Spring!

Saturday we spent wandering around Woodstock with my parents for my dad's birthday. It was a pretty good day. We had a really wonderful lunch at a little cafe, I got an *awesome* shelf for my pirate ship room at a church flea market just outside the downtown area (where Sarah picked out a book on Exotic Gardening, and so we've been discussing exotics vs. natives, and trying to see if we can find plants we can agree on -- maybe it's time for her to have her own section of the garden), and we windowshopped in some fabulous little stores (as well as picking up a skull and crossbones tshirt for Sarah and a book for me from their great little independent bookstore. The store's for sale. Anybody want to go run an independent bookstore in Woodstock?), and rambled through the streets, passing several wandering musicians, a group "Families for Peace" holding their giant tie-dyed Peace sign/bedsheet, and many, many old hippies.

Sarah also found herself a great hat but decided not to try to persuade us to buy it for her (she and I talked about how to decide whether to buy something in a touristy area -- could you find something like it somewhere else, is it likely to cost less somewhere else, could you make something similar yourself, and does it feel important to buy it *here* as a souvenir of the day -- and how to go about persuading someone to spend *their* money on something *you* want -- not, for example, saying to your father "Mommy said I have to sell you on getting the hat"). I'm really enjoying watching her edge into this pre-teen phase. The trying on of different personas/aspects, the increasingly sophisticated conversations, the maturity of her thought process... The accessories. :)

Sunday was Sacred Song in the early afternoon (a very small group, this time -- I was sad to miss so many of our regular crowd, but it was a special, cozy energy, just me and P and her son, and we both commented that it felt as if the rest of our usual group were there with us, even moreso when we consciously extended the energy of our breaking of bread to them), and when Joe and Sarah got home we spent a couple hours playing the Faery's Tale RPG and then watched some Harry Potter before passing out. It was a really good day.

This week we saw friends Monday and Tuesday, and tomorrow we've got plans to get to the movies with Joe to prepare us for our trip to the Met next week. This month Sarah picked the planets and gods&goddesses as her two themes, so we're going to go see the Lightning Thief (I didn't think she would be interested -- I'd made a passing comment about being annoyed that yet another adventure story was all about a boy -- I get tired of how hard it is to find adventures where the girl is at the center of the story -- and Sarah took the comment *very much* to heart) and then follow it up with the Met's special Percy Jackson and the Olympians themed museum guide (you can print it out at their website if you're interested in doing something similar).

I'd originally planned to get to Queens today, and then hit the museum on Friday, but my body and spirit have rebelled at the thought of packing that much into the week. Yesterday afternoon we spent a cozy couple hours reading in the Montclair Library, skipping the rest of our planned afternoon errands. So I'm hoping to get to them today, and maybe fitting in another little library visit...

In other news, our cosmos, moon flowers, echinacea, and violas have all finally sprouted little tendrils up into the air. I'm looking forward to settling further into our land, this year.


ETA: Oh, we also came home with a tin of Chocolate Mint Tea and one of Moroccan Mint Tea from their teeny tiny little tea shop. It makes me want to start having tea parties, with tiny little sandwiches and itsy bitsy cupcakes...