How we do it

In response to Alison’s query as to ‘How you working married ladies do it,’ I began to type up a comment. Then it got too cumbersome and rambling for the comments, so I decided to move the thought to a post of its own.

How do we do it? Well, Amy evidently relies on the crock-pot for those long days away from the home fires. (And yes, Amy, I’ve been wishing for the comment feature on your site for a long while!) The cooking isn’t usually a problem, since I’ve established a pretty good repertoire of quick, easy meals that can be made up in a hurry. This includes stove-top recipes (soup, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, beef stroganoff, actually anything with rice or noodles and sauce, etc.) and fairly basic casseroles. Fortunately I usually get home before Michael (5:15 v. 5:30-5:45), so I have a good head start. On weekends I do more leisurely recipes, such as roast chicken or chili (which requires soaking and simmering the beans a while). I’m still making large portions, so at least once or twice a week we have leftovers from earlier in the week. We are both very fortunate not to be picky about eating leftovers – as far as I’m concerned, if it’s good today it should be good tomorrow too, and as for Michael, if ever I get apologetic about serving him something too soon (I like to have at least two days lapse before re-introducing the same item), he is quick to remind me that before he got married, he had ramen every day for supper. I usually pack leftovers for my lunch – quick, easy, and cheap. Michael doesn’t always have a microwave on his job sites, so I make him a lunch of sandwiches, cookies, crackers, and a hard-boiled egg or fruit. I usually make his lunch in the evening while he reads to me. Hmm. This last paragraph reads rather like a chatty, tell-all feature in Good Housekeeping.

As far as housework, I’ve actually found that I’ve become a better housekeeper since I started working. During the first weeks of our marriage I fell into a very easygoing routine, where I slept very late every morning, gradually got up, spent some time online, walked down to the mailbox to see whether the mail had come, checked email again, wrote a few thank-you notes, and maybe around three got dinner started. Then I’d realise around 5:00 that I hadn’t run any laundry, or had forgotten to sweep the kitchen floor. Somehow having the whole day stretch before me was too daunting a prospect for me to actually buckle myself down to getting anything started. I’ve always worked best under deadlines and pressure. Now, I can come home from work, get dinner started, dump a load of laundry into the washer, and sweep the kitchen floor before Michael comes home. Getting something done while my energy is high is actually a stress reliever for me and gives me a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, thus freeing me up to relax and enjoy the rest of my evening. (This is the complete opposite of Michael, who says that his method of relaxing after a long day is to actually relax, not to dash madly around the kitchen accomplishing things so he can daydream about relaxing in the near future.)

And as for shopping, I’ve simplified that substantially. There’s a cheap warehouse-type store about twenty minutes from home that I hit maybe once a month to stock up on the basics like flour, sugar, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. Then I just stop by the grocery store on my way home from work once or twice a week, depending on need. Our dairy needs fluctuate amazingly (surprisingly enough, in pretty close conjunction with the sales on milk).

Our lives are uncomplicated enough at this point to admit a great deal of flexibility. Although it’s still amazing to me how quickly the dust and dishes pile up with just the two of us, realistically – without toddlers spilling milk and cheerios on the floor on a daily basis – I have the freedom to let housework be a bit more of a haphazard proposition. For all that, working a full-time job is definitely more of a challenge when running a household. Some days the pace can feel exhausting, but I remember that this time has been given to us for a season, and I should savour it while I can. Some day my dream of quitting my job, sleeping in, and goofing off all day may come true, and how bored I’ll be then!

The main factor that allows this all to work is that Michael is very supportive of my working. For me, it’s not a matter of balancing work and home – my family life always comes first. I don’t work as late and tirelessly as I used to do when I was single, and in a sense I regret the fact that I feel like a less valuable employee, since I have less to give and can’t just effortlessly rise to the occasion when the occasion calls for it. But that’s why I chose to take a low-key job, where the pressure is not as high and I have the low stress that comes with a less glamourous job.

Well, there it is. As I said, rambling and cumbersome. I’d certainly be interested to hear how other working wives do/did it. Any ideas/thoughts/observations?

