Category Archives: Spare time – Culture

Spare time - Culture

Vacation

After a little glitch that delayed my entry, I’m finally back (my car battery died on Tuesday morning, and the trips to and from the shop, and needing to bum rides to and from work from ever patient Jim, meant that there was no time to write an entry till today).

One of my coworkers asked me today how my vacation was, to which I replied “Fabulous!”  She then asked me if it’s true that taking two weeks off is far better than  taking just one week.  She’s read that one only truly begins to relax after the first week of vacation, which is why two weeks of vacation leaves a person so much more relaxed and happy.  I would totally agree.  TOTALLY.  By the ninth or tenth day of my vacation, I started to feel like myself again.  I had energy, I was happy, and great ideas for new programs at the library kept popping into my head.  (More about those ideas in the future, when I’m a little closer to launching them.)

And the best part was that I mostly stayed at home for vacation.  We spent three nights at Jim’s father’s Cape house with all of Jim’s siblings, but other than that we were at home.  The house was clean, the laundry was always done, and we got to explore local attractions that we don’t normally visit.  Jim and I went to the Peabody Essex Museum and the Salem Willows; we went to the awesome Clinton movie theater that serves dinner and beer; we had dinner at the restaurant where we held our wedding reception; we hung out at the Cape, including a lot of time spent on the beach; and we worked on building our snazzy new back steps.  And then I had a week of vacation after Jim went back to work, and I used that week to go to the Concord Museum and DeCordova Museum; I took several walks at the Old North Bridge, with stops in the Old Manse and the Buttrick Mansion; I window-shopped in Concord and had a long chat with my old boss; and I bought my art supplies for my upcoming drawing class.  Best of all, I got to share the trip to DeCordova with my dad, and on a day with absolutely perfect weather, so that we could see Wachusett Mountain from the rooftop observation deck on top of the museum.

So yes, I would say that two weeks of vacation is the way to go.  Rested, rejuvenated, relaxed – I’m a different person than I was at the end of summer reading.  I’ve even determined that I’ll not get upset by little things at work, and that I’ll always be positive and happy at work, avoiding stress and crankiness at all costs.  Of course, the universe decided to test my resolve right off the bat, as I bounced out the door on Tuesday morning in my new red shoes all ready to go back to work…got into my car…turned the key in the ignition…and only got a “click-click-click” and some warning lights in response.  But I’m happy to say that I survived that test pretty well.  Hopefully I’ll be able to keep Happy Abby around for a long while.

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Lemonade

2 Comments

One major side benefit to me not tutoring anymore is that I’m actually inspired to cook sometimes now.  I’ve made mustard-crusted chicken (yummy!), chicken fajitas, salads that have stuff in them besides lettuce, and a beef and corn casserole (which Jim loved and I only sort of liked).  Next time Jim has band practice, I plan on making Fettucine with Bitter Greens (I can guarantee that Jim won’t be a fan of that recipe).

Today’s project was homemade lemonade.

I guess I never thought much about lemonade before; it’s so easy to buy a pre-made bottle and be done with it.  But Idylwilde Farm had a special on lemons yesterday, so I bought five and thought, “What the heck.  I’ll make lemonade.”  I used the recipe in Joy of Cooking, got my sugar water all boiled last night and cooled for today, and then went at it.  And the lemonade was actually pretty good, though I’d prefer that it was a little less sweet, a little more lemony, and that it didn’t use salt.  Looking in my Fannie Farmer Cookbook, I see that recipe uses a different approach to the sugar and water, and has no salt and more lemon juice.  I’ll try that one next, but…here’s my question to all of you:  do you have a favorite lemonade recipe?  And are you willing to share it?  Add your recipes to the comments!

Spare time - Culture, Teaching

Moving on

My tutoring gig ended for the school year (and most likely for good) on Wednesday, and school ends today, so I’m moving on to the next phase of my year:  summer reading.  Our first event is tonight – a movie night, we’re showing Bolt – and the summer reading kickoff event is scheduled for next Tuesday, though I’m guessing that it will be rained out and we’ll have to use a rain date.

At any rate, after the marathon of seven tutoring lessons in ten days, now I feel like I can breathe again.  As much as I loved working with my student, I am tired tired tired of tutoring.  It’s just too much intensity and focus on top of my full-time job which also demands intensity and focus.  I’m not quite sure how Jim and I will manage without that extra money, but sometimes, truly, the money isn’t worth the toll on the body and mind.  Last Thursday I came down with another brutal head cold, which I’ve passed on to Jim, and I’m sure that my long days of regular work and tutoring contributed to my getting sick.  (Though the main reason has to be the cute kindergartener who accidentally sprayed spit on my lower lip as he responded enthusiastically to the story I read to his class on Tuesday of last week…)  And my mind is tired, too. 

