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Our little island

I was going to start a post about our insular day yesterday but then I got a wee bit paranoid about bandying the word ‘insular’ about.

What if it was one of those words that you THINK you know but then it turns out you have been misusing it all these years?

Say it a few times and it sounds totally foreign. Insular. InSUlar. InsuLAR. It’s not even English anymore.

Kind of like the time I was sitting in the living room with, oh, just my entire family. All 8993 of them. I was commiserating with my Dad about a situation and said "Well. They really have you by the short hairs, don’t they Dad?" Dead silence. My Mother cleared her throat and gently said "Erm. Andrea, do you even know what that expression means?" I look over at my sisters, always supportive and sympathetic in times like this, and they are all turning purple and trying not to wet their pants.

"Of COURSE I know what it means. You know – when someone has you by those little hairs on the back of your neck."

Turns out I was a bit North of target. Great thing to say to your FATHER, don’t you think?

Or ~ and this is rich ~ you find out you have been mispronouncing a word. Not two or three weeks ago, again sitting with all those relatives, I am spouting off about something (note to self: shut the heck up) and after about ten minutes my Dad says "you mispronounced a word." Nicki, ever helpful, chimes in ‘Yes, that’s right you did." But when pressed neither of them could remember what the word was. But I surely did mispronounce it. Great. Now I can’t talk at all because I’m sure it’s a word that I commonly use and I’ve been sounding like an idiot all along.

At any rate; we had a lovely day yesterday. Just hunkering down and sticking close to home.

Insular: 1 a: of, relating to, or constituting an island b: dwelling or situated on an island <insular residents>

Spring rain

We are a bit housebound today. It’s rainy and cool outside and the things that would normally occupy us on a Spring Saturday involve mucking about outside.

Even Belle feels restless and bored – although she has found a dry perch outside.

I did venture out during a lull in the sprinkles – the poppies are blooming like mad in the empty lot down the street. I forgot that they don’t like to open up unless it is sunny though. So the poppies are being shy.

I liked the vivid green of the poppies and the rusted swingset and tractor. I’ve been fooling around with Photoshop Elements using the tutorials on the newly launched The Pioneer Woman site. She has some great tuturials of her own and has a new contributor, Miz Booshay that also has some really easy to follow tips for taking and editing pictures. They may make a photographer out of me yet.

The above is a saturated version of this orginal picture:

And the faded version:

I’m kind of liking the faded one.

It is just the laziest day. I should be doing something, anything, productive. Or I could take a nap:

Scrapbooking

About a decade ago my mother in law gave me two scrapbooks that were created by one of Rick’s relatives on his father’s side of the family. At the time I stored them away, not being overly impressed with the contents and crude archival techniques.

I was searching through an old box last week and found them, wrapped in a vegetable bag (probably not the best storage practice) and pulled them out to take another look at them.

One of them is full of picture plates from old books or cut out of magazines. There are poems either painstakingly typed out or, again, cut out of magazines. The other is more like a binder full of newspaper and magazine articles.

The top scrapbook is more interesting to me now because I do love my ephemera and the book is chock full of it. The second one is kind of fascinating because it paints a picture of the woman who created it. The topics that were important enough for her to save decades of articles on the subject.

I gather Madelin Hebb Paulin was a lifelong teetotaler.

She was also a frugal woman. Both scrapbooks were created using old catalogs as the base. One from the Buick & Sherwood Mfg. Co – a fact she documents in the inside cover (pic above). Madelin & Victor Paulin had a son named Wayne that was married to Rose Sherwood. Victor Paulin worked at the Buick & Sherwood Mfg. Co. (evidenced by his name being stamped on the cover of the catalog – perhaps he was a salesman for the company).

She also clipped dozens of articles on the dangers of premarital sex. Each topic having its own section in the second scrapbook. The rest of the book is full of articles about various politicians and clippings from the House & Garden section of the local newspaper. She did appreciate a nicely built house.

The first scrapbook is devoted to the arts – and is full of beautiful pictures cut from magazine from the 20’s and 30’s.

I’m going to have to carefully scan some of the images. There are some wonderful photographs of women from the early 1900’s

She really wanted to capture a time and place that was genteel and lovely. Looking through these books makes me wildly curious about the woman that made them. Was her home and life a reflection of images she carefully cut out or were her scrapbooks just the hopeful longings of a young woman.

Not my proudest moment….

I ate the sacrificial lamb. I know most of you read about the traditional Easter lamb – here, at my niece’s blog and here, at my sister’s retelling.

I ate it. Well most of it. I didn’t de-ear it. Or de-nose it for that matter but I did eat his hind quarters. In little slivery bits -all day long. Those little Rice Krispy elves are going to haunt my dreams all night long.

And we gave Remy a mohawk. It was the SUGAR, I tell you!

We were hopped up on marshmallow treats, what can I say.

In order to redeem myself I did make the most perfect Springtime soup for dinner. One of the very first blogs I discovered was French Kitchen in America – Mimi remains one of my biggest culinary and Francophile inspirations. She has a recipe for roasted asparagus, shallot, mushroom and roasted chicken soup. Can you think of any four ingredients that better signify spring than those? Me either.

So I made it tonight for my Dad and myself and ~ Mimi – my Dad said, about a million times – "this is REALLY good soup." No higher praise needed.

Sprung

First, an apology to anyone under snow, under water, under the weather. This is where I was on Easter afternoon. Under a canopy of newly leafed Japanese maples. Squirrels overhead, eating succulent little leaf buds.

It was nothing short of glorious in Northern California on Easter. Clear skies and balmy weather. I think I may have annoyed my Wisconsin sister when I told her we were outside until it got too warm and we had to go back into the house (she, peering out her storm windows at snow, yet again, coming down).

On the street that I grew up on, where my father still lives – there is a teeny Japanese woman that lives on the corner. She must be about 120 years old. And I see her out, every nice day, tending to her yard. She has the most spectacular crab apple tree I have ever laid eyes on. She keeps it carefully trimmed so it is never much taller than about 12 feet – and it is perfectly shaped. And every year, without fail, it rewards her, rewards all of us, with this:

It flat out takes your breath away.

Fleeting as it may be.

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