Category Archives: Spare time – Culture

Children's literature, Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Boston adventure, upcoming

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From Liz’s comment on my last post, I can see that maybe I made too much of my upcoming visit to Simmons – it’s nothing huge and exciting like grad school (though it would be heavenly to go back to grad school), nor as amazing as having a teaching gig at Simmons (wouldn’t that be something!), but I am pretty psyched for it.  I’ll be attending the Children’s Literature Summer Institute this week, which I’ve only done once before, when I was enrolled in the children’s literature graduate program at Simmons.  I have vivid and terrific memories of that institute all those years ago, and I’m really looking forward to this one, though for different reasons.  The first time around, I was a starry-eyed children’s literature theorist in the making; this time I’m a pragmatic seasoned children’s librarian who spends more time running programs than thinking deep thoughts about children’s literature.  So I’m hoping to get my love of and enthusiasm for children’s literature reinvigorated, and I’m also hoping to meet some new people and make some “professional connections” at the breakout sessions of the same name.  And, of course, listening to all of those incredible authors and getting to meet a few of them isn’t bad, either.  And I’m sure I’ll be toting home a few signed books (though Abby-on-a-budget already bought several at the used book store in order to prevent full-price impulse purchases at the event).

Now if only I could remember how to get to Simmons…it’s that pesky little part after exiting Storrow Drive east at the Fenway exit that’s got me stumped….

Etc., Pop culture, Spare time - Culture

A day at the museum…

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Jim and I made a visit to the MFA Boston today, partly so that I could see if I remembered the intricacies of how to drive to the Simmons College campus (which, apparently, I don’t), and partly to see the much-talked-about Chihuly glass exhibit.  The museum was crowded – really, really crowded – and after waiting in line for fifteen minutes to get our tickets, we decided to eat lunch first, before the masses also hit the cafeteria (the pizza was pretty terrible, unfortunately).  And then we made our way through the maze of the museum, which has changed substantially since the last time I was there several years ago, meaning that I was completely turned around and confused about how to get where we were going.  After some wandering we found the line for the Chihuly exhibit, and waited in line for a good half hour or more until we were able to get in.  The exhibit was definitely worth the wait: the glass is gorgeous, the colors stunning, the pieces he has created truly unbelievable in their scale and proportion and ability to defy gravity.  But the crush of people was a bit much for us two suburban types, and we buzzed through more quickly than we would have done if it hadn’t been so busy.  I was disappointed by the portion of the exhibit pictured here, simply because the room was stuffed with other people, humid and smelly with their body heat and dampness.  Jim lasted all of a minute in that room before requesting that we move along…and I was right with him.

I couldn’t help thinking wistfully of the time that Dad and Linda and I visited the Mauritshuis in the Hague ten years ago: there was a public transportation strike that day, and the three of us decided to hire a car and driver to get us from Noordwijk ann zee to the Hague.  Maybe it was the transportation strike, maybe we just timed things well, or maybe the Mauritshuis is always rather sleepy, but we were almost the only visitors at the museum.  I got to spend a good half hour in the company of Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” just me in that room with that amazing painting.  That was one of the best half hours of my life, being able to study and appreciate that masterpiece without other people to bug me, and I have a feeling that being alone with Chihuly’s glass pieces could be similarly memorable.  But there were just too many people, too many iPhones and Blackberries and other devices, too much photo-taking.  I wonder whether the people taking those photos were even looking at the art while they were able to, or if they were simply accumulating snapshots to upload to their Facebook pages – “Look where I was today!”

I’m glad we went, though; glad we ventured out of the ‘burbs and into the city.  (I can’t forget to mention that we used the library’s museum pass to get in, saving us $30 in admission fees – yet another reason to love your library.)  And in my next post I’ll let y’all in on the reason why I needed to refresh my memory of how to get to the Simmons campus…can you stand the suspense until that post is posted?

Library events, Spare time - Culture, Summer reading

Weekend update

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The two most labor-intensive events of the summer reading program are OVER: the ice cream social and the tie dye extravaganza.  Yay!  I’m really, really, really happy that I scheduled these two events in back-to-back weeks this summer, since it’s a lot easier to keep up that high energy level than to try to regain that intensity after a couple of weeks of “relaxing” events.  Not to mention that the tie dye event would still be looming in the future right now if I hadn’t gotten it over with…sort of like those big term papers that used to haunt me in college.

Both events went quite smoothly, and we had gorgeous weather for both of them; no worries at all about any rain for either.  Only two more outdoor events for this summer, the outdoor games program with Trevor the Games Man and the summer finale picnic, and I’m really only concerned about the possibility of rain for the games, since I imagine we could somehow move the finale picnic indoors if need be.  But the games would be much, much more fun if we have nice weather and get to play them outside – so keep your fingers crossed for good weather on the 19th.