Stranded

Michael's truck is still in the shop, so we drove to work together again today. Now he is stuck in traffic and I am stuck at work. Amazingly enough, I am caught up on all my projects, and am sitting at my desk completely bored. I have checked my email and my friends' blogs, and there is nothing new under the sun. I am very, very, very bored. Especially because I know if I were at home I could:

1) Fix supper
2) Bake date bars
3) Run laundry
4) Sweep kitchen floor

All of which I have to do, and which I had planned to do tonight, but if it gets much darker and later (and when Michael picks me up, we still have to go back to the shop to get his truck, which is supposed to be ready now) I will just go home and bury my head in the sand.

Hmm. I must not be over the cold yet. Everything feels very grey.

En passant

Apparently Mt. St. Helens may explode again. This is very intriguing. The last time it exploded, I was 23 days old. I wonder how the new eruption will affect its profile; maybe even it out again? I seem to remember this being very big news in the early eighties, or perhaps we were just singularly aware of it because of our location in nearby Oregon and involvement in Creation seminars, which gave a lot of attention to the event. I remember, when very young, licking my ice cream cones into a smooth dome and saying things like, 'This is Mt. St. Helens before it erupted.' Then I'd bite a big chunk off the (north) side and say, 'Now this is Mt. St. Helens after it erupted!'

Now it seems that swords are forbidden in Australia. Somehow this reminds me of Sleeping Beauty's father banning all spinning wheels in the kingdom. What are they going to do with all metal weapons, melt them down? Export them?

I was reading the Sunday paper and saw that Kohl's had a sale on jewelry, most notably diamond earrings. There was a pair of 1-carat diamond earrings for $600. This set me thinking. An enterprising pair of young men could buy this pair, spending only $300 each for a 1-carat diamond, which is the main expense of a diamond ring: you can buy the band and claw for relatively little. Now, I'm not fond of diamonds, but wouldn't that be a clever and inexpensive way to give your fianceé a 1-carat diamond for, oh, maybe $400 total? I thought it was a very clever scheme. Michael pointed out that earring diamonds may not be the quality required for an engagement ring. Oh, well. It's a moot point for us anyway.

So far Michael does not like our friend Johnny too well. 'He's an arrogant, bossy, know-it-all - and now I'm supposed to feel sorry for him just because he had an accident? No way! I'm not going to be manipulated like that!' I'm trying to remember how I felt about Johnny the first time I read the book. I think I disliked him at first, too. That's what I love about the book - how the characters develop and grow. I remember learning in literature class a few years ago that if a character changes through the course of a story, he is three-dimensional; if he stays the same, he is two-dimensional. I disagreed strongly with this, pointing out that a flamboyant, effusive, or otherwise interesting character can stay in the same character all throughout, but does that necessarily make him two-dimensional? On the contrary, such a character could be much more interesting than a boring person who changes throughout the course of the story and morphs into another boring personality. Think of Tristan Farnon in James Herriott's books. Does he ever change? But is he two-dimensional? Ha! Much of what we learned in that class was hocus-pocus. Well, anyway, that was a bit of a digression, but the point is that, granting that definition, the characters in Johnny Tremaine are certainly three-dimensional.

Muth'thard! Let'th not be thilly!

It dawned on me this morning as we drove to work (Michael's truck is still in the shop, so he dropped me off - very sweet of him, as, though my work is sort of on the way to his, my work starts half an hour earlier) that I'd left out the mustard and mayonnaise packets in his lunchbox. So far I've left out the bread slices, the cookies, the spoon, the napkin, and the water bottle. About the only thing I haven't forgotten is the little note, and that's only because I scribble it during my own lunch break the day before. I'm still feeling remorseful over this one. Cold cut and cheese sandwiches are supposed to be the high point of the week! This is the best lunch on the menu, and I spoiled it by leaving off the condiments. Bother. At least Anne of Green Gables cheered Marilla up by the observation that she never made the same mistake twice, so eventually she would learn better and outgrow her mistakes. I seem to have no problem going right along and making the same mistakes over and over again.

