Last week was crazy. My dad fell and broke the top of his femur, which started a whirlwind of events for him and my stepmom. He had to have some screws and pins put in but he is home and working on healing. Then Billy had to have an oral surgery Thursday, on a tooth that needed a bone graft. He is also starting to feel a bit better as well.
I did get to finally visit with my dad yesterday! It was so good to see him and my stepmom – and I even got to see my nephew and stepsister as a bonus. They live a good distance away but I am hoping to get back there again soon. My dad was doing great!
Read Last Week:
I loved both of these books/stories, both were so good even though they both left me a little sad. I hope to review them both this week – although The Tiger Came to the Mountains is a short story, so the review will be short too. I think it took me 15 minutes or so to read? I am looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the collection!
Reading This Week:
I plan on reading a few more short stories in the Trespass Collection this week; I may even read them all as they are so short!
We are still watching Murdoch Mysteries. I am going to be honest, it’s not a *great* show. It is sort of cheesy, in both story-line and just the way it looks, but it is easy and entertaining, and was perfect for our stressful week.
And that’s it from around here this week. Stay safe and well everyone!
I love participating in 10 on the 10th which is hosted by Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After and Marsha in the Middle! They are both such sweet ladies – and very stylish ladies, unlike me! I need to do some sprucing up of my wardrobe this spring! Well, we will get to that.
Ok, #1: My favorite thing about spring, and my favorite season.
I used to hate spring ~ now I love it. It’s not my favorite, that is fall, but I have become a lover of spring. I love the world waking up from it’s winter nap, the flowers, the colors returning to the world, the little animals and insects and birds singing in the morning. The return of the sun. Planting seeds and looking for tadpoles and salamanders.
Spring in my Step: Nature always puts a spring in my step. Planning new adventures. And my favorite pair of shoes – my low top Converse. I have worn low top black Converse since high school, and I wear them until they are literally falling apart. I just threw away the pair I had been wearing in anticipation of buying some new shoes that you know, don’t have holes, and I knew if I didn’t chuck my chucks I would probably slip into them again this spring. I am even considering mixing things up and buying maybe more than one pair of shoes for spring and summer… lol. My husband has a billion pairs of shoes. I am so minimalist but I want to shake things up this year.
St. Patrick’s Day! I am definitely Irish! I think my Ancestry DNA put me at like 57% Irish. My name before marriage was Erin McGill. I am still Erin of course though. And I have definitely worn my share of St. Patrick’s Day t-shirts. Erin-Go-Bragh and all that!
Spring flowers: I love wild violets. I always ask my husband to spare them when mowing the lawn because I love looking outside and seeing all the purple and white popping up everywhere. I also love hyacinths and tulips. One spring a few years ago we took a long weekend family trip to Holland, MI for the tulip festival and it was so fun, with tulips everywhere! That trip was so fun, full of good memories. Now I want to go again!
Spring Cleaning: I always get super motivated to spring clean, to throw the windows open and let in the fresh air after a cold midwestern winter, to declutter and to donate items, to remove anything that just feels heavy. I want everything to feel light and airy. I love to use Mrs. Meyers products – sustainable, plant-derived and natural, and they smell so good! I don’t have any tips sadly, although I am looking forward to the tips of others.
Toys: I did have a Slinky as a kid – and Silly Putty too! Hmmm.. my favorite toy as a kid was probably my stuffed Scooby-Doo that I got at King’s Island one summer. Then probably my Barbies.
Spring Forward: Take family walks after dinner. It is usually too dark and cold during the winter to go for after dinner family walks. Once spring hits, and the days get longer, it will be nice to spend that time outside as a family.
Spring colors: I probably won’t wear any of those except for sky blue. I told you I need fashion help!
Spring Reading: I am a very seasonal reader (seasonal person in every way really!), and spring for me means more nature books, gardening books, romance novels. I’ve also been reading more middle grade lately and YA because they are just fun to read. I also read Watership Down every single spring, it is my favorite book of all time. It is getting to be that time again! I do not have much quiet time but it is a goal for the upcoming year for me, to try to actually make time for me. So we will see.
Spring Quote:
I love Mary Oliver – she is an amazing poet and I have always loved this quote. It just makes me feel so grateful for everything, and so alive. (this print is by TurquoiseRhinoceros and is available on Etsy btw – isn’t it fantastic? )
And that is it for this month’s prompt! I loved this look at spring!
