Books and Bikes and Basil

Assorted history/arts/literature

Since graduation (yes! I graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Elementary Education!) I've been taking classes to finish up my reading endorsement. During the two weeks after I graduated, I read 40+ books for the literature classes I needed to take (fun, but SO much reading & studying and projects in a short period of time!) and this week has been a week of Catching Up At Home.

fiction, blank journal, history, political

I've worked on exciting projects like organizing our spare room, sorting through Stuff that had accumulated, and generating quite a pile of boxes of things to send on. It feels so good to be dealing with things I just haven't had time to take care of during the school year!

We've been bike-riding lately and I'm discovering muscles I apparently do not use otherwise? I'm hoping that the more we bike the less my legs will ache :/ This morning I decided to try a new trail and ended up getting sort of turned around! I was glad to have a maps app on my phone so I could figure out where I needed to go to get back home!

Old and new Latin books

Reprints of etiquette books, parlor games

Old fiction books

My current Major Project is going through books and deciding what I'm ready to send on, then get them posted so (hopefully!) I can sell some of them. Book-buying has been my weakness for years now, and I have 3 full totes of books that I'm ready to send on.

In high school, I was sure I would write an amazing novel set during the Civil War era and I bought SO MANY BOOKS about the Civil War so I could be a good researcher before writing my novel! The novel is no longer happening (I was more interested in the history and didn't have much of a plot!) and it's time for most of my research books to find new homes. I also thought it would be a fabulous idea to buy lots of older books, so I did. And, since I was studying Latin, I bought older Latin textbooks, plus newer text that was translated into Latin so I'd have more interesting things to practice reading. They're all just sitting around and I have so many other books already, it's time for these to go!

Vision Forum, facsimile reprints, etc

To accommodate our need to store our bikes somewhere in the garage-less space at our disposal, my husband humored me and we moved around furniture to make room for my bike along one wall of the apartment. With how odd our "spring" weather was, I had winter and spring/summer clothes out. Now that it feels like summer has indeed started to move in, I put away sweaters and coats and gloves and scarves and hats, and made room instead for light jackets and our bike helmets. Everything feels so light and free!



With the spring/early summer weather officially here and frost warnings past, we finally picked up plants, potting soil, mulch, and rocks (for good drainage in the pots) and planted our assortment of flowers and herbs and tomatoes! We have 4 kinds of tomatoes (1 compact cherry, 1 black cherry, 1 yellow, 1 stripey heirloom); 3 basil plants; 1 cilantro plant; 1 rosemary plant; 1 rose; 1 bunch of chives; lots and lots of moss roses and a few petunias and a bunch of verbena! It is so satisfying to see the pots of growing, thriving life. Already, I've harvested abundant basil. For supper tonight, I'm going to go pick some basil, chop up a tomato, slice up some mozzarella cheese sticks we just aren't eating as a snack, drizzle it all with a little olive oil, and let the flavors meld a little before dishing it up. The fragrant basil makes everything happier :) I love this post-grad life...