When You Need to Hide from Reality...

Stories give you an easy escape.

School is Back in Session!

My attitude towards school half of the time:

My attitude towards school the rest of the time:   

Let's hope this semester is like the second scenario... non-stop!

This Week in Children's Literature: Poetry

This has probably been one of the most enjoyable weeks of learning for my children's lit. class, partly because we didn't have a quiz in honor of Thanksgiving. It was about poetry, a subject I've always loved but have sadly neglected in recent years.

What is poetry anyway?

Poetry, at it's most basic, is a short, lyrical response to the world. It is emotion under extreme pressure or recollection in a small space. It is the coal of experience so compressed it becomes a diamond. 

 -Jane Nolan

It is time to make some diamonds again.

Here is a sample poem from my textbook:

Great, Good, Bad

A great book is a homing device

For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care

About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees 

A forest of apologies. 

-From Please Bury Me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis  

Who You Gonna Call?

Stress Busters!! Another gem from Library Teamwork and Supervisory Skills, which has quickly become a more enjoyable class.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Stress-busters

Take a Deep Breath....

Looks like I'm back, in spite of being so very busy. Six classes and all their accompanying homework, plus the housework that never ends, keep me pretty busy. But we must not forget the ever important down-time. Down-time for me is usually first thing in the morning with toast, a hot cup of tea, and a good book (more often than not Harry Potter.) Unfortunately, my foolish brain cannot help making me feel guilty about the down-time I am taking, telling me that I'm subtracting valuable minutes from my day that could be used getting homework or laundry done. 

Long story short, life is full of stress! Surprisingly, today I found encouragement in one of my least favorite classes, Library Teamwork and Supervisory Skills. This week my teacher assigned some articles for us to read on stress and how to reduce it. Here are links to two articles that really helped me:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037?reDate=13112016

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950?reDate=13112016

Let's all hope for a more relaxed week.

Between Semesters

Dear Blog,

So much for "I hope to find time to blog during the busy school schedule." Summer school has been over for two weeks and the fall semester will begin for Cuesta in about a week and a half. My textbooks, turquoise five-subject notebook, and I are all set to begin!

I made myself a small to-do list a while ago for the short vacation between semesters including "Update Blog." However, I wanted this update to include pictures of my recently redecorated room. With Elizabeth's help I have gone from the Fanciful Fairy theme I've had for nearly ten years to Audrey Hepburn inspired Paris Chic. Because, as Audrey says, "Paris is always a good idea." Maybe within the next week I will track down a camera and take some photos of my new bedroom/school room.

In a way I am going to miss the school room setting this fall, and I've already been missing the face-to-face interaction with a teacher when I have a question. Asking questions in class is easier than typing messages back and forth with hundreds of miles between us. But there is a tremendous amount of freedom in knowing that I don't have to be in a classroom at a specific time. It's almost like being home-schooled again.

Well, tomorrow is Friday, the day I go to the library for book processing so I should get to sleep. Good night, whoever is reading this.

--Lydia

Hummingbird Rescue

A few weeks ago we were cleaning out and preparing our motor-home to sell. (After ten or so years, we decided camping, even in a luxurious RV, just wasn't for us.) Everyone has been looking forward to having it out of our care, unfortunately however that meant it had be parked out in the driveway right where Tiki Cove was supposed to be.

So one day Mom and Elizabeth were out walking in the garden when they heard two distinct "thuds" coming from the motor-home. They went over and found two hummingbirds lying on the ground beside it. The larger one had been chasing the little one, a tiny hatchling with speckles still on his chest, and they had crashed into the motor-home! The larger one, though stunned, managed to fly into a tree while he recuperated. The little one was too stunned to move. My poor Mom thought he had died. But he was okay. Elizabeth picked up the little guy in her hand and carried him the back deck where she fed him sugar water.

 And we named him Pip. 

See the little dots on his chest? He's just a baby. So cute! 

  Pip seemed in no hurry to leave.

But he eventually flew into a tree and rested a bit before taking off for good. I think I saw him again a few days later.

Just Too Tired

Maybe it's the fact that it's August, nearing the end of a long, exhausted summer. Or it could be all the cleaning, reorganizing, and putting-things-away going on around here. But no matter how much stuff gets put away, either in an old place or a new place made specially for it, there is always more stuff to be taken care of. The mountain of mess just keeps growing!
 