Home of the Braves

It was a busy but fun weekend. On Friday we headed out to a marriage retreat with our young marrieds class at church. Getting there was something of a trick, with Friday traffic and ongoing construction on I-85 southbound. We both dashed off from work, our itinerary complicated by the fact that Michael had to drop his truck off at the shop for a tire rotation. I ended up running home, throwing things into a weekend bag (you’d think I would have thought ahead to pack beforehand!), not even bothering to change, and heading down to the shop to rendezvous with Michael. We drove downtown to the conference site, getting there only half an hour after registration ended and exactly as dinner began. (As Merry said to Frodo in Rivendell, ‘You have shown your usual cleverness by getting up just in time for a meal.’) It was a great retreat. I love retreats: the good food, the fellowship, the (usually) luxurious accommodations, the sessions, the breakout activities, the relaxing downtime. This was my first marriage retreat, and it was simply marvelous. I’ve missed the annual Blue Ridge Women’s retreat. This reminded me a bit of that. But if I were going to the Women’s retreat, I’d have to leave Michael behind. So this was even better.

After the final session on Saturday afternoon, we dashed back north and congregated in the parking lot at my work, to ride the chartered bus to the ball game. Practically my whole office was there. It was great fun. We had great seats on the lower level (and it was the only time, of all the three Braves games I’ve attended, that I’ve sat below the upper deck skyline) right along the third baseline, in a perfect set-up for foul balls if any had come our way. It ended up being a low-hitting game (we won 1-0), with no one making it past first base except for the one home run, so it went by quickly. It was great fun going with a large group. Several people bought peanuts, and they passed them around liberally, and we cracked the shells and dropped the husks on the ground. There was one point at which the catcher dropped the ball, and it rolled away, and in all the scramble and confusion I thought there was plenty of time for the runner to make it to first base, if he’d been on the alert and ready to run. But Michael said he was only allowed to make a run for it on the third strike. Very odd. When we won, they shot off fireworks from the stadium. I love going to Braves games!

Mounds of rotten steak

Recently I stumbled across a new word that described perfectly a grammatical situation of which I'd been aware for some time but which I had no idea had a word to describe it: Hypallage. This happens when an adjective is incorrectly applied to the object instead of the subject of a sentence (or maybe the other way around), often deliberately for rhetorical or dramatic impact, but also unintentionally from sloppy speech. P.G. Wodehouse was a master of the deliberate use, as in 'I dabbled a reluctant toe in the water.' This delightful discovery of a whole word to describe a concept which bears proper attention in its own right reminded me of another situation that has its own word to describe it, only I can't remember the word, and I'd be much obliged to the helpful soul who can point it out to me. It's the Mad Gabs scenario, when a certain phrase is mistaken for something completely different because the syllables sound enough alike. For instance, Michael says that for years he couldn't figure out why the Beach Boys were singing about mounds of rotten steak (Monserrat mystique). What is this word? It's driving me mad.

And by the way, BlogSpot's spellcheck has a VERY limited vocabulary.

Put up thy sword into thy sheath

Having grown up on the King James Version, I’ve always thought it was the most beautiful, poetic, and lyrical version of the Bible. I still love to read it and savour the rich language and profound expressions. Michael also grew up reading the King James version, which is nice as all the verses we memorised are King James so we can recite the ones we know together. But for many years he has read the New American Standard (or maybe just the American Standard) in his personal reading. We’ve been reading through the New Testament together, and recently came to the end and began again. This time I decided to read it in the New American Standard (or perhaps the American Standard) version too. It’s been very insightful and eye-opening. I still have a tendency to breeze through the parts I know and put the words automatically in place (as I read through the second chapter of Luke I was mentally saying, ‘And it came to pass, in those days, that there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus…along with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child…and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger…’) but the more I read, the more fascinated I am with how greatly my perspective is altered just by making the words fresh and new. Yesterday I read Luke’s account of the upper room. Now, I’ve read the New Testament however many times before in my life, and I never noticed this: Jesus is talking to His disciples about the times to come, and they say, ‘Look, here are two swords.’ And He said, ‘It is enough.’ How random is that?? They actually had two swords with them in the upper room! And I never noticed it before! (Well, obviously, at least we know Peter had a sword on him later on in the garden.)

