Super Rachel Zana's Spot

Although it is very heavy to carry around The Banana in the hiking backpack, she loves it up high where she can see everything that is happening. Last Wednesday I took the kids on a hike and strapped her in. The backpack fits Dr. Peds a lot better than me…

We’ve got pedaling down. It’s steering and stopping we have trouble with still. Mr. Perpetual Mess likes to ride this trike as fast as possible across the driveway and crash into “Treasure Island” (a circle of grass with two very large scraggley pine trees in the middle of the roundabout…

I have a secret love of poultry. Not just to eat. I think ducks, chickens and geese in particular are just wonderful creatures. I can sit and watch them all day. Our neighbors told me about the duck pond in one of the very old cemeteries near my house, and…

Yesterday was our wedding anniversery. I don’t know what it is about our wedding anniversery, but for some reason BOTH of us have trouble remembering that it is on the twenty second of May and not the twenty third or twenty fourth. And throughout the last eight years, we’ve actually…

I love that my kids don’t mind being cold. We dug out a winter hat, and out Ms. Crazy Preschooler went while the little ones napped yesterday. She roamed about the yard and tromped in extremely excited because she found this slightly (OK, quite) dead caterpillar, drowned, bloated and maybe…

It has been deliciously cold! On Sunday morning it snowed for at least two hours, pretty steadily, but the snow melted when it hit the green grass. We snuggled in the “cabin” room, as our family room has been named because of its wooden ceiling. The previous owners of our…

In early elementary school, I was fascinated with all books by Beverly Cleary. I can remember my first grade teacher reading Ralph. S. Mouse to our class out loud and loving every page. When I started reading chapter books at the end of first grade, I became very enamored of…

My husband looked at our front steps from the sidewalk to the middle of our front yard and said out loud, “Those steps are going to be a big pain to fix.” I looked at them and thought inside my head, “Those steps are going to make a great photograph.”

This is what my backyard corner tree looks like this week! I love flowering trees. My husband hates them. He is not able to enjoy the beautiful flowers because he knows berries are coming later in the summer that stick to the bottom of his shoes.

I didn’t take the picture because at the time I was feeling a bit frustrated, and didn’t manage to think of my camera stashed away in another room. Large quantities of soap and water were on my mind. While The Banana was napping this morning, I thought it would be…