Whatever the reason, everyday I wake up tired and can't wait for night so I can go back to bed. I've taken to napping in the afternoons. Today I climbed back in bed, still in my nightgown, at 12:01 p.m. and did not emerge until almost 1:00.

Another reason I want to be a Jane Austen heroine: They have servants to clean up the mess. The external messes at least. Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse had to take care of the emotional messes themselves. (Let's not even get started on Marianne Dashwood!)

I've had Jane Austen on the brain lately. I finally picked up Emma again, after I-don't-know-how-long, and am determined to finish her this time. Last time I read Emma I got a little more than half way through. When I finish I just might reward myself by reading Sense and Sensibility again, which may even surpass Pride and Prejudice and be my favorite of Jane Austen's works.  
  

What I Have Been Up to Lately

Enjoying many cups of tea in my new mug. 

Enjoying the beautiful weather while anxiously awaiting Mama Robin's second batch of eggs to hatch. 

Other than that, it's just been the usual routine: reading good books, eating good food, (my Mom has just learned to make Macarons!) and learning how to knit cables. 

Day 12: Just in Time

I was worried I wouldn't get a post up today, but I made it. I haven't failed yet!

Quite honestly today has been a rather lousy day. Why? I don't quite know. The situation in Ukraine has us all worried. (If you're reading this, please pray for Ukraine.) Maybe there are some positive ions flying around. (With ions, negative is good, positive is bad. I can't remember why.)

Anyway, right now I'm pretty chipper. This evening we gathered in the tiki room theater and watched Winnie the Pooh, and Pooh Bear is always a good tonic for Grumpy.

How can you not smile with him?

The Challenge

How the weeks have flown. Can it really be March? Was I not just celebrating the Winter Solstice amongst the daffodils? And already it is Mardi Gras, soon to be Lent and the countdown for Easter.

While sitting around the table, feasting on delicious new pancakes with English bacon that just the thought of makes me hungry, the subject of Lent came up. What should we give up for forty days? A year or two ago it was chocolate, but recently we have already chosen to stop eating chocolate, except on a special occasion. Hmm. What to do? Then Mom came up with an idea: Instead of giving something up, why don't we add something. Do something each day for the next forty days, something enriching. We might form some good habits. But what? Then came the perfect answer: blog.

In the whirlwind of life, I fear my writing has suffered some neglect. This poor blog has missed Christmas, New Year's, and the first tender months of the year. And so I begin again. For the next forty days I and my fellow writers shall post something on our blogs each day.

What shall I write? Anything I want. But what if I run out of ideas? That's a silly thing to ask. What if I run out of time? That is a more serious question. Time is a fleeting thing, and some days I don't find the time to write. I would rather read with my spare moments, or sip a cup of tea and visit with someone.

I will make time for blogging, that is the answer.  

Oh, the Internet

I have spent the past hour or so redecorating my blog. I am not very savvy in the blog designing department, plus we have a poor internet connection, so at times it was very frustrating and exhausting. But I am rather pleased with the outcome, and I am even beginning to think that the time spent here was worth it. I will be even happier after I have stepped away for a few hours. Now I think I shall go read Pride and Prejudice, and I may just need to make myself another cup of tea. 

Had a Good Mystery Lately?

Because we sure did. Believe it or not I am not very internet savvy at all. So earlier today when I went to get on the internet and a relatively blank page with the triangle of doom, as Elizabeth and I call it, center stage along with some text sat staring at me, I just said, "Oh well, I'll get on later." Many times the internet just does not work at our house. However when I went to get on later the same thing happened, but only when I went on my e-mail or blogger. It said it could not connect because there was something wrong with the cookies. Cookies? As in chocolate chip?

What it is with naming these electronics after food anyway? Apple products from Mackintosh and cookies on the internet? Not to mention blackberries.

Long story short, Mom, Dad, and Elizabeth came to my rescue and between us we solved the mystery. (Something about Firefox, Google, and cookies. Elizabeth erased my cookies and everything is working now.) And when all was said and done I forgot what I had wanted to post about in the first place.