is a woman I would love to have known.

March 2 prompt: Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?


Since I was just talking about Great-Grandma Emma, here's a picture of her with her husband Clyde Fenton, and Lewis and Helen, during the years they spent traveling through the West. This was in Nebraska, and yes, they were living out of a tent. The picture was taken around 1913-14.

A BIG birthday.

Forty years ago today somebody very special came into the world, and he grew up to become my husband!

Todd has been a blessing to me every day of my life for almost 22 years, and I am so glad that he was born. (Did I mention that was FORTY years ago? Just wanted to make sure!)

He is truly a remarkable man and somehow he just keeps getting better-looking, too, in that annoying way men do when they're FORTY and over.

He's smart, funny, sweet, creative, hard-working and kind. Yes, God sure knew what he was doing when he made Todd...FORTY years ago.

Ah well, getting older is unavoidable, but at least we get to do it together, sweetie. Happy (fortieth) birthday to my favorite person in the world--I love you lots!

Color therapy.

I really don't mind winter, especially Virginia winter, which is "winter lite" compared to other places I've lived (Idaho, I'm looking at you!)...and even though we've had a harsher winter than usual this year, it pales in comparison to the mountains of snow my friends and family elsewhere are dealing with...and yet, I think I am ready for a warm breeze and some COLOR!

Most days I can find a kind of muted beauty in brown grass, brown leaves, brown tree trunks, and a gray sky, but not today. So here are the tulips I bought last week...gone now, but remembered fondly. February is the perfect month for tulips.

I went out on a limb and combined red/yellow tulips with hot pink, and I thought the result was wonderful. The pot is a McCoy pot I found at my favorite antique store (which isn't saying much since there are about three antique stores in all of Hampton Roads, but this one really is terrific)--anyway, I LOVE it and it was perfect for a big fistful of tulips.

I think I might need to go out and bring home a new fistful of tulips to look at...because color is good therapy in February.

Colors.

This is a fun test I found on another site: Color Career Counselor. When it gets to the part where it asks for all your information, just scroll down and hit "No Thanks" and you can get your results. Here's an article that describes the test.

I have to say my results were dead on for my personality:

Best Occupational Category

You're a CREATOR

Keywords

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas.

CREATOR OCCUPATIONS
Suggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.

CREATOR WORKPLACES
Consider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.

Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.

2nd Best Occupational Category

You're an ORGANIZER

Keywords:

Self-Control, Practical, Self-Contained, Orderly, Systematic, Precise, and Accurate

More book stuff.

I was going to run some errands this morning, but as the snow is falling again and accumulating far beyond what the weather people said it would, I guess I'll stay home and not risk the chaos out there.

Kim asked what I've been reading, so here's a rough list of things...

I read a mystery called The White Garden by Stephanie Barron, who writes a pretty good mystery series about Jane Austen that I used to read. This is a stand-alone novel about what may have really happened after Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with rocks and waded into the river in 1941. It was pretty good (I have found Barron to be a consistently "pretty good" writer) and it got me interested in Virginia Woolf and her friend/lover Vita-Sackville-West, and also the gardens at Sissinghurst, Vita's home, as I mentioned before.

So I had a copy of Mrs. Dalloway from the the thrift store around here, and I picked that up. I was an English major in college, and yet I never read any Virginia Woolf, not even "A Room of Her Own," which I think is supposed to be mandatory for English majors with a women's studies emphasis!

I had tried to read Mrs. Dalloway once or twice before and never gotten past the first page or two before getting distracted, but I must have just been in the perfect frame of mind, because I floated right through it and thought it was terrific.

Vita Sackville-West also intrigued me from her characterization in The White Garden, so I ordered one of her novels from Paperback Swap and read it: All Passion Spent. Sackville-West was nowhere near the kind of writer that Woolf was, but it was still an excellent story of an elderly woman whose husband dies and who astounds her children and grandchildren by taking charge of her life for the very first time. It was a quick, good read. There aren't many of Sackville-West's books in print any more, but I'd like to find a few more to sample.

Vita Sackville-West had a very long and interesting marriage to a man named Harold Nicholson, who worked for the diplomatic service in Great Britain. They fell in love and married right before the first World War, but their marriage was severely strained several years later when Vita had her first affair with another woman. This story is told in their son Nigel Nicholson's book Portrait of a Marriage. Vita and Harold spent almost forty more years together after this crisis, but never shared a bed again, she sleeping with other women and the occasional man, he sleeping with other men. And yet they were devoted to each other and to their homes and gardens. It's a pretty interesting story, to say the least.

I am a total Anglophile, and books that take place around the First World War through the Second World War are always interesting to me. Someone on the Paperback Swap forums (have I mentioned how much I love that site?!) brought up an author named E.F. Benson, who was a prolific writer, but who is most famous today for six novels he wrote about a woman named Emmeline Lucas (called "Lucia" by her friends) who rules the small town she lives in with an iron fist. The first Lucia book (Queen Lucia) was written in 1920, and you wouldn't think a 90-year-old book could be so wickedly funny, but it is. I've read the first three books and have the second three on order...I don't even know how to describe them except to say that if you find British sitcoms funny, you will probably find these books funny. Nobody is better at poking fun at people's pretensions than the British.

I finally got 84, Charing Cross Road from my Paperback Swap wish list...I had seen part of the movie on TV a month or so ago, so I knew how it ended, but I still enjoyed the book. It's a very quick read, a little story told in letters between a New York writer named Helene Hanff and the used bookstore in England where she orders books. The letters span a 20-year period. It made me very nostalgic for a time when you could stick a couple of bucks in an envelope and get antique books from London!

Somehow I got interested in reading Shirley Jackson, and I can't remember how. Many people had to read her short story "The Lottery" in junior high or high school--it's her most famous work by far. I heard somewhere about her last book We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and requested it for Christmas, and read it all on Christmas evening, which was a creepy way to end a holiday. It is one of the oddest books I have ever read, but it sticks with you--the story of two sisters who live in a big house with their deranged uncle, as told by the younger sister Merricat. Read it, it's good.

Then a couple weeks ago I picked up Jackson's other novel, The Haunting of Hill House, which was also very good. For people who are jaded by years of violent horror films, this book might not make much of an impact, but if you are an imaginative sort of person who doesn't even like to sit through scary movie previews, you'll get quite a few pleasurable spine chills from the story. It, too, has stuck with me...Jackson had a real talent for setting a scene and adding details that made it come to life and feel very real to the reader.

Shirley Jackson spent her early career writing the kind of domestic humor that a lot of women writers were stuck writing in the late 40s and through the 60s--stories about absent-minded husbands and adorable but cantankerous children. I found her best-known of this type of book, Life Among the Savages, and read it a few days ago. After reading her dark, spooky fiction, this light-hearted story of her four children and her family's move to an old house in Vermont hardly seems like it could be written by the same person at first glance, but I could see in it some of her same careful prose and even a few dark bits peeping out here and there.

I am really eager to get Jackson's biography--it's on my wish list at Paperback Swap--and find out more about her. She died in her mid-forties, from too much food, alcohol and pills--certainly the flip side of the light-hearted wife and mom she portrayed in her humor books, and more in keeping with the haunted women in her short stories and novels.

So that's a bit of what I've been reading the past few weeks. And I just keep finding more and more and more...!

Book stuff.

This is the year I turn forty, and even though it doesn't happen until October, I am already wrestling with it hard.

One of the many anxieties that has crossed my mind related to turning forty is silly, but very much a part of the "time running out" feeling I've been wrestling with, and that is--so many books to read, so little time. Which is a cliche, but like most cliches, all too true!

I've always been a voracious reader, but I hopped and skipped along, reading this and that, or not reading anything new for a few weeks here or there...and I often bemoaned the fact that I had "nothing to read." Lately, I've been feeling more and more breathless, looking at the stacks of books to be read, and finding new books to add to the stacks almost every day. I've gone from famine to feast, especially since I joined Paperback Swap and started trading for books I never would have found otherwise.

