I read all of The Secret Garden yesterday and I’m really over pedantic children’s literature. Ok, ok, I get it, fresh air and plain food are all the world needs…

In other news the boys and I had an absolutely fabulous day. We played, I worked and hardly a fussy note escaped either of them! It was really quite amazing. I’m not at all certain what the magic formula was but we’re going for a repeat of the experience today.

They came and took the empty POD away. The driveway is much nicer now that there is a little room in it. And, also on the shedding possessions front, we sold our teevee last night. We are now $80 and fourteen cubic feet richer.

My dear friend MB had a fantastic idea and was kind enough to let me in on it. We are looking into spending the weekend at a Hermitage. Such a great plan on so many levels. In another life I might have been a member of a contemplative order so to visit that life for a weekend (and get some reading done) sounds simply wonderful. Now I just have to apply and hope they accept me…

This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald Page: 200

Fitzgerald’s style is unusual and surprising. I hadn’t expected the variations of mode or the easy familiarity. I don’t remember The Great Gatsby employing any of these techniques. Still, good book, and very worthwhile. I like novels about education or coming of age.

I could use a few tips from other stay at home moms about how to manage. I’m feeling very tired, very fed up with satisfying needy little people and very unproductive. Some mornings the patience is all gone by 7am. Winter is starting to scare me…taking them outside has been my standby remedy…

I started yet another blog today. This one is shamelessly mercantile. There you can purchase stuff from Veritas. I’ll be putting up posts with pictures of items from the old bookstore and coffeehouse along with prices. You can pay via Paypal, just post a comment and send the money and it is yours. So go check out the post mortem at RIP Veritas.

Great Expectations Page: 470

I continue to enjoy Dickens. Such good stuff! Great Expectations might actually go on an all-time favorites list. Dickens is such a thorough moralist that he is actually refreshing. He doesn’t preach a particular creed but delineates manners and sensitivities with such feeling that you instinctively root for right. He doesn’t preach a system but described human interaction so that you realize the need for self-sacrifice, for character, for courage in everyday life. Melodramatic? Yes! But human too.

I had an absurdly busy day keeping up with the boys (who were tons of fun BTW) and posting stuff for sale on Craigslist.

All of the below are available for sale over there. Or here if you simply can’t live without it. Only one of the things pictured is more than $50. Which is it?

Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes  Page: 320 Finished

The Woman Warrior, China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston Page: 541

Maxine Hong Kingston’s prose is amazing. Haunting, powerful, fanciful. And I love the photo of her on the cover of the Everyman’s edition. You might not be able to see it well, but she looks wild and wise in it.

I feel like sharing photos today so here are the boys, getting used to colder weather one early morning last week.

And here is what the windstorm brought us this evening.

Among today’s adventures, I tried donating plasma. It’s not really “donating” because they “compensate you for your time”. I couldn’t handle it. It’s not because I’m a wimp about needles (I’m really not anymore). I couldn’t handle the social awkwardness of it. I’m not sure if I’m hypersensitive, a snob or what, but between the indifference of the employees (and who could blame them) and the hopelessness of the average donor I didn’t stay. It took me two tries just to make it in the door. The building was more than a little grim and the waiting room was FULL of people who stared as you walked up. Once inside there was more staring and some intrusive comments and questions from others there waiting. I’m a fairly private person* and I really hate it when complete strangers - especially male ones - start talking to you out of the blue. I waited two hours before I was called (not a bad thing since I read) and then had to answer all the harrowing and offensive questions that the AIDS epidemic made necessary. Finally I was taken to a room for my basic physical and I was so chilled from the cold waiting room that the thermometer didn’t even register my presence. I was told that I could wait fifteen minutes to see if I warmed up but I couldn’t go outside…so was I supposed to do jumping jacks? Anyway, I fled at that point. I felt demeaned by the whole experience. I guess I won’t be selling my eggs or anything…I wonder what the key issue is. Is it modesty? Sensibility? Mere squeamishness?

*I know, I know, I blog…but it still freaks me out a bit when someone recognizes me from my blog or from the few times my photograph has been in our local paper. And the internet depersonalizes things just enough that I don’t have to be bosom friends with everyone that drops by.