There was a DIY bouquet station at the floral exhibition, so this was the bouquet I arranged and brought home!
Wordless Wednesday- Meadowbrook Flowers
Category: Adventures
Nora Hazelhart’s Floating Bookshop- Character and Setting
*A solo RPG Adventure based on Ella Lim’s Fox Curio’s Floating Bookshop.
Character Description (Very Wind in the Willows-esque:)
Nora is a Capybara who has traveled around the world and is far from home, ready for a slower paced life. Nora is a stout capybara who has world weary eyes and has some gray fur about her muzzle. Despite that, she is strong from a life of adventure and doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. She has independent means to do as she wishes, as she doesn’t need very much to keep her content. She loves reading and meeting new people. She’s fiercely protective of young ones and other vulnerable folx and uses being underestimated to her advantage when needed.
Nora was born on the 12 day of Brink (approximately autumn) Moon. She is creative and capable. She’s particular about her comforts and how others treat her and happiest when going on adventures or creating new things. She enjoys tinkering and since she has been on her own, knows a lot of random knowledge about a lot of things. She always wears overalls- for the pockets, most are slightly shabby and patched with creative patches. She has many cardigans and sweaters, some of which she has made and others that were gifts. She always has a book close by and has a small pair of glasses that perch on her nose. On very hot days, she wears a visor hat that looks like an old time accountant would wear.
Nora has been staying in Thistledown, which is the town at the top of the river over the Brisk (Winter) moon. While there, she has discovered an abandoned riverboat/bookshop. She’s able to buy it after the previous owner had passed away.
Bookshop Description:
Excerpts from Nora’s Journal titled
“A Dubious Beginning–
The roof was a splintery mess- a faded mess of patchy paint and dry wood. The sides of the boat looked intact, but definitely needed a new paint job and perhaps a deeper inspection by a carpenter or boat maker, just to make sure of its river worthiness. The window facing the dock was patched with what looked like oil cloth on the outside. Even the sign looked poorly. I could tell it was charmingly carved, but some of the letters and the sign itself had succumbed to the weather so now it hung at a lazy angle and stated “ook op” in faded wood letters. The whole boat looked a little hodgepodge and while I didn’t normally mind that look, it was a bit more daunting up close.
Struggling with the cabin door, which seemed to be swollen shut against the humidity along the river, I didn’t answer directly, just gave a vague nod in her direction. Then straining, I pulled at the door and much to my surprise, it finally gave way, almost knocking me back into the mayor. A poof of dust came out, making me cough and I cautiously peeked my head in for the first look at my new home.
The first thing I saw in the dim light inside was books. Directly across from the door, I could see the edges of a bookshelf. Picking up my mage light lantern (open flames and houseboats don’t generally do well in the same spaces, after all.) A long curved desk sat to my left by the entrance with what appeared to be a half open door behind it.“
Simple Sunday- Love and Weirdness
“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whos weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness- and call it love- true love.” ― Robert Fulghum, True Love
It’s slightly ridiculous to think that 12 years and a day ago, the Husband and I decided that we matched each other’s weirdness and decided to call it love. Since then we’ve gone through happy times, sad times, ridiculously goofy times, and above all, together times! Happy Anniversary and many more adventures to come to us!
Something New This Way… Floats?
Hello and welcome to a new and hopefully charming experience that I invite you to share with me. The more I’ve gotten into tabletop role playing games, the more I’ve realized how much I love the games that are either silly, cozy, mysterious (but not too scary,) or a combination of all three. In fact, my most recent friend game was run by my lovely brother and featured 3 of my friends and I playing as racoons in a trench coat trying to be a person to do peopley things. (Look. It was wonderful! We saved the world by accidently stealing some kind of nuclear waste, giving it back, and got an unlimited buffet of trash. Racoon heaven!)
None of this is surprising to me, by the way. I have always been fascinated by fantasy stories and mythology. I’m a bit of a dreamer. In fact, in elementary school, I got in trouble for staring at my much more interesting pencil than actually doing math and don’t think I stopped even after they gave me plain boring yellow pencils. After cutting my fantasy teeth on Anderson’s Fairy Tales, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, the thought of magical places where talking animals roam and life is idyllic and charming seems like utopia.
