Daydreams of Spring

I am what I would call a seasonal optimist; a woman who always looks forward to the seasons ahead.  Sometimes, I think that I enjoy the anticipation of a season more than I enjoy the season.  But in writing that sentence, I think of Spring and all the things I love about Spring and now I am prepared to take back that thought.  

The truth is that I love all the seasons, for very different reasons of course, but in rather equal measure when it’s all said and done.  And when one season is wearing thin, thoughts of the season to come are a balm on that tension.  This Winter, which has featured temperature ups and downs that feel extreme, is certainly a time to appreciate the cold.  And trust me….one appreciates the cold when it is not even 10 degrees, the wind is blowing, and there is 6 inches of snow awaiting removal.  To ease the cold, I stack up my garden catalogs and carry them around the house like a talisman against the chill.

I think about the seeds I will plant and the harvests that they will bring.  When the Winter wind is blowing, I sigh a bit, fearful that Spring is far, far away.  And then, as confirmation that the cold can’t last forever, seed racks begin to appear in the stores and I know for sure that Winter will end in the glory that is Spring.  That's happy!

Amaryllis, Week 5

Since I detected the beginnings of a shoot headed upward last week, I’ve been careful to check in on my bulb each day.  As we experience day after day of unusually cold temperatures, the amaryllis is truly the only thing growing around here.  The prospect of a floral bloom is really rather thrilling, trapped indoors as I am feeling.  The first shoot I saw is doing quite well.

But the really exciting development is that another shoot has joined in on the action.

Last week’s snow remains firmly in place and but for one day in the last two weeks, we haven’t had a high temperature above freezing (and that day was 40, not exactly a heatwave)  This morning when I got up at 5:30, the temperature outside was -4 degrees.  The amaryllis holds court on a warm radiator in a southern window, reminding me that spring will eventually arrive.

Winter Sky

Monday morning started with an icy rain and temps in the 20s.  Eventually, the sunlight broke through and the day warmed to the low 40s.  It was a short-lasted respite and our polar friend returned with a sharp breeze to accompany the chill.  But the days are steadily getting longer and in the light that was still in Monday’s sky after sunset, the Winter sky was starkly beautiful, with dark tree limbs in front of ribbons of pink light on the horizon.

It’s still cold and Winter is wearing thin.  But the sky and the light in it are lovely.  That’s happy.

Bookworms

For me, teaching 6th graders has been an epiphany in so many ways.  As much as I hope that my students are learning their way around new ideas, I am convinced that being with them each day is teaching me even more.  On a daily basis, they remind me that school and learning is more successful when it’s fun.  Their enthusiasm spills over into virtually every element of their day and I admire that a great deal.

Case in point is their excitement about reading books.  They read their schoolbooks, of course, but many of them also come to class with a pleasure book in hand.  They crack it open when they finish a quiz early; they sneak a peak at a few lines when assignments are collected.  When asked about the stories they are reading, they bubble over with details about the tales.  They swap tips with one another, recommending books that have brought them pleasure.  I am reminded of my own book obsession at the age of 11 (to speak nothing of my continued joy in books at the age of 46).  I love the way that the 6th graders hope for quiet moments in which they can immerse themselves in a good book.

In every way, these readers offer evidence that the good old-fashioned pleasure of reading thrives as much as ever.  That’s a very happy thing.

Toothbrush

The very first word JT uttered was toothbrush.  That fact amuses me because his toothbrushing habits haven’t always been what I might hope.  When he had braces, I hounded him to brush and he mostly did so.  The removal of his braces and the addition of a retainer has also made brushing more desirable from his point of view.  That’s progress.  Naturally, he at once demanded a new toothbrush.

Santa obliged and put a pink toothbrush in his Christmas stocking.  Santa wasn’t being mean; JT’s manhood is not threatened by pink.  But I also have a pinkish toothbrush (it has the name of my dentist and looks different if one is paying attention…ahem).  And now you know where this story is headed.

One morning last week I realized that JT’s toothbrush was bone dry.  So I told him to brush.  “I already did,” he said.

“Then why is your toothbrush dry?” I asked.

He rolled into the bathroom, genuinely concerned, and I began to think that he had brushed.  He checked out the toothbrushes, realized he had used mine, and offered a thought, “Who is the super genius who got us toothbrushes that are the same color?”

As he attempted to spit out the rest of my germs into the sink, I reminded him of the manner in which he entered the world.  This wasn’t quite the comfort I had hoped it would be.  So later that week I scored a multipack of new toothbrushes in colors unlikely to be confusing.

The silver lining of this story is the fact that the boy is brushing before I nag him to do so.  Successful parenting, y’all!