Ok, before we move to the fun stuff, let’s talk about the EEG. Wyatt did wonderful. He did an amazing job of holding still while they hooked him up to 27 electrodes and wrapped his head twice with gauze and medical tape, which took an hour. The next 24 hours was a bit trying for us all, but obviously especially him. That long tail really irritated him and he kept trying to take it off. Other than that, he did fantastic. The removal took half the time the next day. He was a big mess but so happy to be free! We immediately gave him a bath when we got home using Dawn dish soap on his super goopy hair, vegetable oil on the copious amounts of adhesive residue all over his face and neck and chest, and we were back to normal!
We were hoping for results that showed the medicine was taking care of things but he did show that he had two small tonic seizures overnight. The doctor increased his medication slightly and we get to do the whole thing all over again in June. But, it was good we did it, we caught some issues, and are taking care of them and that is what we we wanted and hoped for!
The very next day was his 7th birthday! I like that he got to start a new year with old business behind him. We had a very simple day but little man was happy and enjoyed himself so that made me happy. Wyatt had asked for three things for his birthday – books, toast, and a frog. So, between our friends and family, he got his wishes, as well as some other fun things too!
Let’s start with the frog. This kid is so like me. Books and animals. I dig it. So of course I was going to get him a frog! But what kind… hmm. He is super into tigers right now, so, we got him a tiger leg monkey tree from from Josh’s Frogs in Michigan. I really love supporting them because they work hard for conservation of creatures by breeding the animals themselves. This helps to fight the harvesting of animals from the wild, and leaving wild creatures where they should be. They also partner with different organizations and donate money to conservation efforts in different countries. Anyway, meet Daniel Tiger frog! We are all in love!
He (or she) is green during the day and dark at night when in hunting mode. When she/he arrived, he was in hunting mode I guess because he was in a box. Daniel arrived overnight via FedEx after picking a day with correct temps which is part of the process of buying. He is so itty bitty! And bonus – my friend Kelly is buying him a second one! We just have to wait for another to become available.
The rest of his gifts were just as well loved by Wyatt! I didn’t get pics of everything but notice, books and toast. (I can’t believe my cousin found toast)
Overall, this little guy had quite a week! And so did mom!
Last week was a whirlwind. We had Wyatt’s EEG, finally, and his birthday, which was a fun event but also so much planning etc after the emotional chaos of his EEG. Wyatt had fun which was all that mattered. Even though I totally fell into bed Friday night at 9:45. Lol. Wyatt’s EEG went ok – we didn’t necessarily get the results we wanted but they weren’t anything worse. However, amidst everything I didn’t get to read all that much.
Read Last Week:
I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this book! I am still turning it all over in my brain.
Reading This Week:
This week is sort of a different week of reading for me. I am reading The Wild Robot to see if it is one I want to read with Wyatt. I also caved in to targeted ads this week and downloaded the Trespass Collection on Kindle. It is a collection of short stories by multiple authors and it sounds really good! I love the covers, I love the concept, and I also love a few of the authors. I am excited to start reading it. There are six books total in the collection, and they were included in Kindle Unlimited.
We finished up Murder in Provence which we both really liked. It had Lady Felicia from Father Brown in it, and Roger Allam. I didn’t recognize him but I kept thinking I recognized his voice. I looked him up and he narrates a cartoon that Wyatt watches occasionally, Sarah and Duck. So I did recognize his voice! It is very distinctive. We started Murdoch Mysteries and while it is sort of quirky, I guess, with its camera work and my husband being convinced that Murdoch is wearing eye makeup we are enjoying it.
We didn’t have movie night last as we had a get together with my mom and brother to discuss our vacation plans and have some cake for Wyatt. But I didn’t share our movie from last Saturday night – another Studio Ghibli called Whispers of the Heart. It was cute! I loved that they played the song Country Roads by John Denver quite a few times during it, because I love that song.
We missed a few wake up songs last week since it was such a weird week for us. We did listen to Today is Your Birthday by the Beatles on Wyatt’s birthday, Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel, and Get Ready by The Temptations (GREAT wake up song btw).
And that’s where we are right now! I hope you are all doing well!
I haven’t done one of these posts in ages!! I can’t possibly share all the books we have been reading for the past few months, but I do want to share as many as I can! So..here we go!
Let’s start with the big one.
Pete the Cat. All the Pete the Cat books. And there are many. However, we do seem to be reading the heck out of a few.
