Verda Delp: dylan

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Monday morning in Evanston

It's been snowing here in Evanston

Daytime temperature today 32 degrees

I am in Evanston visiting my sweet son Brandon and Stephanie and Skylar and Jordan and Dylan.

Here is a list of some of the things we did Saturday night and yesterday:

hugged hello when I arrived from the airport. The girls were hiding but their giggles helped me find them.
talked about everything: how much we missed each other and how happy we are to be together; shanan and goose and desiree, cody and maggie and so on.
read books after dinner: Frederick by Leo Lionni and the beginning of Spinky Sulks by Williian Steig.
made Valentines with a heart stamp and lots of curly letters and xoxox's. Skylar can spell just about every word she wrote and Jordan knows all the sounds of all the letters.
practiced addition and subtraction: Skylar and Jordan did worksheets I brought about adding on 0 and 1. jordan learned how to made a beautiful 8!
cleaned out the bookcase in Skylar and Jordan's room and chose books for reading tomorrow.
had dinner and read books

more later....

Friday, August 20, 2010

Just back from Evanston.

These sweet grand girls of mine, Jordan on the left and Skylar on the right, must have jumped from this ledge at Millennium Park in Chicago at least 25 times. Such simple joy for them and for me!

click on photo for larger image!

Here is a list of some of the simple and joyful things we [Skylar, Jordan, Dylan, Brandon, Stephanie and I] did together during my visit in Evanston:

held hands with S and J in the car on the way home from the airport while they told me stories about their daddy [S and J and B and me]
got to see [in person] and hear more about dear Stephanie's new and quite wonderful BrightBin lunch boxes [s and me and everyone]
shared Luna bars for breakfast [S and J and me]
watched Sesame Street [S and J and me]
went to Millennium Park in downtown Chicago where we had lunch [with BrightBin lunch boxes], played with blocks and hoola hoops, watched Jordan on stage juggling and watched Skylar get drenched under the waterfall with the man's face [S and J and B and me]
walked and rode bikes to the blue swing park a few blocks from home [S and J and B and D and S and me]
walked and rode bikes to the blue swing park a few blocks from home [J and me]
visited Skylar's school and played on the equipment --most especially the monkey bars [These two grand girls of mine are strong and determined athletes. [S and J and B and me]
went to library in Evanston [S and J and me]
taught me/ learned about insects and their legs and antenna at the library [S and J and me]
went to Peet's for muffins and coffee: there were no muffins left for us so we had giant oatmeal cookies instead
enjoyed watching my sweet son Brandon teach little Dylan and other children at the park about centipedes [S and J and B and D and S and me]
organized and used arts and crafts material I brought for S and J in their bedroom [S and J and me]
watched Skylar decorate the box of art supplies
watched Jordan wrap [via a home made envelop] a present for Shanan and me
read chapter 1 of The Trumpet Swan by E.B. White [S and J and me]
listened [with great amounts of joy] to Skylar read a book ["with an annoying mouse"on the cover, as she put it] to me.
[to be continued]

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Brandon's beautiful family

My dear son Brandon just sent me this photo of his beautiful family. [click on the photo to see a larger image!] Just so you know, these are my grand kiddos!

Skylar, Jordan, Stephanie and Dylan

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A Poem by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look  Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled  And paced upon the mountains overhead  And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Books I Like

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Cutting for Stone

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

A Reliable Wife

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society

The Housekeeper and the Professor

Olive Kitteridge

Little Bee

Tinkers

Plainsong

The Book Thief

Out Stealing Horses

One Man's Meat

The Sky Fisherman

Amy and Isabelle

To Kill a Mockingbird

Sweeping Up Glass

Gate at the Stairs

Half Broke Horses

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Motherless Brooklyn

My Dog Tulip

The Graveyard Book

Angle of Repose

Room

Reading My Father

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Brooklyn

The Tiger's Wife

The Samurai's Garden

Salvage the Bones

Vaclav and Lena

The Fault in Our Stars

Language of Flowers

A Month in the Country

House of Stone

Berlin Childhood around 1900

The Hare with the Amber Eyes

Canada

The Unusual Pilgrimage of Harold Frey

Eventide

The Tie That Binds

Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog

Shaggy Muses

Year of Wonders

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

The Sense of an Ending

Beautiful Ruins

The Orchardist

Great House

The Light Between Oceans

Man Walks into a Room

a land more kind than home

A poem by Raymond Carver


  
Happiness
So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
[Thank you, Elizabeth.]

Reflections on "White Rabbits"

For me, upon discoverment [which is giving language/words/understanding to observations about the self that have been hidden or are hiding], it is both the letting go and figuring out how to be without a white rabbit that is very very hard. It makes me have to be brave, to close my eyes to my fear [perhaps it should be open my eyes, but when I am afraid, I want to not see the danger] and forge ahead [with tiny and careful steps—here again made up of language/words/understanding]. Only to find [and know] that there is no one moment when a white rabbit is let go [forever] but rather replaced [and this replacement resides with a lasting fragility]. I do think [and know] that this is good.

[an excerpt from a note to friend.]

[Read: Oh Dear, Too Late for the White Rabbits by SIMON WINCHESTER]

A Poem by Mary Oliver

DREAMS

All night the dark buds of dreams open richly.

In the center of every petal is a letter, and you imagine

if you could only remember and string them all together they would spell the answer. It is a long night,

and not an easy one--you have so many branches, and there are diversions--birds that come and go,

the black fox that lies down to sleep beneath you, the moon staring with her bone-white eye.

Finally you have spent all the energy you can and you drag from the ground the muddy skirt of your roots

and leap awake with two or three syllables like water in your mouth and a sense

of loss--a memory not yet of a word, certainly not yet the answer--only how it feels

when deep in the tree all the locks click open, and the fire surges through the wood, and the blossoms blossom.