Soon and very soon I will be getting on this:

to go here:

While I'm there I will go here:

to see

Did you get that last bit?  Just in case you didn't ---- I'm going to see

I will see my two sisters and one of my four brothers.  I will meet three great-neices and three great-nephews for the first time.  I will spend a lot of time playing

and a lot of time

and a lot of time sipping tea.

Deo Volente.

This small Delft vase was a wedding present by an elderly widow who gave it to us in memory of Margretta, my grandmother and her best friend. My two grandmas, as different as night and day, were both Dutch.  The Delft vase has always been precious to me and I'm thankful that it has (so far) survived raising three lively boys and my own clumsy hands.

Below are some other examples of Delft Pottery.

On his
own he asked me to read him a book!  All's right with the world....

Summer Reading Challenge....eeeyeahhh.  I've gotten a little sidetracked, but in my mind the other books were always considered addendums not substitutions, and there were certainly good reasons to read them.  This week I got back to my SRC list and started The Tolkien Reader.  I was given a very nice bonus.  A bonus as in an unexpected gift.

[aside for a rant: I work one afternoon/week in a pharmacy as an accountant.  I get sooo annoyed when employees approach me in a buzzard-like way wanting to know exactly when the Christmas bonus will come.  A bonus is not an entitlement.  Really.]

As I read Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories, I realized I should have read this before I read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.  It was impossible for me to keep characters in their right category because none of categories made sense to me.  I remember asking our Latin class what an elf was.  They all knew.  My youngest son, who was practically a Tolkien scholar by age nine, was very patient with his mom. "Now what is Aragorn, again?  Is he a man or one of those other...things?" 

The first bonus last night was the sense that I was actually doing some very helpful teacher preparation for studying medieval literature this year.  Tolkien made many references to Beowulf, Chaucer, Spenser and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  There are many reasons to read a book (entertainment, education, pleasure, information, curiosity, because someone knows you are a reader and pressed a book in your hand begging you to read it) but when those reasons intersect it is truly a blessing. I didn't choose The Tolkien Reader because it would help me teach; I chose it because it was an unread book on my bookshelf.

The second bonus:  a question I had 10 years ago was answered.  Readers often come across references that are meaningless on first reading, and just skip over them.  About ten years ago as I was reading through Charlotte Mason's The Original Home Schooling Series, she mentioned Queen Mab in such a way that assumed the reader would "get it".  I didn't -- and didn't have Google at my fingertips.  My set of World Books didn't help and so the reference was a dangling loose end in my brain.  Tolkien spends half a page explaining why Michael Drayton's Nymphidia, the story about Queen Mab, isn't a true fairy-story.  It was a gift to read, recognize and to finally understand.

The third bonus?  A chance to read an excellent writer with an excellent mind. 

I just taught myself something new!  Wahoo!!!  Among other frustrations with Xanga, I've been unhappy with my sidebar.  My booklog in the "Interests" category has limited space which has required many edits.  I would prefer to include author's names but space doesn't allow that. 

I wanted the list to be easier to read - one book per line.  But the text was always wrapping.  When my son was home on spring break I wheedled an book on HTML out of his stack of books to sell on Amazon.  It's been sitting, collecting dust until this morning.  Scanning the table of contents I found "Creating a Line Break" on page 70.  The code, if you care, is  "<br />".  I have aspirations of learning HTML - my brother in-law, a software programmer has agreed to teach me on my upcoming visit.

The joy of life is made up of obscure and seemingly mundane victories that give us our own small satisfactions.                  Billy Joel

Any small victories in your life today?

We must choose to be courteous, and develop the discipline of courtesy each day. 

We do not  stumble into being a gentleman or lady. 

The home that has no time for courtesy will always have time for rudeness. 

The home that does not take time for compliments will always have time for complaints. 

The home that has no time for smiles will always have time for frowns. 

And the home that has not time for sweet, loving words will always find time for harsh, critical words.                                                           Morris Chalfant

The picture shows my husband and his sister on their grandpa's lap.  They loved climbing over him and playing with him.  Recently Curt said, "I can still smell my Grandpa - a mixture of sweat, pipe tobacco, aftershave and pasture."

                         The New Novel

Homer captures a body perfectly still with a mind fully engaged.  I would love to trade places with this subject today, if only I could wear cooler clothes.  This picture reminds me of a biography of Laura Bush I read a few years back.  The active Bush clan had a hard time understanding Laura because she could lay perfectly motionless for three hours reading a book!  I hope you have a few happy reading days left in your summer.

This
fancy word for letting go has been floating through my thoughts.  There are
times when we are called to let go of certain dreams, certain people, or certain
substances.  In my experience there has always been a protracted struggle
between what I will and what I
want.  My knuckles are white from
the death grip that is holding tight.  And when my heart changes, release comes
slowly, one finger joint at a time.  When the hand is empty and I’ve
finally relinquished that “something” I’m so surprised at all the plusses.  The muscles
that were weary from clenching are relaxed.  The hand that was dedicated to
grasping is now available for a thousand other occupations.  There is a move
away from tension towards tranquility.  

 Elisabeth Elliot wrote (I
substituted ** for certain words to broaden the application): “Fred had prayed that God would help him
to be willing to relinquish **.  He did not want to relinquish **, but he willed
to be made willing.  Although the conflict lasted for six months, he was indeed
helped.”  That phrase, willed
to be made willing, could provide food for many mental meals.  I have
seen a small measure of relinquishment lately in my life, and for that I
gratefully give God thanks.

As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music.  And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul. 
                                  ~   Ursula K. Le Guin

I used to play the cello and it remains my favorite instrument.  I've verrry excited that I will see the great cellist YoYo Ma in concert in two 1/2 weeks.  Le Guin's connecting reading with playing the cello is brilliant.  What are you reading this month?

Handprint

This print is hanging over my file cabinets in the garage.  When I visited my brother in Maine, we went to the Portland Head Light.   One of the little out buildings was a gift shop.  I saw this on the wall and had. to. have. one.  Of course, they were out, "but I could purchase one at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston."  Disappointed, I looked around.  About ten minutes later the clerk found a tube stuck in the corner and, voila!, it was the print!