October

"Oh Marilla, I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November wouldn't it?" Anne Shirley - Anne of Green Gables.

Picnik

This is why I love Picnik:

Rain!

It pored for about 10 minuets this morning! Yes that counts. All Summer I have been in love with the heat and sun. But all of a sudden I am planing Christmas decorations and sitting down to read children's books like I do every Autumn. Out come Miss Rumphius, Yonder, Owl moon, and all of my other old favorites.

Claire (The not so lonely poster=))

Missouri cookies

We lost the recipe many years ago, but I have exemplified the venerable old practice of oral tradition and committed it to memory. And in my memory it stays -- I have not divulged the secret to any member of my family, because in so doing I make sure that they still want me back at home. ;) There is something about this mysterious concomitance of chocolate, oatmeal, and peanut butter that makes me immensely popular among my siblings. But today I made it for my school with my friend, classmate, and next-year's-room-mate Amanda. We made a double batch and ended up walking to the store to procure the requisite amount of oatmeal. It being June and Oregon, the rain caught us on the way back, so by the time we returned to school to finish our project, we were nicely soaked. Cookies at my little school are always a community event and excuse for everyone to head into the kitchen to chat about homework, soccer (Spain and South Korea today -- the World Cup approaches), and next week's finals.

It pleases me to be able to import a small but precious tradition from the life of my home into the life of my school. Continuity in a life broken up between two worlds is hard to come by, so I have to appreciate it, even when it comes in the trivial form of cookies.

Silly brother

text message:
"I think you should create a band called the Sitting Ducks".

I think someone is tired of the quacking down the hill! I will be home soon to help them be quiet and content. Hopefully he won't take things into his own hands before then. :)

A good friend

We haven't seen each other that much this last year, but every now and then I call her, or she calls me. I am always just slightly nervous, remembering where I was last time I talked to her and feeling how much has changed since then. It's the old philosophical problem of time and space. How to recover and convey so many disparate months of thoughts and miles of distance? But within a few minutes I always realize: in her silent solitary hours of page-turning and pen-scratching, close-caught moments with loved ones, and confrontations with reality, she is thinking about the same things I am thinking about with my anxious schedule, long lists, and homesickness. And after we've been spilling things out for an hour or so, threads start to appear, and we are comforted to realize that there is coherence -- a narrative. How could we know that without a friend?

"A friend is someone who helps you to persevere." :)

love you, J!!

Funny College Town Story

The other day, as I was running down 19th Street, a blast of music suddenly filled the street. A fraternity house across the way had opened its windows wide and let loose the rousing strains of the soundtrack from Pirates of the Caribbean. A couple frat boys were perched on the windowsill, and a few others outside were erecting a cardboard pirate boat below the window.

I was irresistibly reminded of old days in my brothers' bedroom. Some things don't change, no matter how far away you go!

Happy Birthday to REX!

Seventeen years old!

Love you, dude. :)

(Did you get the card I sent? Heehee.)

The Wheeler Contingent in Oregon

I wish I had a camera so I could follow Claire up with some bits of spring in the Willamette Valley. It's cloudy today, but the rhododendrons and dogwood blooms are breath-taking. The lilacs are coming out just about now as well.

This week is looking full -- a paper due, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test to read, CharlieNotes to do, deponent verbs to memorize, Euclid to sweat over, and hopefully some pleasant hours of running to balance it all out.

Spring term lasts only six more weeks -- six short weeks and then home for three precious months. Our plans for those months involve camping, Faith (yay!!), Zack's graduation, Hill Abbey, Cannon Beach, and hopefully many read-aloud hours with Harry Potter, right, Claire and Brennan? :) I am holding out hope of a chance to visit the beach sometime.

Now that Claire has graciously refreshed my memory on how to post, lol, I hope to write more often, so that she will no longer be the "lonely poster". :)

Now back to deponent verbs and the middle voice. :)

love,
Madelaine

Sunrise

I am a famously late riser but today for some unknown reason I woke up at 5:00. I have been known to say "5:00 in the morning is a time that should not be!" But today I was thankful for it.




The geese on the pond down the road seemed to like me taking pictures of them and posed very nicely.



They did not seem so sure about Sophie; our poorly socialized home-schooled dog =D.


She how ever was more than sure about them!


I have decided that once a week I can be a morning person =).



Claire (the lonely poster:D)

Rain

Today is rainy. And I am loving it. Rain is the best. So is sun. Really I think that I would love any kind of weather but; rain is so photogenic. And rain means umbrellas. And umbrellas mean color. And color means awesome. So for today rain is the in thing. And rain means rain drops on the Queen Dorothy irises.


Claire (the lonely poster =D)

Poppies = happiness

my new favorite pictures

And I took every one of them! That is the really exciting bit!

Claire (the lonely poster)

Happy day!

Today I am happy. :). For a number of reasons;

#1: My poison oak is going away!

#2: We live in a beautiful world full of light and color and people that are willing to say "you like photography and want to take some pics of the merchandise in my store? Find a cool angle and go right ahead!" People like that make me smile.


#3: My mom lets me borrow her camera.

#4: We (my mom, my dad and myself) spent the morning in down-town Placerville. Mom and Dad sat in Zia's cafe while I walked around town taking pics and making friends. It was awesome. I love my home town and my family!


#5 - 105: My garden is growing; My sister is coming home from college soon; It is almost summer; My oldest brother is graduating in June and we have awesome friends coming from far away to be there; And 100 other reasons that would probably sound really nice and poetic if I could only think of them all. Oh well they are here in spirit :).

Blessings,

Claire (the lonely poster:D)

Home coming

Madelaine is coming home on Sunday!!! I am so exited!!!

Random facts about life

Sorry we haven't posted in so long. At first there was nothing to post and then, I admit I forgot.

I am really the only one that posts on here and there are reasons for some of them. Madelaine is at college ... enough said. Zack has his own blog so what he post is on it. Rex and Brennan just aren't the blogging sort, unimaginable as that is for some of us. And that leaves spasmodic me :) So I am afraid that regular posts will probably never happen. I will try to remember to post when ever any thing interesting is going on.

We went to Half Moon bay on February 28. It was the best last day of February ever.



It was a mixture of sun, sand, Coke out of glass bottles, Ray-bans (the kind of sun glasses that I am wearing in the picture, for those of you not familiar with the very hippest kind of beach eye-wear:D), ocean air, getting your clothes drenched - and I mean drenched - in salt water (which by the way is the very legitest way of ironing EVER), watching sail boats at sea, and having just plain good old fashioned fun with two extra fun older brothers and the best mom on the planet:)!



Some day, Lord willing, I am going to live in Half Moon Bay ..... Can you see why?

Claire

Travel

I am in Southern California. LA. It is very fun to be with my friends and blog from a mac but this trip has strengthened my resolve to NEVER live in the city. Come fairly often to visit but NEVER to live. But I love visiting, I am having so much fun. I went to the mall yesterday and tried on prom dresses with Juliet. It was FUN!!

We have been watching the Harry Potter movies. We watched The Goblet Of Fire last night and we are going to watch The Order of the Phoenix tonight. I am so exited! I have never seen any but the first three before I came here and I am hooked for life (I think:) )

We are going to the beach on Saturday and I am looking forward to it very much, I love the beach so much and I usually only get to see it once a year in Oregon and that just isn't the same as the California beaches that I hardly ever go to. It is sad, I live in CA and I hardly ever get to go to the beach. It is just wrong! Oh well I get to go on Saturday. YA!!!

Will post pictures later.

Claire