We are now reading Johnny Tremaine together. We’ve actually just read the first chapter. But Michael says he likes it. I love that book – it has the best chapter titles: The Pride of Your Power…An Earth of Brass…The Scarlet Deluge…Salt-Water Tea….I love the story of Boston in revolt. I love Mr. Banks’ priceless commentary on it toward the end of Mary Poppins, recounting the history of the last time a loan was defaulted and there was a run on the bank: ‘While it was lying in Boston harbour, several of the Americans, dressed as red Indians, behaved very badly and dumped the tea into the harbour…this made the tea quite undrinkable, sir – even for Americans.’

Equinox

Hurrah, it's the First Day of Fall, and in just over a month we'll get to sleep in for an extra hour! The grass is growing more slowly now, allowing us to go for at least two weeks between mowings, but the crickets are as healthy as ever. Last night they were going at it full blast all night long, right outside our bedroom window. I just tuned them out, but Michael said they kept him awake. 'What kind of creatures would sit outside our bedroom window and rub their legs together all night long? Why can't they just get a life?'

Kreative Kooking

Recently I baked a new recipe unearthed in a magazine, mainly because I had all four of the ingredients on hand and no ideas. It was called something like Bruchetta Chicken Bake, and consisted of tomatoes, chicken, cheese, and a pack of stuffing mix (don't ask me where this last one materialised from. It just appeared in our pantry one night). It smelled very good, I thought, for being such an Instant Meal.

Michael: What's in this casserole?
Me (defensively): What's wrong with it? Doesn't it taste good?
Michael: Oh, yes, it's delicious. I was just wondering whether you had saved some ground-up eggshells and added those.

Ha, ha. Apparently I have established quite a reputation for culinary efficiency. This is because I never throw out bread crusts, but instead freeze them in the optimistic hope that they will turn out to be useful one day, perhaps ground up as crumbs and baked with butter on top of a casserole. Bread crusts and black bananas can always reincarnate fairly well.

In 'ampshire, 'artford, and 'arrisford...

Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot
Whatever the weather, we'll weather the weather
Whether we like it or not.

It's very wet and windy here. As if getting our power knocked out last week wasn't enough, it looks like we're in for it tonight and tomorrow. What strikes me about this whole cloud cover thing is how dark it is. Brrr. I just want to curl up and hibernate for a week.

Love story

There's some discussion afoot (http://www.carrotduchy.blogspot.com/ - I can't figure out how to link directly to the specific post, so depending on the Queen's verbosity you may need to dig a bit) about the advisability of writing up Our Story for the edification of one's friends and the general populace. This is a delicate proposition, because in theory the tale of How We Met should always be a good story, like all brides are beautiful and all babies are adorable. A Romance should always make a good story. But in actual fact, the dangers flanking such a telling are many and dire indeed. First, there's the matter of sappiness. Now, sappiness per se isn't bad, provided it's done right and comes off sweet and endearing rather than smug or saccharine. Sappiness done wrong (overdone or otherwise) is pretty harmless in its own right because it can be a lot of fun to parody. The trouble is that it's already an overdone genre due to the spate of courtship testimonials hitting the radar beginning in the mid- to late-nineties, when the first generation of homeschoolers grew up, fell in love, and got married (or perhaps we should reverse those last two steps). The trouble with the majority of these is not their sappiness content but their sincerity factor, which makes it impossible to parody in good fun. You can't really make fun of these people's evident desire to share God's blessing in their lives. So you just cringe at their judgment in baring every last detail and swear, 'When my time comes, I will never go off the deep end like that!' And when your time comes, it is the most exciting thing in the world and sure enough does make a great story. So the dilemma is how to canvass it abroad without sounding smug ('Here's how it worked for us. Now we're the happiest people in the world and you're not.') or boring ('He's the most wonderful person in the world and I'm so lucky and we're both so happy and isn't life just wonderful...*happy sigh*') or pious ('But it was evident that God was at work behind the scenes, despite the anxiety occasioned by Prince Character not calling my father within 24 hours of my praying for a husband, which was the fleece I had asked for....') This, I suppose, is the essential question before us now. How does one navigate these difficulties? What criteria should be the Reasonable and Rational Person's Guide to Relating Tales of Romance in the First Person?

