"School's closed -- too bad!"

So the sunny girl is feeling particularly sunny on this snowy day, because we just read those happy, happy words: "Prince William County Schools -- CLOSED, Code Red."

Of course, gone are the days when she would spend tomorrow sledding or wishing we had gotten enough snow for a big snowman. Instead my girl will sleep, then have some tea, and fool around on Tumblr, then sleep some more. 

Aren't you jealous?

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In honor of our first snowy day -- which, let's be real, has really been more of an ice/sleet day -- here is a beautiful book: Dream Snow, by Eric Carle. This charming story tells about a farmer who, on Christmas Eve, dreams of a white wonderland. Little ones will have fun finding the farmer's animals, hidden under the snow -- and will love helping the farmer give his surprise gift to his animals on Christmas Day. 

Glamour hair: rockin' the red!

Look at the sunny girl's fabulous new red hair!  Don't you love it?!

Talk about an apple for the teacher!

Well, so the end of the school year has finally arrived, and the sunny girl wanted to thank some of her teachers.    But apples are so twentieth century . . .

. . . so the sunny girl whipped up these cute little mini-pies.  

Don't you wish you were the sunny girl's teacher?!

Nostalgia in advance

 

So we're getting ready to do some painting around here. 

It should come as no surprise that "getting ready" has a very sketchy meaning for the husband and me.  We "get ready" for household projects by daydreaming about what we want, and then going out for a cup of coffee, and then maybe a month or two later wondering how much it will cost, and then cracking open another bottle of wine, and then stumbling across a paint sample or two, and then going away on a business trip . . . .

 

The girl in charge figured us out a long time ago, and thus is the only member of the family whose room has been painted to her specifications.  And it was a lot of work for both her and me -- work that involved geometry, y'all.

This summer I plan to paint my bedroom, the sunny girl's new(ish) bedroom, and the little roomlet she used to sleep in when she was not yet a 5'10 ballerina.  The roomlet will become an place for me to stash my work-related stuff (part-time faculty have no office privileges where I work).  Right now I keep all my crap in the back of my car.   I'm excited to make a little office for myself, and as usual I have all kinds of unrealistic expectations about how fabulously perfect it will be.  But at the same time, I will be sad to see the sunny girl's little roomlet go.  It means saying good-bye to some of her "little girl"-ness -- and: the room is so stinkin' cute!

 

The four-year-old sunny girl's roomlet was decorated for her by Grandma Carol, right after we moved into our house in 2001.  Grandma Carol has a great eye for what a little girl will like, and she and Grandpa have the motivational oomph to actually get a project done instead of just dreaming about it.  So the sunny girl's little room was a tiny ballerina's dream come true!

Check it out:  the flowers all over the walls were created by first using a big rubber stamp and some craft paint (that's the lavender colored basic flower).  Then Grandma went back over each flower several times freestyle, adding the pink detail, the white outline, and the swirly yellow center.  The random blue swirlies were "to give it a little color pop."  Just as I was oohing and ahhing about how cute the room was, Grandma got out her glue gun and attached flat pink glass marbles to the centers of all the flowers.  I mean . . . .  And you see how she instructed Grandpa to paint the walls flat pink, and then add a stripe of glossy pink of the same shade, right?  Grandma Carol created a lovely little room for my sunny girl that could be out of a magazine.

The kicker for the four-year-old, though, was the chandelier.

Snapshot: the best hair glamour

The sunny girl did it again:  right before Christmas, she got a sassy new haircut!  Her adorable bob swings to just below her chin, and she feels so easy breezy as she goes about her day.  And the best part is that she was able to donate eleven inches of beautiful hair to LOCKS OF LOVE, the fabulous non-profit organization that uses these donations to create wigs for children who have suffered hair loss.

The sunny girl is the Jo March of her generation! --

She came walking in with a very queer expression of countenance, for there was a mixture of fun and fear, satisfaction and regret in it, which puzzled the family as much as did the roll of bills she laid before her mother, saying with a little choke in her voice, "That's my contribution toward making Father comfortable and bringing him home!"

     "My dear, where did you get it? Twenty-five dollars! Jo, I hope you haven't done anything rash."

     "No, it's mine honestly. I didn't beg, borrow, or steal it. I earned it, and I don't think you'll blame me, for I only sold what was my own." As she spoke, Jo took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose, for all her abundant hair was cut short.

