Master Bath - Picture One

 

Master Bath - A Weekend of work

 

About ten days ago I picked up a little wooden paint brush and some of the leftover paint from having the bedroom painted. By the time Thom came home half the bathroom was done. That was on a Thursday. By Saturday night we had taken down the border and I had spent most of Saturday on a ladder, but the bathroom wasn't light purple anymore!! The effect I did seems to be a big hit!

Caleb's Room

 

We decided to repaint Caleb's room to cover some wall issues around the room and it really made the room so nice! The blue is very calming and relaxing and matches all of his things. He loves his room, but he loves it most when "Sissy" is playing with him. The rest of the time he's in the living room building a "nice track" for Thomas the Tank Engine.

Kara's Room

 

In reality this room is much brighter than it appears here, but Kara absolutely loves it! She has room to play beside her bed and what you can't see is her desk with her computer! So very grown up!

swiss family robinson

Ever seen one of those shipwrecked movies? You know how part of the doomed ship is always broken up on the reef some distance from shore, and how the survivors, during the first week or so after the shipwreck, paddle out to it to get supplies. Well, that is what it feels like here these days.

The jagged leftover of boat is our apartment. Located only a mile from where the house stands, with just one red light separating, the apartment has lots of little stuff: remaining toys, kitchen equipment, detergents, shoes, etc. For the most part, we've hauled the necessities to shore, but, still, we are paddling out through the surf to get more before the waves pound the hull into bits and it is permanently lost to us.

The house itself is like a rough hut on a lonely beach. We aren't sure where things are; everything is in a different place--scattered. Sometimes you look for something only to discover it is in some box or hasn't made it from the apartment. We're missing the kid-important DVR remote. Also, as of this morning, our washer and dryer haven't made it, nor have the bookshelves. We're castaways, carving out a new life.

1-800-Poison Control

It's 6:11pm. The good news is that we now have all of the family in the new house -- including Go-Go. The bad news is we had to call poison control a few minutes ago. While I was busy prepping Go-Go's tank and Thom was busy holding Go-Go and letting her bask under the kitchen lamp Kara and Caleb were, supposedly watching a program on TV. NEWSFLASH: "Mama! Caleb's in the bathroom!" I told Thom the tank was ready for Go-Go and that I needed to wash my hands before I could deal with Caleb. Next thing you know Thom is telling me to come quickly Caleb has something "unidentifiable" in his mouth--- "Candy." he says. It's pink, it's crumbled around his mouth like chewed up crayon -- just trust me on that one! - and it smells... it smells... well, sweet... familiar... maybe it is candy. But, where did he get candy in the bathroom? And what pink candy do we have in the house?? Hhmm. Suddenly Thom discovers a wrapper by the toilet bowl -- a-ha! Pepto-Bismol!! Pink. Sweet-smelling. Familiar. NOT CANDY!!

A quick call to poison control and we have an answer. Evidently Pepto-Bismol is a distinct relative of aspirin and because of this it is now not recommended for children under 12 because of potential risk for Rye Syndrome, but three tablets won't hurt him, they don't think.

What a day!

Running low on fantastic...

OK... two kids, get 'em while their cheap! It's now 1:30pm and patience is now running low. The sun peaked out for a while decieving us into thinking it was going to turn into a beautiful day. We all got anxious, feeling that we were missing out on something somewhere. Now the kids are playing and we're trying to regroup. We're all a little hungry, too. Lunch plans weren't exactly finalized and so we're running low on energy, ... well, some of us are. The clouds are back and the "Walmart list" is growing... my kingdom for a piece of paper to write it all down!

Thom is busily straightening things to gain some piece of mind. A chair here. A dish there. The empty boxes from the kitchen have been moved to the mounting empty-box corner in the garage. We're all dressed.

The toilet seat has been installed.

12:08pm - Fantastic!

