300 days of beauty, day 49 [Chihuly]

 

Chihuly Garden and Glass

300 days of beauty, day 48 [Pike Place Market]

Best donuts ever...most call it "the little donut place". We found it just fine. YUM.

Birthday trip! [Seattle]

I disappeared for a bit. One word. Vortex.

I had a glorious (my daughter's favorite adjective) trip to Seattle. Pictures will litter this blog through the weekend.

Also, I started an Instagram account for this blog. At some point I will figure out how to link from this blog, but not yet. If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm really a pen and paper sort of girl. Decidedly old-fashioned. I know I don't live in an old-fashioned world, nor it is the world I write in, but I avoid what I can. So, those pesky (probably simple) updates and upgrades for this blog and social media accounts are quite slow in coming. 

The Instagram account will essentially be an ode to books. I don't always have time to review or highlight the myriad of books I read, so this will allow me to do so, at least in part. If you are so inclined, you can follow me: @literaturethreads .

In other news, this weekend my husband and I are headed to the mountains for a hut trip with four other couples. This entails backpacking to the hut, which is really up to the hut, gaining 1,221 feet over 2.6 miles and ending at 10,878 feet. In case you are wondering, this is high...like hard to breath high. Especially when you have a pack, snowshoes, and lots of layers. Other details: unplugged, no electricity, a mountain stream for water, with the necessary being an outhouse. Oh, and I'm sure it will be gorgeous and stunning and serene, but right now I'm exhausted and getting buried in packing supplies.

I had a moment of weakness several months back and I agreed to this. It's out of my comfort zone big time, but it's good to do those things that I secretly believe I can't do. I think so at least. Ask me on Monday.

Pictures to come!

In the meantime, enjoy Seattle!

300 days of beauty, day 46 [birthday trip]

I have a fabulous brother. I would venture to say few people are as lucky as I am. We've been through a lot and have forged a friendship I wouldn't trade for anything.

On Easter Sunday night we're headed to the Pacific Northwest for my birthday trip that he has sweetly and generously planned for me. More details to come, but as a flashback, last year this trip was a complete mystery to me.

I won't take my umbrella because my cousin said I would look like a tourist...I did not need an umbrella last year!

Ahhh, sweet memories. More to come in a couple of days!

wonder and awe, dolphins and dandelions

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed."

~Albert Einstein

D standing on the flight deck of the USS Yorktown, looking out over Charleston Harbor

My children have gifted me many countless gifts, the non-material kind. One of the greatest is allowing me to experience "wonder and awe." They get so excited about the world around them. Every insect, every flower, construction sites, beautiful buildings, springtime birds, fluffy snowflakes and fuzzy cattails. If they see dolphins in a harbor, pet a stingray, or are surrounded by sea turtles, the reaction is exponentially greater.

Dolphins! D saw them first from the USS Yorktown.

Cooper River Bridge, Charleston...we never tired of the view or the bridge crossings. Beautiful.

They speak in exclamation marks. I will so miss it when they don't, at least not quite the same way.

 

I savor the beauty around me, this is not usually a struggle for me. But with my kids, life is more magnified, like the prisms Pollyanna hung in windows to create rainbows that sparkled on every surface.

And I will miss dandelions. Belle has spotted the first dandelions this week. My counters and kitchen table are decorated with vase upon vase of these yellow beauties. I'm constantly hearing exclamations of "Dandelions! Dandelions!" as she sprints to collect each and every one.

Some day dandelions will be a weed, but now they are a spring jewel. I will miss the dandelion bouquets, but I will enjoy each offering in this season.

literature threads, fabric of life

I feel as if I were born wired to love literature and the written word. I was writing stories at age six, I wrote my first book at age eleven (it was not good, by the way). I would devour stacks of books from the library and during summers, I would lavishly read into the early morning hours. Sweet memories indeed. 

Make Way For Ducklings! Boston Public Garden

Literature has woven itself through the threads of my life. I can see a book on my shelf and be momentarily transported to the place where I read it. Non-fiction and especially fiction has met me at crossroads in my life, helped me view my world through another character's eyes, it has helped mold me into the woman I am today.

I remember summer evenings devouring the newest Christy Miller book by Robin Jones Gunn. These characters became a part of my heart. No book series has impacted my life to a greater extent than these treasures.

I read Atonement Child by Francine Rivers curled up on a beanbag in my basement bedroom of the house I lived in during college. I now read this book every year. It pushes my heart to pray, to not become numb to the world around me, to see God's sovereign hand in everything.

I read Canary Island Song by Robin Jones Gunn the second time in a French hotel in Luxembourg City. My dear friend and I had walked the city (one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen) all day in brisk and damp weather. We were chilled. We ordered tea service and curled up under blankets to read our books. I finished it on the train, the Luxembourg and Belgium countryside creating a watercolor painting through the train windows. This is another story that I love. Each time I have read it, it speaks to my heart in a different way. And it makes me want to visit the Canary Islands....

tea in Luxembourg and Rhubarb my travel polar bear...

the lovely, terraced Luxembourg City

I read Pollyanna Grows Up (sequel to Pollyanna) by Eleanor H. Porter while visiting my brother in Boston. I walked down Commonwealth Avenue to the Public Garden and could picture Pollyanna's stroll and world perfectly. The story is so very sweet and it captivated me.

Boston's Public Garden

Commonwealth Avenue..."Comm Av"

Brownstones on Commonwealth Ave.

I read Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott (sequel to Eight Cousins) sitting along the North Shore of Lake Superior where my husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. As the waves lapped against the rocky shore, we sat and read, chatted intermittently and ate our take-out lunches. It was a beautiful day accented by a beautiful story. A pristine moment.

The North Shore of Lake Superior

I read An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott curled up in my over-stuffed chair, covered in blankets on a cold winter evening. I wasn't expecting to get pulled in, but I just had to finish it. My husband came down at one point to see if I was coming to bed. I pretended to be asleep, so he would leave me alone. Yes, I did just write that. He went back upstairs and I finished the book by about three in the morning. Guilty.

This is a sampling, I have so many more. Moments with my husband, my kids, my friends, my family, and by myself. I've heard that the sense of smell is the strongest memory, I would probably agree, but for me, literature life moments are a close second. Pristine moments, carefree moments, introspective moments, cathartic moments, they are all sacred to me.