My aspirationally weekly, realistically more like monthly email of books and enthusiasms will keep your #tbr full and make sure you know what's next.
Kids on Bikes Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —
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Kids on Bikes Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —
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Tour de Taste Originally uploaded by kjda Better pic! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —
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Tour de Taste Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone — KJ Dell’Antonia Twitter.com/kjda
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I am on strike. Dinner has been provided; it was tasty. Children have been suitably entertained all afternoon and are now semi-appropriately occupied (2 children coloring: check. One child legos: check. Child making repeated thumping noises, followed again and again by by “ouch” from the playroom I am not so sure about, but hey, she’s not bothering me). Dinner has not been cleaned up. The kitchen, likewise, is a horrendous mess. Atrocious. Apparently someone failed to clean it last night […]
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Lily has officially been a first grader for a week, and she is exhausted. Exhausted to the point of after-school sobbing, exhausted to the point of incoherence. This afternoon I was on the phone, making plans with a neighbor for her little girl to come over and play with my youngest three while her older kids went to soccer practice, when I was interrupted by a wail of misery from Lily, who was emptying her lunch box. “AHHHHH! NOooo! Ohh […]
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First Day of School #2! Today was Rory’s second “First Day of School.” There’s a new head teacher in Rory’s classroom this year; one who appears to have certain fairly defined expectations for how things will go. Last week, she invited each student to come in to meet her, bringing something to show her—a book, she suggested, or something important—and to see the changes in the classroom. We adopted 4-year-old Rory last summer, and she brought, as she will always […]
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It’s fall. You’ve probably noticed…not that the weather feels particularly fallish, and not that the leaves are changing, etc., but once the kids go back to school it’s fall, and the last of my kids goes back to school Wednesday. And I am once again realizing that as they go back, I go back too. Not back to work–I’ve been working all summer, in a failing effort to do every bit as much as I did during the school year […]
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One year. Actually, one year and 2 months. I didn’t think a year meant that much, once we hit that year. I’m just not feeling the milestone, I said. This is still hard, it still doesn’t feel worthy of some sort of “this-is-how-we-were-meant-to-be” record. I suspect that maybe isn’t my style, anyway…that this is how we are will always be what’s important to me… But thatsnnot my point. We’ve hit our stride, I feel–as I said a few days ago, […]
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Caterpillar Poop Originally uploaded by kjda It’s not a new cuss phrase. It’s what we do around here in playdates. These are our caterpillars. We found them last Friday. They were all the size of that tiny one. We put them in jars, because that is what you do here in late fall; if no one in your family is not in some way involved with the life cycle of the Monarch, then you are not having a full Upper […]
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Caterpillar Poop Originally uploaded by kjda It’s not a new cuss phrase. It’s what we do around here in playdates. These are our caterpillars. We found them last Friday. They were all the size of that tiny one. We put them in jars, because that is what you do here in late fall; if no one in your family is not in some way involved with the life cycle of the Monarch, then you are not having a full Upper […]
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But minor ones… Let me first say, as an aside, that Blueberry Shrub, a drink I made after reading a wildly enthusiastic description of it in the NYT magazine, tastes very much like something you would make Easter Eggs in. I don’t know why I’m surprised…I think I will try using it in salad dressing. That said, I am sitting here drinking it and having Paz flashbacks. Mistakes: first of all, we allowed I sufficient prep time last night between […]
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I’m not exactly ready for school to start. It’s just that, given that it’s going to start, that the inevitable march of time will draw us inexorably onward, I would just as soon things START ALREADY. There’s this whole processing and adjusting and sorting thing coming at us like a freight train, and in my head, I’m already on it. But in reality, of course, I just have to let it spin out. Tonight we nibbled at it. Sam and […]
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Lily, about to ride pandamonium Originally uploaded by kjda It twists, it spins and Dory and Sam won’t do it. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —
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Wiggled world Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —
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You know your grocery store is indulging in multiple tricks, nudges and persuasion to get you to spend more. We’re all educated consumers, and we’re much harder to fool with that whole Oreos on the end-of-the-aisle display, store brands in the middle thing than we once were. But some of the manipulation plays out beneath the radar: who knew the pattern on the carpet was set up to lead you deeper into the store? Women’s Day magazine has an article […]
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Long day here. Lots of shuttling and shuffling, a little dose of art camp, the brilliant idea to take all kids to the beading store. All of which went fine, it was just–after all my happy post yesterday, I have to say I felt overwhelmed. The day started with me breaking yet another glass milk bottle, this time in the garage, just as we were leaving to pick up our poor carpool-ee. Got that cleaned up, forgot Sam’s bike for […]
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Yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. You probably know what that was, but I’ll bet that’s only because Sarah Palin made some rather clever comments about ewoks in marking that date. Come on, a week ago today, how many of you would have correctly answered an open ended question like “what is the 19th amendment to the constitution?” I’m not sure I could have done it, and I’m a former lawyer and an “A” student. I wouldn’t […]
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We have hit our stride. Rory has been home for almost 14 months, and it’s time to call it good. And oh, it is such a relief. The past year been like hitting my head against a wall, in that it’s so much better now that it’s stopped. I’ve never, ever been so glad that a year was over, and I would repeat sixth grade before I’d live through the first six months again. Of course, we had our beautiful […]
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Lily lost a tooth! Originally uploaded by kjda Alert the tooth fairy!!! KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone —
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