Thursday, February 22, 2018

moving forward

We're not stuck in winter. We're not stuck in a landscape of frozen soil and patches of steely ice. We're not stuck in a table purchase impasse. We're moving forward!

But it surely looks otherwise when you look outside at the farmette lands and inside at the kitchen dining area.

(The cheepers slide cautiously toward me...)


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Breakfast. No sunshine, but no matter. We're (slowly) climbing out of the winter chill today.


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I settle in for a morning of writing, but I see that Ed is pacing. To the sheep shed. Not to the sheep shed. Upstairs, downstairs. Finally, he says bluntly -- you want to go look at your favorite (new) table at Rubin's (a local furniture store)? I'm a little at loose ends.

I know that this does not signify agreement. We have a Craigslist table lined up for a Saturday viewing. But Ed likes to examine all sides of the picture, if only to convince himself even more of the rightfulness of his position.

We drive out to Rubin's. We study a version of the chosen table. He does not reject it. But, it's new and it's certainly more expensive than the alternative on Craigslist.

As we meander across the Rubin's showroom, we pause by another table that strives to look Mid Century Modern (a style that I would not have associated with the farmhouse until we got the new-ish couch and then all hell broke loose and we veered in favor of the classic and simple lines of MCM). And it is cheap. Just a touch more than the older table we're to examine on Saturday.


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All this to say that I think by the weekend we will have purchased a table. Which one? Oh, don't ask too many difficult questions! This one or that one!


In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop.

It is cold. It is useless, throwaway weather. No one mentions outdoor play.

Once inside, she reads, moves here, there, considering her options.

(She picks up her kaleidoscope. I try yet again to show her how to keep one eye closed. Can't be done. Not yet.)


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But did you notice her hair? Pulled back as if she were going to a ballet class? Yes, that class, yesterday's class is still very much on her mind. She is in fact getting ready for an afternoon of most things ballet.

Dancing with her tutu'd Rosie...


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Doing a giant ballet puzzle, then dancing on it...


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Insisting on switching to a ballet skirt...

But I haven't a shirt for you!
How about this one? She drags out my one spare, used this summer for her backyard pool play...


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Dancing with pink ball...


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Balancing on pink ball...


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Through it all, she is in her story telling mode. I catch snippets of ideas from books, others from her day to day encounters.

I send her home in a tshirt and a dance skirt. I'm sure her parents are thrilled/puzzled/not surprised.

Outside, it's sleeting or raining or both. March weather. You know March? The month that brings with it our most awaited, coveted season. We are getting awfully close to it!