Beak Report: Nine Week Update

The other day, one of my classes of 6th graders asked me what a nose job was and I reminded them that I had in fact had a nose job in the fall.  They had forgotten that fact and promptly gathered round to check out my snagglesnout.  “It looks good,” C solemnly announced.  I think that he is correct.  Nine weeks out, things are looking pretty good.

 There is just a bit of swelling remaining and in profile you can see the line of the repair.

This is a much better outcome than a collapsed nostril and I am grateful that it all worked out.

Amaryllis, Week 4

I was starting to fret that the adage about a watched pot never boiling would apply to my amaryllis, which seemed to be lingering in winter’s torpor.  But earlier this week, I saw the very beginning of the bulb sending a shoot upward.  And that stem keeps growing.

Progress!  And a much-needed reminder that patience is a virtue worth cultivation.

Snow Day!

The most recent Northeast snowstorm landed us two days off from school, freezing cold, and nearly a foot of snow.  This last development is more of a challenge than usual because my snow blower is in the shop.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that my snow shoveler is not in the shop.

When the storm was completely done and the sun deceptively shining, JT and I bundled up and hit the sidewalks.  

Luckily for us, my snow blowing neighbors had done the hard work of blowing out the driveway, leaving us to finish the porch, the front walk, and car clean up.

The bright sunshine that shines in the aftermath of a snowstorm is often spectacular, even if the cold is extreme.  And it is extreme, as this look at our 7 day forecast demonstrates.   Happily, JT and I are a fairly cold-hearty workforce.  We made relatively quick work of the snow and came back inside for hot cocoa, warm afghans, and good books.  That’s happy!

Friends

JT and V have been friends since they were 4 years old.  Even the two years that V spent at school overseas in the 4th and 5th grade could not dim their friendship.  V’s about to make another relocation with his family and he will attend high school in Florida.   Last weekend, when a bunch of 8th graders attended a performance of Richard III in NYC (they had read it in English class this year), V came to the city with me and JT.  They took a look around Times Square and were largely unimpressed.

 We were early to the theater so we got some lunch and then rolled into the giant Toys R Us on Times Square.  And teenagers that they are, the boys quickly got into the spirit of things.

Even Thomas the Tank Engine had one last tour of duty.

I love the fact that these boys have been friends for so long that they aren’t afraid to goof around and be kids with another.  Even better is their shared assumption that Florida isn’t that far away when one is armed with instant messaging and air travel.

Home Improvement: Stairway Handrail

When my sister and I were little girls on house hunting adventures with our parents, two-story homes were a rarity.  We grew up in California, in a place with abundant space and excessive heat ——— no one needed a second floor around there.  The two of us always admired two-story homes.  I came to see two-story houses and stairways as exotic; the kind of thing you saw on television and read about in books.  Such things were the domain of the fancy people who lived elsewhere.  Fast forward to 2014 and I live in a two-story house with a stairway of my very own.

 I love the stairs in my house and still think of them as faintly exotic.  They are also an early indicator of the boy moving about because these stairs creak, as one would expect in a home that is more than 80 years old.

As it turns out, not only do the stairs creak but the stair handrail, attached to the wall, after the landing had come loose.  This house has plaster and lathe walls and they can be tricky to work with.  The loosened rail had caused plaster damage on its way out of the wall.  T and I realized a solution must be found and so we set to work.  I forgot to take a before photo with the handrail attached but I can show you this picture made once the hand rail came down.

Up close, you can see how bad the situation had gotten.

Once plaster starts to disintegrate, it can go pretty quickly.  Inside the wall in the section with the problem, the plaster and lathe is to the right.  To the left is the metal post that forms the center of the stairway.  This is a load bearing wall in the center of the house on the only path to get upstairs.  The problem was significant, though still small enough that it wasn’t necessary or practical to take the wall down to the studs and replace the plaster with modern drywall.  But how to fix it?

After some thinking and talking through of the problem, T hit upon a terrific solution.  She carved two neat holes in the wall where the handrail attached.  Then, she cleaned and patched the edges and fit in wood squares about an inch deep into the wall.  Those were secured with deep screws into the study plaster and lathe that remained.  Once in the wall, they looked like this.

The wood had been primed and after some discussion, we decided to paint them to match the wall.  

T then re-attached the railing onto the durable wood squares, using the original railing hardware.  The finished attached railing at the bottom, where the damage was, looks like this up close.

Up top looks very similar.

When you look at the handrail as a whole, the repair is barely detectible.

It looks like a small project but it took a good deal of time and care to get it right and T was a patient and clever carpenter.  Plus, a functioning hand rail is a really nice thing to have.  Though JT has been repeatedly reminded not use the handrail as a gymnastic bar, I think that if he did it would hold up quite nicely.  That's happy!