Oh, bother!

I suddenly remembered that our computer at home is broken. Michael told me last night that the internet doesn't work and several of the more important applications are likewise beyond reach. This is a real drag, because it means I can't enter any more receipts into Microsoft Money. For the last two months we've been very good about tracking our finances, and it's so satisfying to click on the pie chart and create an instantaneous report of Where The Money Goes and ascertain that our tithe is indeed where it should be in relation to the whole pie, and we've been amazingly faithful about keeping up with the records...but I just know a little thing like this will throw all my good habits out of whirl. The receipts will pile up, and I'll stuff them into an envelope, and when the computer is fixed I'll probably just decide to start from that day forward. Also it means that Michael is going to have to spend the next several evenings working on it. As I said before, Bother. And buther, too.

Requiems spurned

Over the weekend we played a game of Scrabble. A few months ago we went through a real Scrabble kick and were playing practically every night, but it had been awhile, and it was good to be back. There was one point at which I got onto a string of bad luck and had not a single vowel. Of course I was too determined to win to risk losing a turn by exchanging all my letters, so I limped along for a good three turns with six-point words, helplessly plugging the consonants in wherever they could do the most good. It was a satisfying game, though, because both Michael and I got a chance to go all out in one turn. His big word spanned a triple word score; mine didn't, which he apologised for at first (he blocked me with his latches), but I didn't mind because my q landed on a double letter score and then the whole thing got a double word score, which means that my q got counted four times! You can't beat that!

Oh, miserable wretch that I am!

This is one of those Apostle Paul days, where I say things like 'The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together,' and 'Who shall be able to deliver me from this body of sin and death?' Blah. I hate colds. Usually I can bounce right back, but this has been one of those miserable long drawn-out affairs that started with sneezes and watery eyes on Friday and is still lingering today. I think the last time I was this sick was soon after I met Michael, and I remember penning the thought, 'It is evident that not even Intrigue is proof against the hardships of life.' Alas, True Love has solved most of my problems but has been unable to address the mortality issue.

You know you're grown up when...

This morning some of the women in the office were passing around a forwarded email. There was much laughter and snickering, and when it came to me, I read a list of 'You know you're grown up when...' which included such examples as 'You go from "I'll never drink that much beer again" to "I just can't drink the way I used to,' 'All the plants in your house are actually alive - and they're non-smoking,' and 'You're awake at 5 a.m. because that's when you set your alarm, not because that's when you stagger into your room and pass out.' 'So true,' was a commonly repeated phrase as the email changed hands. Well, that put me in a bit of a dilemma. As I read it, I kept thinking, 'Well, none of these apply to me!' By this standard, I'm not a grown-up, and not because I'm still doing the stuff on the list, either. (Kind of a 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?' paradox.) But I sensed keenly my inability to express any of this without sounding snobby or aloof. In the end, when I handed it off and the laughing recipient asked, 'Isn't that too funny?' I merely smiled. It reminded me of the desperate need for discernment between when to speak up and when to keep silence. Ten years ago, my courageous stand-alone self would have been more than happy to spout off virtuous sentiments espousing shock and horror at the sad state of the rest of the world while enjoying the solitary status of lonely martyrdom. Later I might have questioned whether I should speak up, simply from the personal testimony angle, so as to encourage and uplift others and provide an alternate perspective to those who might be wavering. I'm all for leadership and courage and inspiring others by example. But I realised, nothing is really at stake here, and there is nothing to be gained by making other people feel bad at my expense. So I smiled and held my tongue. And thought, You know you're grown up when you know when to shut up.

Where did that come from??

I have the oddest dreams sometimes, and I generally remember all my dreams pretty vividly. Michael never remembers his dreams, so I get to monopolise our morning conversations. 'What did you dream about last night?' 'I can't remember.' 'Oh. Well, anyway, listen to this...'

