Pleasant View

Today, on my way home from my sister's house, I passed Pleasant View Drive and was seized by this intense need to see the house I grew up in.

So I drove up the hill my sister broke her roller skates on, past the driveway we sledded down every winter with all the neighborhood kids (and there were lots of kids), past the sidewalk I learned to ride my bike on, the backyard where my best friend kissed me when I was 6, up to the little blue and white house.

And everything was the same. The fence was more faded, and the crack in the sidewalk (we used to hide things there) a little bigger, but almost everything was the same. The Dann's house was still immaculately clean and incredibly red, the spot on the pavement where Jason spilled the paint was still bright purple, the Coryn's house still dark and scary. Even those garish, mismatched, blessed purple and pink crepe myrtle trees were still there.

This was the house we loved most. Here the March family grew, had a war, survived a flood by building an ark... here the Greens visited and Elliebird and Monolog and I put on our horrifically long plays about separated Scottish twins who get glued together by fate. I met my best friend, Emily, at this house. In this house we sheltered a litter of rescued kittens and a herd of baby chicks (we tried to teach them to fly... oops), and saved our beautiful kitten, Shadow, from an abusive home and a horrible thunderstorm. He was with us 15 years, and died last week. While we had him he served as King of Beanieland, fierce protector of the March and Halfpenny farm (our dollhouse world), show lion in our backyard circuses, Emperor of the neighborhood animals, and cart-oxen for our dolls.

I didn't expect to cry. I miss Shadow, my little friends, the silly fights we had about which polly pocket house was best, Jason, the muddy-shoe club, and all the silly things that make being little feel so different.

"lyndol, we's outta index cards!"

this is my bulletin board. i'm about to take old stuff down and let it start over... but wanted to record it for posterity. it's full of delightful people and events, recording a wonderful summer.

time to dress up as giant cats!

dadaw and i "polishing our boots"

hehe... i think this picture explains itself. its funny, caitlin and i still make all the exact same expressions we made when we were little.

elliebird and brother and my cousin and i playing in the mud.

don't look at me that way E, we both were. yes all those adjectives you are applying to how you look in this picture... we both were.

Happy birthday!

This little blog turned 3 today!

Happy Birthday!

In honour of the original inspiration,

here's the quote that its name came from:

"Our monks go robed in rain and snow
but the heart of flame therein;
you go clothed in flame and fire
when all is ice within."

- G.K.Chesterton
"The Ballad of the White Horse"

Hope you've enjoyed so far, I certainly have!

Keep reading, my punctuation can only get better from here! =)

much love,

beatrice

it's been so long!

sorry it's been so long, i've been so horridly busy it's impossible to keep everything going. and this is a problem, because i want to do EVERYTHING! really, have you ever seen a list of all the things i've wanted to be over the years? it's silly.

hobo

airplane pilot

explorer

horse trainer

doctor

wedding planner

research biologist

linguistics

archaologist

musician

photographer

potato/endangered plant farmer

ok FINE

i've been ordered by several people to post these. i'm SORRY! please forgive me for the damage these will do to your eyes. they were taken in 2002. the fish is named waldo.

shield your eyes

this may be the last time you hear from me. ever. why? because after i post the following pictures i'm pretty sure someone is going to kill me.

and yes, caitlin and i both won the "biggest dork alive in 2003" award.

so... for a bit of comedy, here you go.

you know, i'm really quite shocked that i just posted this.

the very last first time

my last first day of homeschool is coming up in 5 days. though i've always looked forward to this part of "it", i'm suddenly just sad. and thorougly understanding of the phrases "bittersweet" and "mixed emotion" though they are cliched i realise. i also remembered this one day of school that for some reason stuck in my head - i must have been 7 or 8, and caitlin and i were sitting in the schoolroom together, wearing our favorite dresses which were absolutely horrid (the yellow/pink ones with the upside-down tulips sketches. thank you mamadah for trying so hard to get us to relinquish them.), having an eraser war instead of doing our handwriting.

and this time next year i'll (hopefully) go trotting off to the scary world of college, no longer young enough to hypothetically apply to hogwarts or be a part of one of those 80's highschool movies. the teacher won't take pictures of us, or give us butterfly day picnics, or let us paint our faces like celts and stand on our desks yelling war-cries. but on the bright side... it will be different, it will be exciting. i am excited about new things, i am sad about old things, and they are swirling together like the whipped cream and chocolate in my drink did when my little brother stuck his finger in it just now. ew.

this year of school will be most exciting. the most exciting parts are these:

gileskirk modernity

(oh the wonders of george grant!)

spanish II

teaching company physics course

being done with math FOREVER after this fall!

(maybe not forever, but if i can help it...)

greek!

art history class this spring

the amazing literature course mamadah has planned for me

taking piano for the first time

i'm doing more than this (yeep!) but these are the really exciting parts.

this year i'm going to faithfully take pictures and blog... it seems appropriate. and its probably the best thing to do to keep myself from (horrors!) scrapbooking, which i admit myself to have always kind of wanted to do. not cheesy scrapbooking. pretty scrapbooking. maybe i will. hmm.

march boot camp 08

wow, this feels like a really long time ago. these aren't all the pictures i took- i just got tired of uploading them, so i stopped after 5.