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Yard Sale. YARD SALE!

Anyone who doesn’t hear Tom-Hanks-as-Woody-the-Cowboy screaming that line…hasn’t spent much time around small children. Or at least around small children who like to watch Disney movies.

We had a yard sale this weekend – we being me, Chris, his sister Amy, and his mom. Yikes, it was exhausting. There was much hauling of boxes and furniture and standing around and chasing Mallory and Phoebe about the driveway all Saturday long. I made a hundred bucks – not too shabby, I guess. Chris made about $75 selling the “dregs” of his toy collection. The main point, however, was to sell our old living room furniture because we’re getting a new sofa and chair today (it’s being delivered as we speak!). We did sell our beat-up love seat for $25, but there were no takers for the beat-up sofa sleeper or the recliner. Alas, but that’s the way it goes.

Most of what I sold was baby stuff – clothes, bouncy seats, playmats, and so forth. It was a relief to see it go. Right after Phoebe was born I had the urge to have another baby – that has long vanished. I am so done. I love my kids, and I love watching their personalities unfold and seeing them grow and all that, but man, it is grueling, this parent business. I don’t think I could do that first year of babyhood over again.

Just Finished Reading

Little, Big by John Crowley. It took me about six weeks to read this novel, and it’s about a family who believes in fairies. If that doesn’t have you running to your local bookstore I don’t know what will. But honestly, this was a beautiful, beautiful book, so well-written and full of wonderful characters. Here’s a quote:

She held his hand, but oh, he was too big now for her to gather him to her, hug him, cover him up with herself and tell him all, tell him the long, long tale of it, so long and strange that he would fall asleep long before it was over, soothed by her voice and her warmth and the beat of her heart and the calm certainty of her telling: and then, and then, and then: and more wonderful than that: and strange to say: and the way it all turns out: the story she hadn’t known how to tell when he was young enough to tell it to, the story she knew now only when he was too big to gather up and whisper it to, too big to believe it, though it would all happen, and to him.


Isn’t that just a perfect description of the difficulty of being a parent? Isn’t it lovely? I don’t think this book would appeal to everyone, but the whole time I was reading it, I was wondering why it took me so long to discover it. And when I finished it, I went right to my local bookstore to buy another John Crowley novel.

Comments

Anonymous said…
That is a beautiful quote. I will have to get that book. Thanks for the recommendation.

Congrats on getting the new furniture. You will have to post a picture!
Anonymous said…
I haven't heard of that author. I'm going to have to get that book too.

Mom

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