The children's library of the Santa Ana public library is one of these places that exists in crisp detail in my mind but no longer exists in reality.  Much of what I read in my childhood, I read because it was on the shelves of the children's library. Picture books were over at the far end of the room by the librarian's desk but the picture book section is mostly a blank in my mind. The non-fiction books were in rows of shelves on the near end of the room and I have some memories of venturing into those shelves to nab a book on a topic of interest. But around the outer walls of the room were the fiction books, that was where I headed.

The middle back wall was thick with favorites. Here halfway between floor and top shelf were the row of numbered tan colored Trixie Belden books (I read them all). Nearby were the Nancy Drew books. I read Nancy Drew books, one about Nancy and her friends sneaking into East Germany sticks in my mind, but Nancy Drew had it all together and was never wrong. Trixie Belden was a lot more relatable as a girl detective, she was younger (aged 14 to Nancy's 17 year), sometimes she made mistakes, and she didn't have it all together.

The "L" section was full of good reads, Lois Lenski (again the library had a huge row of her books), Madeline L'Engle, and C.S. Lewis. And then just a bit further to the Anne books by Lucy Maud Montgomery (I can see them up there on the highest shelf, I stood on tiptoe as I pulled one down in great anticipation after watching the PBS miniseries of Anne of Green Gables when it debuted. I even braved carsickness to read it on the way home from the library.)

Around the corner to the left and there is the row of books by Louisa May Alcott. Though it took me two tries to enjoy Little Women, once I liked it, I read lots of books by Alcott.  An Old Fashioned Girl, was my favorite. Around the corner to the right and down a bit was the shelf of books by Noel Streatfeild. I don't know how I started on those, probably someone recommended one to me but I loved them all.

There were florescent lights overhead and shiny linoleum underfoot. The center of the room held light pine colored cabinets full of cards, the card catalog in those pre-computer days. Two cages on top of the card catalog cabinet housed loud and playful guinea pigs, they only things immune to the librarians requests for quiet. One summer I sat at the end of the card catalogs behind a small table and helped to run the summer reading program. I knew almost all the librarians by sight, not just the ones in the children's library but also the ones that worked the reference desks in the main part of the library.

Those walls lined with shelves were my domain from Kindergarten when I left the room in triumph with every book I wanted to check out (my school library having restricted me and all the other Kindergarteners to picture books) to sometime in early high school when they remodeled the library. The main branch library is a lovely old building and the remodeling did make it much nicer in many ways. The new children's section had all the room for computers and the other changes that the had come to libraries. Change had to come, Nancy Drew didn't need to sneak into East Germany any more and even my library couldn't stay the same. The new children's section was a wonderful space and I visited it to get picture books for the kids I tutored and sometimes to get a book for me. But my memories were rooted in the old children's section that was no more (that physical space became a place for the librarians only and not open to the public, so perhaps my brain held on tighter to the idea that somewhere back there everything was just as I always had known it)

There were lots of good books I never read in my childhood (I never touched Tolkien until I was a college graduate) but many of the my childhood favorites are sorted in my brain by their places on the shelf in the old children's library.


PS. What did you do in the days before the internet when you had a burning need to know a fact that wasn't available in any reference book in your house? You called the library reference help line (during library hours, of course) and you asked a librarian your question. And they went and looked in the appropriate reference book and told you the answer (they even told you the name of the book). The librarians who did phone duty was housed down in the basement with the microfilms of old newspapers and other miscellany. I remember both calling on the phone with a question and getting a thrill from being down in the basement and hearing a librarian answer someone else's question over the phone.

so, I never log on to Facebook. OK, not never but almost never. Like 10 times in the last 18 months. And when I do log on, I'm all disoriented by the whole thing. I mean I understand how FB works and I frequently see Matt's FB feed but my own is pretty foreign to me, so I'm always confused by what people are talking about and why. (Politics? Food Allergies? Cute Puppies? Cute Kids?)

Today I logged on because the people from my high school graduating class are talking about a reunion (we aren't at a classic reunion year but we've never had a reunion and people are pushing for one before our 20th so we still have our looks . . . or something) and I got tagged in the discussion as they tried to collect all the people from our year and somehow that generated an email that I saw. So I logged on and read the discussion.

