BOOK SALE

Last weekend was the –do dodo dodo do- book sale!  (I hope that came across as a peppy, d0o-wop song, because that’s how I sang it as I typed it.)

$10 for all the books you can cram into a brown paper bag on Sunday:  my grand total for 2013 was either 36 or 37.  There was also the Saturday haul, resulting in a number of choice reads.  They also had some grab-bag type boxes filled with children’s paperback books for $10 on Saturday.  Amber and I decided to split one of those, and when we opened it on Saturday night it contained over two hundred books.  Amber, Kellaura, and I spend at least an hour going through them.  After we split them up, so for us, some for friends, some to donate somewhere, I gave the boys a few to read, because everyone gets a book sale treat.  The rest are stashed away in my closet, to be doled out throughout the year.

It always feels like the best book sale ever.  This year, there were more books than ever, even a “treasure hunt” section full of boxes of books that I’m assuming the volunteers just didn’t have time to sort.  After our final sorting and packing of bags on Sunday, we met up with our families for the big reveal at the park across from the convention center.  I wait all year for the sorting, packing, and revealing.  It wouldn’t be nearly as wonderful of a weekend if I didn’t get to share the excitement with my friends and see their finds.

Ah, the glorious finds of the book sale!  After I pick through the books for a few days in the kitchen, I’m going back to my plan from last year of keeping my brown bag next to my bed for a few months.  I think last year was the year I read the most book sale books.  But one of the beautiful things about the book sale is the timing.  It’s okay if a book sits on the shelf for years until it’s the right time to read it.  Example:

Years ago, when Trent and I lived in our apartment, I picked up a (non-fiction) book from the library about a writer who had a giant pig named Christopher Hogwood.  The author, Sy Montgomery, had also written a book called Walking with the Great Apes, about three woman who, guess it, studied apes.  She talks about writing the ape book in the pig book, which I read shortly before the first book sale we ever went to, seven years ago.  I picked up a copy of Walking with the Great Apes at the first book sale and it’s sat on the bookshelf ever since.  I’ve never been in the mood to read it, but I knew one day I would be.  Recently I read one of Jane Goodall’s books, and after watching YouTube videos of chimps, went straight to the bookshelf for Montgomery’s book, which I am currently reading.

I also picked up a big, glossy photo book of apes on bag day this year.  And thus we are all connected in the great book sale circle of life.

You’re My Favorite Deputy

We celebrated Rush’s 4th birthday last week, starting with his family dinner.  He selected his very favorite meal, red beans and rice with cornbread and honey:  how very southern of him.

Saturday was his Toy Story party.  The plan was to bring balloons, pizza, and cupcakes to the park, but Saturday was the one drizzly, hot day amidst stretches of windy spring days.  Around lunchtime we decided to relocate to our house. 

It turns out that the very easiest way to have a party at your house is to change locations a few hours prior to party time.  All cleaning-up stress is alleviated because everyone know it was a last minute change; forgiveness is assumed.  We tied the balloons around the house, turned on some music, and got down to 4-year-old party business.  The only addition to the party was asking my parents to pick up a rubber snake from the dollar store and grabbing one of Trent’s old boots for a rousing game of “There’s a Snake in My Boots”.  All kids really need for a successful party is a space to play…and cupcakes.

Trent’s sisters Kelley and Kim-

made the most fabulous Toy Story cupcakes.

We are eternally grateful.

Happy Birthday to our big four year old Rush/Woody/Buzz Lightyear!

The Book Sale Approaches

Way back in a time in my life called College, my friend Kate gave me a small purse, essentially a coin purse on a long string.  It carried a driver’s license, debit card or a few dollars, keys, and lip gloss.  Initially it didn’t even have to hold a phone, because I first started using that purse prior to my first cell phone.

It was the best purse for essentials, worn across one shoulder for ease of movement and so small that unless it was filled with rolls of quarters, it was always light.  In its early days it was perfect for places like outdoor concerts and festivals, then later I used it for the book sale.  It was the freedom of being a man with a wallet.  Then one of the cats bit the shoulder strap in half. 

