If you enjoy typefaces, there's a quick online quiz I took courtesy of Mari at What Maisie Knows.  Note that the password to the quiz is "character."

The quiz itself includes video, with the questions posed by a gentleman whose head never appears in the frame but who speaks to you and writes your answers on his notepad.

I found my assigned type perfect, both in its description and in the assessment of my personality.  What I found slightly creepy is that I believe Perpetua is the type I selected when I bought engraved note cards with my married name (and which I rarely use).

Perpetua Titling Light was designed in 1928 and is based on Roman stone cutting.

"If you are a quiet, old-fashioned soul who would secretly prefer shoed stability to barefooted liberty then Perpetua Titling Light is your type."  (Image below from www.fontshop.com).

Two things I do: review children's books and work in early childhood education.  When I wrote my original review for Children's Lit  (which is posted below and will eventually appear on the Barnes & Noble Web site), I suggested that it would be a good option for story time and reading aloud to groups because the illustrations are so BIG.  On my Website, I indicate it's a good selection for preschoolers.

Then, this week I attended a training on the Infant and Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (Revised) taught by one of the authors.  To say she is an expert in early childhood education is an understatement.  She said, quoting someone else I think, that there are three things all children in America will be exposed to: violence, junk food, and prejudice.  She advocates keeping fairy tales out of children's diets until they are able to distinguish fantasy from reality, which is *not* in preschool.  I asked her how we should explain that to the local kindergarten teachers and school administrators, who want all children to come to kindergarten knowing nursery rhymes and fairy tales.  The Expert responded: "Whose fairy tales?  Japanese?  Native American?  Or just Western European?  It's a long-range issue you'll have to tackle with the school district."  I understand her arguments, however . . .

I'm conflicted.  I think this is a great book.  I think that most kids have watched enough television, cartoons, movies, and Disney versions of the fairy tales to know they aren't real.  I mean, aren't the talking animals a dead give-away? Could fairy tales, even as simply worded as the ones in this collection, scare small children?  Yes, and perhaps the age range shouldn't be 3-7.  Parent reviews on different Web sites are mixed -- some of their kids love it and some were horrified by Granny disappearing down the wolf's open mouth.  I see  these stories as the most basic introduction to classic themes, and what is any story without conflict?  (This argument is likely the reason for the slew of "huggy kissy I love you sweetums" picture books on the market these days.)

So I ask you, especially those of you who are parents, what do you think?

Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales

Lucy Cousins

     Clever animals, daring adventures, and gruesome ends for the bad guys pop off the pages of Lucy Cousins’ collection of eight beloved fairy tales with the common element of food. The popular author-illustrator applies her characteristic bold art style to retellings of the classics: Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Enormous Turnip, Henny Penny, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs, and The Musicians of Bremen. Though Cousins uses simple language to tell the stories to a younger audience, she manages to convey the wit and wonder of these tales with an admirable economy of language. Her illustrations fill the page with strong lines, vivid colors, and significant events that bring the story to spine-tingling life: the big bad wolf’s head sails across the spread when the heroic hunter rescues Little Red Riding Hood and  her grandmother, the hairy troll with his big warty nose as he encounters Big Billy Goat Gruff, a little pig with his pot full of wolf for supper. Though some parents may be squeamish about sharing the unvarnished versions of these fairy tales with youngsters, children will relish the rollicking good time they’ll have as good triumphs over evil, teamwork is rewarded, and humans are outwitted by animals. The book’s large format makes this an ideal read-aloud for story time, and large text occasionally sprawled across the spread will engage curiosity in early literacy experiences.

BIBLIO: 2009, Candlewick Press, Ages 3 to 7, $18.99.

REVIEWER: Keri Collins Lewis

FORMAT: Picture Book

ISBN: 978-0-7636-4474-1

 

The Benevolent Postcard Society is the creative project of Lori Langille, a collage artist and blogger at Automatism.  I heard about this collaborative art project from my friend Mari.  She's a member, and thanks to Facebook, two California friends are also members. Each month we receive the name and address of another member, and our task is to send him or her a postcard on the first day of the month.  The first mailing was in September, and the project will last for a year.  As members live all over the world, one major discovery has been the vagaries of the various postal systems.

To date, I've received 3 postcards for the 5 months.  Two have been from Canada (Lori lives in Canada), one from Massachusetts.  I've sent postcards to Canada and Ireland.  What interesting to me is that both Canadian postcards have been scenes of cities at night.  My delightful January postcard is homemade, and pictured below with remnants of the snow/ice.  Thanks to Mary for making it!  I hope to  make at least one postcard before the project is over. 

I *adore* baked goods.  This photo by rogale marcinskie makes me drool. (Found it on Flickr in the Perfect Pastries Pool.)

I also adore baking goods.  Especially for people who enthusiastically receive them, and praise my cooking abilities. 

Sooooo, I laughed very very loudly when my dear friend Jana sent me the magnet below.  It's so true. 



Food is love.  Virtual coconut macaroons and a pan of shortbread to you, my friend.  Thanks!

