Thumpety Thump Thump

It snowed in my neck of the woods. Oh boy did it snow!!

Little Sweetness had his Christmas Concert last Friday so we pulled big brother, Light, out of school, which was only supposed to be for a couple of hours -- but it had snowed so much while we were in the church hall that we decided not to take him back, just to turn around and come home on a school bus a few hours later... in white out conditions.

We spent the rest of the day, snuggled inside watching Christmas movies. Then we had an old fashioned Christmas sing-a-long which started out to be much fun,... until 4 yr old Sweetness, who is completely stuck on Frosty the Snowman, decided to add "thumpety thump thump, thumpety thump thump" to every other carol.

Silver Bells didn't ring-a-ling, they thumpety thump thumped, Silent Night wasn't very quiet with all the thumpety thump thumps going on and On the First Day of Christmas my true love actually gave a thumpety thump thump to me.

On the other hand, none of the Kinsons can carry a tune so those thumpety thump thumps probably improved our attempts.

Here's a pic of 9 yr old Light on Saturday. Despite the frigid temps, Daddy Kinson had the boys outside for most of the day - tobagganin, building snow forts (pictured) and getting them good and tired out! He's totally up for Daddy-of-the-Year, ain't he? :)

Oh - and the Christmas list of many-things-that-must-be-done is more than half complete, which is a big 'whew'. One more trip to the mall, one more trip to the grocery store, one more trip to the sanity store...

Oh crap. They don't have one of those, do they?

I'm screwed.

Just a quickie

It snowed here, finally, and my kids are loving it! And so am I!! The snow began last week but I was hesitant to celebrate because so far this winter, whatever fell from heavens melted in a day. Hurray -- last week's snowfall is still on the ground and it's been slowly piling up all week. Hubby and I took Sweetness & Light tobagganing and "weeeeeeeeeeeee", I went down the hill, too!! I felt about 8 years old.

I'm so into this book - Middlesex by Jefferey Euginides -- that I've neglected my blog, my writing, my kids, my husband, my sleep...
I'm not sure I would have picked it out of a bin at Chapters (though, technically, I did pick it out of a bin at Costco!!), because the blurb really doesn't do it for me. It's basically about a guy named Cal, a hermaphrodite, who narrates the story of the life of his grandparents, their immigration from Greece (insert Greek/Turk politics/wars/social strife), then moves onto the life of his parents, then his birth as a girl.... (I have to stop now because I'm only 1/2 thru the book).
If I hadn't heard a bit of buzz, if it hadn't won the Pulitzer, if it hadn't been an obscenely low price, I would have passed.
Thank goodness for small miracles! The prose is beautiful, the characters well-rounded, sympathetic and rich. I can almost feel Cal's grandmother's thick braids.
This is not a fast action story to skim, but a savour-every-word piece of art. I've reread several passages, just to wrap my head around the imagery.
Middlesex hasn't kept me up until the wee hours flipping pages madly, but it has kept me up at night thinking about the characters, their inner strength and struggles, and how so many in the world have similar stories to tell -- yet by and large, we, the general populace, remain happily ignorant of these situations (that isn't a jibe, just the truth).
Like Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, this one is going to stick with me a long time. . .