So I made a new one.  The book sale countdown is on.

“Pretzels”

For the past few weeks, most of our days have included some variation of rubbing handfuls of Vaseline into the carpet.  We were in need of a reset, a break in the cycle.  Logically, that meant spending an afternoon making pretzels. 

Essential pretzel making tools include flour, yeast, salt, boiling water, rolling pin, ladle, cookie scoop, and garlic press.

I haven’t studied the finer aspects of bread making, so I don’t know the technical term for dough that seems to have tendons in it.  It was so elastic that holding the actual shape of a pretzel was impossible.  Luckily we weren’t at risk of being thrown out of the duchy if we couldn’t produce a bread that the morning sun could shine through three times.  (Eric Carle’s Walter the Baker anyone?  We have it checked out from the library right now and it’s making its way into the bedtime rotation most nights.)

They didn’t look like pretzels, and although very tasty hot out of the oven, they didn’t taste like the soft pretzels I know from malls and amusement parks.  As Trent put it when we greeted him with one after work, “Mmmm, tastes like salty bread.”  The boiling and baking was all worth it, because the stretching and kneading and ladling of the dough was, at most, therapeutic for little hands that are constantly busy, and at the very least something to keep those hands from adding more pen marks to the refrigerator.

Coincidentally, that night was my very first attempt at “the warmth and ease of Indian cooking.”  The recipe ended with “Serve with rice or any kind of bread.”  It just so happened that we had “any kind of bread.”

Always Expect A Train

In Houston, you don’t actually have to go to the rodeo to participate in the western festivity that is the month of March.  You might just dress up for Cowboy Day at school and eat hotdogs and s’mores at the Cowboy Party.  If you’re Tate, you might choose to bypass the dressing up like a cowboy altogether.  If you’re Rush, cowboy of course means Woody from Toy Story. 

That vest is one giant piece of felt with two seams across the shoulders .    It came from a little pattern called staring at the Woody doll and thinking, that’s just one piece of fabric with two seams across the shoulders…  I wrapped the felt around Rush and held it together with binder clips while I marked arm holes and pinned, then sewed, then cut and pinned again, then sewed.  I stitched on the black spots while the boys played outside and took baths and it was done just in time for Cowboy Day.  Too bad we don’t have more uses for felt vests, because that was ea-sy.

After a two year rodeo hiatus called newborn baby and everyone was sick, we didn’t limit ourselves to just the school cowboy lunch this year.  Last night, we went to the rodeo.  Although, technically we went to the every part of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo except the actual rodeo part, because thanks to the concerts, it is exponentially more expensive to actually make it into the rodeo area.  So besides the fact that we went to the rodeo and didn’t see a single horse, we had a fantastic time.

Fun Things About The Rodeo

Cows, goats, newly shorn sheep in sweaters, hatching baby chicks, rabbits (you go, Flemish Giant!), Elsie and Beauregard, the Brazoria County Beekeepers

Petting Zoo

That guy

Trent immediately becoming a cowboy just by adding a cowboy hat to his normal clothes, and steak sandwiches and nachos

Rides, riding and watching

Cotton Candy

Tate wanting to snuggle in when he gets tired

Running around a small grassy patch next to the food booths and picnic tables blowing whistles

Thanks to Operation Lifesaver for giving each of the boys their own ear piercing whistle.  Trent and I have joked about how often we see STOP FOR TRAINS THEY CAN’T STOP FOR YOU train warnings lately, but it’s not like a disease that you can eradicate through vaccination.  Like stop, drop, and roll, each new generation of children and college students must be taught not to climb between the cars of a stopped train.  The train safety people also gave Trent and I koozies, which I only took because it had my new worldview of the day:

ALWAYS EXPECT A TRAIN

It’s a half full-half empty thing.  Glass half empty, a train is going to barrel through your life, destroying and scattering.  But glass half full, every time you drive over an overpass, you might see a train!  Will the excitement ever end?!