Does it get simpler (or better) than spinning and reading?

You’ll be relieved to know that my spinning wheel has at least gotten about 20 minutes’ worth of spinning time over the last couple of days. Not a LOT of time, perhaps, but still, better than it was getting!

And, it’s HARD taking a picture of yourself spinning (without using a tripod and self-timer), but I tried. Just as proof.

Oh–it’s Mom’s 100th post over at her MV blog. Go congratulate her on her milestone, huh?

Mostly, though, I’ve been bit by the nostalgia bug today and have been revisiting a few old, favorite books. Like the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s been years since I read any of these, and I’ve more or less had a smile on my face all afternoon. From the stories to the Garth Williams illustrations, they’re just a delight.

It’s been in my collection so long, I even have a card-catalog card from back when I actually kept a card-catalog of my very own. (I do keep telling you that I’m a librarian at heart, right?) That goes back to around the time I was 10, I think. I used Mom’s old, manual type-writer but no longer remember what the star I drew at the bottom meant. Maybe it was marking it as a favorite? Nor do I remember the reason for the “7″ written at the top. (Written with a horizontal bar across it, too. Funny, I thought I’d only been doing that since high school, but obviously, it’s been longer than that.) The book, though, cost $1.50, so it’s obviously been in my collection for a while. My copies of the “core” books (Praririe, Plum Creek, Long Winter) are newer editions. When we were little, my sister was the one who owned copies of those. She would let me borrow them, but they were hers. At some point, after she got married and moved away, I bought copies of my own. I mean, you’ve got to keep the library current, right?

I can’t help thinking, too, about what great books they are for children to read. I think it’s important to have a sense about how life has changed, and how people used to live, but also, there are so many references to Laura wanting to burst out laughing, or to ask questions, or to keep that half a cookie for herself instead of sharing with Carrie. It’s so easy to forget, in this age of plentitude, how scarce things used to be, or how different childrens’ lives were than they are now. I think it’s good for children to read about a time when children weren’t the center of everybody’s attention, and when they were expected to have manners and behave, instead of feeling entitled to all the attention they wanted. I certainly spent plenty of time when I was little wanting to be the center of attention, and it was good for me to have that “Children should be seen and not heard” mantra repeated every now and again in these books–because even though it’s not necessarily true now, it’s never a bad thing to realize that it used to be. How can a child feel lucky and blessed by all the modern benefits if they don’t know that it didn’t used to be true. (I can still remember how shocked I was when I realized that, say, the Pilgrims didn’t have running water. No electricity, sure, that I knew, but no WATER? How was that possible?) I think the “seen and not heard” rule is kind of extreme these days, and woul have hated it when I was little, but reading about how Laura had to put up with it and control herself was definitely a good influence on me.

I always rather related to Laura, being the younger sister to a “perfect” older sister … I wonder if Mary was really as good as Laura always thought she was, or if it was just that she was older and had a head-start at manners and self-control. Because I know that, being the younger sister myself, I more or less always felt that she was “better,” as in better-behaved, than I was. It didn’t seem like she got yelled at for being naughty or noisy nearly as often as I did, but I think that two and a half year headstart worked in her favor. I don’t actually think that I was that naughty a child (I hope), or that she was so perfect (I also hope), just that … when you’re four or five it’s just not possible to be as “effortlessly” good as your six or seven year old sister.

Okay, now, speaking of reading, I’ve got to go get my monthly reading list written up. I can’t believe it’s the end of May already….

• Tags: General, Knitting/Spinning, Reading • Permalink:Old-Time Entertainment //