      "Your hair! Your beautiful hair! Oh, Jo, how could you? Your one beauty. My dear girl, there was no need of this. She doesn't look like my Jo any more, but I love her dearly for it."  As everyone exclaimed, and Beth hugged the cropped head tenderly, Jo assumed an indifferent air, which did not deceive anyone a particle, and said, rumpling up the brown bush and trying to look as if she liked it, "It doesn't affect the fate of the nation, so don't wail, Beth. It will be good for my vanity, I getting too proud of my wig. It will do my brains good to have that mop taken off. My head feels deliciously light and cool, and the barber said I could soon have a curly crop, which will be boyish, becoming, and easy to keep in order. I'm satisfied, so please take the money and let's have supper."

                                                                            Little Women, Chapter 15:  "A Telegram"
                                                                            -- Louisa May Alcott, 1868-69

Letters to Santa

A few weeks ago the sunny girl and I took a day trip (a l-o-n-g day trip) to New York City.  We took along her best friend, Teeny Tiny Taylor, and the three of us had a great day.  We saw a fabulous Broadway musical that none of us knew anything about -- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (in which Chita Rivera is still gettin' it done!).  Now it's one of our new favorite shows!

We ate lunch at an empanada stand -- spicy chicken for me, and gooey cheese for the two vegetarians -- plus a shockingly tasty cranberry apple empanada for dessert.

The hipsters rode the Ferris Wheel at Toys R Us, and were drawn like moths to the mesmerizing flame of the Disney Store. We went to the Discovery museum, where we saw a very cool exhibit of sets, props, and costumes from all eight Harry Potter movies  And:  Robert Pattinson?  Short.  Rupert Grint?  Not quite as short, but still.  Daniel Radcliffe?  Short, short, short.  Emma Watson? About the size of a miniature pixie.

And of course we hit Macy's. We strolled around the block outside the store first, looking at the pretty, pretty window displays.  Then we went inside and traveled  all the way up to the ninth floor.  Our mission was to ride the wooden escalators, and to find the Christmas shop!

As we made our way up and up and up, we discovered this letter writing station and made a stop, because Macy's is doing a cool thing:  Every time you mail a letter to Santa inside a Macy's store, the company will donate one dollar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The urchins were all over that!

But listen to this tragic tale:  Teeny Tiny Taylor has never seen Miracle on 34th Street, so she didn't understand the special relationship Macy's has had for so long with Santa and with making sure his letters get to him.  How could this have happened in America?!  I can only tell you -- the sunny girl assigned the movie as homework!

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Our Advent calendar reveals this fun book behind today's door.  Inside are actual letters that can be opened and read, as the Jolly Postman tells about all the different storybook characters who have written letters to Santa.  Kids will also enjoy the games and puzzles that are part of the story. 

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Post to Bring You...

Hello people of the Inter-webs; Sunny Girl here! Tonight, while I go and see The Hobbit and do math homework because that's the kind of hell-raising youth I am, the parental units will be out getting into the Yuletide Spirit with copious amounts of Yuletide spirits. So, my mom has been kind enough to let me step in and write her blog for her tonight.

I'm breaking the rules and choosing a repeat book because tonight it's my night and I want to I really feel like this story really embodies the Christmas spirit. A New Coat for Anna is about a young girl named Anna who needs a new coat for the winter, because she has outgrown her old one.

This proves to be more of a challenge than one would expect. See, Anna and her mother live in post-WWII Europe, and (like all of their neighbors) have no money to spare. So, over the course of a year, you follow the process of her mother bartering away all their valuable possessions and this village coming together to do this thing for a young girl.

What I love most about this book is that there are two different perspectives to read it from, and both end in the same heartwarming conclusion. As a young child it's just a really cool story about this girl and her mom doing a bunch of really cool things to get a coat. When you read it as a more mature person, it's kind of heartbreaking. Her mother is forced to barter off all their lovely heirlooms for this one basic thing she should, in any other circumstance, be able to get without a moment's hesitation. And the townspeople are forced to take her things, because it's very clear none of these people have any money after the war. Either way you read it, you end up with the same story -- a village coming together and overcoming hardship to make a little girl's life a little bit easier. And that's what I really love about this story. And that's what I really want all of you to take away this Advent season!

Book Lovers' Advent Calendar: Day Eight

Well, so this book has always been in my family's basket of Christmas stories, even though to some its connection to the Advent and Christmas season might seem a little tenuous.  But bear with me!  The story of The Painter's Cat concerns Micio, the spoiled kitty who belongs to an Italian painter.  Micio is a little miffed when his owner ignores him in order to concentrate on a painting.  Micio decides to head out on his own, but soon realizes that he misses the life of an artist's cat.  When he returns home, he discovers that he has been given a prominent place in his owner's painting -- his owner must have missed him, too!

