My new favorite art material

Some parts of California DO have seasons

And luckily our part is one of those. Around October / November the air gets crisper, the days get shorter, and look! the leaves change color.

(I'm not a snob, right? For being surprised?)

There aren't enough leaves to make 24 bags-full . . . every weekend. (Huh, Mom?) But they do crunch when I walk down the sidewalk. And the colors are warm and friendly.

Currently reading: An Introduction to Language

by Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams

Because I don't want to forget everything I learned in college.

Plus, President Uchtdorf said, "If formal education is not available for you, do not allow that to prevent you from acquiring all the knowledge you can. Under such circumstances, the best books, in a sense, can be your 'university' — a classroom that is always open and admits all who apply."
(October conference)

Totally ready for Halloween

But I want to ask this: Is Halloween ready for ME?

'Cause this costume rocks.

Freaky Friday

A few weeks ago, faced with a Friday night and nothing to do, Steven and I combatted the ordinary and got creative. (What else can you do with Sculpey clay lying around and a serious lack of Halloween decorations?)

Steven's gorgeous pumpkin and creepy skull are more realistic (talented friend, huh?) . . .

while I just went for cartoony: witch's hat and Frankenstein (the eyebrows are my favorite).

Currently reading: Gilead

by Marilynne Robinson

Though I guess "current" isn't the word, since I just finished last night. That makes four times in all (three on my own and one out loud to Steven), but it's still one of the most beautiful books I've ever encountered. The writing is gorgeous all by itself, and the STORY . . . the story is unbelievably tender and sincere.

John Ames, a preacher in the middle of nowhere Kansas, approaches the end of his life and decides to write a letter to his young son. Intending for the letter to be read after his son is grown, John Ames takes on the tone of one man speaking to another, individual-to-individual, as the equals they actually are. There are a lot of things I love about the book, but that's what struck me this last time. Because I think it's a lovely idea. To see and know a parent as a person. As an individual not unlike our own self--in weakness, needs, aspirations, joys, and reflections. I'm only beginning to see my own parents this way, and I lament how my (future) children will fail to understand me for a long time yet. I suppose it's a necessary cycle, not without its own beauty, but in a lot of ways it's sad.

Anyway. You should definitely read the book. John Ames' voice comes through in every page, sharing childhood experiences, history of the town and America, and his years-long lessons about love, faith, the physical world, and grace.


Favorite passages:

"I'd never have believed I'd see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time I think of it. I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you."

"I wish you could have known my grandfather. I heard a man say once it seemed the one eye he had was somehow ten times an eye. Normally speaking, it seems to me, a gaze, even a stare, is diffused a little when there are two eyes involved. He could make me feel as though he had poked me with a stick, just by looking at me. Not that he meant any harm to speak of. He was just afire with old certainties, and he couldn't bear all the patience that was required of him by the peace and by the aging of his body and by the forgetfulness that had settled over everything. He thought we should all be living at a dead run. I don't say he was wrong. That would be like contradicting John the Baptist."

"In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable--which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us."

Autumn apples (and the internet is amazing)

You can find an online recipe for anything--ANYthing. So far Steven and I have successfully made blueberry jam, pumpkin cookies, rosemary bread (that tastes a lot like Macaroni Grill's), banana bread, whole wheat waffles, smoothies, and apple sauce (thanks, Jodie, for the apples!). I even found a recipe for gelato (which I would try, but it requires some fancy equipment).

Honestly, I don't know what people did before the internet.

Ode to the East: Niagara Falls

Definitely something we had to see before leaving. (I'd been once before, but I appreciate things so much differently now from when I was a child.) And it turned out to be an awesome trip. The weather was great, I don't remember getting lost, and the views are totally worth it.

Gorgeous.

We did the whole "Cave of the Winds" adventure and loved it.

And we strolled over to Canada to check out their view
(which is better in a lot of ways).

But America made us pay 50 cents each to come back!

Bogus, if you ask me.

They weren't kidding about BIG.

Agassiz -- biggest tree in the park (243 feet tall; 25 feet wide)

For Labor Day, Steven and I took a trip over to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Kind of an obvious name for a forest with Redwoods, but if you've ever seen them you'll understand. They really are just that big. Big and ancient and mind-boggling.

Pictures honestly don't do them justice, but we took a few anyway.

Exposed roots from a fallen tree.
(I can't imagine being there when one of these things crashed down.)

Steven and the Kansas group.


A number of the trees have been hollowed out by fire. (These two are named Mother and Son.)
I think you could literally live in them--if it came to that.

Anyone want to plan a visit? ;)

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always . . .
They are not like any trees we know. They are ambassadors from another time.
----John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

It's never too early

Never too early.

To start planning Halloween costumes. (2008--Steven as Mario; me as Jem.)

Home-made costumes are best--half the fun of dressing up--and last year we were brilliant.

Steven sewed himself gloves from a pair of old socks, and I constructed my wig using crepe paper, bobby pins, and the shredder. Double brilliant.

This year Steven's going to recycle his Mario costume (it's just that good) and I'm going to complete the pair as Princess Peach. Now if we could just find an awesome party to go to . . .