Goodbye, little green car

I feel so stupid crying over a car. But here I am, doing it none the less. We're trading her in for one of these. The a/c went out over a year ago and the right speaker years before that. She's almost 10 years old. She's got 108,000 miles on her too.

In many ways, I won't miss her, but in many ways I will. She kept me safe during a serious rear-end collision. She listened to me sing badly to my favorite songs and kept my secrets when I cried over something or talked back to bad drivers or prayed out loud during those 4 hour trips from college to home and back again.

She's been a constant companion for nearly 8 years, taking me to high school, my first road trip, college, the GRE (with the fuel light on and a nearly empty tank), grad school, my first apartment, my first apartment with Matt, job interviews, jobs, from Florida to Georgia, and my first home. Matt still remembers the first time he drove her - when I got sick on a date and had to be taken back to school to throw up (I'm pretty sure it was a bad milkshake). She's held my books and my clothes, my music and my makeup, my groceries and my furniture.

More importantly, she's held people and experiences I love. I don't think I could name all the family, friends and acquaintances that have spent some time in her little gray seats. The serious conversations. The jokes. The many missed exits and turns and that one time I went the wrong way on the one way street.

She's never let me down, because I don't blame her for the four flat tires or the dead battery.

Now I guess I look forward to what will happen and who will sit in the new car. It'll take me to homes and jobs too. It will hold family, friends, and acquaintances. I hope someday it will hold babies. (The little green car wouldn't. Too hard to maneuver a little person and a car seat without four doors.)

So, family and friends, next time you see me I'll be happy to take you for a ride and make a new memory.

We're in the leaves...

We're in the leaves!

Wanna know what I did all day? Good. I'll show you.

This picture was taken this morning, from our front porch, about 9:00am.
There's supposed to be green, but you can't see it, can you? That's several inches of leaves, my friend.

And here's the same shot, this afternoon, about 4:00pm.
A little better, no? The leaf blower is my friend.

Rainey likes the leaves too.The weather has been nice (warm) enough to leave the windows open while I putz about the house. Rainey was very alert to any falling leaf or acorn out the back door.

Promised pictures, Part 2

There's construction going on this week at my library, so it's closed and everyone has the week off. Now that's a good surprise!

Monday I did housework and recovered from a weekend chaperoning some of Matt's students at a conference, yesterday I did some cooking and sleeping because I had an unpleasant headache and today I'm doing more housework and knitting. Fun, huh?

This gives me PLENTY of time to finally post some interesting things. Namely, promised pictures. A couple of weeks ago Matt put up light fixtures in the kitchen and dining areas.

Kitchen:


Dining (it's a new chandelier):


Also, notice that we painted that wall. It used to have the hideous butterfly/flower wallpaper. See here. We have ambitious plans to paint the kitchen cabinets this weekend.

More posts soon!

Promised Pictures, Part 1

As mentioned previously, I had a great reunion with the Olive Tree Circle college roomies last weekend. We're all so grown up now - two babies were in tow, but none of the husbands, and we talked about things like cleaning, cooking, jobs, and owning homes. Here's the entire group:

And, we decided to do something Halloween-y on Thursday, so we carved little pumpkins.

Matt's mom gave us a book of pumpkin carving patterns a few years ago and we finally put them to use. They came out great! I made a "fraidy cat" and Matt carved the bat trio.

Today we finally painted the wall in the dining area that used to have the hideous wallpaper. That will be featured in "Promised Pictures, Part 2." Goodnight!

Coooooold!

I'm doing an autumn storytime this week but it feels like maybe I should have just jumped right into snow! Today is quite grey and misty. According to the weather channel, it's 48 outside my window now, but tonight it should get down to about 34!

In other news, watch soon for pictures of house updates and my wonderful weekend reunion with my sweet college roommates.

And now it is October...

I'm sure it's October because it's chilly enough that people were wearing jackets when I just went to Ingles and I made soup (not from a can, I made it with fresh veggies and chicken in the crockpot) for dinner and the orange candle is out on our side table in the living room.

I've been busy with not much worth mentioning. Today three loads of laundry and bathroom scrubbing. I already finished a book I forgot to post - Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson, which I was not crazy about. Now I'm reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, which I do like so far. Why should anyone bother with books written for adults when children's books are so great?

I realized today that I have like 5 knitting projects going, and that I really should finish something up soon. Look for the updates in my Currently Knitting list.

Rainey says hello.

"To love what you do and feel that it matters - - how could anything be more fun?" -- Katherine Graham

It's Thursday for sure...

That means I saw over 100 people at my two storytimes this morning. The second group gave me hugs when they left. That was nice. And the one little boy who sat up front and told me that he wanted to watch a movie, and he didn't think my books would be any good was actually riveted. Riveted. When he left I asked him if he liked my books after all and he smiled and said yes.

We painted the bedroom. We have to put up moulding and hang pictures and such. Then pictures will come because we will actually have a room finished.

I went to a professional conference last week and stayed in a fancy hotel on the library's dime. That was nice and I heard some great speakers and got turned on to some new children's authors and learned some good methods for maintaining security in the library and engaging children with poetry.

I like long sentences.

Now it's time for PB&J.

what watching too many home decorating and improvement shows will do to ya...

Matt's in Florida for a boy's weekend so I've been left to my own devices. My parents came for visit yesterday, which was very nice, but not very long. So, I've been doing a lot of thinking, reading, cleaning, knitting, and watching too much HGTV.

This has led me to the conclusion that I must immediately put our house in fabulous order.

Now, I know this is unrealistic. On those TV shows, people put aside several days and have professional decorators, organizers, and contractors come in to help. We've only been here a month and we work full time, I tell myself. But still, the unpacked boxes of stuff that doesn't have anywhere to go mock me. The weeds in the yard whisper of my insufficiency whenever I look out the window. The bad wallpaper tells me I am a bad homeowner.

Have you seen our bedroom? Here's what it (well, one corner of it) looked like before we moved in.

Take special note of that wallpaper border. Yikes! Here's a closeup:

Not our style at all! But you know what? Inspired by those cheerful decorating hosts on TV, I have obliterated that stuff (glue and all) in just one afternoon. Here's what's left:

kira-kira by Cynthia Kadohata

I have really been trying for days to think of something interesting to write about here. For many days, the aftermath of the hurricane made anything I would write seem so trivial.

Nonetheless, everything is pretty typical for us. I'm getting busy at work. My desk is piled with books and magazines and catalogs. We're busy at home too, obviously, making small progress in correcting the senior lady decor and general mess of cardboard boxes.

I'm reading a new book, the 2005 Newbery Medal winner. I have enjoyed it, but it is depressing (being about a Japanese family in 1950s Georgia with a terminally ill child) and I would not recommend it to many children because of the depressing quietness of it. Then, there are children that this would be perfect for.

In other news, we were in a small car accident on Saturday involving a biker gang with police escort. I'm not kidding. Basically, Matt had to swerve into a ditch and the bumper was knocked loose and dented. There were no problems driving it, and it's going into the shop today. We're not hurt.