In home news, Jim and I have been working hard again on our current projects after taking a bit of a breather.  I have a superstitious feeling that I will only finally be healthy again once our bathroom project is complete, since last summer’s health adventure began the day after I ordered and paid for all of the bathroom fixtures, so I feel extra motivated to finish the bathroom.  Not to mention that we’ve gotten a little too used to not having a sink in our bathroom (it’s been six months).   So today we finally installed the new medicine cabinet, and Jim re-installed all of the door trim.  We’ll call the plumber tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll be able to have the sink installed this week, just in time for Dan’s visit (always good to have a bathroom sink when you have company coming).  Then some paint touchups to fix any dings on that gorgeous Van Courtland Blue, installation of the baseboards, sealing of the grout, and painting of the bureau which will be our new linen storage unit in the bathroom.  And then – we’ll be done!

I’ve also been painting the front door and the back door, having finally convinced Jim to let me paint them Hunter Green to go with our house color of Hawthorne Yellow.  Bigger project than it would seem, though, since those dark colors need multiple coats of paint.

And I’ve been reading, though not as much as I should be:  Clementine by Sara Pennypacker and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  I’ve given up on The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma, though; it just didn’t grab me the way I had hoped, and I’ve got soooo many other books that I want to get through.  And that’s the update for this weekend, as I try to move back towards normalcy in life and in my blogging.

Pop culture, Spare time - Culture, Summer reading

Summer’s here…

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The class visits at the school are done, fairly successfully, I think; the school year ended on Friday; we had the first movie night of the summer Friday night – Gnomeo and Juliet; and the Ice Cream Social is on Tuesday.  Yup, summer has begun.

I really enjoyed my visits to the school this year.  The kids’ enthusiasm about the participation of the Boston Bruins in the summer reading program was fantastic, and amped up the excitement of my visits significantly (and this was before the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, too).  And the kids also seemed pretty psyched for a lot of the programs coming to the library this summer, which is always gratifying for the person who hired the performers…which would be me, of course.

Movie night, though – I’ll be blunt here:  what an AWFUL movie!  I absolutely HATED it!!  Too much Elton John music, bad animation (or should I just say “uninspired” animation?), and a schmaltzy plot.  Blech.  And the aggressively happy ending, in which Gnomeo and Juliet live happily ever after, unlike Shakespeare’s characters of similar names, simply nauseated me.  And made me think about Lori Gottlieb’s article in the current issue of The Atlantic, “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy“: let’s substitute a happy ending for this classic story and animate it with garden gnomes to spare our children the tragedy of the original play.  Blech.   I couldn’t wait for the movie to end, and I was really surprised when there was a lot of applause from the audience at its conclusion.  Talking with the four teen volunteers afterwards during cleanup, though, was encouraging, since all four of them seemed to dislike the movie as much as I did.

And then there’s the Ice Cream Social, coming soon to a library near you.  Jim hauled our chest freezer over to the library this morning so that we’ll have a way to store the eighteen gallons of ice cream that I’ll be picking up from Baskin Robbins on Tuesday morning, and I finished the Topping Shopping trip on Thursday; all that is left now is for the weather to be fabulous on Tuesday, and for the event to be over.  I have a love-hate relationship with the ICS; I love that the families that come to it have such fun, but I hate all the hyper-organized preparation, not to mention sheer physical effort, that goes into the event.  In my view, the best day of the year is the day after the ICS, when I have 364 days to go until the next one.  How grumpy that makes me sound!  Which I’m really not, I just dread the pre-event planning and post-event exhaustion.

So summer has begun, and I should get back to my summer reading.  One child in one of the classes I visited at the elementary school issued a challenge to me that I should try to read more than thirty hours this summer.  Yikes.  And this summer reading program is one week shorter than last year’s, and it was all I could do to get to thirty hours last year.  Time to get back to Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian.  Happy summer, everyone!

Etc., Spare time - Culture, Storytime

Weekend update

I’m not feeling too possessed by the writing bug this weekend, due to YET ANOTHER oral surgery on Friday (don’t even get me started – this has been a pretty miserable experience), but thought I’d update on a couple of things I’ve written about recently:

Pippa is a happy girl, now that she’s back on regular food.  She does drink a lot of water, and she does sleep more than she used to, but she’s enjoying all the extra lap time and morning brushing sessions.  Hopefully she’ll be around for a long time yet.

The mouse is dead, finally.  And I have learned that my perfectionism doesn’t work well when setting mouse traps; I was so focused on making the traps look good that they were virtually impossible to spring.  The mouse enjoyed many snacks of spreadable cheese and peanut butter off of my traps, in absolute safety and comfort.  But then Jim set a trap, and that was the end of mousey.  Mouse did leave us one parting gift, though – he climbed into the sub-woofer for our (thankfully) inexpensive surround sound system, and it would seem that he munched through some wires while he was in there.  Now when we try to use the surround sound we get horrible loud sounds and the system goes into “protect” mode.  And yes, I have unplugged it.  Time to save our pennies for a new system…

Work on the bathroom continues on, slowly but surely.  Jim laid down the remainder of the tiles this morning, all those fussy little pieces that require cutting and fitting and delicate maneuvering into small spaces.  One step closer, one step closer.

