Things I Learned in October
October is blazing into November and that means it is time to look back at a few quirky things I learned this month.
1. I am fond of embroidered pumpkins.
"Peanut" pumpkins are from France, so called because their skin is covered in what looks like unshelled peanuts. These peanut growths are actually sugars leeching out through their skin. If only I could be so sweet.
The French call these salmon beauties "brode galeaux d'Eysines" after a tiny town in southern France. The literal translation is "embroidered with warts from Eysines".
They caught my eye because of their weird mushroomy texture and squat shape like Cinderella's coach. I was on the hunt for two fairy tale pumpkins to fill the urns standing guard at my front door and these said hello. Besides, they made me think of something my Mama used to say, "they're so ugly, they're cute". I made several friends coming out of Trader Joe's with these little sweeties.
2. The Grand Canyon is the size of the state of Delaware.
Mike and Kyle took a road trip from Oregon to Texas to see Mike's mama. Thanks to the Beautiful Cull, they took their sweet time hitting a dozen Q'doba's along the way. On the way down, they saw Mount Rushmore and on their way back, they stopped at the Grand Canyon. It was a first visit to both places for father and son.
Kyle called me from the road that day and said, "Mom, did you know the Grand Canyon is the size of the state of Delaware?"
I can't tell you all that happened between these two, I am not sure they even know yet. But I can confirm that the stones do cry out in the canyon.
In fact, they sing.
3. I am in love with the library, all over again.
When my whippersnappers were all over the house, we made regular trips to the library. Sometimes for story time, sometimes for school work and mostly for each one to come home with a stack of books for the month. Just to keep up with the due dates & keep the fines down, we each checked out 10 books.
Fifty books paraded into the car, into the house, under the bed, back to the car and hopefully back to the library. You cannot believe all of the places we finally found books.
Now that the whippersnappers are mostly out of the house, I recently got a new library card all my own. You can imagine, I went kinda crazy.
Y'all, you can check out 80 books at once! Yikes.
I could not carry them all out. Here are just ten.
There you have it. Beautiful things I learned in October.