Our cat-loving family was tickled by this kitty's-eye view of the creation of a real Renaissance painting: Micio takes center stage in Lorenzo Lotto's The Annunciation.  And that's where the Advent part comes in; this painting depicts the moment when Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, who tells her what God asks of her.

 Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's favor.  Look!  You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.  (Luke 1: 30-33)

See!  That's pretty Christmas-y! 

Our copy of this gorgeously illustrated storybook came from the sunny girl's godmother.  We have loved it ever since -- and every time we read it, we think of our dear Lou.  So that makes it double fabulous!

Flour, yeast, sugar, cinnamon, . . .dental floss?

So after the fact, I can tell you that the sunny girl and I sure did enjoy our bread baking adventure with the Girl Scouts.  And I can also tell you that you don't need to offer me any tasty rolls or slices of delicious pumpernickel bread.  I'm good.

The fabulous Girl Scouts embarked on their bread baking saga as the culmination of a "Journey," which is what the Girl Scouts call a merit badge.  Except it's not really a merit badge because the requirements are different, and the way you prove you've met the requirement is different, and the Girl Scouts keep changing the requirements, and keep changing the name of the stinking thing (it used to be called an "Interest Project," for example), and I really wish the Girl Scouts would stop being so defensive about not being Boy Scouts and just call the thing a merit badge, for God's sake.

But whatever.

The task at hand was this: each girl needed to bake two loaves of quick bread (the sunny girl made pumpkin bread and banana bread) and a loaf of traditional yeast bread.  The breads would all be donated to community groups in the area.

We make quick breads all the time at our house, so the sunny girl cranked this part of her day out pretty quickly (heh!).  But while she has watched her dad make yeast bread, she had never done it before -- so when her bread started to rise, she was delighted -- and a little startled. (Here, the Bat Mitzvah girl and her mom are kneading dough for a yeast bread.)

Actually, most of these girls were new to the baking process (we are raising a generation of slice and bake aficionados . . .), so throughout the day the girls would check on their dough, and we would hear squeals of surprise as they saw how big it had gotten.

The only frustration -- and these girls handled it pretty gracefully -- was that the kitchen we were using was not made for nine girls and their mothers to be using it at the same time.  As you may know, bread baking requires counter space to mix and knead, and then space in a warm spot to let your dough rise, not to mention oven space.  The timing of all of this requires some precision as well -- it was sad for some girls when their lovely loaves rose, only to fall again before they were able to pop them in the oven.  One more lesson about the baking process.

 The girls figured out how to work in shifts, and had meal responsibilities as well as dish duty to contend with, too.  When we were finally all done with all of our loaves (we started at 10:00 in the morning, and the last loaves came out of the oven at 9:45 that night), one of the rockin' mommies remarked to me, "I will never eat another slice of bread without really appreciating how much freaking effort went into making it!"

And here is a swell story in pictures -- a microcosm of our day:  Victoria and Tia Sally had never baked yeast bread before, but they bravely chose to make cinnamon rolls.  Check it out!

I missed seeing them roll out their dough and spread it with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.  Then they rolled it up into a log.  At this point Victoria was a little confused.  "How are we going to get rolls out of this hunk of dough?"  Silly Victoria!  Haven't you ever walked by Cinnabon in the mall?

Their list of ingredients included dental floss, which made all of us say, "What the heck?"  But we all (including Victoria and Sally) had a delighted aha! moment when we watched Victoria slice through the dough with the floss (you can see her hands in the background of this picture).

It's so cool -- the dental floss really did make a nice clean slice.  My Contractor noted that the technique is just like garrotting someone.  She reads a lot of murder mysteries.

The rolls looked beautiful  as Sally put them near the stove to rise.

But holy cow!  They really, really rose!  Victoria and Sally decided to divide them into two trays.

Fresh out of the oven . . .

 
. . . and here they are packaged for some lucky senior citizen.  How cool is that?!

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This little rhyming book, Who Is Coming to Our House?, is a sweetly illustrated story of the animals' preparations for the guest who will soon arrive.  Mary and Joseph are on their way, and will soon need a place to sleep.  All the animals hurry to tidy their home for their special guests.

Yes. There will be s'mores.

Well. so my sunny girl and I are off today on a Girl Scouting adventure. We are gathering with our sisters in Scouting to bake bread, and eat really tasty food, and act like goofballs, and eat some more really tasty food, and laugh a lot.  And I think there will be some more tasty food in there somewhere.