We're running out of Fantastic -- the cleanser not the feeling around the house. A Cable TV jazz station is playing. Caleb is the only one who's had any lunch. Kara is helping Thom clean the pantry and is still wearing her purple fleece jammies -- Mommy's favorite. The kids and I built a giant train track in the living room earlier when Thom was in the shower. All of the boxes of kitchen things which have made it over here have been unpacked. Now the rest of the apartment kitchen needs to get packed up and come over.

Caleb's clothes need to be moved from a box into his dresser. Caleb is presently exploring the possibilities of playing with his trains on the stairs. We should nip that, he just discovered that the wide flat wooden rail makes a great downhill ride for Toby the Tram. Last night I installed a new toilet seat in our bathroom and in a few minutes I'll install the one for the kid's bathroom. Kara is loving an art toy from Grandma and Papa and Thom and I are enjoying Kara's room staying clean for a few days.

Last night I discovered that Caleb had found the perfect spot for two kitchen sponges -- the toaster -- praise God it wasn't plugged in!

More later.

Saturday March 15, day three in the new house

10:55 a.m.: Well, here we are, day three in the new house. It is simply impossible to sit down and blog length-wise everything that has gone on. And so, in the interest of doing something rather than nothing, L and I are going to attempt to sort of "live blog" the day.

Thunderstorms rolled over us all night. Fantastic sleeping weather. Kara woke up early. We resisted until Caleb woke up as well and used the magic word "poopy!" I changed him, L got online, and everyone managed to get breakfast despite nothing being where it ought to be (or even here!)

The goal is to do some cleaning here and to send L out into the wide world to do some shopping and to vacuum the apartment. We'll see how it goes. Keeping the kids from destroying the house or each other is a given.

First Night!

Well, last night was our first night sleeping in our new house! My brother and Thom spent most of yesterday moving all of our bedroom furniture into the house and setting up the dining room table so that we could begin life in our new home. We were originally supposed to move last Saturday, but a Southern snow and ice storm changed those plans, and according to the weather forecast a rainy weekend ahead caused us to consider a mid-week move. J. had some time and Thom was able to get the day off and BAM -- moving began! It's been 65 and 70 degrees yesterday and today -- absolutely perfect moving weather, not too hot, not too cold or wet or wind. Birds chirping in the air. Dry grass and no muddy foot prints. Yesterday Comcast was scheduled to get things hooked up and after a second visit from Comcast today we are up and running with Internet, Cable and a brand new phone number. == for everyone who needs that we'll send out an email or give you a call ==

Anyway, Kara was at school and Caleb was at my parents for the day during the move, but late last night, a little later than we all had hoped for we actually all arrived at our new home for bedtime. The kids were SO excited about their new rooms. Caleb was uncommonly hyper and, oddly enough, Kara was uncommonly relaxed. In fact, she was really pleasant, sweet and, I think, joyful about the whole thing. I had given her today off based on the lateness of the hour, but she was very calm and restful and sweet about her room. She asked us nicely if she could lie down on the bed and look around the room in the dark BEFORE she got ready for bed, just to see the room from the angle of the bed I think. Evidently it passed inspection. There was enough light from the bathroom to satisfy her fears and no weird shadows to speak of. Her big comment of the evening was regarding her new bed with headboard and footboard -- "Yeah! A Grown-up bed!" She loves it! Of course, she was especially happy about the Hannah Montana bedsheets, too -- thanks Auntie Kara ;-)

Caleb was happy -- at least we think he was -- he was bouncing off the walls so much it was hard to tell. First Thom sat with him for a bit and then I did and then when I left he cried for about one minute and then silence -- until 8am! Underneath all of that energy was absolute exhaustion!

Today was Mother's Day Out for Caleb and Kara and I spent some fun time together. We moved some more things and she got to ride her bike in her garage and down her street for the first time! My parents stopped by for lunch and all in all it's been a great first day.

Maybe by tomorrow we'll even have our sofa here!

Stay tuned!