(Time by Eric at http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikvanhannen/537167308/)

I'm on my lunch break.  I've given up my office space for colleagues to debrief after a training, so I'm sitting in the "lobby" of the suite, looking rather like an administrative assistant (except they get better chairs than the one I'm sitting in, which I stole from the seating area no one uses) or a student worker (if someone would be kind enough to think I look that young).

I could spend my lunch break in the break room.  However, in the break room there is a television.  A very large screen tv that someone must have no longer needed at home, likely having upgraded to a flat screen.  Every day from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. a lovely lady named Sandra watches her soap opera while eating her lunch.

I find this fascinating, disturbing, and inspiring.

Fascinating, because she's not my grandmother's age and I truly believed that soap operas were for old people.  Blame Edna.
Disturbing, because, well, it's a soap opera.  I mean, please.  Every time I walk in, someone is crying or dying.
Inspiring, because *Sandra doesn't care.*

She doesn't care that most people think soap operas are ridiculous.  She doesn't care that no one wants to eat in the break room with her because they'd be subjected to the soap opera.  She doesn't care that this is a university and it just doesn't look good to be watching your soap opera.  Every day she happily microwaves her lunch, turns on the tv, and spends a blissful hour escaping into the dramatic lives of others.  She likes what she likes, and she takes time to enjoy it.

These thoughts coincide with the current chapter I'm reading in The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (which debuted at #2 on the NY Times Best Seller list!), which is about fun.  She and I share the inability to stop working and have fun, whether motivated by guilt ("My To do list is too long to stop and watch a movie!") or inertia ("The kind of fun I want to have takes too much energy to do or too much time to get the stuff out!").  I'm contemplating how to stop that bad habit (which in a nice light is called "being responsible and getting stuff done") and put more fun into my life.  I'm open to your ideas. 

Thankfully I think writing is fun.  So while Sandra enjoys her soap opera, I decided to write this blog entry.  Thanks for taking the time to join me.

From Philippa's Photography, Incurable Hippie via Flickr: http://philippaphotography.blogspot.com/2008/11/sewing.html

I'm diligent about sewing on buttons.  I'm not terrible about stitching up small holes either.  But big mending tasks defeat me. 

Part of it was the lack of a sewing machine; however, when my parents came to visit in October my mom brought me an *amazing* piece of equipment: a Bernina with a touch screen and embroidery attachment.  Yes, in theory, I could be monogramming the fire out of all of our towels, pillow cases, and clothes.  But what I've actually done with this sewing machine is repair an old black wool skirt I can't bear to part with . . . yet this skirt remained wadded up in various places for over a year, waiting for me to find a way to sew up the lining which had come apart at the back seam.  Literally.  Split right down from the zipper to the kick pleat.  So, armed with a bobbin already loaded with black thread and the only other spool of "real" thread I own in the color of rust, I hooked up the fancy sewing machine, put pins in the lining to hold it together, and sewed up the seam.

It took moments.  It took longer to set up and take down the sewing machine than to sew the seam.  I pressed the skirt and wore it today, happy to be back in my wool skirt given the frigid temperatures. 

But all of this made me think about mending in the greater sense of the word.

To mend also means to heal, to repair, to reconstruct, to return something to its original state, to fix.

Some mending is a quick fix, a couple of moments  focused on what is broken -- clearing up a misunderstanding, taking care of an avoided task, giving someone extra attention or praise.  But some healing takes a lot longer.  Perhaps a relationship has been ripped apart at the seams. Hope has been diminished by repeated disappointment. Broken dreams are much harder to mend than buttons (but broken zippers rank high on the list of difficult repair jobs!).

My conclusion: don't ignore what needs mending, but in time, the solution will become clear.  In fact, it may take more time to come up with the solution than to execute it.  Or, the solution may be clear but you don't have exactly what you need to carry it out.  So, do the best you can.  Not what everyone else expects, not the best someone else can do or suggests, but the best you can do.

 As my granny used to say, "All you can do is the best you can do, and that's good enough."

As I write this, snow is falling in Mississippi.  My workplace closed due to the prediction of icy roads and treacherous weather conditions. While people in other climates may scoff, we're simply not prepared to deal with this type of rare occurrence.

Snow days . . . an unexpected gift in the middle of gray and icy winter.  A day to snuggle under the covers, drink coffee at a leisurely pace, journal, and relax.  A day to loaf without apologizing, without feeling guilty over the many tasks that *should* be done.  A day for reflecting and thinking of possibilities.  A day for poetry.

First Snow
by Mary Oliver
From New and Selected Poems: Volume One (copyright 1992)



The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain--not a single
answer has been found--
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees
and through the fields,
feels like one.

(Photo of winter in Vermont at http://www.ntoddblog.org/photos/winter/snowyfielde.html found via Google Images.)

Today it snowed in Starkville, MS.  When not digging a path out of my email Inbox due to the University being closed (blissfully, mercifully) for two weeks, I’d wonder at the white bits of fluff swirling past my window. Snowflakes are impervious to embarrassment or self-consciousness, so watching them is never a problem.

 

People watching can be.

 

For example, while in the Los Angeles International Airport on Christmas Day, my 16 year old stepdaughter’s eyes were as big as, say, 767 tires.  Not only was her amazement at the glorious diversity of the general public visible, sometimes it was audible.  As in, “KERI!  Were those white women wearing turbans?”