It’s hard to get friends together regularly though and not everyone wants to be a cute talking animal doing Hobbity things. Or racoon things, or badger things.. You get the idea. So when I found a solo RPG journaling adventured titled Fox Curio’s Floating Bookshop: A Year Upon The River, it was in my online cart before I finished reading the blurb about it. I’ve never tried a solo game before so I wasn’t sure how it would work, but it seems relatively easy. The game is written by Ella Lim and is available here through The Lost Ways Club if you want to follow along with your own floating bookshop. There are also a few more that look fun as well. Here is the website: https://www.lostwaysclub.com/shop
The idea behind a solo journaling RPG is that you use dice and cards to help give you a prompt for what happens during the day/night/time of the game. In multiplayer tabletop games you would have a game master who gives the players those prompts instead, but sometimes you maybe just want to take a little journey on your own!
So for the next few weeks, I’m going to try to post a weekly excerpt of my journey along the river, possibly asking for prompts from you as I go along. My world setting will be something like Narnia, Wind in the Willows, or Redwall. Lots of fun pastural scenes with different animals, wacky interactions with customers, cozy days reading in the rain on my houseboat bookshop. I will at some point, adopt a pet, but who knows what it will be? Maybe a butterfly or a tiny lizard? The possibilities are endless!
Don’t worry, if the storytelling isn’t your thing, I’m still going to try to get some updates about the garden and Piggy’s tomato stealing ways, life in general, and other fun things happening in my life. I have still been sewing and doing some cooking, although lately not so much with the cooking. The Husband and I got Covid after 4 years of narrowly avoiding it. Luckily it’s mild, but it’s made cooking extremely tiring and I was already been in a slump anyway.
For now though, I’ve left some music to inspire you to join me on my river journey.
Adventure is calling! Will you answer?
Wordless Wednesday- Brick Fest Pt 2: Small Sets
Wordless Wednesday- Harvard Natural History Museum
Here are some more fun pics from the Harvard Natural History Museum. We spent a lot of time there as it rained that day and we were on foot.
Favorite Fictional Kids’ Books of 2023
Hi there! Whew. I don’t know about you, but the end of the year has been a whirlwind. I finished my 100 Book Reading Challenge this year and it took a little longer than I thought it would. I think I read more “quality” over “quantity” this year and that made it harder to just mow through fluffy books. Last year I was just downing silly books because it was all I could concentrate on.
This year I deliberately tried to spread out to different types of books, genres, and topics. I read traditional style with physical books, audio books, and with the Kindle App. I also tried to read a variety of different age ranges. I’m working on stocking my office with more books for my kid readers.
I didn’t force myself to finish books I didn’t like for one reason or another. I’m proud of myself for that, but I did forget to keep track of them in some way, so I had to go back quickly and try to remember which ones those were.
Viking in Love by Doug Cenko: This is the cutest little book ever about conquering your fears to look for true love. I adore it and gifted it as part of a 12 Books of Christmas present for K1’s kids. I received word that they also loved it. Stig proves that you can challenge yourself to work through your fears and still be yourself.
My Brain is a Racecar by Nell Harris: I have this book in my office and I love it for explaining ADHD to younger kids. The author was inspired by her own journey with ADHD and offers ideas and skills for other kids to help them give their race care brain a break. I especially enjoyed it because I recognized some of the things she says her brain does and actively do some of the rest techniques mentioned. I liked that it normalized neurodivergent brains in a fun way.
A Day With No Words by Tiffany Hammond: This book tells the story of Tiffany and her Autistic son Aiden and their day using only their AAC (Augmented and Assistive Communication) devices and apps to communicate. It’s a beautiful book that I think should be in all the libraries and read to all the kids. Tiffany has such a lovely way with the storytelling (You can check her out on Facebook as Fidgets and Fries too) and the love that’s evident in the book between them both is just wonderful. I love books like this that normalize all sorts of communication and families. This book was gifted to a few friends and also is in my office.
Middle Grade– Most of the Middle Grade books, I read because I was looking at them for the office and also because it was fun to see a new style and grade level of book.
Speak Up by Rebecca Burgess: The main character in this graphic novel, with the help of her friend, transforms into an internet pop star sensation on the weekends and is a shy student during the school day. She is Autistic and loves music and writing her own songs. Dressing up in costumes makes her feel invincible and able to get her feelings out. Eventually she has to learn not only the value of friendship, but the value and strengths in speaking up for herself. I really liked it. It was a super easy read and was pretty fast paced. I liked how there was conflict but also showed the resolution. I would definitely recommend this for middle readers.
Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry: Calliope June is the main character who is a middle school attempting to hide her Tourette’s Syndrome because she’s gotten teased about it before. The book goes into detail about symptoms she experiences and emotions relating to them. This one is a little heavier I’d say, with appropriate themes, but you’d probably want to talk about it with your kids when reading it or after reading it. Themes included friendship, first love, bullying, moving, and different family dynamics.
Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos: What a beautiful graphic novel! The colors are stunning as you can see by the cover, but then they also used black and white to evoke emotions without having to use words. The story is about Isla, a Cuban immigrant girl who came to the alone US as part of a refugee program in the 1960’s. This program was real and the graphic novel tells a fictional story of Operation Pedro Pan that was based on real experiences. I thought this was super immersive and it was a good read.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher: This book was probably my favorite Middle Grade book I read last year. I discovered T. Kingfisher only in the last couple of years and it’s a Nome de plume for Ursula Veron. I loved this book! For such a short books, I lost track of the times I was cackling on the couch loudly enough to scare both the Husband and Piggy. It is about a girl with an unusual magic that only works on bread and a struggle for her city.
If you have kiddos in any of these age ranges, I would highly recommend all these books. You will not regret it! I have several more that I didn’t get to read last year that will make it on my list this year, I’m sure. Now, go find a fuzzy friend, a warm beverage of choice and get reading with your kids!
Wordless Wednesday- Shiny Rocks!
These were all taken at the Harvard National History Museum.
Disney Costume Exhibit
Here’s another catch up/throwback post. These were all at a Disney costume exhibit at the Henry Ford forever a go now. I thought it would still be fun to post it though. The detail on the costumes was absolutely beautiful and I enjoyed getting a glimpse behind the scenes. From a seamstress’ point of view it was wild to see the techniques and craftsmanship that went into these costumes.
Here’s the Fairy Godmother’s costume from the 2015 live action remake of Cinderella. Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s so fluffy and sparkly. I loved the different fabric textures and sewing techniques and how it all worked together.
And here’s the Cinderella dress from the same movie. They used a couple of different fabrics to create the shimmer, as well as using some CGI to help things look even cooler in the movie. If you look closely at the bottom, you can see the different layers and colors of shiny tulle that was used.
These are the day dresses for Cinderella’s stepsisters in the live action remake. If I remember correctly, they primarily in these color palettes for most of the movie.
Here’s another live action remake- This one is Beauty and the Beast. This is the village dress that Belle wears until she gets to the castle. The costume designers were trying for French countryside to pay homage to the story’s origins.
Here’s Gaston’s costume. The color was so bright and vibrant. There were a lot of military elements involved in the costume.
Here is Belle’s famous ball gown. This one was really cool because it was very fluttery and they had silk screened the print and bejeweled it. I really enjoyed the cool shaping on the bodice as well.
This was from the live action Maleficent movie. Look how cool the shiny vinyl is! This is supposed to be the dragon part of the costume. The big puffy white thing in the corner is Aurora’s dress. I believe it was from a wedding scene.
Here are the Mary Poppins dresses- original and remake, and the original carpetbag. I really enjoyed spotting the differences between the two costumes and finding the nods they made to the original. How many can you find?
Look out! Here comes the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus. I absolutely loved these costumes! The patchwork is fantastic and lovely. All the colors and textures for the fabric make them look especially rich and fancy even though they are supposed to look old fashioned.
There were some guy costumes too, but I wasn’t as interested in them. They had similar colors and not as much embellishment. Jack Sparrow’s costume was one of the most interesting ones with all the colors and details.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little glimpse of some adventures! Maybe we can all find an adventure of our own!
Simple Sundays- Merry Christmas!
“I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.” – Fred Rogers
“Christmas Day is in our grasp, as long as we have hands to clasp! Christmas Day will always be, just as long, as we have we! Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand!” –Dr. Seuss
“When we remember a special Christmas, it is not the presents that made it special, but the laughter, the feeling of love, and the togetherness of friends and family that made that Christmas special.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.” – Charles M. Schulz
“Christmas is a togethery sort of holiday. That’s my favorite kind.” – A. A. Milne