This is the second night in a row that I dreamed about Kevin and Amy, and I think it's because I have their blog bookmarked, since they have such a tidy directory of all the other blogs I like to read too, so theirs is the one I read the most. Two nights ago I dreamed I was answering phones at HSLDA, and got a call for Nathan Richmond. Duh, I thought, Nathan Richmond doesn't work here anymore. When Kevin and Amy got back from lunch I gave the message to them, but I was laughing so hard I couldn't even explain why I was giving the message to them instead of Nathan's replacement. Maybe I thought Kevin and Nathan were still living in the Hall's basement. I still want to laugh when I think of my dream-self thinking so clearly, Duh, Nathan Richmond doesn't work here anymore. Duh! Neither do Kevin, Amy, or Rose!

Then last night Amy invited me over to help her pick tomatoes. Their new house had a wonderful garden but it had gotten away from the previous owner and was pretty weedy, and there was a huge tomato patch with tons of tomatoes. I showed Amy how to make fried green tomatoes, and I remember explaining to her matter-of-factly, 'Oh, that's just one of the things you learn to do when you live in the South.' How random is that?

Home is the sailor, home from sea

Had a fabulous weekend camping. We flew in Saturday afternoon in time for supper; played Clue and Dutch Blitz all weekend; went canoeing and sailing; sat down with Oma and Cheryl to try to plan next spring's Holland trip; and enjoyed a wonderful square dance and ice cream social on Sunday night. The food was pretty good, for camp food, and there was plenty of it.

We had great fun reminiscing about Michael's first visit to Camp Letts, two years ago. There was the time, during the square dance, when a little kid came up and Michael started playing with him, and I remarked to him, 'That's not one of my brothers, so you don't have to suck up to him.' Or the time it was raining, and we walked back from the dining hall with one umbrella, and Michael gallantly held it over me while getting drenched himself. Ah, fond memories indeed! Michael even remarked that in the time he's been coming to Camp Letts, he can notice significant differences, such as erosion of the beach on the Island and skylights in the cabins.


Things turned dire on the return trip. Our flight back to Atlanta was delayed due to weather, and we sat at the gate in Dulles airport for several hours, exactly as we did over a month ago after Carrie's wedding, only then we had Ron and Catherine to hang out with. At least we had brought along books, and read several chapters. We were right next to the gate for a flight leaving for Copenhagen, and talked to a friendly couple from Sweden, who had spent the last two weeks in Miami buying a boat. As the man explained, to buy the same boat in Sweden would cost three times as much, so why not use the money to take a vacation while they were at it, pick out a much less expensive American boat, and ship it back?

Yesterday we felt the outer reaches of the hurricane. It rained torrentially all night and all day, and the electricity was off at the office when I came in. Today has been a bit more moderate, but it's still raining. Much more of this and I expect the roof to start leaking.

Gonna soak up the sun

Or what there is of it. We're heading north tomorrow morning to join my family for our annual Labor Day camp-out. There are cabins with running water and meals three times a day, so it's pretty civilised, although the water (showers, drinking water, etc.) is pretty strong on sulphur.

This was the venue wherein Michael first met my family, two years ago. Three weeks after we met, he flew up into unknown territory, to get better acquainted with a girl he'd seen for one evening, meet her entire extended family and relations, join in on the yearly family reunion, and share a cabin with her father and five younger brothers. Quite the gauntlet, indeed. Next time around (Memorial Day 2003) things were much jollier, as we were engaged by that point. Next time after that (Labor Day 2003) we were married.

I can't believe that, save for the fact that we're flying into Dulles tomorrow and leaving from there on Monday, we won't even be setting foot in Virginia. I still get excited when I see a Virginia license plate on the road.

?Comment dit-on?

Which means something in French, I think, only I don't know what. What I do need to know is how to change the formatting for the comment field. It would be so nice if I could make it something nice, like Times New Roman, instead of the horrid scratchy-looking font. I tried looking around under Settings and Template but didn't stumble across anything that looked promising. Bother.

