A glimmering, shimmering world is yours...
I swear sometimes I think it's a plot. It seems like every day I have off from work, it decides to be cold and wet. For example, today it was sunny with not a cloud in the sky, but yesterday, when I was off, it rained almost all day and I didn't get to ride my bike. I haven't been bike riding all year! Haha. But seriously, it's been a while and the number of cans littering my neighborhood sickens me. Must go soon.
But I know the weather won't go on like this forever. When I walked outside today, I noticed a big patch of clover that had sprouted in the grass on the other side of the driveway, a sign that spring is coming. (Isn't this funny, I'm talking about the seasons as if they actually exist in Louisiana.) It was a much paler shade of green than the grass, almost shockingly so. Something else pretty I saw: I was running errands yesterday when the sun made a brief appearence. Since it had been raining, the whole world was still wet, and when the sun came out, the whole world started shining. I was driving past a used car lot at the time and the gleam off those cars could've blinded me. (I live off a busy street, and there's a stretch further down that has almost nothing but used cars dealerships on either side. Those of you who know me know exactly where I mean.)
And yesterday was a productive day off anyway. I cleaned, vacuumed, (finally) took down the Christmas stuff, and redecorated a little. I hung up the big picture frame that I made for Dad in Christmas 2001, and I created a gallery of children's literature on our kitchen wall by making copies out of our favorite kid books.
Which ones do you recognize?
Top, left to right: Heckedy Peg, by Audrey Wood; House at Pooh Corner, by AA Milne; The Store-Bought Doll, by Lois Meyer (probably my favorite children's book ever); Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson.
Bottom, left to right: Peter Pan, by JM Barrie (it's Wendy with Peter's shadow, from the edition illustrated by Scott Gustafson, who did the best Peter Pan illustrations ever); Nils Karlson the Elf, by Astrid Lindgren; Happy Birthday, Felicity, by Valerie Tripp (one of the American Girl books); Duck Weather, a poem by Shirley Hughes, copied from a volume of children's poetry Sara gave me. You can read it below.
Right now I'm thinking of getting rid of Calvin and Hobbes, because they're cartoony and don't have the rustic charm that all the others have. Might replace it with one of the Little House books.
"Duck Weather," by Shirley Hughes
Splishing, splashing in the rain
Up the street and back again
Stomping, stamping through the flood
We don't mind a bit of mud
Running pavements, gutters flowing
All the cars with wipers going
We don't care about the weather
Tramping hand in hand together
We don't mind a damp wet day
Sloshing puddles all the way
Splishing, splashing in the rain
Up the street and back again