I watched a BBC miniseries of "Bleak House" this week on Netflix, and decided to read the book, which I was pretty sure I had tucked away on a shelf upstairs. I dug around and found A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, which I've read; and David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, which I haven't gotten to yet, but no Bleak House.

Providentially, Borders sent me a coupon in this morning's e-mail, so I printed it off and took myself to Borders, where I did find a copy of Bleak House and heaved it down off the top shelf. Let's just say this is a daunting-looking book. Even in paperback, it weighs a ton. It's 800-some pages long--and tiny type! I have a feeling this book may take me through my fortieth birthday and beyond.

In the past few months I've been finding all sorts of new topics and new authors, with an emphasis on early 20th-century fiction and history. I've read bits of Dorothy Parker and Shirley Jackson, Virginia Woolf and Vita-Sackville-West. I've read about Bohemians in England and the Lost Generation and the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle. Every topic and every author washes up against each other and overlaps and there's always more threads to follow and more people to find out about. It's a little overwhelming.

I've also changed my method of reading lately. I'm using bookmarks! I've always been a dog-earer and a plopping-open-face-down reader, but after ruining a couple of perfectly good books by plopping them face-down onto unseen table and counter stains, I decided to invest in a couple of tassled bookmarks. They have an added bonus in that you can play with the tassel while you read.

Maybe it's just a winter kind of feeling, and once the sun comes back out and there's more to do outside, I'll lose this urgency that is making me feel like I should have a book in front of me at all times. But right now, I feel like a squirrel stashing nuts--except it's books and they take up way more room.

Snow on snow on snow.

Well, we are just having a lovely day here...the snow is still coming down, although much more lightly, and I think we have four or five inches of snow. Todd is sledding on our backyard hill with some of the neighbors, and I am inside babysitting my wheat bread (which is baking right now and smells so good I want to lick the oven door) and intermittently reading one of the creepiest books I've ever read (The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson.)

The snow is very exciting. It's supposedly the most snow this area has gotten in ten years, and we've certainly not seen anything like it in our seven years here.

I tried to run out and make a snowman while my dough was rising, but the snow's too powdery and fluffy. Maybe tomorrow after it settles a bit.

I did take a couple of pictures in the garden and backyard:


Our neighbor Ray came over with his two youngest and you never saw two happier kids. Sledding is so much fun! When my bread gets done baking, I'm going to go out and take a turn myself.

We just have to be careful not to go sliding right on into the creek at the bottom of the hill!

It is bitterly cold out there, and the wind's blowing hard. I wasn't sure what to wear on my feet out there, since I have no tall snow boots, and then I remembered a hazy memory of various moms putting bread bags on their kids' feet when I was in grade school, to keep their feet dry. So that's what I did:


It worked great, too. My feet were by far the warmest, driest part of me!

Lovely roast chicken for dinner, and then Thai chicken soup tomorrow. Life is good. Hope everybody stays safe and warm!

Spicy!

Whipping a small portion of my life into shape is just about one of the most satisfying things I can think of. Even if all else is chaos, at least I can look at one tiny bit of it that I've managed to control.

This week, I took control of my spices. I whipped 'em right into shape.

I wish I had a "before" picture, but I can sum it up pretty well, I think. One drawer full of big and small McCormick-type bottles and a few packets. One cupboard with a completely overflowing wire basket full of little plastic tubs from the bulk food store. And the other odds and ends stuck in front of my flour and sugar canisters in another cupboard, where I had to whisk them from side to side depending on which canister I needed. I had every size and shape of spice bottle/bag/tub you can think of, and every time I cooked something, I spent 2-3 minutes rummaging through everything in search of whatever I needed.

So I took my problem to a "foodie" forum, and someone suggested Alton Brown's system. I haven't watched his show in ages, but basically he puts everything in little tins and then sticks them to strips of velcro inside his cupboard doors.

And voila!



The bottom cupboard door (first picture) has all my culinary spices. The top cupboard door (second picture) has my baking spices and various spice mixtures. Since I had a little extra room, I went ahead and velcro'ed my extract bottles and my toothpick box, too. Since the flours, sugar, brown sugar, etc are in that cupboard, it's nice to have all the baking stuff together.