I graduated with a class of about 120 people. Not a big group. And I went to that school from kindergarten to 12th grade.

I'm embarrassed that I don't recognize several women in the conversation who only used their married names. I went and looked at their pictures and I still have no idea who they are. Yearbooks are currently inaccessible but I'm feeling pretty lame that I have no clue. Actually there are a few guys that I really don't remember either. I knew all these people when we graduated, I think I've lost some brain cells along the way.

From a quick read over the discussion I noted that some people haven't changed at all. Some people have changed completely. (that seems pretty standard)

I haven't lived in southern California for a long time. and I'm so glad. (I don't dislike the place, I have lots of great memories and I like to go and visit. I'm just happy to have lived in other parts of the country. Very happy.)

Sometimes I wonder what I'd be like if I had stayed.

Yes, I am married to someone who is a fellow alum of my high school. No, we weren't high school sweethearts. Yes, I had a crush of him.

High school was formative in lots of ways. Not the pinnacle of my life, not the worst time either. I did cheer myself through the last two years by occasionally mentally chanting, "College will be better, college will be better." and it was. But I lived and had fun and wasn't at all miserable (for the girl nerd I was) during high school.

We'll see if all this reunion talk goes through (who needs a reunion? isn't facebook enough?) but I'm not highly motivated to attend. Though if I happened to be in the general area, I would go.

Even though I may not still be in possession of my looks.

Need a laugh?

Read this interesting post on combo names by the Baby Name Wizard. (I'm such a fan of Laura Wattenberg. She's witty, interesting, good at math, and well named)

Read the post first and then read comment #2 below.

worked for me :)

"This sticker says, 'Holy Mackerel! Love, God.'"

"Look, Mommy, It's the camera of the underworld!"

"I want to talk on the phone!"
"Nathan, I'm not talking to Grandma."
"Who are you talking to?"
"I'm talking to Mrs. Ashley."
"Oh, I love her." reaching for the phone. (not that Mrs. Ashley isn't loveable but Nathan has never met her)

"I'm Sandy Koufax! I'm pitching the ball!"

"What's for dinner?"
"I'm making soup."
"I can't finish my bowl! Can I eat bread? What about this chocolate egg?" (note: no bowls of soup had yet been served)

Three year old girl, a guest at our house: "I don't like it when my brother says, 'poop'."
Nathan: (in a loud voice): "My sister goes poop in her diaper! She goes poop and the poop is everywhere. There is poop everywhere. Poop, poop, poop."
(The three year old girl makes a mental note to not bring up this subject again)

Nathan:  "What's this music?"
Matt:  "Carmina Burana."
Nathan:  "We should sing it in church."
Matt:  "Um, I don't think it was meant for that."

I love this age.

And the age where one gets so excited about a book that he reads the whole thing in less than 24 hours.
And the age where one is authoring a book about a "mer-pig" (that's exactly what it sounds like, part pig but with fins, lives in the sea) and composing war poetry (only one stanza so far).
And the age where one wiggles and smiles a big toothless smile whenever anyone looks her way.

Saturday morning's "Craft and Chat" was a fun time with some women from church. I mostly held Elsie but she did nap long enough for me to sew a face on a doll that I started making 2+ years ago (now it just needs clothes and hair, I don't know how to do boy doll hair). The other ladies were knitting and our hostess was making adorable felt carrots.

The doll will be for Nathan when it is finished. He likes it and it's kind of cute. It's made in a waldorf doll style out of an old light green t-shirt (so light green skin). I'm trying to decide what color and style the hair should be. My goal is to not purchase anything in order to make this doll. A couple weeks ago I did a little tiny bit of sewing and it was so satisfying (I made an alternate changing table cover and I hemmed the sides of some fabric for a light muslin swaddle blanket).

Oh it would be so nice to have enough time for regular sewing and regular drawing and painting times for me. I'll get there eventually but now is the season where a baby with a cold means several nights of lost sleep for me. Which results in piles of laundry taller than most of my children. My mid week laundry intervention that I held went well and all the laundry now fits into the laundry hampers again.

