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I finished "How It Went" by Wendell Berry last night. So I was able to read both books of Berry's short stories about Port William before our recent trip to Florida was over.  I was often crying, one time out-right sobbing, sometimes reading portions aloud to Dwayne and talking to him about the text, highlighting many quotes for my common place book.  And I am still thinking about what was said, knowing I'll need to read these books again soon.  Large, deep parts of my soul feel like they have been shifted around.  These are not a books one looks up from to see the world the same as before.  
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   This picture reminds me of the Andrew Wyeth painting "Christina's World." I'm going to call it "Adele's World." 
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Our visit with Grandma continues... with cookies and ice cream in the evenings, and a visit to Brevard Zoo, one of her favorite places. On the way home, we had dinner at Rib City, which is now one of my favorite places.  Dwayne's cousins came to visit before we left town. Our nephew and his wife live nearby, so they also came to visit. They have a new puppy that we all enjoyed so, so much. 
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These two are watching through Star Trek Next Gen together.  It is our duty to bodly pass on culture to the next generation. 
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"At such times as these she felt that the great, mute creation was trying to speak to her. This disturbed her, it moved her almost to tears, for it seemed to intimate the nearness of some consolation- forever imminent and unreachable, almost knowable- for everything that was wrong."  -Wendell Berry, A Place in Time

This Time and Place

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We're visiting Dwayne's mom at her home in Vero Beach. Mom has been in the hospital and rehab since Thanksgiving, so we've come to give Dwayne's sister a break and simply enjoy the time we have with mom. It's in the middle of our homeschool year, and we all have so many responsibilities, but as we order our lives, nothing is more important than being with mom right now.  We take at least one walk on the beach everyday, and the landscape varies constantly, drastically, yet it's always beautiful.  What Grandma wants, she gets. She wanted snickerdoodle, so... The exuberance of nature overwhelms my senses at the beach. I can almost hear the earth singing. The sun warms my face and the cold waves roar and then whisper and break on my toes and the salt spray mingles with the salt tears at the corners of my eyes and a chuckle rises in my belly at the exact same time it rises in Adele's belly, too, and we laugh in unison at the sandpipers feet, at it all, at everyth

Avril's Hobbit Recitation

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  Avril memorized the first portion of The Hobbit from "In a hole in the ground..." until Bilbo shuts the door on Gandalf as quickly as he can without being rude, "because wizards are, after all, are wizards." To go with this recitation, we made a visual from fabric. It now hangs in my hallway as a lovely keepsake.