Breezy Wednesday

1. Jay plays her zither and sings along. Then she invites us all to sit down on the blanket in our living room and have cookies and nuts. Happy time.

2. I take a deep breath and enjoy the quietness. The evening breeze with scents of spring on my face and in my hair.

3. My back muscles are no longer tight. (I know my sleep tonight won't be either.)

Tuesday stories

1. Jay puts up another puppet show about Cinderella. Unlike in the traditional version she put up yesterday this time Cinderella dances with the Prince, the Gingerbreadman, the Ballerina and some other puppets placed over wooden spoon handles so Jay could hold them all. Her narration is great. I am amazed.

2. I see a bookmark stuck in another of Em’s thick books. We have an agreement about not starting a new book before Friday due to school tests this week… and apparently she couldn’t help herself but to read the first two pages. I can imagine her excitement about a great story so very well, that wonderful anticipation.

3. There are stories residing within me. I just don’t have the time and the energy to let them out. But it is all fine because I know they are there, waiting for more attention.

Jay's gifts of love

A bouquet for Mommy!

A tiny gift of sisterly love!

 

Good night to all lovely Dolls!

Thursday gifts

1. For a short and blissful moment I was listening to a professional team and learnt from the experts. 

2. Lunch on the table and all costumes taken care of. I am grateful. Mom knows.

3. I love how smooth stretched fresh sheets feel.

Wednesday winds

1. A strong wind in my face with snowflakes landing on my glasses. 

2. My friend has the answers to all my questions. She has my whole life figured out. We laugh.

3. The lady at the local library is kind and always able to suggest a good book. My reading list is a whole lot longer because of her.

Pink

1. A box with a pink label attracts my attention. I buy two. Rose Bud Tea. I can’t wait to try it.

2. She looks at herself in the mirror, enchanted. My pink fairy.

3. I listen to the sweet melody of the lady’s pronunciation. And I know exactly where she’s from.

Monday Live

1. Jay creates a card with a lovely red bow for her best friend Rebecca. I admire her persistence in copying all the letters to write the birthday wish inside the card. And I love how her letters flow up and down as if they were live and not following some invisible line like mine.

2. A lovely card in the mail. An illustration from the Russian folk tale »The Turnip«.

3. »Only 4 more days till Em’s back, right?« Jay sighs in the darkness a few minutes before falling asleep.

Sunday’s happy

1. When the series of Sunday morning cartoons on TV is over Jay gets a creative bug and starts looking trough the drawers for paper and glue. She creates a happy paper Sun with a glittery heart in the centre.

2. I leave muddy footprints on patches of snow.

3. They share tears and smiles knowing they won’t be seeing each other for 4 days. A bond between sisters I never knew.

Thursday's delights

1. The surroundings are dark and misty as I walk down the road but the moon lights behind the clouds.

2. Chocolate cake delights them both. What is it with chocolate & girls?

3. I close my eyes while listening to the story Boy and Magic shoes that Em has written for her school assignment. I feel her breath on my face.

Wednesday wonders

1. A lovely card with two birds and poppy flowers against the pink background in the mail.

2. Jay asks me to come listen to her short composition on the piano. It’s a variation to a melody her big sister has taught her and it is perfect.

3. At dusk I look through our living room window just in time to see two roe deer’s white patches disappear in the wood.

 

Great finds

1. While sorting paper clutter that has been piling up over the last few years I find an envelope with photos from Em’s 6th birthday party.

2. The little boy seems uncomfortable among strangers while waiting outside the doctor’s room for his daddy to reappear. I try destressing him by pointing at the calendar on the wall to show him how very near school holidays and Shrove Tuesday are. A smile lightens his face.

3. After some 50 pages I am ready to stop reading the novel any further… I give it another few pages. Good decision.

My Valentines

1. An unexpected gift for Valentines.

2. Jay returns to the bathroom wearing Em's pyjamas laughing and singing: "I'm St. Nicolaus!"

3. We read a story at bedtime about a game a little girl and her daddy play "if I were you...". We turn-off the light and I turn to Jay: "Would you want to be me? I would love to be you....!" "No!" she says. Then I hear Em's voice coming from her room: "You know who I'd want to be? Me. I like who I am, what I do and how I do it. And if I do something wrong, I know I can change that."

