Packing Peanut Butter (and Other Things)

I did a lot of holiday community service work today -- had so much fun. We lifted boxes packed with soup cans and jars of peanut butter (the boxes of peanut better were so pretty -- with all its brightly colored lids; although the peanut butter boxes were quite astoundingly heavy) and sugar and flour and stuffing mix and corn and baked beans ...



I loved it. Tomorrow I get to play pseudo-librarian while the regular librarian at my library reads books to storytime attendees. After that is the really fun part -- my playtime with the kids.



My weeks have been extremely busy since ... maybe ... October-ish, when I started babysitting regularly. Of course, they've been a lot busier since I got out of the hospital.



Monday:



Storytime



Lunch



Research (at other local library)



Tuesday:



Babysitting



Lunch



Doctor



Then this week there's a holiday party in the evening.



Wednesday:



Doctor in afternoon



Thursday:



Freedom



Friday:



Storytime



Lunch



Storytime



Babysitting



Saturday:



Freedom



Sunday:



Freedom



Also must get a few little gifts for friends and family. The holidays draw near (Hanukkuh begins tonight!).

Oh, and here's a picture of Nina. I just wish I could get a bit closer on her face. She was with me all the time in the hospital.




~Emily

Making the Blog Sparkle a Bit

I went to a local Christmas concert last night -- I'm sure you'll soon be able to read about it at http://emilyssweetpeach.blogspot.com/ (the author is a different Emily). It was really wonderful; I might post pictures ...

Tomorrow is supposed to bring a foot of snow. I find myself looking forward to this, even if it means I won't be able to babysit.

Plus I love Fridays.

I feel really guilty about the blog lately. I can't really think of anything to blog about but do want to keep up with the blog. The truth is that I am really not very good at blogging (except perhaps about books!). It's time I started brightening up the blog with photographs. I don't have a digital camera, but I can download photographs with computer discs. (I sound straight out of the seventies, don't I?) Here's one to start. This was taken back in August by a friend who actually did use a digital camera.

See? Straight out of the seventies, and trying to win a staring contest with a plant.

~Emily

Rather a Miserable Kind of Day

You know you're lucky to have the brother you do when you step in front of him in the hallway and say, "Thanks for your cold," and his very sincere reply is, "Oh, I'm sorry!"

I was rereading Padma Venkatraman's Climbing the Stairs this morning. It is really such a wonderful book -- heart-breaking, infuriating, hilarious, and important.

It is a very miserable day but William and I will play Mancala together. He's played about five games and is already an expert. We'll probably read Coraline too. He loves it so far.

I hope the weather is sunnier or snowier for you than it is here (very gray and damp, with the wind howling like a wolf).

~Emily

The Peachy Little Things

This picture shows some of the best parts of my hospital stay. There's the spry batch of red-and-yellow carnations my mother and brothers brought to me. If you look very closely you might see the Harry Potter book peeking from the lower right-hand corner. On the left shelf sits the package of The Vicar of Dibley DVD's and, on the top shelf, the Oragami penguin my brother Ben folded for me.

It wasn't all bad.

Well, yes it was. But the flowers and penguin were great.

~Emily

Snow and Tea!

It's funny how the house smells different, first thing in the morning, when snow has fallen overnight. Is it because the natural scents we take for granted are muted somewhat? I don't know ... but I love the first snow of the season, and it happened last night. It's still coming down outside.

I have a hot cup of apple-chamomile tea sitting before me. I feel good.

~Emily

Emily

I wrote a lot of lists while I was in the hospital. It's one of the most perfect ways to pass the time when you've been locked up and there is no hope of escaping. I mean, I could have spent the time trying to crawl out of the window, but that didn't seem very productive, especially since I was on the sixth floor; so instead, I wrote lists.



Why I Like Being Named Emily



It sounds lovely on others' voices



I share it with Emily Bronte



Many people think it beautiful



And Why I Hate It



I am Emily due only to my father's utter inside-the-box-ness



It is a nauseatingly common name and its popularity seems to have robbed me of a certain uniqueness



Many people find it boring



...



It's all true.



I wrote a lot of other lists as well, but I have kind of a phobia about posting creative work on the Internet. I'm quite scared of people finding words and phrases and plopping them into the middle of their novels or something ... but seriously, the most interesting things grow in your brain when you're locked up. I came up with some enormously weird ideas.



(Of course, I didn't just come up with lists -- there were plays, stories, poems, and essays in there as well.)



I just figured this would make for a vaguely interesting post.



~Emily

On Babysitting and Books to Read

I spent yesterday babysitting for a really marvelous baby girl. I am so glad to be able to do this again! I missed her so much in the hospital. Yesterday's highlights included the roll-the-ball-under-the-couch-and-watch-Emily-strain-to-get-it-out game, knocking on the wall because it results in an interesting sound, and seeing how many blocks we could heap on top of one another before they collapsed in our laps.

I don't really need much more than that, I have to say.

I am reading some wonderful books, including ...

The Green Man: Tales of the Mythic Forest, a collection of short stories by a bunch of wonderful authors, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. If I go a while without reading fantasy, I tend to forget how much I like it. Only stories like these could be such a wake-up call.

Waifs and Strays by Charles de Lint. I read some of the stories in this book when I was about twelve years old and was extremely confused and a little disturbed. My mother told me to put it away and pick it up again in a few years. I did.

It was definitely worth it.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. There are a lot of things about this book that just aren't very good, says the critical part of me (and there is a rather prominent critic in me because I review books).

This book is extremely catchy and enjoyable, says the hungry reader in me.

The hungry reader usually wins.

Wishing you good reading.

~Emily