We have a very nice bathroom. In fact, Father Mark says it is the nicest room in the house. I just am entirely incapable of getting a good picture of it. So one mediocre picture will have to do.
This actually shows the color pretty well. My favorite parts are the vintage bus window, the tea towels I used for curtains (linen, and only $2 at Ikea!) and the fact that the roof and the top of the wall aren't sealed together, so it never gets to hot and humid from bathing. Also the passion fruit vine makes it kinda jungly.
Now back to watching videos of the royal wedding. It's making me wish I had an occasion to go to where I could wear an awesome hat!
EDIT: My mother is concerned that people will think my sink is dirty from this picture. So to relieve her concerns: the mirror is old and tarnished. The sink is clean. The end.
I've been doing some tin can gardening, which resulted in miniature zinnias. No idea how that happened.
this new baby has HUGE ears!!
my nephew, reading a story to the fish my husband keeps in the bucket. What, you don't have a bucket of fish in your kitchen?
Tio u goat is stuck.
Our goats tend to reach for that greener grass on the other side of the fence and get stuck, so on the way up the drive, we kept our eyes open for the stuck goat. Nothing.
After we stopped dying laughing, Daniel freed Milo the goat.
She was not very grateful. Goats never are.
what?? The mirror needed to be adjusted, I'm doing you a favor!
Lesson: never underestimate the trouble capacity of a goat. Also, always carry a camera.
Unbroken is the story of Louie Zamperini, a Olympic track runner who was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War Two. His is an amazing story of survival, and of the strength of the human spirit. I am not going to give details about his experiences, because when you read this book I think it is better to be in suspense about events to come.
Hillenbrand has an amazing gift for making the time period and events come alive, bringing in statistics and facts from countless sources, and quotes from fellow veterans that seamlessly flesh out the story. Though facts and figures and numbers are frequently cited, the writing is never dry. She does not shy away from the difficult details, which makes some areas hard to read, but as I was reading I kept thinking how important this is-- not to forget the horrors of war. For my generation especially, war has been an almost constant background noise. Yet it is distant; the information and coverage subject to the whims of media. This book was valuable to me because it gave a personal understanding of the depths that men are capable of descending to during war, and of the callous way that human lives are discarded. Some particularly striking statistics pointed out that over 30,000 US soldiers died in accidents in WW2-- non combat related deaths often caused by equipment such as planes that were known to be faulty and were used anyways. But this is by no means a depressing book. Hillenbrand also shows the humor and courage soldiers exhibited in what to everyone else are unimaginably horrible situations.
I definately started this book with high expectations. Laura Hillenbrand also wrote Seabiscuit, quotes from which have been used in countless homilies here in Benque (Father Mark is a little obsessed). Overall, I would say it was not Seabiscuit... but is still an incredibly well written book and a story that needed to be told. And a book that should be read.
So continuing on from last week, I'll now show you the other half of the downstairs.
See that couch there? It folds out to a nice, squishy bed that people could sleep on if they came and visited me in the tropical paradise I live in where it hasn't been snowing every day for the last 6 months. Just saying.
Steps to upstairs. Those windows are bus windows, we stacked them upside down (so they won't fall open like they always used to do on the schoolbuses when it rained). We get an incredible view of the sunsets.
The bookshelf is hands down one of my favorite things I've come up with. We had it custom made-- it is the width of our cement walls, so it fits exactly in the door frame for the stairs. Then Daniel put wheels on the bottom and attached it to the wall with hinges. Behind it we store a ton of stuff, and the hinges make it super easy to access everything. Since it sits flush to the wall, it doesn't take up any space, either.
I have a collection of family wedding pictures, so the bookcase also functions as a family tree. Visitors love looking at the pictures. I think I want to do another family tree with baby pictures, it would be fun to see who looks like who.