We are "camping" but not really, since we are staying in what the Girl Scouts call a lodge, and I call a building with all of the amenities except actual beds so everybody gets to sleep on the floor!  Yay!  And we are thrilled about sleeping on the floor because we are fifty years old and have a sprained ass.  Yay!

Pray for me.

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In other news, today we will begin our third annual Book Lovers' Advent Calendar.  This year, I shall roam the bookstores and catalogs to bring you the latest fabulous Christmas-y stories for youngsters and oldsters.  Knowing me, I suspect that I will also remind you of a forgotten story or two, as well.

Today I share with you a book that made me so happy as I read it.  A Bad Kitty Christmas made me laugh out loud, right there in the aisle at Target.  "T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the city / not a creature was stirring, except for Bad Kitty."  So stinkin' cute!  Bad Kitty learns that things are not what Christmas is about -- and a family gains a friend in the bargain.

Bring it, Sandy!

The sunny girl and I hit our local grocery store one last time before we began to seriously hunker down and wait out Hurricane Sandy.  We were already bored and stir-crazy, and felt the need to buy those last minute emergency supplies that would help ensure that we will make it through the storm unscathed -- staples like brownie mix, potato chips, and wine.

We did notice that our fellow citizens had emptied certain key shelves . . . .

While the store still had water in gallon jugs, there is no more individually bottled water to be had.

Do you need AA batteries?  You're in luck!  Also available:  AAA, 9V,  and C batteries.  But if your flashlights and lanterns take D batteries, you are so screwed.

And as it turns out, you are also screwed if you need tortilla chips.  Apparently nachos, and chips with salsa, are necessities for sheltering in place.  Good thing the sunny girl and I snagged the very last bag of Tostitos Scoops in the store.

Because that would have been a catastrophe.

Things I Did This Summer Instead of Blogging -- in random order because I've lost track of my head

OK, so I had quite the event-filled summer with the family.  Much (though not all) of it was even fun.  Some lousy stuff happened, too -- and between the happy and the crappy, I was hoppin' all summer.  Hoppin' -- but not bloggin'.

And the whole summer really has gotten all jumbled up in my head, so I"ll just ramble.  Try to keep up.

1.  (Or maybe 4.)  The tall boy's freaking lung collapsed.  Again.  So once again he and I made the familiar jaunt to the Emergency Department of the good old Virginia Hospital Center, where once again he was admitted and scheduled for surgery.  This time the procedure (called a pleurodesis) was a little more dramatic, but all went well.

After five days of quality time with a chest tube and a morphine pump, the tall boy was released into his family's capable hands.  Facebook friends already know that the Tall Boy Care Team consisted of the girl in charge (very bossy, so perfect for ensuring that the grueling walks around the happy little cul-de-sac took place as ordered); the sunny girl (a total night owl, so she was a companion on those long and sleepless nights when he couldn't get comfortable, so they watched zombie movies until 4:00 in the morning); and HER (she was a little frantic with worry all the way up in Boston, so she came back for the fall semester of school a few days early, so she could lay eyes on the tall boy, and help us get him moved into his dorm room).

The tall boy's current status is: shockingly good!  He has begun the fall semester at Catholic University, and although he's still moving slowly and is not yet quite up for a game of Frisbee, he's better and stronger every day!

2. (Or is it 7?) I told you about the awesome family vacation in lovely Nag's Head, North Carolina, back in June -- and I introduced you to the fabulous small boys (so stinkin' cute!).

But as is our family tradition, we also had a little car drama while we were at the beach.  And can I just say that I am all for tradition (I even know the words to the song!), but this particular family tradition blows.  This car crunch didn't even look that tragic from the outside of the car.  It did suck though -- trust me! SHE and the tall boy had gone on a Sonic run (their good deed for the day) and were t-boned at an intersection.  A vision I wish was not in my head is the sight of an ambulance and a stretcher, with my tall boy's tall legs dangling off the end.  Dreadful.

The crappy news is that my beautiful car -- purchased to replace the P.O.S. minivan that was stolen on a previous beach trip, if you can stand the irony -- was totaled.  The good news is that the tall boy and his lovely girlfriend came away relatively unscathed.

3.  ( Or perhaps 2.)  The girl in charge turned eighteen, y'all. 

Look how pretty and grown-up she is!  Aack!  My heart can't take much more of this.

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OK, so a whole lot of other stuff happened this summer, but I've worn myself out re-living the traumatic shit.  So -- coming up in future posts: 

• The un-family reunion -- as fabulous as ever!
• The girl in charge goes to college!
• My sunny girl is a hipster.
• Moms' Week at the Beach should be a federally-enforced mandate:  

  "NO MOMS LEFT AT HOME!"