 

As a writer, I like to people watch a little more surreptitiously.  I get fewer dirty looks that way.

 

So today, when my lunch break rolled around, I decided it was too much trouble to drive anywhere to get lunch. Instead, I walked to the campus bookstore, which happens to be a Barnes and Noble.  The café lunch special was half a sandwich (toasted turkey and cheese & chipotle), a cup of soup (Tomato Florentine), and my choice of beverages, including a cup of hot tea. 

 

A-ha. Perfect.  A prop.

 

At the condiments counter, I lingered and listened to the café staff chat while adding sugar and milk to my tea. (Topic: Walking the dog "in the snow." It wasn't sticking, but it sounds good.) After I ate, I spent a very fun 30 minutes wandering the bookstore, observing people as they browsed, eavesdropping on conversations while pretending to browse, and telling myself not to buy any calendars or Godiva chocolates even though they were 50% off.

 

Tea.  It’s healthy.  It’s warm.  It will cure what ails you (at least according to many Brits in books I’ve read).  But it’s also a great disguise, especially when you don't have felt nerd glasses.

(Via the Urban Outfitters blog: http://blog.urbanoutfitters.com/blog/felt_nerd_glasses)

Dear Mrs. R.L. Woods (I got your name from a receipt I found in the attic):

I know you have been dead for over five years but I wanted to thank you for allowing me to go through your closet today.  The care with which you crocheted coverings for all of the clothes hangers impressed me greatly, and it was actually the hangers that had my husband asking me to peek into the dark recesses of the "upstairs"/attic closet.  (You would be appalled at the condition the rest of the house is in, but your closet is as though you left it yesterday, if yesterday was about 30 or so years ago.)

It was like pawing through a history of fashion, from shirtwaist day dresses to polyester double-knit suits to a couple of crazy 70s tunic tops.  I liked the brown trim you hand-stitched onto the white dress, and how you got some of those big city labels so far out in the sticks I'll never know.  While the moths wreaked havoc on the tailored wool suits that someone mistakenly dumped into a couple of Hefty bags, I salvaged several items, mostly from the closet.  I doubt I can fit into any of the dresses, but I hope to clean them up and find buyers for them on eBay.  You took such good care of them it would be a shame to throw them away.

The other revelation of the day (aside from the horrors of rat poo) was your early effort at recycling.  The large boxes of glass jars, metal jar lids, plastic tubs, and the occasional Styrofoam to-go container stored in the attic prove that you were a woman ahead of your time, or perhaps simply a product of the Great Depression.  We decided to keep several one gallon glass jars (not for moonshine!), including one that appears to have been for providing water to chickens.  There is talk of salvaging some of the old lumber, though getting it out without making the upstairs even more precarious makes the project quite a challenge.

From the books left to rot in the attic, you appear to have been a teacher. I was able to salvage only a couple of books, including one titled Books and Children. I think if we'd been able to meet, we would have had a lot in common, which I hope makes my removal of your belongings more palatable. Please consider it a continuation of your recycling program.

Sincerely,

K.C. Lewis

(Logo via Greenhats at http://greenhats.wordpress.com/)

I don't remember how I stumbled upon The Happiness Project, but it's been several months and I like a lot of what Gretchen Rubin has to say.  Her book should arrive any day!  She repeats her main points enough over the course of time that the best bits come to mind, such as her "Secrets of Adulthood". 

On New Year's Eve, the first one feels true: "The days are long but the years are short."  It's easy for me to be especially reflective on NYE, because January 1st is also my wedding anniversary.  Tomorrow marks two years of being married, and while it seems sometimes like we've been married *forever* (in a good way!), it's really only been a short time.  I need to remember that, and deal gently with my expectations.

Along with many, I'm not sorry to see 2009 go.  I'm not sure I'm officially making any resolutions (though Gretchen Rubin has a zillion things to say about them here). I could resolve to read more (the resolution suggested yesterday by a local librarian), read Dickens (which I've promised for years to a friend in Wales), and read my To Be Read pile.  I could resolve to be a better person, a thinner person, or a more grateful person.  All of these would benefit my life.

But as 2010 wings its way toward me, full of opportunity and hope, I recommend resolve.

Merriam-Webster online gives the 4th definition of resolve in verb form as "to deal with successfully : clear up <resolve doubts> <resolve a dispute> b : to find an answer to c : to make clear or understandable"

In 2010 I want to live with the determination to reject ambiguity and seek clarity in all things.  No muddling through, no fuzzy denials. This should aid me in my quest for serenity, tranquility, and creativity. 

But as a noun, "resolve" means "fixity of purpose, resoluteness." 

So, as 2009 draws to a close, my recommendation for myself is to tie all of this together, to marry these ideas: happiness, finding answers, and fixity of purpose.  Let's have resolve, let's be determined, to choose happiness every single day (even though some days it's very hard!).  Not a simple waiting of the proverbial blue bird of happiness to alight for a moment, then disappear, but to find the joy available to us in e circumstance, if we will but seek it.
(Image via www.lipglosstheory.com)