An intriguing idea

The Queen of Carrots (http://www.carrotduchy.blogspot.com/) has favoured me with an interview. Here is a new game, and being a game involving questions and conversations ('And what,' thought Alice, 'is the use of a book without any pictures or conversations?'), the concept is absolutely irresistible. (The premise is that I am supposed to perpetuate the chain by offering to pose five more questions to any takers on my site, but I'm skipping that step.) Anyway, below are her questions and my replies:

1. How did you find this blog? ;-)
An easy one to start with! I clicked on the link from Kevin & Amy's blog. 'Any friend of Miss Woodhouse...'

2. If you could make everyone on earth read and fully appreciate one work of fiction, what would it be? Why?
This is tricky, because there are far too many unread and under-appreciated books that the world collectively would be so improved by reading! But I think I'll settle upon Pride & Prejudice. Embraced as a romance novel by too many women and dismissed as a girly book by too many men, it is rather a true classic well worth the read: a comedy of manners, a very well-drawn period piece, and a sound moral tale. Aside from the improvement to one's vocabulary inherent to reading such a book, one's mind must be elevated by the notion of people acting with decorum and decency, saying polite and civilised things with wit and refinement, and behaving as they ought, not necessarily as they may want (or else suffering the consequences). But sadly, many people are not open to new ideas, such as brother-in-law Eric, who's a perfectly splendid person in many respects but is determined to disparage Jane Austen's works sight unseen, along with Anne of Green Gables ('I'd rather stick pencils in my eyeballs!') Michael, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to be introduced to new wonders, and so Pride & Prejudice is one of the books I read aloud to him on our honeymoon (along with Scaramouche, The Prisoner of Zenda, and Beau Geste), and now he likes it every bit as much as I do, to the point of feebly protesting last month when Amanda asked to borrow out A&E DVD: 'But what if they break it or lose it? You know, it's time for us to watch it again already.'

3. Before you lies a wand with the power to solve any problem you might have in the future. Do you a) Take it and use it often; b) take it but use it only in very rare instances or not at all; or c) destroy it? Why?
Ah, an obscure hypothetical! Probably b), because I would like the ability to solve seemingly insurmountable problems but I would be cautious about allowing myself to become too dependent upon an easy cop-out for exigent circumstances. Basically it would be nice to have a surefire back-up plan up my sleeve without allowing myself to become slack and begin relying on magic to solve all my problems. I would probably let one person in on the secret to hold me accountable to moderation, lest I get careless and lazy and start falling back on my fall-back plan once too often. I don't think I would destroy it because that would be such a waste. Nor would I use it often because relying on magic too regularly can be dangerous. It always makes you a stronger, more creative, more confident person to rely on your own resources, as evidenced by the fairies' determination to give up magic in Sleeping Beauty. Doing something the hard way will make you appreciate it all the more and open your eyes to a whole new world that otherwise you might take for granted. (From the cake-baking scene: '' "1 tsp...." What's a tisp?') Also, the idea of relying on magic too much brings to mind the sobering story of the Magic Thread in The Book of Virtue, about a little boy who can make time go faster by pulling on a thread and ends up throwing his whole life away because he kept getting impatient at the hard parts.

4. What one thing would you most like to do that you haven't yet done, and what is the main obstacle that stands in the way of you doing it?
I'd love to tour Europe - primarily England - for a month - preferably a year - with Michael. The main obstacle, of course, is time and money. Fortunately this is a self-curing problem: someday, we will both have enough of both, and so it's just a matter of waiting until it happens.

5. List three things that are within your sight as you sit at the computer.
1) First and foremost, the picture of Michael and me at the Lisk's party last summer. Janice snapped it on the spur of the moment and it turned out to be one of the best shots of us together. It's a sunny day, I'm wearing my pearls, and we're both wearing green and looking so happy. Definitely one of my favourites.
2) My bottle of water. I'm on a must-drink-more-water kick right now and am making every effort to get my eight full cups a day in.
3) The telephone. This is exciting because any call could come through at any time; there's an element of the unexpected and the thrill of the unknown in hearing the ring. Michael will probably call at least once, and that will brighten my day.

Dear me, what fun that is! It reminds me a bit of career/life planning classes in college, penning imaginary hypotheticals and exploring ideas and possibilities. I think everyone should go to the Queen's website and play this game.