All Our Time, All Our Money, and a Few of My Finger Nails!

Since moments after the ink dried on the home loan documents and before we had actually unlocked doors of our dreamhome, my father began proclaiming his new favorite moniker "You do know that a house will take all your time and all your money, right?" After a week of home ownership, I added the part about fingernails.

Things I never knew...

...how excited I could be about a side-by-side refrigerator! (My dad actually got to witness the dance that went with this when I had finished cleaning the fridge!)

...that all Wal-mart paint dries one shade darker than what it says on the little piece of paper and nothing like the drop on the top of the gallon

...that toilet seats go on sale sometimes

... how many different shades of white exist in the world of house paint and how poorly painted the interior of an expensive suburban home can be (seriously-- one coat of ugly white over drywall doesn't look so great after 14 years!)

... the difference between rye, fescue and bermuda grass.

... that you have to tip the cup just right on the water-dispenser on the fridge to keep it from raining and throwing ice cubes onto the linoleum.

... there is actually a cleaning agent that you can use to clean the appliance that is in charge of cleaning your dishes. Talk about a great add-on sale. The marketing department must've gone nuts with that one!

And last but not least... I learned that...

... Kara is an awesome assistant painter! And Caleb actually understands the words, "You have to drink that in the kitchen!"

It's Official!

We're homeowners! We closed on Friday morning and had the keys before noon. And, seriously, we are totally happy, content and at peace about the whole thing. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us during this long, patient move in the direction of home-ownership. I've often heard people speak of buyers-remorse, and honestly, we haven't felt anything like that at all. I suppose it's still possible, but given all of the houses we looked at before seeing this one and everything about our response to this house, it really turned out to be a pretty easy decision. When Thom and I first started discussing the notion of buying a house seriously, we reflected on one thing that has been true throughout our marriage. We make major purchasing decisions really well together. We have bought a variety of pieces of furniture and electronics and every manner of home decorating notion and we have never been displeased or felt that the decisions was one-sided, so, we concluded that our home-buying should be no different. Now, back in September when we considered settling for an older home that needed a number of fixes, that was gut-wrenching and neither of us felt any peace about it until we both decided it was NOT the right house for us. Now, here we are with a beautiful home that we both love and we're both fabulously comfortable about the whole thing.

A few tidbits....

The house sits on a corner, so the driveway has a very open feel to it, I think. Although the house faces a side-street, it is beside a fairly busy entry street into our subdivision and I would want Caleb out of my sight in the front yard.

We painted Kara's room this weekend -- well, actually Kara and I painted her room. We chose a bright Spring green. Her room doesn't get much direct sunlight except in the early afternoon and this brightened up the space quite nicely. Her new bedroom furniture will be white and her bedding includes both white, green and pink. It is very pretty and I'm quite excited about seeing the finished product. Tomorrow painting begins on our bedroom. My parents offered this to us as our housewarming gift. Since our bedroom has cathedral ceilings, it's best to have that professionally done, rather than to pay in the with me stuck in bed for a week for pulling out my back.

Thom and I spent a good portion of last weekend looking at paint strips and teasing one-another about how tremondously grown-up and mundane we sounded. We can both remember the days of not understanding why anyone would spend money on matching furniture when there are starving, homeless people in the world. Well, we now have an answer -- a comfortable room certainly makes extending hospitality a lot more fun! And we are definitely looking forward to having people over in our new home.

We're keeping with the sports theme in Caleb's room and looking forward to seeing that take shape. We just figure it's easier to go with it, than to try to get that border down. I found some cute sports things at Target yesterday and Auntie Kara's getting a new valance to match Caleb's room. Mostly, Caleb is just happy to be jumping around in a big empty room.... and I do mean jumping!

