The Wallace Lake Ward does the coolest thing. Their song leader does a mid-week song practice where any of the Primary children that want to attend can. Oaklee, Mayvie and Cal think it is the coolest thing ever but I received this photo of Hinckley and Hatcher and by the looks on their faces they didn’t agree with the others. Maybe they need to be told that singing exercises their heart, lungs and releases endorphins making them feel good. It is worth a try.
We have lived here over thirty years and I have never taken down my Christmas lights in late April ever before. They were just on the lilac tree which is quite close to the house and the driveway but the snow was piled so high it was unreachable. I put my boots on and made it close enough to the bush to get all six strands off – believe it or not five of them still worked. We never really knew what happened but part way through the winter with all the dumps of snow – they died. We think the extension cords came apart but when they too were buried deep there is nothing that can be done. Good grief Charlie Brown.
Well, hello blow-up. We haven’t seen you in months since a huge dump of snow buried you and your friends for what has seemed like an eternity. But here you are peeking through and hoping we see you and rescue you soon. We have had so much snow this year that our Christmas friends were in the deep freeze on the hill. That little peek of red and white perked up my day for sure. Hmm are you Santa? Are you Snoopy with his red cap? Time will tell – hang on little guy – just a little more melting.
I have to do a little brag about my Tlingit granddaughter Alfie. She did such a sweet job at her Tlingit celebration. I watched the video and she stood up front, to the microphone, so poised and confident and sang her Tlingit song. I was so proud of her for being so brave and for her pride in her heritage. Hartford looked pretty cute too all decked out in her native costume. I owe a lot to Kristi for instilling these customs and traditions in her children.
“Three years ago, Charlie Mackesy uploaded a drawing of a boy and a mole to his Instagram account. The boy looks young, barely a toddler, barely the size of the mole, and the mole looks slightly concerned; it adds to the cuteness. ‘Tales from the underground. Another mole day I think,’ the artist captioned it. The response was warm. Someone commented that the image took them ‘right back to the feel of my own storybook childhood’, another joked that the boy and the mole were discussing politics. What nobody realized, then, was that this was the start of what would become the surprise hit of the year. Two years after release, and Mackesy’s book is the longest-running Sunday Times hardback chart-topper to date. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse isn’t a conventional picture book. Rather than a linear narrative, it’s a collection of quiet musings and conversations. The four titular characters meet one another and share each other’s confidence. It’s not aimed at any clear audience, and works as well for eight-year-olds as it does octogenarians. And yet, in the final dark months of 2019, the tremulous beginning of 2020 and the swirling chaos of the pandemic year, it offered hope to hundreds of thousands of people.” I bought the hard bound copy of this book and it is so beautiful and I would recommend it to all. “All four characters represent different parts of the same person,” explained Mackesy “the inquisitive boy, the mole who’s enthusiastic but a bit greedy, the fox who’s been hurt so is withdrawn from life, slow to trust but want to be part of things, and the horse who’s the wisest bit, the deepest part of you, the soul . . . ” Watch the movie too.
I caught Ovi poking around on the stove which is totally against the house rules but that means absolutely nothing to her. I watched her as she inspected each burner and then peered over the back of the stove looking for something or absolutely nothing. She crept over each grate carefully placing her paws in between the rungs which looked very awkward and unpleasant but she was apparently on a mission. Once the stove was fully inspected she was done and jumped down. Cats are very intelligent and their inquisitive mind has a real need to understand the world around them. Ovi has checked the stove off her list of things to figure out. All done.
My most beautiful centerpiece yet. These simple blue glass balls have been a favorite of mine for years. I found a place in Anchorage that sells them. The last one I bought had Japanese markings on the bottom. So these beauties – what are they and were did they come from? “In the most elemental sense, a glass fishing float is an air-filled, closed glass container used to create buoyancy for fishermen’s nets. Usually a glass fishing float is round in form but they were blown into various shapes and sizes, from as large as a standard beach ball size to as small as a kiwi fruit. The hollow spheres were used on ocean waters to support larger scale commercial fishing nets, (often with many individual fishing nets strung together, sometimes for several miles), and to keep the nets from sinking. The most common manner in which the floats were utilized was as a strung-together band along the tops of the fishing nets, keeping the net edge buoyant along the water’s surface. True vintage glass fishing floats were made in glass factories or blown by hand, usually into a spherical shape, then sealed with a blob “button” of molten glass. There are other shapes of glass floats too; torpedo shape, rolling pin shape, bottle shaped, and double sphere style.”
Remember years ago so many of us had Corelle dishes and when one broke it totally shattered into a million pieces. I got home from dinner at the kids’ house and placed the lid to the pot I have used for years on the top rack of the dishwasher and kerpow it shattered into a trillion pieces. The fragments were so fine that I cut myself without even feeling a thing. I scurried Ovi out of the way and began the vacuuming process. The dishwasher was filled with glass which took the longest to get all cleaned up so I didn’t totally burn up the motor with shards of glass. What a fiasco. Guess I’ll be buying a new pot this week. Now I know why Corelle is a thing of the past.
To all those who shop at Michaels. In the home decor section there is a lovely hanging that is titled “Enjoy the Journey.” If you find that it is pretty and will suit your home well consider the following facts: there are fifty states in the Union, Alaska is missing as well as Hawaii and if you are journeying to some really awesome places you have deleted two of the best places to go. Your children will look at this hanging every single day and believe that there really are only forty-eight states. Hmmm. Think twice before making the purchase.
Have you pondered this question before? What motivates you or who motivates you? My son-in-law Sam is a motivator to me. He took a Plant Science class last semester so he could learn more about gardening. Now in his office on campus Sam has a number of things growing in preparation for his garden plot at home. He is growing eggplant, various flowers to help with pollination, cilantro, asparagus, clover, peppers and tomatoes. He has divided up their garden plot so each person in the family can choose what they would like to grow, weed, water and nuture to maturity. He has taken his knowledge, put it to practice and then passed that down to his boys. They served his fresh cilantro on their pizza the other day. Yup, I am motivated!
Tara Truly 