I just got quarterly reports done for homeschooling (I was a little late for this third quarter).  Five weeks left to go! I'm ready to be done. But in a "I can make it to the end" kind of way, not in a "why aren't we done already" kind of way. Samuel finished up his Marco Polo book and now just needs to finish off his map of Marco Polo's journey. We have less than 10 pages left in Pilgrim's Progress, which seems unbelievable because we've been reading it for the past two years (Book 1 last year, Book 2 this year) I used to dread PP but now I've gotten into a groove with reading it and I really like it.

I've also really gotten into Secrets of the Woods by William J. Long. The book is full of fantastic stories about the author's observations of animals. (according to the author's wikipedia page, some of his other stories may have been a bit too fantastic) But the book makes you want to slow down and notice little things about the habits of animals that live around you. And nothing in this book has seemed too far fetched.

And all the Year 1 books (An Island Story, Viking Tales, the Burgess Bird Book, Just So Stories) are like old friends now. We finished up Paddle to the Sea this week (Isaac and a friend get together each Wednesday to do Paddle together) and next week we will celebrate by watching the little Paddle movie on Youtube.

Ice skating ended last month and track starts next week. On Saturday, the boys met friends at the park to play baseball, something we plan to continue doing all summer. And today they watched a baseball game on the computer.

I've been no good at all with a handicraft this term and Spanish instruction has been very minimal. I should exert myself and set up a unit on soap carving which I know would be a big hit.

Nature study though has been going so well, we are learning about the parts of a flower and as the weather gets nicer we'll go outside and draw wildflowers but for now, we've worked inside with real flowers (daffodils, daisies, and pansies) and I've learned a lot. I really like drawing the flowers in my own nature notebook and understanding which parts of the flower are which. If I draw through the lesson beforehand using the Handbook of Nature Study as a guide and examining the flower on my own, then everything goes so smoothly when I teach Samuel and Isaac and their friend who does science with us. I think we've gotten some basic ideas down and now can go examine things in the wild and understand what we are seeing.

Booksale is next weekend! One of my jobs this week will be to get my booklist in order, so I can shop the sale well. Today my booksale buddies and I made our plans to be in line at 6:20 am for the first day of the sale. It's a favorite event since we get to stand around and talk for a really long time.

The children and I walked 3 miles today and saw 5 different people/families we knew at Walmart. We heard red wing blackbirds by the flood control channel. And we found several pairs of mallards in our travels including one male duck resting next to a car in a parking lot.

We started our new nature study unit this afternoon on flowers and looked at the parts of a daffodil.

I get discouraged at times with how little I know about plants or animals but I think this week I've finally learned some plant part names. And I reminded myself that three years ago I wouldn't have known the red wing blackbirds by their call. Always more to learn but I'm making some progress.

Matt should be home in 6.5 hours. The last two days haven't been bad at all (though I didn't know whether to laugh or cry last night when dealing with a half asleep Nathan who was crying because his bed was "too comfy")

I stayed up too late listening to a librivox version of Sense and Sensibility. Such an interesting story, how will it all work out? (Elinor and Marianne are in London) Most of the librivox readers are so good but every once in a while you have to grit your teeth through a few chapters with a really bad reader. There was one last night and I swear she was faking a British accent and the stress of the fake accent made her a horrid reader. Maybe I'll need to watch a movie adaptation of Sense and Sensibility sometime soon.

Sadly, I've lost the motivation to cook dinner and get kids to bed by myself.

Maybe I can get away with something easy for dinner and bedtime won't be too bad. I'm thinking fried eggs, toast and crunching vegetables (carrots, colored peppers, cucumbers, etc) or if I really get ambitious I could do pancakes. Too bad I don't have any broccoli. Broccoli and cheese pancakes sound tasty to me.

The last two nights the story reading for bedtime has been subpar. It's hard to read a story well while rocking a howling baby. Hard to hear the story too. Oh well, the howling baby sleeps pretty well once she gets put to bed properly. I can't complain.

Two weeks ago on a Friday morning during school time I heard the washing machine begin to beep ominously. When we all trooped in to visit it, an error code was flashing. I hunted down the owner's manual and learned that this error code meant that it wasn't draining the water. It was full of sopping wet clothes. I tried to pacify the washer by taking half of them away. That didn't work. I found no visible problems when I followed the simple trouble shooting provided by the manual. I decided that I probably needed a repairman.