He love anything Pete, but I was really excited that he liked the little phonics box set! He will go and grab them and settle in. We read so so many Pete the Cat books – good thing there a huge catalog of them! And I have to say I love Pete’s attitude on life as well. It’s all good.
He has another series that he is really getting into as well – The Nocturnals. They are a series about anthropomorphic animals (his fave) and they are available in easy readers as well as chapter books. My mom got him the activity box for Christmas and we have been adding in more easy readers from the collection here and there.
And of course we are reading books not in a series as well.
I am pretty sure I am in love with Yuyi Morales’ work. I have every single book written down for us to read on Wyatt’s TBR. (lol) They are seriously beautiful. And you can’t go wrong with Laura Numeroff. They are just so fun, although they make us hungry. These two are Wyatt’s favorites. We started reading them after he discovered the cartoon, although I have had copies of them for ages, probably since before he was even born. A Beginner’s Guide to Bear Spotting was a super cute read – it’s written like a field guide, but is hilarious and a story as well.
We like books about embracing our differences and what makes us special, and Spoon is one of those stories. I also liked the inclusion of Chopsticks as a character. It was a great read. And we loved The Tobermory Cat! This was about a cat who wants to be special – but doesn’t realize that he already is. Well, until the end that is.
Animals at Night is really cool. It’s a nonfiction book about, you guessed it, animals at night. Wyatt is all about tigers these days so we spend a lot of time on that page. Plus, it has a glow in the dark poster so bonus. The illustrations are gorgeous so I can look at it all day as well honestly.
And finally, The Boy Who Loved the Moon. I bought this for Wyatt for Christmas, because he is our boy who loves the moon, and I thought it was just a beautiful story with stunning illustrations. I thought he would like it but I was surprised by how much he does. He requests it all the time – which makes my heart happy. I guess it is a movie short too, but I haven’t looked it up yet. I need to do that.
If you read my Sunday-Monday post, then you might know we are reading Appleblossom the Possum together. Wyatt loves this book. And I do too! It is so cute, but also teaches about possums at the same time. Very adorable, very fun, and informative to boot!
And these are just a few of the books we have been enjoying! What are some of your favorite children’s books?
I feel it – spring is coming, it’s right around the corner! We are making it through the dark and cozy months and headed into the sunnier, light filled springtime (at least here in the northern hemisphere). We still have bits of ice and snow on the ground, the air is still chilly and we need coats and gloves most days, but warmer days are coming. I love winter, but I love spring as well. The waking up of the earth after a long sleep, the return of the migrating birds, insects and gardens and longer days filled with light, all fill me with joy.
We start the month with an important celebration, Wyatt’s birthday on the 2nd. He was due to be a mid-April birthday baby but he had other plans and came earlier than expected. But that is typical Wyatt; he is always doing the unexpected, zigging when we think he will zag, from even before he was earthside. The doctor who delivered him told us that Wyatt was always going to keep us on our toes and do the opposite of what we thought, and he was right on. I guess after you deliver a few thousand babies you get a feel for what they might be like. His doctor was an old Italian doctor, from Italy, trained in Italy, and we loved him despite everyone telling us that he could be blunt and abrupt. Apparently that is our style, because we adored him. I think March being Wyatt’s birth month has inspired me to love the month more, because before I was not much a fan. Will it be cold? Warm? In Michigan, who knows? We could be at 50 degrees in the morning and have a snowstorm before bed. The year Wyatt was born was one of the coldest on record. I actually had to spend four weeks in the hospital before Wyatt was born, and I remember ice forming on the windowsills INSIDE my room. The nurses would bring me warm blankets from the warmer at night and it was very cozy, despite knowing it was absolutely Arctic outside.
We started a few seeds over the weekend – sunflowers and Ukranian beets. The plan is to start a bunch more over the next few weeks to get ready to plant in April. Cold weather crops, like radishes. I love radishes. I know they are not everyone’s favorite but on bread with some butter – delicious. I am getting excited to start digging in the dirt again!
Wyatt gets his new walker next week and with that, we hope to get outside to use it on some fun walks. I need new sneakers though! I rarely buy myself clothing, I usually buy things like books and er..reptiles and amphibians, before I buy clothes, but this year I need them. Mine were rough last year, and I tossed them the other day to force myself to get new ones. I have worn low top black Converse since I was in high school; is it time to try something different? I feel like we all need to spruce up our wardrobes in this house a bit! I might need some overalls for gardening, but I guess I could add in some more fun things as well because the world is opening back up again, at least for now for us. We will continue to mask up because of Wyatt, but we need to get this kid back into the world a bit! See some new faces and places and all that.