Well, that's the housing scoop from us. In other news, Thom and I are both miserably sick and neither of us would feel up to speaking as many words as I've just typed. I took some kind of killer cold-medicine last night that literally knocked me out for about 15 hours. This morning I could think, but I couldn't speak or really move. Then around 1:30 this afternoon I started to feel the medicine begin to let go of me. So, warning -- don't take Chlorotrimeton alone.

More later.... L.

r-e-s-p-o-n-s-i-b-i-l-i-t-y house

This morning was the walk-through, when the buyer checks to make sure all the requested repairs have been made. a few things were left in the garage, but for the first time, the house was empty. Nothing on the walls. No furniture in the bedrooms. Just bare house. L., the realtor, and I walked through the house, trying lights and doors, looking through windows, peering into crawl spaces and closets. It was cold.

My relationship with what will in just a few days be our first home was already different. Instead of "what if," I saw responsibility. Every screw or nail in the wall needs mending. Every hole or scrape in the linoleum a job. I noted the oil stain in the garage, and both L and I noticed how much the deck is in need of repair. The blinders were gone today. It was a strange feeling.

One of the greatest surprises to me is how much I am looking forward to a garage. I had no idea I wanted a garage this badly, but I am nearly giddy about it. One of the first things I did today was walk out into the garage. I paced it out, and peered around at it. I opened the door, and drove the Nissan in "just to get a sense of where the cars will go." Yep, I was playing with it, and there was no difference in that moment between me looking over how much distance exists between the back bumper and the garage door and Caleb shoving his trains under a wooden overpass.

I am looking forward to having access to my cars for a change. To be able to change the oil or check the air in the tires without freezing or baking or leaning against someone else's vehicle. I'm looking forward to washing and waxing my cars in my own driveway with Kara. And maybe I can actually get all of the french fries, chicken nuggets, plastic kiddie toys, and paper straw wrappers out of the seats! Who knew I was a man in such need of a garage.

The back yard scares me. I'll give you that. Too much neglect. A lot of mud. A dog. Patchy crab grass. The whole thing needs to meet the underside of a tiller and it needs new plugs, as well as the fertilizer and watering that goes with it. There is a lot of hard work in every inch of it, and I have just never been a fan of that kind of work. I don't mind breaking concrete, splitting logs, mowing or trimming, but I do not enjoy tending to any growing thing.

As we were about to climb into the Nissan, I turned to look at the underside of the porch. A few wasp nests clustered under the tallest eave, some sixteen feet or so in the air. Just to the right, it seemed to me that vinyl siding around the fireplace needed cleaning. "I'm going to need a ladder," I said, and we drove off.

TOC 2 with chop sticks

The wake up call came at 6 a.m. I always fumble around with the phone until I finally remember it is a wake up call. In that sense, wake up calls are rather creepy. It is a "Twilight Zone" thing, the phone rings and there's nothing.

If there's one thing I wish I could do better at conferences, it is network. I am told that regular attendees at the big academic conferences, such as AAR, ignore the planned sessions and spend the entire time just reacquainting themselves with friends and fellow scholars. I always forget my business cards, and I'm never really in a position to need to frequent all the vendor booths. That would actually be some kind of torture from hell: be assigned to a cool conference but have to spend the entire time suffering one vendor pitch after the next. A subcategory of that hell is when you are confined to your booth. I did some booth work for EP. We went to this cool performing arts conference. I spent the entire time sitting bored behind our table.

Inevitably, my kind of networking is, "So who are you with?" or "I notice that you are with Random House." It always helps if the conference organizers make everyone's place of employment so small as to be nearly invisible. This is especially handy when you are trying to figure out what company or organization a woman you are talking to is affiliated with, as it looks for all the world like you are making great efforts to stare down her blouse. It also says something when people don't keep their badges visible, or allow them to twist around as well. What, are they so important or unimportant that no one needs to know the usual info? Is the conference just a wrap up for them from here on out?

Here's another moray to observe during conferences. I made the mistake this trip on day three (so I'm getting a little ahead of myself here) to engage a vendor in conversation during lunch. I'll wait until a future post to spell out the details, but, suffice to say, it was hard to get a bite in with so many people talking at once.

