Four Things On the Fourth

Four things I'm grateful for, this fourth of July:

1. Getting out and about a bit again. It's been nearly a week since my 'trip' and my left side is nearly healed - the right side is still achy and grouchy, but gradually getting better. Thanks for all the well wishes - they're working :)  (Though no new photos yet - this one was taken a couple of weeks ago, at the Lincoln Shrine, a small local museum dedicated to Abraham Lincoln. I'd been there a couple of times on fieldtrips when my girls were younger, but even after 40 years of living here, K had never been - so it was about time! It's fun playing a tourist in your own town...)

2. All the 'real world' reading I've been catching up on while away from the computer healing, this week. It's been an eclectic selection. Everything from The Sugar Queen (which was light and fun, and sort of like cotton candy for the soul) to Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things - which is definitely not cotton candy -- more like - well, maybe a food metaphor isn't a good idea in this case. I don't want to put anyone off their holiday feasting...It is good, though (of course, it's by Neil Gaiman!) - but in that shivery sort of way, where you can't stop reading, even if it keeps you awake and maybe even puts you off your feed, a bit. I love his writing - though I wouldn't recommend reading many of the stories in this collection whilst eating. Or if you're fainthearted. Or when you're alone, after dark, even if you aren't normally fainthearted, for that matter. A little darker still, in places, than I expected - but boy, can he tell a story. It made me want to dig out American Gods and Anansi Boys for another read-through. But  instead, I'm currently in the middle of The Girl With No Shadow (remember Chocolat?) Such delicious storytelling - pure, rich dark chocolate. I'm reading it a little more slowly, though. One of those books where I want to stay inside the storyworld longer, so I'm trying to make it last... So I'm also periodically dipping into Winter World, at least, whenever K sets it down for a moment, that is. Non-fiction, about animals' survival tactics in the wintertime - which might seem odd to read in the summertime, but it's sort of refreshing to read about snow and ice on a hot day, and it has some lovely little b&w 'nature journal'-type illustrations (just discovered linkage is still a little tricky to do one-handed at the moment, so I'll try to come back later and add them)

 3. The grandgirls arrive a little later this weekend to stay for a day or three. Not a full Grandmerry Camp week, right at this time, but we'll still try to make the most of it. Maybe a day at the park or the county museum, an outdoor concert at night -- I'm sure we'll come up with more things we want to do than we have time for, but we'll squeeze in everything we can in our little summer picnic basket of time together...though they may be the ones carrying the picnic basket, lol.

(photo taken back in April, though with the stars and the colors, it reminds me of July...also, not a photo of my kitchen - but it reminds me of my grandma's...)

4. Toaster oven s'mores! Discovered we only had the miniature marshmallows on hand - so we did a practice run before the girls arrive - hard to shish kebab and roast the mini ones over an open fire, so I experimented with melting them directly onto the graham crackers in the toaster oven - and they turned out perfectly golden toasty - then, just popped the chocolate on top and voila! S'mores!Though, of course, the minute we finished the first ones, we had to make some more....

- And being lucky enough to live in a free country - though I guess that makes it five things I'm grateful for, on the fourth...

Anyway -

Happy Fourth of July!

Comments

[Ninnie]

Glad to hear you are healing. Have a blast with the grands. Happy 4th Love Hugs and Blessings

[Janet]

It's good to hear from you and to know you're doing better.

I read Sugar Queen but not the Gaiman books....I'm not into anything too gross!

[Lea]

Happy 4th Tinker! I enjoyed reading your 4- really 5 things, that you are grateful for, I would agree with you that they are list toppers! I've read the Sugar Queen, you did read her first book, Garden Spells??? and Girl with No Shadow. Really enjoyed them.

Toaster oven smores sound dangerous...

Glad you are healing well, enjoy the rest of this weekend and appreciation for where we live and the opportunities it gives us! XO

[Stephanie]

Hope your 4th was grand! I enjoy seeing your reading list...I read The Girl with no Shadow..such a good story teller! I'm reading Little Bee...very tough but beautifully written.

so sorry to hear about your 'trip'...that is definitely not the way to travel my dear!!