Around Here

  Around here....

We are living with one foot in St. John, Virgin Island, and another in Italy as we plan trips for spring break and summer vacations.  The St. John jaunt has about come together (flight? check; place to stay? check; rental car? oops..still need to do that!) but the Italy trip is another story.  We've found our flight, but are still in the midst of mapping out our route and finding places to stay.  It's quite an absorbing challenge.  

When we come up for air, we are confronted with the realities of life, such as beginning the long process of making wood chips out of all the brush we cleared last summer and fall.  Ben and his brother are new joint owners of this bright red machine which makes short work of not-too-big branches and even grape vines, if you put them down the shoot in just the right way.  

School is back in full swing this week and I had the pleasure of sharing a new book, Clever Jack Takes the Cake, by Candace Fleming, in Story Time on Monday.  It's quite a good tale of how a poor boy wins the friendship of a princess by telling her a good story.  I think it would be a great way to open Story Time next year. 

I've been captured by a book, In the Woods, by Tana French, a detective/psychological novel that my nephew gave me when I was out in Ohio last month.  It's the kind of book that has you staying up late to "read just a bit more."  I finished it a day or so ago and now and am trying to get into a children's book that's been on my list for a while, but I've found it hard going, moving from one genre to the other.

I've been enjoying Million Dollar Decorators, which has now started season 2.   And just last night Downton Abbey came back with the start of its third season; yippee!