Conferences should break for an afternoon nap. I say this because around 2:30 p.m., I get so tired. My butt has long since gone to sleep in three places, and my legs ache. Even worse, I've lost complete interest in the speaker, no matter the topic, for psychosomatic reasons. The first time this happened, I was at a conference at Villanova in Pennsylvania. The speaker was saying something about Lévy-Strauss or Lacan or somebody, and I realized with absolute clarity that not one cell or fibre of my body gave a crap. TOC on day one was made worse by a pallid afternoon lineup.

One cool thing to happen during the conference was that I met up with Carlo and his boss, Jorge. Carlo is TN's publisher in Brazil, and he is such a fun human being to be around. He is well traveled, and has lived in several countries, including the USA, where he received a degree in publishing in New York. Carlo is a huge photography buff, and he knows all the international-traveler workarounds for phone outages, the awful U.S. wireless system, or Web sites blocked or governed by country of origin. This time, Carlo told me all about Skype, which sounds great. I hope that one day L and I will be able to take Carlo up on his offer and visit he and his wife in Rio. I'd never met Jorge before--a tall, good-looking man with an excellent speaking voice and an educated and interested demeanor. I wish there had been more time to spend with him. Carlo and I saw one another at the conference, but he was always busy meeting international friends to do anything afterward.

It bothered me that I had no idea how to edit the video I'd shot the night before. Just because you own the software doesn't mean you know how to use it. I also felt that it wasn't really very good. When you are speaking into a camera it is hard to keep your thoughts. You are so aware that you are being filmed. I ramble and go on about this or that. It is hard to remember to make an argument or support a point. I wanted to shoot more video, but I wasn't sure just how to organize my thoughts or, with five pages of notes, exactly what my thoughts were.

Hunger put all doubting aside. I wanted to go a little further out, and I wanted Japanese food. So I consulted my map, did a little more research, and set out for Ocha. By the time I got there, I was so excited that I called L and said, "I'm in Manhattan at a Japanese restaurant eating with chopsticks. How cool is that!" Unfortunately, it was too cold to do any more exploring. Satiated, I went back to the hotel and read the help files on Windows Movie Maker until after one in the morning.

Times Square and the TOC conference

By some stroke of mad luck, my company decided to send me on a whopper of a business trip. They decided to fly myself and a few of the VPs to New York to attend the O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishers conference. I'd rabidly followed the news bits from the first installation of this conference in 2007. Now, amazingly enough, I was going to be able to attend the second one!

My flight left on Sunday. I was seated next to one of the VP's, PN. He had brought a stack of Publishers Weekly, and I had my iPod. For awhile, we didn't say much, but then we hit it off and I'm afraid I filled his ears for the last half hour with some of the training preparation the Editors Guild has been doing. When we got to LaGuardia, I sort of followed PN. I felt like a child, there was so much noise and people were everywhere. We ducked through hallways and passed through doors. Everything seemed stuck together, as if we were in the innards of a giant robot. Finally we popped out into the dark to wait in line in the cold for a taxi.

We stayed at the Marriot Marquee in the center of Times Square. The taxi seemed to come up to the hotel from nowhere, and an army of african-american men in thick coats ushered us like spanish bulls to the eighth floor where I nice young indian man gave me a room on the fortieth floor looking right down into the Square itself. Standing at the window looking down, I thought of all the people that I wish could be there with me to enjoy the moment. And then I thought of how ugly New York is when you take your eyes off the neon. (Strange isn't it that human beings should make things more artificial the closer they live to each other. Strange that we should make things out of such inhumane materials: things that bleach and fade, crack and peel, without mercy. But maybe there is something human in that.)

