On the page, I’m perfectly charming

It’s been a lazy weekend so far and I feel like I should re-organize my closets tomorrow just to make up for it. It was terribly cold today and with the wind chill factor, it felt about 10 degrees. The sun was constantly going behind clouds but each time it made an appearance, I felt like cheering.

And speaking of cheering, that’s what these tulips are doing for me on this winter’s day. I’d always known the trick with the penny in the tulip water (makes them stand up straight for longer) but I never knew the one with hydrangeas until now. I had come downstairs this morning to find two of the stems completely wilted and the other looking like it was thinking about keeling over. I googled the solution: Boil a cup of water, cut the bottoms of the stems and put them into the boiled water for 30 seconds. Then plunge stems into a vase of fresh room temperature water. It took all afternoon, but by golly – it seems to have worked. (And in case you’re wondering – no I didn’t take pictures).

But I do have pictures of the cool vase that the tulips are in.

 

 

Please excuse the pizza boxes. They were our gourmet dinner last night.

The vase looks to be clay that has had a stencil applied to it while wet, then dried and glazed with a white wash that’s been brushed off the raised areas. I found it at a farm market gift shop that always has cool unique decorative items for sale.

 

It’s pretty, isn’t it?

 

 

And we can’t forget the pink countertops.

It’s been nearly 4 1/2 years since we’ve moved here and I’m totally used to them.

 

 

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I’ve just finished re-reading one of my favorite books: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. You know the feeling you get when a really good book is getting to the end and you don’t want it to stop? You want to keep hearing about the characters because you’ve pretty much fallen in love with them. This is how I feel this evening. My book is over.

The story takes place in the time immediately following WWII and centers around Juliet Ashton, a published author. One day, she receives a letter from a man introducing himself as Dawsey Adams, a resident of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. He’s written her because he’s found a book that he loves and it used to belong to her. Her name and address are written on the inside. He asks a favor: does she know where he can find more books by this author? The author, he says, made him laugh, and reminded him of something that happened during the German Occupation on the island. He tells her about a Literary Society and how it came to be a lifeline after its rather odd inception. Through letters back and forth between both him and then eventually the entire society, the writer begins to fall in love with the island. Through stories she learns from each of them in their letters, she begins to piece together not just a topic and characters that she becomes passionate about, but her life as well when she decides to come to the island and meet all of them.

It’s a story with an underlying theme of hope, and it’s one that is told quite uniquely, through beautifully-written letters. There are surprises along the way and on sunny days, a sparkling sea that shines throughout.

As the mail boat lurched into the harbor, I saw St. Peter Port rising up from the sea on terraces, with a church on the top like a cake decoration, and I realized that my heart was galloping. As much as I tried to persuade myself that it was the thrill of the scenery, I knew better. All those people I’ve come to know and even love a little, waiting to see ~ me. And I, without any paper to hide behind. Sidney, in these past two or three years, I have become better at writing than living – and think what you do to my writing. On the page, I’m perfectly charming, but that’s just a trick I learned. It has nothing to do with me. At least, that’s what I was thinking as the mail boat came toward the pier.

~ Letter to Sidney Stark from Juliet Ashton, 22nd May, 1946

Highly recommend.

Until tomorrow, then ~