A couple of weeks from now, sans tutoring, I’m sure I’ll be my usual energetic self – hopefully healthy, too – and no doubt I’ll start to think wistfully of tutoring come September.  When that happens, please remind me that I’ve retired from tutoring in order to get my life back.  I know I’ll need that reminder.

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Spare time - Culture

Belated Patriot’s Day

2 Comments

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I’m a wee bit stressed at work right now, what with catching up from being sick and visiting the school to promote summer reading and doing all those last minute summer reading preparation things.  So I’m giving my poor brain a rest from work issues when writing on my blog until things settle down a bit.  With that in mind, here’s a photo from this year’s Patriot’s Day parade on April 20.  Last year I posted a photo that Dad titled “Bad Horse,” of a Concord Independent Battery horse getting frisky and a bit out of control coming down Main Street.  This year’s horse photo is of one of the CIB horses freaking out back at the start of the parade at the beginning of Lowell Road.  Dad and I were in a prime spot to see the action (on the steps of the Christian Science church) and snapped some good photos.  It was a cold morning, and the other CIB horses looked calm, cool, and collected.  This horse was lathered in sweat, steaming with its own heat, and clearly undone by the crowds of people on either side of it.  After a few tense minutes of trying to calm the horse (including getting idiotic curious bystanders to back off  and give it space), the CIB men decided to loop this horse and its wagon around Monument Square and back to the Armory.  We didn’t see the horse in the parade again that day.  (Click on photo to enlarge.)

img_0283.jpg

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Tired and uninspired

I know I have no right to complain, since I’m employed and love my job, but I’m going to complain a little bit anyway.  Lately I’ve been hitting one of those low-ebb periods in life, where getting out of bed in the morning seems like a heck of a lot of work.  I bring a lot of work home with me: preparation for toddler storytimes (I’ve run out of the plans I created last year and am back creating new ones at home to add to my storytime library); preparation for book groups – and last week’s book selection of Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams consumed a whole lot of reading time…though I DID love the book; and plenty of errand running, like buying bagels for book group meetings, purchasing felt for storytimes (that I buy with my own money, by the way), and buying a gazillion bags of popcorn and millions of cases of water for movie nights. 

And then there’s the prep for my tutoring, which suddenly has become more involved since Josie graduated from the Wilson Reading System and I need to study up on Latin and Greek roots, prefixes, and suffixes (not something that’s easily crammed, either, let me tell you).

And then, as I write this on Sunday, I’m listening to some of the neighborhood kids – the loud, ill-behaved ones – SCREAM at each other.  SCREAM – SCREAM – SCREAM.  No rest for weary Abby.

So I’m tired.  Very tired.  And uninspired.  Blah, really.

I know I’ll get my mojo back, and my enthusiasm, but for right now I’m just tired.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Feltboard, Spare time - Culture, Storytime

Where’s Spot?

My longest-running felt board story project is the pieces for Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill.  I spent hours upon hours on several of the pieces last spring, and added one more piece last fall, and now have to scramble to finish off the pieces in time for the “Peek, Peek, Hide-and-Seek” toddler storytime this week.  These are tough to make because I’m trying to duplicate a lift-the-flap book in felt: it uses a LOT of felt, and requires a lot of patient gluing to keep the inner parts from sticking to the flaps.

So here are a few of the pieces from my collection – the staircase (with lion inside the under-stair closet) and the bed (with crocodile hiding under the bedskirt) are quite large and safely stored at the library, and so are not shown here.  Note that the left photo is the pieces as they are shown first (“Is he in the clock?”), and the right photo shows the pieces with the flap lifted; click on images to enlarge:

img_0245.jpg img_0244.jpg

Above are Spot’s mommy, Sally, the door with the bear behind it, the clock with the snake in in it, the closet with the monkey in it, and the piano with the hippo in it.  Still to be created are the box with the three penguins, the rug with the turtle underneath, the basket with Spot, and Spot and Sally’s food bowls.  Stay tuned for those photos!

