MonsterFool

Squash is a super-concentrated fruit juice that you dilute with water. It is most excellent on a supremely lazy Saturday.

At last the Busy Lizzie has bloomed.

Hamza, Esme, and Sam go for a ride at St. Ann’s Well Gardens.

Mom-Mom and Granddaddy’s cat, Ren, passed away yesterday. Sam’s been drawing pictures of him so we’ll remember him.

Today I stashed a bunch of sentences around the flat, and wrote a one-word clue for each one. The game: Sam would pick a clue at random, then use it to find a sentence. Once she’d found and correctly read aloud the sentence, she would get the next clue. The clue for the sentence above [...]

“And that was the beginning of the game called Pooh-sticks, which Pooh invented, and which he and his friends used to play on the edge on the Forest. But they played with sticks instead of fir-cones, because they were easier to mark.” –A.A. Milne. The House at Pooh Corner. Chapter 6.

We meant to take it easy on Sunday. After all, we’d hiked a little over 6 miles across windy, chalky terrain the day before. And yet, somehow, we ended up on a train to Lewes, bicycles stacked across from the loo, preparing to visit a Norman castle and then bike our way through the South [...]

Fourth rejection letter this year. First rejection for this particular piece (a poem). I take some comfort that they didn’t check a box that says, “What were you thinking?”

View from the Shell Keep of the Barbican gate (on the right) and the older Norman gate (to the left) and the gorgeous Sussex downs behind.

Photo taken just outside Ditchling Beacon, one of the highest points in the South Downs and site of an Iron Age defensive stronghold. We rode the bus to Ditchling, hiked about 6.5 miles to Devil’s Dyke, had a pint at the pub (of course there’s a pub!) and then rode a different bus back to [...]

Costume selected (pink, of course) Sam limbers up. The secret ingredient to cute buns? Gel. The last thing to put on is the fake smile. I don’t know why, but Sam just can’t fake a proper smile, which is rather nice because we always know if she means it or not. The Cast of “The [...]

Here is Sam in her costume, hair all slicked up, waiting in the changing room before going on stage to perform in “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” The girls’ performance was, in a word, adorable. And I have to admit that I teared up to see my shy little girl– the same one who was afraid [...]

This week the weather gods have decided to remind us that we live in the BRITISH isles, not the French Riviera, and they hired the special duo of Wind and Rain to deliver the message to us. It was so windy last night that for once I didn’t fall asleep to the sound of the [...]

Sam discovered the geoboard today and I spent a good 15 minutes scouring the house for rubber bands.