Speaking of getting out more – I mentioned before that my brother and I were looking for a place up north to take our families together. Well friends, we found the unicorn we were hoping for! Big enough for the group of us (our two families, plus two grandmas), a large outside area with a deck overlooking the water and a fire pit, a private small beach area for the kids, air conditioning, and fifteen minutes outside Traverse City. Billy and I and Wyatt stayed outside Traverse City last year and it was a great area to be in with so many options for different things to see and do. We are looking forward to this summer kickoff trip with family.
We have lots of good things in the works and I am excited to share them with you all along the way!
The preparations for Wyatt’s birthday are in full swing! This year is another low key birthday without a big party but we are still trying to make things fun and special. We hope to go to the zoo on Saturday, and I am making his favorite, strawberry cake for Wednesday, his actual birthday. And the first of his birthday gifts has arrived! I will share more on it in a birthday post later but let me tell you, we are all enchanted.
I also picked up this “Mystery mystery bag” from the library! Our library is doing a monthly book swag bag event which is really neat! February was all about mysteries. This is what was in my book swag bag! This book sounds exactly me too. According to the blurb on Goodreads, this series is perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Midsomer Murders, and all those British cozies. I can’t wait to start reading, eat my shortbread, and drink my hot chocolate! March’s bag is set to be fantasy themed, and I am looking forward to it already.
Read Last Week:
Sadly, I could not focus on reading at all last week. My thoughts were busy and when my thoughts are busy, so is my body. I did make a pretty good start on Within These Wicked Walls and I do hope to finish it in the next week or so.
Wyatt and I did read quite a bit of our read aloud though, Appleblossom the Possum. This book is super cute!
Reading This Week:
I was so excited when the new Rockton came in for me at the library! And of course, Now You See Them. Since this week is crazy (Wyatt has his 24 hour EEG in addition to his birthday this week), I may drop kiddo off at my mom’s Thursday, and give myself a little break!
Billy and I finished up The Loch, All Creatures Great and Small, and Around the World in 80 Days. For being a slow start for me, I was sad when 80 Days was over! We also watched the Christmas episode of All Creatures and I cried my eyeballs out at how much I loved it. The Loch was also good – I was surprised by the ending! It was such a good crime thriller, and so many secrets fell out of this little town during this murder investigation. A little grisly, but gripping.
We also watched Kim’s Convenience, which we are loving, and then on a day when Billy had to work a million hours (it’s been a rough week of work for him) I watched almost all of the newest season of Sweet Magnolias once Wyatt fell asleep.
Our wake-up songs! Space Oddity by David Bowie, Top of the World by The Carpenters, Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder, My Girl by The Temptations – and I am forgetting one!
And that is it from our little home in the Mitten. Stay safe!
It’s been a week of heaviness for most of us probably. The actions at play on the world stage right now are concerning, heartbreaking, scary. I have spent a lot of the week watching, listening, quiet. Thinking.
I read something this morning on an Instagram account I follow and this woman’s words rang so true. She said “I am so thankful to have lived through a period of relative peace and prosperity, things have not been easy but as a child I never had to go through the trauma of wars and pandemics. The crises remained far away. Our children are having to brave storms that I was never prepared to help them through.” And dang if she didn’t hit the nail right on the head for me. My childhood, despite any hardships I had to live through, was breezy compared to the ones my child, my nieces, my friends’ children, children all over the world, are having to learn to live with and go through. Right now, there is not much we can do other than bear witness. To the tragedy and the strength. My goodness, that story of the woman who told the soldier in front of her to put sunflower seeds in his pocket so that when he dies on Ukrainian soil, flowers will grow. What power, and poetry, honestly. The bravery. Then I saw this image of female Ukranian soliders marching into the fray, sunflowers in their hair.
In this short time frame we have all heard so many stories of atrocities and strength, and have seen the difference between people thinking they are strong and mighty and the people who truly are.
I am going to plant sunflowers, now, today. Start the seeds with Wyatt and hope that by the time they have grown straight and tall and strong there has been resolution. Continue teaching Wyatt to be a good citizen of the world, to think of others, be kind. To love our neighbors. It’s not much, but its all I can do right now, other than watch along with the rest of the world.
