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I've been feeling like my life is in fast forward and I just can't keep up with it. Not necessarily going too quickly, but more like there is so much that I want to do that there is simply not enough time for. The day ends without much accomplished, except a baby cuddled, a toddler read to, meals prepared, and a few connections with the outside world. Writing this out makes me realize just how proud I am of what I'm doing (and how much I enjoy it).

But...I always have a backlog of books I want to read, blogging, letters to write, small projects to complete, and wishing my house was always clean and tidy.

[My mom is going to laugh out loud at that last sentence. No really, I really do like it when things are tidy! It is just hard to keep it that way, especially my bedroom for some reason: that space has always been the black hole. Thank goodness I am married to a Tidy Man; he usually keeps the place in good order. Before children, all I did was clean cat litters and wash dishes semi-regularly - he did everything else.]

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I've really been craving books recently. Surprisingly, I've been able to plow through a several in the last month, which has been a balm to my soul.

Another thing I've really enjoyed within the last 2 months has been poetry. I checked out a couple of different volumes selected by Garrison Keillor from the library: they contain poems with a wide array of moods and topics, which really hits the spot. The first compilation, Good Poems, I knew of from seeing at my brother's apartment; I looked through it last winter and it piqued my interest, specifically after seeing a poem by Wendell Berry. I have usually bypassed poetry, mostly because my exposure to it left a dry taste in my mouth - work that didn't pop or sizzle or breathe, but just kind of drug on and on - but now I am finding it to be quite exhilarating.

The very first flirtation I had with it this fall was a book of poems by Bill Holm called Playing the Black Piano. I picked it up at the library because I noticed he was a local to my new area of MN and I thought it would be interesting to read his observations and ideas. Well, it was very interesting. More so, very thought provoking and entertaining at times. I even cried through a few of the poems, and I was hooked.

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I've been delving into children's poetry as well, thanks to some encouragement by Gladys Hunt in Honey for a Child's Heart. Her book recommends Good Books for youngsters, advocating Family Reading Time, unabridged classics, and poetry. The edition I got from the library is copyrighted in the late '70's, so there nothing was newer than 30 years old on her Recommended Reading list, so I enjoyed seeing a lot of books I grew up with! I plan to borrow the 2002 edition from my SIL, to see what has changed in her book list and/or to see what has been added.

Anyhow, I've always been a sucker for vintage books and children's books are no exception. I pulled out Poems to Read to the Very Young by Josette Frank (my edition is from 1958) and have been reading them to Starbeans: we've both enjoyed it very much. I also found a 1979 copy of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa at the thrift store this last Tuesday. Amazingly, it was on my list of Books to Find.

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Finally, I just have to talk about Starbeans' longest running favorite book: Babies by Gyo Fujikawa. He has enjoyed it for well over a year, longer than any other book in our collection. He laughs devilishly on the page where it says, "Sometimes babies are naughty" [the next page has the same children with halos over their heads & looking sweet and it says, "Sometimes they are little angels"]. He loves seeing the babies being naughty - fighting over a doll, tearing pages out of a book, spilling milk on purpose, etc.

Funny, because he also enjoys saying, "Naughty baby!" about and/or to Pumpkin. I always tell him, "Babies are never naughty" and he replies with a congenial, "Okay." He has the same response when I say, "No, that would hurt the baby!" when he asks, "Pinch baby?" or "Poke baby's eye?" or "Bite baby's fingers?" Thank goodness he has never actually done any of it! He just says, "Okay" and that is that.

I must end this post before it takes on a life of it's own! It has been too long since I've posted and I have too much to say, not to mention the actual time to say it. THE END.