Summer is Coming!

All of my spring traveling is now behind me and Emily and I are working diligently to finish up the school year. She just has one week left and a choir concert to participate in, and then we can focus on our summer activities which includes gardening and the farmers' market.

Emily has spent the past few months making bottle cap magnets to sell. We ordered 100 count packs of caps, packs of tiny magnets, glossy accent filler, and glue for the magnets. I also hopped over to Jo-Ann Fabrics to buy a one inch hole punch. We punch out small round pictures from almost anything: old cards, magazines, catalogues. Pretty  much anything that has super tiny pictures. Emily then pastes them into the caps with a minuscule amount of accent filler. When they are dry she applies a liberal amount of filler on top to seal the picture. And last but not least, she glues a small magnet on the back. They are just the cutest magnets ever and I'm sure they will sell well. She also has a few Perler Bead magnets to sell as well.

I just went to the store to stock up on supplies for the baking I do for farmers' market. Soon the smell of home-made granola, brownies, scotchies, and mini quick breads will permeate our  home. This year I am also going to add the candied pecans I took to  my author friends to my repertoire.

Bobby will soon be planting our Sun Sugar orange cherry tomatoes, sweet yellow onions, and some peppers. Hopefully the black raspberries I planted last fall will produce their first crop this year as well. All of this talk about farmers' market, garden plants, and planting makes me think about books on the same subjects, so here are a few of my favorites:

Holly Bloom's Garden

Apples To Oregon

Our Community Garden

Mortimer's First Garden

And although I have yet to read Jack's Garden, it looks like a book I definitely want to check out!

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days. 

Choosing Joy

This past week was a normal week with highs and lows, moments worth remembering and moments worth forgetting. And having lived almost a half century, I have finally figured out some things. Life consists of a few really spectacular events like the day I graduated from college, the day I got married, and the day my daughter was born. It also consists of a few really horrific events like the day my first husband died, the day my best friend died, the day my father died, and the day I was in an automobile accident. But the really important events, the events that define my life, are the many moments in between. The every day moments, that while possibly not extraordinary, are the ones that give me opportunity to choose joy and see beauty in God's creation.

The good moments that bring a smile to my face along with the bad moments that I can allow to ruin my day or I can decide to face with a positive outlook. Joyful and beautiful moments like birds visiting our feeders, making art on a cookie canvas, weeding the garden and enjoying the flowers, and Easter with my family.

And bad moments like the fact that Easter Sunday was the fourth anniversary of my father's trip to heaven. But as I mentioned before, I had a choice. A choice to either wallow in my sorry and loss or a choice to remember the multitude of wonderful memories I have from the years I was able to spend with my father. I chose to remember.

And it never ceases to amaze me how often I pick a random book out of my stack from the library and it coincides with something that has gone on in my week. This week's random book was called Here in the Garden and it was the story of a boy choosing to remember the beautiful moments he once shared with a pet rabbit. And although the rabbit was missed beyond measure, the boy chose joy. He chose to think of all the wonderful days they had been able to share.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days. 

Creative Kids and Characters

Since my daughter, Emily, was very small, we have been making crafts. Crafts are so much a part of our life that whenever she has a play date she expects me to have a craft ready for her and her friend. So it didn't surprise me at all that while on Spring break this week she came up with a craft of her own. She managed to save some toilet  paper rolls, scavenged out craft drawers, and created these cute t.p. girls.

Looking at these imaginative girlies made me think of a creative character named Holly in a book I just read. Everywhere Holly looks there are beautiful gardens full of lovely blooms and she wants to grow perfect flowers too. But no matter how hard she tries, her flowers just won't cooperate. But Holly is inventive and persistent and manages to create a long lasting beautiful bunch of flowers. To find out how, grab your own copy of Holly Bloom's Garden!

Signing of for now with wishes for a bright and beautiful day!