{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

{Pretty}

Ever since I was little I have had a penchant for ivy and vines of any kind. I drew them all over my notebooks, I garnished my calligraphy with them, and I LOVED ivy crowns with little flowers.   Yesterday, as we were doing our read aloud up in the schoolroom, I glanced over at the ivy in the window.  Instant happy!  Can't explain it.  Ivy conjures up all sorts of things in my sanguine imagination.....cottages....the Secret Garden Door shown to Mary by the Robin,  attic rooms with books, music, and pots of......ivy.  So, here's to the prettiness of IVY.

{Happy}

So, last night Creative Child emailed me with a mysterious request.  He wanted me to look up a word in our ponderously lovely,  three volume dictionary.  This dictionary came my way when my Mom and Dad moved and had to downsize. 

 It is filled with incredible words that no one uses anymore.  They are just lying dormant in the pages of the tomb.  So, when Creative Child discovered it on our bookshelf about three years ago, he started a notebook of amazing words.  He could spend hours looking through these books and writing down fascinating words like;
ei' dou ra' ni on  noun {NL., fr. eid + Gr. ouranos heavens} A contrivance for illustrating the motions of the heavenly bodies.
Every once in awhile he would call out:  "Hey Mom, do you know what this word means?" Sometimes I did, but most times I did not.  Then he would break it down into its parts and explain it to me.  I suppose when there are days that I wonder if I have done anything right concerning my children, I can always comfort myself with the knowledge that one of them loved the dictionary.  This love of my Dad's dictionary has led Creative Child to a fascination with languages and I am hearing that he wants to study Hebrew and Greek now.  Happy, happy!  By the way, I emailed him the word above at his request and he added on an edit to a wikepedia page about aforementioned heavenly bodies.

{Funny AND Real}  

(in hindsight possibly)

So............this tree..........needs to fit in..........this bag.  They promised me! 

 Yes, the Christmas tree is still there because I have been waiting for said bag to come in the mail.  It has been a source of great housekeeping angst, "WHAT KIND OF PERSON AM I TO STILL HAVE THE TREE STANDING IN THE LIVING ROOM?"   For years we had live trees and I swore I would never have a fake one......but, moment of weakness.... and the lights were already on it and it was a hard year...and thus.... the "fakey" (as my oldest child calls it)! One day soon we will switch to real again.  But for now I have to get this one in that storage bag.  I wonder if I could log this as part of  a Narnian Unit Study.....hmmm.   But then I would have to spray fake snow everywhere..........."OH Bother!"  as Pooh would say.

*Please forgive the highlighting......I don't know how to get rid of it.  Hopelessly Medieval when it comes to computers!