I did find this list online of ways people can help. (I have not researched these organizations or verified them, so if you choose to donate, etc read about the organization first. Also, please note that this article may be triggering for those who are sensitive to this topic. I am also not super familiar with the publishing organization and may not hold some of the same beliefs as they do. I chose this link for the ideas listed in this particular article, although I do plan to explore the Global Citizen website further.)
We have been feeling too contained lately, needing to get out and do something! So this weekend, we did!
Saturday, despite some pretty low temperatures, we went for a sled ride through the woods.
It was a beautiful winter day, with the sun shining on the glittering snow, although it was a bit bone chilling cold too. We ambled around for a bit, just enjoying the sun on our faces, and found a teeny hill. Wyatt has never actually sled down a hill before. He has a VP shunt behind his ear, and combined with his motor planning issues, we have always been too nervous to try it. But this hill was tiny, and there was no one else around, so we thought, let’s do it.
And were rewarded with the biggest, happiest smile.
However, that smile slipped a bit a few minutes later.
Once his mittens got snowy, he wore Billy’s. When Billy’s got too snowy, he put on mine. When mine got too snowy, we were out of dry warm gloves and decided that was our cue to go home. We were all ready for hot chocolate anyway.
Sunday we had warmer adventures. A visit to the bookstore! Wyatt has been working on some goals that he met and his reward was to go to the bookstore and pick out a book. He has not been in a store since the beginning of the pandemic so this was a big deal for all of us!
This is not his new walker; this is his walker we are borrowing from his therapy center. It works for him but not super well since it slips backward which is not great. And now that I am writing this, I realize that his new one should be in this week! Anyway, after taking a little walk down the aisle of books, we spotted this display of Pete the Cat and that was it. His favorite, right there. He picked one that he doesn’t own and I somehow managed to leave the bookstore without a book for myself. It was hard but I did it. I also signed him up for the Kids Club since we were there; I guess he gets a treat from the cafe on his birthday, which is Wednesday so he gets to use it right away!
He looks so cute and happy. I mean you can barely see his face between the mask and his bangs, but he is thrilled. He was so excited to get in there and walk around and pick a book. My kid is easy to please.
It was another weekend of small, simple joys. My favorite kind.
As a fellow animal lover, this book touched my heart. It made me laugh, it made we wonder (would I pet an octopus if I had the chance?) – and of course, I cried. As anyone who has loved and lost animals knows, the pain of losing a little friend is heartbreaking; we don’t consider them “just animals”. They are companions, at times know our very thoughts and are so tuned in to our joy and pain. I love Montgomery’s memoir in thirteen animals because here is a woman who has traveled the world and met so many different animals in her life, she had so many to choose from when thinking of ones that may have taught her how to be a good human, and the thirteen that she chose were so varied. Of course, her dogs, all special in their own way. But also a few surprising animals as well. A tarantula named Clarabella. An octopus or two. A pig named Christopher. Each one representing her life and where that moment in her life placed her, and how that animal touched her soul. And in essence, in her words, taught her to be a good creature too.
It made me think – what animals have come into my life, and changed me? Most recently, Harry, the leopard gecko who has made me realize that I am a huge fan of reptiles, something I would never have guessed. My own dogs, all three of them, Molly, Chevis, and Penny who have all moved on from this world. The very first dog I ever loved, Lady, a beautiful Collie who belonged to friends of my parents when I was about five or six. I always loved visiting them because I would say hi and then I was happily excused to go play with Lady outside the whole time we were there. My cats, all rescued from the shelter I volunteered at for years. Of course, I had favorites from that time that caught my heart, that I fought for and advocated for, if I didn’t outright adopt them. Like Liberty, the lab-pit bull mix that was surrendered to the shelter while in the process of giving birth to her puppies. The puppies were of course surrendered as well. And on the fourth of July. We raised her babies and found them all good homes, and I never forgot that patriotic crew named after Presidents and First Ladies. (Martha was my favorite) Nothing too exotic for me, obviously, as I am not a journalist or naturalist and I do not have access to the world that Montgomery does. I can visit that world though, through her words and writing and stories, the absolute best part about being a reader.
Montgomery has been described as a poet and scientist, a little bit Indiana Jones and a little bit Emily Dickinson. What a blessed life she has led, getting to know all these different animals and their people, and how blessed are we that she is a talented and gifted writer, one who is able to share these experiences with those of us at home. I hope to read more of her work soon! If you are a nature lover, an animal lover, and you haven’t read Montgomery yet, I suggest starting with How to be a Good Creature. You won’t be disappointed.
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 