The TOC conference is not cheap; I was committed to squeezing every bit of value out of it, both for my own sake and as an expression of value to my company. Remember, everyone else that was slated to go either was directly IT related or had "VP" on their business card (or above). One thing I wanted to do was videoblog the conference. I had brought my webcam for exactly that purpose. I set it up the laptop and unpacked.

Now, business requires a sense of nerdiness these days. The kind of thing that would have landed you straight in the chess club (ahem, SWR) is now expected. Admittedly, there is a fine line, but computer saavy is usually a plus no matter what department you hail from. Emboldened by this, I took the time the previous week to make a Google map of the few blocks surrounding the hotel and to mark recommended restaurants and points of interest. I was determined to make the most of the experience, both the conference and the city, and the conference wasn't until the next day. That meant dinner out. First stop: Carmine's on 44th for Italian.

Now the map says that Carmine's is only a block south, which is true. The problem is that the elevators on the ground floor of the Mariotte are arranged in a circle, which means that the people coming out of them could shoot out from anywhere like ping pong balls from the top of one of those chance contests at fairs. Mine came out pointing north, though I thought it was south. The wind was icy cold, and people were wrapped to their ears in coats and scarves. I had on a windbreaker and, for awhile anyway in the face of that icy blast, my face. Seeing the stack of jumbotron TVs, I assumed I was heading correctly, not realizing that the Square is bordered on both ends by those gaudy advertisements. Can you imagine what Edison would think if he could see those! I went past 47th and, realizing my error, turned West at 49th.

By the time I had oriented myself and turned around (walking south along 8th Ave), L. called to see how things were going. Actually, I was glad she did, not only to hear her voice (but who can hear anything with the speakers in the RAZR phones?), but also because yacking on your phone is a fantastic way to blend in and look like all the other freezing New Yorkers. "You're outside? You're walking outside? You're on the street? You're lost? And where are you going?" She was a little nervous, but I was pretty high with just being there. I stopped and asked a cop for directions--that freaked L out a little bit. But she felt better, and so did I, when I finally found what I was looking for.

Carmine's looks like a speakeasy. You can paint all the people in twenties-era clothing, give it all a faded yellow color, and it looks like any other big city crime photo on PBS. This means, of course, that it has atmosphere to burn. The portions are so large that the waiter steered me to the bar for a sandwich. I felt a little foolish at first, but a cappuccino took care of that. And, hey, turns out I was sitting not three stools away from Sarah Jessica Parker, who was absorbed in conversation with a girlfriend. Hmmm...celebrity sighting: check!

It was nearly midnight by the time I made it back to the hotel. By now I had my bearings and knew how the street numbers ran in this part of town. I knew now that I was in the theatre district (giant ads celebrated HairSpray, Spamalot, the Little Mermaid, and Phantom) and that it is sometimes called the Middle West side. I knew that Times Square is flanked by those giant glowing CRTs. And I knew I still had work to do.

Back in my room, I turned on the webcam, adjusted the lighting a bit, and started talking. It took about an hour to get enough usable footage, what between me blinking, licking my lips (it was dry in there), wiping my nose, yawning, or simply forgetting what I was saying and rambling on about "digital" and "future" and "business models." I fell into bed at two o'clock, so happy to be where I was that it didn't even matter that wake up was in four-and-a-half hours. It was hard even then to convince myself that a few hours of sleep mattered more than exploring this giant new continent called Manhattan.

 

Sissy's Pink Hat worked just fine in a pinch -- first time we've needed a hat all winter!

 

Kara and Caleb attempting to sled down the hill together!

 

Less than an inch of snow cancels school in Middle Tennessee. Oops, couldn't find anything but a pink hat for Caleb!

Ok, Ok, Ok.... This One's For You!

This post was supposed to be entitled "House 101" -- however prodding and complaining from a certain Sir Walter Raleigh has left us no other choose!

