Back to School

Another first day of school-- and I can't believe I'm the mommy of a fourth grader! The youngest is in first grade-- how did THAT happen?! (She picked out that outfit herself, and directed me in fixing her hair. I'm so glad ONE of us has some sense of style!)


I'm in school, too-- taking Children's Literature this semester through Sam Houston. This one is almost entirely online, and it's an amazing amount of reading! Not only do we have more than a dozen books on the class list, we have to pick a book for each of about twenty awards! It's a good thing I like children's literature!

This has been a terrific class, not only because I'm enjoying the reading, but also because I'm discovering great books for my girls!

In class, the professor had us choose a children's picture book to analyze the art. Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, is the "perfect" picture book: as the boy goes deeper into his imaginings, the pictures take up more and more of the "white space" on the pages. As he sails towards home, the pictures (and his imagination) get smaller.







The book I chose was Zen Shorts, by Jon J. Muth. A panda, named Stillwater, appears in the backyard of two children. He shares three stories, each of which offers the children a new perspective on the world and on each other. Muth uses soft, gentle watercolors to tell the main body of the story; the three "zen" stories Stillwater shares are illustrated in playful ink drawings.









Meg's favorite stories in my collection for class are the Mr. Putter and Tabby stories, by Cythia Rylant. Both Mr. Putter and Tabby are old, but they share adventures and learn something new in each story! These stories are illustrated by Arthur Howard in pencil, watercolors, and pastels; the illustrations are cartoonlike and playful-- I enjoy these almost as much as Meg does!

Socks, Jersey, and Bedtime

These are the socks that I finished this morning!
My husband has been working in St. Helier, on Jersey, for the last 4 months-- the OLD Jersey, the Channel Island off the coast of France. Part of the "deal" for him going was that his family got to visit him there, which meant I made my first international trip this summer! It was a wonderful place to start; Jersey is under the umbrella of the United Kingdom, so it's very British. As we (mostly) speak the same language, it was an easy first international trip! I travelled there alone in June, then took our girls for 10 days at the end of July.

Joey is staying at a simply lovely bed-and-breakfast in St. Helier; one of the girls who works the desk is Sigi. She's Austrian, but speaks English fluently, and from what I could tell, French, too! She was one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet-- she always had a few minutes to visit, and couldn't have been kinder to the girls. I know she had days off, but she would be there when we left to explore the island in the morning, and still be at the desk after dinner. I made these for her in hopes that she'll remember to take time to put her feet up!



This is at Greve de Lecq, on the northern coast of Jersey. The beaches are very rocky in places; the tide goes out up to 40 feet, so at low tide, lots and lots of beach is exposed-- and the beaches can look different at every visit! The girls especially enjoyed exploring the tide pools when the tide was going out-- we found lots of red anemones, limpits, and even a small fuscia jellyfish!







And this would be me and a Jersey Cow (in the Jersey Museum, although we did see lots of "real" ones!). And yes, they do make the best milk in the whole of the wide world. Exceptional ice cream, wonderful "Lemon Curd" yogurt. . . waaaayyy too good, probably.





I have more projects than I care to admit to, but I find it impossible to resist the temptation to add more to my pile. (I'm currently working on the Bauhaus Fair Isle sweater from Interweave Knits for my husband, French Girl's Chantal cardigan for my sister-in-law-to-be, and I have socks to create for Birgit, another young lady at the B&B in Jersey!) This stunning yarn was purchased from Catherine of MamaLlama! I knew her "back when"-- from our knitting group that started three years ago. She's an excellent knitter who has followed her talents into creating beautiful hand-dyed yarn!


I found this on her Etsy site and just knew it needed to be made into Jane's Hedgerow Socks from Knitter's Review!






And now, as I go to put my darling daughters to bed, I leave you with "The Bedtime Song".