Sunday Salon -- Easter Week and before

Happy Easter!

Weather: It has been a lovely week with blue skies and warm-ish temperatures. Today (Saturday) is supposed to be the transition day and tomorrow, Easter, it is supposed to rain. No outdoors Easter Egg hunt for us.

Trolls: Two weeks ago was our daughter's spring break. She is a teacher but had no plans for a big vacation so she decided to have her family search out the NW Trolls: Way of the Bird King on daily excursions to sites nearby. My husband and I tagged along for the fun. We found three of the six: The Bird King (on Vashon Island); Bruun Idun (in West Seattle); and Jakob Two Trees (on the Rainier Trail in Issaquah). What fun. Now we all want to finish the search and find the ones hiding on Bainbridge Island, in Ballard, and south in Portland, Oregon. Aren't they marvelous?

Blossoms: I'm still out hunting for flowering tree blossoms. These (collage above) are the ones I've found since my last Sunday post. I was eavesdropping on a woman at the nail salon yesterday who recently moved to Washington and she was gushing about all the beautiful trees in bloom this time of year. I agree.

12 pages a day: I want to read more classics. So I am attempting to follow a tip from Tristan and the Classics (YouTube): He suggests that we read just 12 pages of a classic novel per day. Just 12 pages. Then stop and get on with the day. Read other books, live life. At 12 pages a day that totals up to 4380 pages a year. In the video Tristan holds up a large pile of classic novels he and his group read last year poking along at that slow pace. It was an impressive pile. I'm determined to give this a try and started my 12 pages a day commitment with David Copperfield. I'm half way through the book and I have not felt burdened a single day by it. Twelve pages just breezes by, often I have to purposefully stop myself from reading on. (On occasion I have read on, but only a few pages to get to a good stopping point or a chapter break.) I'm pretty excited about this. After scurrying around the house I found quite a few classic books languishing around on dusty bookshelves. Totaling up their pages I will be able to complete nine of them before years end...and I'm getting a late start on the year. Long dense classics no longer scare me. I'm already eyeing Anna Karenina if I can manage the tiny print in the paperback I own! Up to this point (over 50 years!) I've been too scared to try.

Can you see the bees? The tree was so full of them it sounded alive with buzzing.

Easter: After church we will be having a family dinner and Easter Egg hunt with our grandsons. Don is going to BBQ lamb. I will attempt to make hot cross buns and risotto. One daughter is bringing asparagus and the other is making a Tres Leches cake. We will feast and enjoy each other's company all the while remembering the reason for the day -- to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Our grandsons showing us their Palm Sunday donkeys

Saying goodbye to friends: Today and last Saturday Don and I attended two funerals. It is hard to say goodbye to friends but also an opportunity to learn more about that person. I found both events to be less emotional than I thought they'd be. But both were illuminating because I knew each of of my friends in one context and it was fun to learn about other aspects of their lives.

 

Blog posts from the last two weeks: (Can you tell it is National Poetry Month?)

• TTT: Favorite Poetry Books I've Reviewed In the Last Two Years
• Poetry Review: Grace Notes
• Review: Bel Canto
• Two Not-for-Me Poetry Books
• TTT: Excerpts from New-to-Me Poems
• Poetry Reviews: How to Love the World/The Wonder of Small Things
• Nonfiction review: Everything is Tuberculosis
• Two Short Poetry Reviews: Black Girl You Are Atlas and For Every One

Books:

• Completed:
• Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green
• A Year of Last Things: Poems by Michael Ondaatje 
• Black Girl You are Atlas by Renee Watson
• For Every One by Jason Reynolds
• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
• The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal edited by James Crews
• Currently reading:
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. 50% complete. Print.
• When I Was Puerto Rican: Memoir by Esmeralda Santiago. 40% complete. E-Book
• Make Me Rain: Poems and Prose by Nikki Giovanni. 80% complete. Print.
• Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 20% complete. Audiobook.
• Up next:
• 44 Poems of Being With Each Other: A Poetry Unbound Collection Padraig O Tuama. Print.
• The Glass Maker by Tracy Chevalier. Audiobook.

Poetry Break:

Poem

Langston Hughes

(To F.S.)

I loved my friend.

He went away from me.

There's nothing more to say.

The poem ends,

Soft as it began, --

I loved my friend.

I love you guys, too, my blog-reading friends.

Happy Easter!

-Anne