OK --- YES! We are in the hopeful process of buying our first home. So far we are learning the new lingo -- we now know the meaning of terms like PMI, points, escrow accounts, earnest money, and closing. And for anyone who's got a sense of humor about that here are our personal definitions:

PMI - pre-mortgage insecurity -- the fear of not being able to pay the mortgage after closing. (actually - Personal Mortgage Insurance -- actually this is the bank's way of panicing about us not being about to pay your mortgage after closing!)

Points -- what happens to your blood pressure when thinking of purchasing a house.

Escrow accounts -- the place your earnest money sits while you worry about the home inspection.

Earnest money -- a big check you right before you even know if the house is structurally sound.

Closing - The thing that has to happen before they'll give you the keys to your dream house and let you worry about the next thing that falls apart!

Ok -- in all seriousness.. we are actually very much at peace about this whole thing. We felt good about it from the start. It's definitely our dream house and after nearly two years of looking we were very pleasantly surprised to imagine ourselves actually finding our dream house at this round of home buying. Everything else we've looked at has been 30 years older and, to be honest, uglier. As we walked through this, we were ready to buy it within minutes and Thom was still in shock we could even find or consider something like this for a good hour after we got home.

Well, tomorrow we should find out what the seller thinks of our requests from our inspection (more words we barely understood a short time ago!)

We PROMISE we'll keep YOU "posted!"

For anyone who's interested, we have house pictures in our Flickr account. Just click on the mosaic photo widget on the left.

The Sound of Reading

Today was a VERY big day for Kara! She and I went on an excursion to the local library today to do some research for a project she is doing for Girl Scouts. While there Kara asked if she could go over to the book section that has the reading books for her age group. Every other time we've been to the library she goes immediately to the train table and the other toys that are there for the little kids and she's never shown any interest in actually looking at reading books for herself. So, I assumed it was the same today. I was in for a delightful surprise!

After locating the children's cookbook of international foods that I was hunting for, I found my way back to the area where Kara had asked to go. Even from a distance I saw something different -- she was sitting in a chair at a table looking at --- a BOOK! As I got closer and told her I had found what we were looking for, she politely asked about a word she was having trouble sounding out and then showed me a book she wanted to know if she could check out. The book was a CHAPTER BOOK! in the Junie B. Jones series! For those of you who are unfamiliar with children's books chapter books are books with mostly words and only a few pictures, generally one picture every four or five pages or so, and, as the name suggests -- chapters. Up until now Kara has been a very reluctant reader feeling only confident enough to tackle picture books, primarily Clifford books. She personally would like to be reading books about animals, but she's not allowed to test on those and they are all above her tested reading level. So, for her to ask to check out a chapter book and want to read it herself was a bit of a surprise --- but still not the biggest suprise. I said yes that she could check it out but that she would have to be the one who would read it, not Daddy or I. She agreed and commented that this is what "everyone" in her class is reading. Ok. We'll see how it goes.

We checked it out and got in the car. Where, to my shock, she began reading! The first few words aloud and then silently with focus she studied the page and in the silence in the car you could almost hear the words of this story jumping off the pages of this book and bouncing into her little head. I could see in the rear-view mirror the intent look on her face and the commitment she had to what she was doing. SHE WANTED IT AND IT WAS HERS! She slowed down a couple of times to spell a word to me for help, then kept right on reading. The story had her. The squiggly lines of letters were funny, serious, entertaining -- a world of words on the pages in this funny code called the alphabet. She was reading and she was loving it. After a few pages she started telling me what page she was on -- sharing the amazement she had at her own success.

We arrived at our next destination, another store. Her book came with her. She sat on the floor to read. We got back in the car to come home. The silence of her reading filled the air. It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in a very, very long time!

Tonight it finally happened. For years I had imagined a time when Kara would sit in her bed and read and read and read. I came home from grocery shopping and the house was filled with the same sound that had filled the car earlier today, the beautiful melody of words floating silently through the air from the printed page into the mind.

So, I brought her her glasses... and she smiled and said "I was about to ask for those. "