I called my friend/landlord (it's my washer but she's lived in this town her whole life so she's awesome for referrals) and asked for the number of her washing machine repairman. She gave me the number and we both chuckled because I've met him before and he's a character. I called the number, it rang 20 times, no answer. I called 4 more times, same thing.

Then I called Sarah back. "Oh they are just the type of troglodytes who wouldn't have an answering machine. Try calling at mealtimes or bed time. Hey, they go to the Catholic church downtown, maybe you could hang out there on Sunday morning and find them." She was joking about the church thing but I wasn't feeling too amused. I need my washing machine to work. I called the normal appliance repair company in town but they were all booked for the day and couldn't come until Monday. I told them I'd call them back Monday if I needed them.

A few hours later (after lunch, stories, rest time, etc) I tried the number again. This time the repairman answered. It took me a minute to get him to remember who I was but things went better after that. I explained my problem. His first response, "Well, are you handy?"

"Sort of" I replied, internally groaning.

He proceeded to explain how to open up the washing machine and unclog the trap. I listened carefully and his instructions were crystal clear. He explained every step, everything I'd need to do and move. What I'd see when I go the front panel off, etc. He said to call him back if that didn't work.

Several hours later, I had the free time to accomplish this task (ie I wasn't holding a baby). And everything was just as he said. The whole job was fairly simple and while the trap had gunk in it, it didn't seem totally clogged. I hoped very hard that I had fixed it but I had my doubts. I worked on the washing machine instead of dinner and we ended up with ham and cheese pancakes for dinner that night. The washer still wouldn't drain correctly.

Saturday I called the repairman back. Now he began coaching me through the steps to take out the pump and evaluate whether or not it was still working. I finally put my foot down, "I'm hiring you to do this." 

"Well, I'm a lot more expensive and you could just open that up and see but OK. I can't come until Wednesday." cue more internal groaning. "You call me and I'll call you on Tuesday night and that way we will probably talk to each other and find a time for me to come on Wednesday."

He also warned that the pump was an expensive part that he didn't have on hand and would have to order if that turned out to be the problem. I was facing at least a week without my washing machine. I second guessed myself for the next several hours wondering if I should open up the machine and see if it was the pump. Perhaps then he could order the pump right away and I'd have expedited the process. Eventually I just faced the fact that I had no desire to do any of that and I didn't have much time to do it either.

He called Monday afternoon and said he could come over right then. I was thrilled. When I let him in the door, he looked at me holding Elsie and said, "I can see how it was tough for you to open up the washer."  Turns out it was the pump, he even showed me what I would have seen for myself had I followed his instructions. He'd look into ordering one. Again he warned that they were expensive, like $150 dollars.

Wednesday morning, he called. He'd talked to the manufacturer and they wanted $170 for the pump. He was, in his slow talking, measured way, outraged. He'd ordered one last year for $130 from the manufacturer. "Since the recession hit, they've just been jacking up the prices on parts." He explained his plan of taking a few days to call around and find a cheaper pump. I just wanted my washer back and I said that I'd be OK with paying the $170.

"It just doesn't feel right, It doesn't feel right." I'm holding the phone to my ear wondering if it is wrong to make my washing machine repairman violate his conscience in this way. I mean it was like I had suggested to an Occupy Wall Street type that they should partner with a big bank. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

He suggested a compromise, he'd take a day and call around for the part and then if he can't get it somewhere else for cheaper, he'd order the one from the manufacturer. I agreed to the compromise, still shaking my head and thinking that while I appreciate his principles, I just want my washing machine to work. I tell him that I appreciate his help and that obviously I don't have the perspective he does on the manufacturer. "It's just not right." he says once more.

He called later that same day to say that he's found a pump for $100. I thanked him. It would arrive Friday or Monday. I heard nothing more until Monday when he called to say he'd be over the next day to fix the washer. And he fixed the machine in short order.

So glad I didn't call the normal appliance repair company. That would have been straight forward, uneducational, and utterly boring.