Wednesday's goodies

1. My colleague approaches to tell me how wonderful the book I have lent her is and as I check out what page she is on I know she hasn't even come to the best part of the story yet.

2. Jay recites a new Neza Maurer's poem that she has learnt, and Em goes through her opening lines to the inteview she is having with the very same poet tomorrow. I couldn't be more proud of my girls.

3. I walk down to the store and back. It's cold and I am carrying two bags, no mobile phone to call for a lift, but that is what I had planned and made sure I didn't have any excuses to not have some excercise even if it is below zero degrees. Then just as I approach our house I see a car pull out of the garage and I know my husband thought of driving down the road to meet me part-way, and I think that's nice.  

Notes, vision boards and toes

1. I throw a bunch of notes into my paper recycling bin. They are either my to-do lists that I have been able to tick off or print-outs with tips I no longer need. How liberating!

2. I have been playing with the idea of making a vision board for myself for quite a while now. But I hadn't had the time to do it. Then it hit me today: the background of my icons on my computer screen at work is like a vision board. And I have had a photo of a huge fatty piece of pastry coated with sugar there and I know it hasn't been doing me any good. I replaced it with a gorgeous photo with mountains peaks that I had hiked to 15 years ago. There. My vision board. Summer 2011 it is.

3. I gently touch her toes while she studies details in the illustrations in her magazine. I love touching Jay's toes. They are so tiny and smooth and round... like pearls.

Artsy Thursday it is

1. “One of those is mine!” says Jay as we walk beneath the hanging mobiles of house-drawings in the hallway.

2. As I rush down the street I notice a little girl in a big purple knitted wolly cap.

3. It’s midnight and I am shivering cold but I've completed the story book translation on one sitting and I’m happy. Why do I do it? Nobody asked me to, nobody’s paying, it’s just for my own pleasure to pick up a story in Slovenian and dive into translating it at my best.

Sweet Wednesday

1. I find out that my present did get into the hands of the sweet little girl.

2. A whole cup of sweet creamy milk is poured over a soufflé with a golden crust. It’s gone within a second and the crust is still golden but softer.

3. Looking at the falling snow through a stained glass. My view changes colors depending on which part of the window I look through.

Ring-ting Tuesday!

1. I’m sitting next to the characters from the book and the next thing I know there is a car in front me and I'm walking across a parking lot.

2. At sunset Jay and I go for a walk to the hillside facing south. We ascend an old vineyard (with vines still growing without any attachment to their stakes with a patina of moss) and pick some bright yellow primroses. We each blow a flower, then eat it up and pick new ones. With hedges of primroses all around spring seems near although it’s only just mid-January. Ring-ting!

3. Paper petals in different shades of burgundy on our dining table.

Monday, Monday, so good to me

1. The hilly eastern horizon is on fire with black tree-silhouettes in the foreground and a single star high above. Dawn.

2. So nice to have the daylight stay with us longer. Jay and I are still able to walk to the library in the late late afternoon witnessing a sun-set in the most incredible shades of pink. It delights Jay so much that she does some of her abracadabra jiggles in the middle of our local road and tempts the sky to move closer so she can touch it with her hand. Then we descend further down the road holding our Lila Prap imaged-bag with children’s books each by one handle.

3. One little boy climbing a ladder to reach for the dinosaurs’ book on the top library bookshelf and handing it down to another little boy. But then he realizes it is not the book he wanted and tries to put it back. That’s when I step in and he gratefully accepts my help.

My recent (unaffected-by-the-virus-) beautiful

1. Jay sneaks into the room and leans her head on my arm as I lie on my bed. I turn my head and all I can see are her smiling eyes and her silky blond hair.

2. Her friend’s gift, a cyclamen T-shirt with white hand-prints, fits Em perfectly. She does a happy dance in front of the mirror.

3. An e-mail in my inbox informing me that I’ve been picked to write a book review and that will be receiving a free copy of the book in a few days.

Monday's favorites

1. As my colleague and I sit down by the table outside the patisserie the shop lady offers two red blankets through the window. We wrap them around our legs and feel warm and cozy. 

2. I get a call from a person working at some education institution informing me that the seminar I was interested in a while ago is taking place soon. It is tempting.

3. I ask Jay to wait in the bed till I come to read to her. »I will go through this book and then I will play with the culcalator.« She has her own way of saying calculator, her latest favorite device.