Feltboard, Spare time - Culture

Moving Day feltboard pieces

Before leaving the library today, I set up the story room for Monday morning’s toddler storytime – and realized that I actually had my camera with me (for a change).  So here is a photo of the feltboard pieces I made for Robert Kalan’s Moving Day, the story of a hermit crab who has outgrown his beloved shell home and wanders the ocean floor searching for a suitable shell home upgrade.  Click the image to enlarge:

img_0240.jpg

I love doing this story in feltboard form, because there is so much repetition (“too big, too small, too long, too short, too smooth, too rough…”) and the feltboard pieces really encourage the kids and parents to echo along with the repeated words.  It makes for a fun communal storytime experience.

Note that when I took the photo, one shell had hidden itself away behind another, so the “too plain” shell is missing from the photo. But it does exist!

I’m hoping that by posting these feltboard pieces I can give a little inspiration to children’s librarians and teachers who are just beginning to use and make feltboard stories.  Please let me know if you find these photos to be useful!

Spare time - Culture

Pippa

Pippa has noticed that the other cats in our life – Max and Ophy – have both appeared on the blog, and she’s a teensy bit annoyed that she hasn’t been featured here.  So here is a photo of pensive Pippa, looking out at the world (click on image to enlarge):

img_0059.jpg

And thanks, Dan, for teaching me how to make these photos be a manageable size.  Good afternoon project for me!

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Done – Seen – Read

There’s nothing like a mid-winter vacation to get your mojo back.  Here’s a quick overview of our week off (with details on the most important bits to come over the next few days):

Done

Trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (exhibits visited included the two Kyoto exhibits, the exhibit of photography of the human body, and the bits of American furniture that we could find)

Concert at Symphony Hall, Boston, for an afternoon of Mozart: Symphonies 39, 40, and 41, conducted by James Levine

Dinner at Dalya’s, where we had our wedding reception all those years ago.  Excellent food, as always.

Lunches at 31 Main and Helen’s Cafe; takeout Valentine’s Day dinner from Savoury Lane (great bargain, lasted us two meals…).

The required vacation week bookstore visit, to the Concord Bookshop, my favorite independent bookstore.  Remember to support your local bookseller!

A short-lived trip to the Burlington Mall, mostly to get face soap for me and an iTunes gift card for Jim.  Not really our thing.

Made a batch of homemade soft pretzels (yum!), and cooked up some kind of awesome nachos.

Spent a fun evening with Linda & Andy (and Greg), Greg & Carolyn (and Ben); dined on Andy’s awesome vegetarian stir-fry and Carolyn’s yummy cherry pie.

Visited with Jim’s mother and brother; enjoyed her homemade lasagna and birthday cake (happy belated birthday, Bill!).

Seen

High School Musical 3: Senior Year.  Don’t laugh.  I like these movies.  B+ ~ would have been A- if it hadn’t been so uncharacteristically dark.

My Best Friend’s Girl, with Dane Cook and Kate Hudson.  Hard to grade this one, since I’m still not sure what I thought of it.  B+?  B?  Should I take off points for offensiveness, even if it’s very funny offensiveness?

Stardust, with Claire Danes and Charlie Cox, as well as Michelle Pfeiffer as an old (sometimes beautiful, sometimes haggard) witch and Robert DeNiro as a cross-dressing gay pirate (???!!!???).  A- ~ good fun, well done. 

Across the Universe.  Couldn’t stomach this one!  After about fifteen minutes Jim and I both stuck out our tongues in disgust and turned it off.  Blech.

Death at a Funeral.  Very, very funny.  Really enjoyed this one.  A.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  Stopped watching this one a few minutes in, after consulting with my sister the professor, who gently commented that the book is way better than the movie, and I would be doing the book a disservice if I didn’t read it first.

And a few favorite T.V. shows:  “The Office,” “30 Rock” (which I’ve grown to love, surprisingly), “The Vicar of Dibley,” “Chef,” and a few minutes of assorted crap to cleanse the palate.

Read

Envy by Anna Godbersen

100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson

Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan

The Great Tree of Avalon by T.A. Barron (begun, not finished)

This Old House magazine

The Atlantic

The New Yorker

More on the books in the coming days, of course.

Thank goodness for vacations.  The house is clean, the cats are happy, and Jim and I look like ourselves again – fewer stress wrinkles on our well-rested faces.  Aaaah.

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Have a happy day, everyone!  Jim and I will be enjoying dinner at home, courtesy of Savoury Lane, with the woodstove and the cats.  (Maybe next year we’ll make it to Nantucket for our once-annual Valentine’s trip, but the economy is way too dicey this year for such a splurge.)  Hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and here’s to peace and love reigning for a day.