March Memories

Friday Fave Fives

First Week of March 2012

1. Older Daughter was in Southern California last week attending business meetings.  Amid her many hours of work and evenings of gaiety visiting her many SoCal college friends, we managed to grab a couple of hours with her.  When we live 2,400 miles apart, those hours are precious.  What did she want to do?  Eat Indonesian food.  So over our lunch of nasi goreng, gado-gado and soto ayam, we chatted and laughed and reverted back to speaking the (second) language of her childhood.

2.  On the return drive, The Professor and I stopped at LaJolla Canyon just north of Malibu and hiked up just beyond the (dry) waterfall.  It's a steep, deep, narrow canyon which we've hiked before with friends.  I tend to linger behind The Professor with my camera, and then too, he is a much faster walker than I.

3.  The giant coreopsis are blooming.  These odd gangly sticks are dry and, if you must know, rather ugly most of the year.  But.  In Spring.  Oh they burst into feathery green fronds and bright gold daisy like blooms.  When I see the giant coreopsis shooting up above the buckwheat, sage and manzanita on the hillsides, I know Spring Is Here in Southern California even if the calender states that it's still winter.

4.  To make the day complete, all the other children who weren't in lunch driving distance called.  Communicating with all my kids in one 24 hour period helped to make this mama joyful and thankful.

5.  After weeks of dilly-dallying and indecision, I finally chose a pattern to knit a sweater with some silk/wool blend yarn I recently finished spinning.  It's Liesl by Scottish designer Ysolda Teague.  I've been trying to post a photo of the sweater from her blog but so far all my efforts have been unsuccessful.  Basically Liesl is a round yoked cardigan knitted in a simple lace pattern.  I have delusions of finishing the bright green and blue sweater before St. Patrick's Day so I can be wearin' the green.  Do you think I can knit that fast? Yeah, I'm not sure, either.  But at least I made the decision and bought the pattern...

I know that there were many other highlights from this week which I could include, but these five are favorites because my mind  and memory continues to return to these particular events of the past seven days. (I didn't even begin to describe the fun and funny stories my students wrote which have kept me entertained during the hours of correcting mostly punctuation and sentence fragments. And the essays one boy sent me to read which he wrote as part of his requirements for receiving his Hapkido black belt were beautiful and deeply touching.)  This was Willow's Week.  Did you have highlights that are remaining in your mind and memory?

I always link my Friday Fave Fives to Susanne's blog Living to Tell the Story.