shouting hallelujah
Pip, we’ve been working on your room, but mostly just the walls, because your uncle hasn’t finished your crib yet, and we have to get some sort of storage bins to handle all the great stuff people have been giving you. So while your walls are starting to look pretty grand, filled with gifts from the people we love, most of your room, a month out, looks like the last picture.
Sorry, love.
Featured:
- Harry, Ron & Hermione print by Nan Lawson
- nest card by Nikki McClure
- cheetah (?) sculpture by John’s little sister around age 5
- tree of life and owl prints by John’s grandpa George [one of the Joseph grandpas]
- owl screen print by some friend of my sister’s
- birch print by a local artist whose work we saw in Thirsty Mind the same month we found out we were expecting Pip [maybe J will remember the artist, but I don’t]
- Shire print bought for us by my college roommate Alicia
- on the magnet board/checker board from my Granny: a vintage postcard from my friend Colleen, a bit of beautiful wrapping paper I’ve had for years given me by Layne, a vintage postcard from my mom, and a Mary prayer card from my dad, who always snags “Catholic trading cards” for J
Not much to report on the Pippin nursery front. We got a crib preview a couple weeks ago from Thomas, who is also fixing up an heirloom rocking chair for us, and I have a couple DIY projects to tackle next week (new knobs for the “chester drawers” as a friend calls such, and no-sew curtains about which I am very apprehensive).
Currently, I have about two dozen framed and unframed prints and bits on the floor as I try to figure out who makes the final cut and a good wall arrangement for them.
I want to make progress as I have time and energy, but I’m also holding off on a lot, suspecting I’ll get some cool stuff at various showers this month.
Reblogged mostly so that Haley can rest assured there is a Lucy in the Weasley family (as well as the Pevensies). I don’t think I knew that before. Killer name choice, H.
(via librarienne)
Pattern-mixing in Harry Potter
I noticed, and assumed someone else noticed, and combed the interwebs, and found myself creepy and alone.
But I really love the pattern mixing that goes on in H, R & H’s wardrobes in the last few movies, Ron’s particularly. There’s an emphasis on texture and knits (and yes, wool) that I appreciate. It’s not just aesthetically interesting, but it makes sense to the plot: it’s cold and they’re camping much of the time, so of course everyone will pile on as many layers as possible, traditional fashion rules be darned. As a Floridian banished to New England, I get it.
[image credits, clockwise: aceshowbiz, ABC News, ReadingTeen, Kate Dresdner)
(in no particular order)
1. Mere Christianity. I remember reading it in maybe my junior or senior year of high school and it just changing everything. It let me start thinking about my faith in a new, intellectual way, and opened up a whole world of nonfiction after a childhood of fiction only.
2. The Bible, of course. Totally frustrating, at times, but most good things involve work.
3. Anne of Green Gables. It was probably the formative literary influence of my childhood, and also proved the basis for my undergrad senior thesis.
4. Gilead. Tops my makes-me-a-better-person list.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird. I remember at least two memorable rereadings of this one: when I was 15 and had the flu, my mom read it to me for a school assignment; and when I was 22, John and I found a weird Anglicized version in our little bungalow and read it aloud at Queen Elizabeth National Park. It was good to hear a familiar accent.
6. Graceling. Not as great a book as many of the others on the list, but engrossing enough to get me from Hartford to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Tallahassee on my first-ever solo flight last spring. Sometimes, that’s pretty much all you need
7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. For the last ten or fifteen years, these books have been a point of contact for me and so many friends, a shorthand we can use to talk about the world. I’m very grateful for them.
8. Alas, Babylon. One of my all-time favorites and one of several on this list my mom recommended to me. It reflected my childhood growing up in Florida, got me interested in homesteading and post-apocalyptic stories before those things were hip, and they’re still some of my favorite topics to read about. J surprised me on our three-month dating anniversary with a bunch of yellow rose and a fancy new copy. And we all know how that ended.
9. The Poisonwood Bible. J loathes this one, which I read first in early high school (as a Kingsolver devotee), then for assigned reading. It became most important to me, though, when we made our decision to go to western Uganda, which borders the Congo. It was a good warning about the kind of missionaries we could become if we went there with too much pride, and it was one of the best descriptions and preparations for our trip that I found.
Trailer for upcoming “When Harry Left Hogwarts” documentary.
Thanks, Alexis! You day-maker you.
(via jennyjennybobenny)
Katie and I are trying to see…
ENFJ and Hufflepuff!
ESTP and Ravenclaw!
ISFJ and Hufflepuff. (The only other test I’ve ever taken said Gryffindor, but I am way too fraidy cat for that.) Also, can’t believe I’m more introverted than either Caitlin or Shelby. Pfft. (She says while shirking the rock gym in favor of lounging with the pup.)
(via wayfaringmd)
