Dappled Things

1. When I was young, we lived next door to a very old, distinguished-looking, library and my father used to bring home a stack of books as tall as I was each week. Books to read aloud to me. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting curled up in my father’s lap while he read all sorts of books to me.

2. My favorite flower is the lily-of-the-valley, but I am also quite fond of lilacs and hydrangeas. When I was growing up in New Hampshire, we had a large lilac bush that was heavenly. It was nearly as tall as our barn which it grew beside. Lily-of-the-valley grew wild in great patches in the shade of the woods.

3. I am in the middle of reading Northanger Abbey. I am taking an extraordinarily long time finishing this book for some reason. My daughter, Lily, has already finished it and is waiting impatiently for me to finish it, too. She doesn’t want to give anything away. I need to hurry along with it because I have already committed to reading four other books before the end of January. I have also been contacted by a book publisher to review five more books on my blog. If I thought I needed something to get me back into reading, I certainly have it now.

4. I am actually looking forward to eating fish sticks, macaroni and cheese and green beans for supper tonight.

6. When I was Clara’s age, my favorite thing to do during recess was to either finger knit or use a wooden spool with four nails in it that my grandmother made for me to knit long coils with. I also enjoyed playing with the kindergarteners on their playground. I always liked being around young children. The other girls would play soccer, but I was not much of an athlete. Interestingly enough, the girls played what was called “goal” soccer and the boys would play “base” soccer. “Goal” soccer was considered a “girls’ game”, but it is what we know of as traditional soccer today. “Base” soccer was similar to baseball except the boys used their foot instead of a bat and a soccer ball instead of a baseball.

7. When I was Lily’s age, my best friend was “going steady” with a boy for the first time. I always felt as though he disliked me and wouldn’t mind getting rid of me entirely. He probably wouldn’t have.

8. I know haiku and I am not afraid to use it.

9. When I was little, I believed that the trees made the wind by pushing the air around with their branches.

10. One of the first words I ever read was on the back of a truck parked in a church parking lot next door to my house. (Yes, we had a library to the left of us and a church to the right). I was riding my tricycle around in the parking lot with my dad. The word was “Chevrolet”. I told him, “Look! It says “chevrolet”!”. Except I said it phonetically.

11. My husband is home! I must go prepare our fish stick feast!

12. My husband wants me to tell you I have beautiful eyes. Can you tell I am running out of ideas? I must be very boring.

13. Ask me something about myself so I have some good TT fodder for next week! (Yeah, I know that wasn’t exactly enlightening, but I am running out of ideas.)