So that’s the weekend update for today.  And one plea for those of you who will be attending my storytimes this week: remember that I’ve got another open wound in my mouth, and that I can’t talk very loud, and I’ll probably cut down the length of each storytime this week to spare myself some misery.  And, most importantly, the swelling and bruises on my face are NOT from my wonderful husband!!

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Happy Patriot’s Day!

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I had a lovely day hanging out in Concord for the parade with my friend Linda and with her son – and even saw another friend and his father-in-law while getting a coffee at Sally Ann’s Bakery.  My two favorite photos of the day are below – one of my ubiquitous Patriot’s Day horse photos, and a photo of the oldest flag in the country, which saw the action on April 19, 1775:

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Bathroom project, part three

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These photos bring us up to the present in the continuing saga of the bathroom renovation.  Drywall has been put up, lally columns have been installed in the basement to hoist the floor back up (the source of the crumbling vinyl floor tile that initiated the whole project), electrical is finished, the floor leveling compound is down, and Jim has installed the cement backer board that will support the awesome new floor tile. 

Pictured below are the fresh insulation, the yucky wallpaper that we found in the foyer (since we’re renovating the foyer and the bathroom together), the drywall, an action shot of Jim applying the mortar before putting down the backer board (I think he was a wee bit annoyed with me at that moment), and the wood floor that we found in the foyer underneath the vinyl tile.  We did decide to cover up that wood floor, mostly because we had already bought and paid for the ceramic tile, but also because it was in poor shape and kinda ugly.  And, important note for Jean and others who visit our house: there now is a light switch for the bathroom that is guest friendly, right by the door from the foyer!  Yay!  (Click on images to enlarge.)

Spare time - Culture

After the demo

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Next step after the before photos for our renovation?  The demo photos, of course, which in our crazy little funky house are always the most amusing.  Our house was built in 1933, and the structure is, shall we say, interesting.  Studs are oddly placed, and some studs don’t even connect to anything.  And then the people who owned the house for most of its life had very questionable decorating taste; we have found scraps of absolutely hideous wallpaper in our various renovation projects, and the bathroom was no exception.  In other rooms of the house we’ve also found layers of truly odd paint color choices on the trim, including olive green, dark red, and awful yellow.  The original trim in the bathroom is long gone, so no terrible trim colors to show here, but do enjoy the multitude of wallpapers and the strangely placed studs (Greg filled in the unconnected bits of stud with nice fresh two by fours, pictured here)…click on images to enlarge:

Spare time - Culture

At Jean’s Request…

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For the last couple of months, we’ve been working at remodeling our bathroom.  Our awesome friend Greg, who also happens to be a carpenter, has done a huge amount of the work, and now Jim and I are at the point of putting down the backer board for the new tile floor.  Since we only have the one bathroom, and since Jim and I only share one day off a week, progress has been bit slow, but that’s ok.  I’ve actually gotten used to brushing my teeth at the kitchen sink, and it might be an adjustment to brush my teeth in the bathroom again.

At any rate, I was talking to my sister Jean last night, and she asked me to start posting photos of our bathroom re-do progress here on my blog.  What a great idea, I said, especially since my productivity on the blog has definitely been affected by the bathroom project.  So for the next few days I’ll be posting a series of “before” photos, and then “during” photos, to get everyone up to speed on the project. 

Today’s photos are the full yuckiness of our bathroom prior to this renovation.  We never, ever liked this bathroom (me more than Jim), partly because there was no room to move and partly because it was ill-thought-out and downright ugly in parts.  After seven years of home ownership, we were finally forced into renovation action after the floor started to break apart and come up large pieces, causing a major trip hazard.  Pictured below are the blechy floor, the moldy linen cabinet, and the odd corner medicine cabinet.  Not pictured, unfortunately, are the nasty ugly (and probably not up to electrical code) lights over the sink.  Click on images to enlarge:

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Our fairies!

The last seven months have had some not-so-fabulous moments for Jim and me (along with lots of laughter and smiles, it hasn’t all been terrible), and I’ve had to use up most of my vacation and sick time for two surgeries of my own and my dad’s knee replacement surgery.  But, as a friend of mine pointed out to me yesterday, sometimes someone comes along and taps you on the shoulder and says, “Hey, I’ve been paying attention, and I care.”  And that’s what happened this week for Jim and me.  Two wonderful people, who just happen to be related to us, sent us two gift certificates so that Jim and I could have a couple of dates even if we haven’t had a decent vacation in a while.  One gift certificate is to the awesome restaurant Serafina restaurant in Concord, a really good Italian restaurant in my hometown.  And the other gift certificate is to the Strand Theater in Clinton, a wicked cool movie theater that actually serves burgers and pizzas and other yummy food and beer!  Woo-hoo!

Like most people we know these days, Jim and I have modified our definition of “date” to mean going together to Idylwilde to buy chicken and broccoli and French bread for dinner, so these two gift certificates mean an awful lot to us.  Thank you thank you thank you to our mini-vacation fairies!!