I had one or two bottles that had more spice than would fit in the tins, but I just put those back into my original spice drawer, along with things like the popcorn salt and the Mrs. Dash and that kind of thing. So everything has a place, and order has been restored. Now to tackle the bathroom...

Just a quick picture for those who might be sick of winter...it's in the 60's here today, so I'm not sick of winter yet. I secretly wish it would snow about a foot!

But I was browsing through some photos from when we were in the OBX in October and I had not seen this one before. I thought it came out quite nicely.

Boring.

My friend Cheryl and I were just chuckling over how we didn't seem to have anything to chat about, because our lives are boring right now. And it's true, my life is pretty boring at the moment.

When I was younger, I used to think it was terrible to have a boring life. Now I realize that there are a lot of non-boring yet dreadful things that could be happening, so it's better to revel in the boringness while you can.

A few things from my boring life right now...


I finally got a nice white fridge for my kitchen, replacing the stainless steel abomination that came with the house. It was impossible to clean, and had black sides, which really sucked up the light in this north-facing kitchen. We took advantage of end-of-the-year sales plus Todd's dad's Sears employee discount and got a great deal on this one. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning when the guys arrived with it last week. It's so beautiful!

I have experienced lots and lots of serendipitous moments in my life, and I got to experience another one last weekend when we were visiting my brother's family and stopped at an old grist mill in Dayton, VA. The mill had a small gift shop, and the gift shop sold handmade rag rugs.

I had been looking for a long runner type of rug to put in the kitchen along that stove/counter/sink side where I seem to do 99% of my daily walking. The store had a 9' runner in the perfect colors. An elderly Old Order Mennonite lady weaves the rugs on a loom in her home, and she had made this long rug as a custom order, as all her other rugs are much smaller. The order had fallen through and so she put it in the shop to see if it would sell. And it did! Serendipity!


I'm so pleased to have a handmade rug instead of the typical Chinese thing from Target or somewhere. And for a lot cheaper, too, which is always a bonus.

I have finally, after years of hesitation, journeyed into the world of yeast breadmaking. I found a great recipe for wheat bread on Allrecipes, and I've started baking two loaves every other week. We eat one the first week and pull the other one out of the freezer for the second week. I had been getting more and more unhappy with the wheat bread from the store, and this is so much better, and I'm sure better for us...although slathering it with a thick layer of apple butter is probably not doing us a whole lot of good. Apple butter's good for the soul, though.

I'm starting to scrapbook again after more than a year's hiatus. I pulled down my 2002 album a few weeks ao to look for some phoos, and I was struck by how many of the pictures and the things I'd written about I'd simply forgotten over seven years' time. It really brought home to me, again, the reason I'd started scrapbooking.

And lately, especially since losing my grandpa and grandma last year, I've started to think more about keeping track of the people who are important to you. So I am working on last year's photos, and taking a vow to take more photos this year, and not just of the cute little kids in my life, but of all the grown-ups, too!

I'm working in the dining room, so I have tubs of supplies stacked there...not my ideal working situation, but it's what I've got to work with right now, so I'm making the best of it.

Speaking of people who are important to me, here's what we did last weekend at my brother's house...

Marissa and I faced off in Wii boxing (she kicked my butt):

Natalie Wii hula-hooped:


Tracy cooked us a terrific dinner:


Marissa got tickled:


Jeremy and Natalie got birthday cards and presents (their birthdays are a week apart):


...and we had a nice visit with their friends Mike and Jen and their little boys. A nice quick trip.

So maybe it's not so boring around here after all.

And like I said before, boring is just fine compared with what some people are living through. Like people in Haiti, for instance. I have been promoting Mennonite Central Committee on my Facebook page, and I'm going to do it here, too. These people do so much practical good in the world, you just wouldn't believe it, and they are amassing a major effort to provide relief to Haiti. You can read about what the MCC relief workers who were there when the earthquake hit are dealing with...it's such a devastating thing. I'm sure you've all donated already, but if you haven't or if you have a few spare bucks, think about MCC. They're already looking and planning toward the long-term in Haiti.