"Peacock in Oil Pastels and Sharpie"--Frances, 11/15/08


Though I had this idea in my head all month that our Saturdays are just packed, they're really not. It's been another relaxing day. Rutledge, Frances, and I went to the annual Holiday Bazaar at the Richmond Waldorf School this morning. This has become one of our holiday traditions, and in the past I've bought many of our Christmas gifts there. We met up with our friends Rebecca, David, Mark, and Olivia and had lunch there, the kids both did the cake walk (we didn't win), Frances decorated cookies in the craft room, and I bought a few stocking stuffers and school supplies (drawing books, wool felt, wool roving). I got Walter a fountain pen to give him for Christmas. Oh, and rocks. I always buy rocks.

Every year a woman who calls herself The Stone Goddess has a table there, and she is so very nice and has a great selection. Our plan for the next few weeks is to visit her store on Jeff Davis Highway, which she says is quite different from Walter's current favorite rock store: Packard's Rock Shop, which is a funky and messy little place on Midlothian Turnpike. I picked up a small case of 12 different fossils for Walter, a big chunk of amethyst crystals, a geode, a 4 inch long trilobite, and Frances got some Citrine crystals growing on a chunk of rock.

We're home now, and I'm sure I'm going to pay for this one later tonight when R doesn't go to bed until 11.



Tonight we're going to see South Pacific. At least that's the plan. That was the plan on Thursday when my stomach suddenly became quite angry with me about 20 minutes before the show started. I'm starting to see some patterns here. It seems that water is really the only drink that agrees with me. Coffee? No. Tea? I'm learning that's a no, too. Emergen-C was my staple drink after cutting out coffee, but that's a near 100% problem for me. Juices? Iffy, and they don't have a ton of nutritional value anyway, often have lots of sugar, and just fill you up. So I'm trying to eat slightly right (the Reese's cups I'm taking from our Halloween stash probably are a dumb, dumb, dumb idea) so we'll be in good form this evening.

Today also marked a notable moment: I checked out the maximum number of books from the library--I think it's 75, though that seems like a lot. I don't feel like I have that many, but maybe I do. I'm all over these short books right now--80-130 pages, doable in a night or two. Right now we're doing Bright April, we just listened to _Skylark_, and right now we're listening to the second Penderwicks book, which is as delightful as the first. Ollie and I are going to finish _Pictures of Hollis Woods_, which we both have enjoyed, and Frances is going through Ann Cameron's Gloria and Julian books, which are also well done and right on Franny's interest level. She liked _Bunnicula_ less, as did I. It was a really neat concept for a book, but for me it lacked something in execution. It started with a totally engaging "mystery" and theme, but then didn't take it where it could have gone, so it was a bit disappointing. Frances doesn't want to read the others in the series, and I don't entirely blame her.

Frances wanted to learn to knit this week, and here is her progress so far:


She still needs me to help remind her where to put her hands, but we had a big breakthrough when she could mostly do all the handwork herself and not have my hands on her needles as well to "keep Jack from taking all his friends off with him." I taught her this rhyme:

In through the front door,
Once around the back,
Peek through the window
And off jumps Jack!

Perhaps she will become as addicted to knitting as I am. Speaking of which, here are the three hats I've done so far: