Have been awake since a bit after 5:00 due to the wind and rain. It also woke me up earlier in the night and I had to smile as Steve immediately got up and went to leave Sophie in. He won't admit he worries about her, but he does. :-) I was so intent on reading while Steve was getting ready for work I didn't even realize he was in the bedroom until he flipped the lights off and teased me that it wasn't noon yet. I have been known to sleep in really late, but not that late!

I should have known it was going to rain as I had my car washed yesterday. It was covered with bugs from the last trip back from Greenville. But, we really needed the rain. Steve mowed yesterday when he got home from work. I was out on the back porch window shopping yard ornaments/furniture in a catalog and chatting with Earl, our elderly neighbor. He was giving me advice on what to plant as the soil has lots of clay in it and the area between our houses tends to get the rain runoff. I was teasing Earl I was going to look for swamp plants to put there. And that reminded me of picking what we called cow-slips in the marshy area near my Gramma's house. They had pretty yellow flowers. And Dad taking me for walks to find the long stemmed wild violets that grew in patches. They were the most gorgeous purple. And the wild lady slippers that grew on the 40 acres my Dad owned. They were a beautiful orchid color or a pink and sometimes a white. They were so special they made me want to whisper. We never picked them - the joy was in finding them and just smiling at their wild beauty. I spent a lot of time in that 40 acres of woods with my family as they cut wood from for our furnace, Mom's kitchen wood stove, and the sauna stove. I grew up with the smell of wood smoke. Perhaps that is why I prefer having a gas fireplace!

I read Geraldine McCaughrean's Cyrano yesterday. At 114 pages it is a quick read, but a delight, starting with the attention getting cover with Cyrano's nose right in the center. A wonderful way to introduce this French play by Edmond Rosand, written in 1897 and still popular today and brought to screen many times, even a modern version with Steve Martin as Cyrano. McCaughrean stays true to the plot of the play while bringing Cyrano and Roxane to life for today's teens. Such a touching love story. Flavor of the Week by Tucker Shaw is a modern version of Cyrano, with a chubby teen cooking for his best friend as he woes the girl that the future chef loves. Both would appeal to girls without a doubt, but if booktalked from the male perspective, these could both appeal to teenage guys as well. FYI - it is due to Rosand's play that we now use the word panache to mean more than a feather in your hat. :-)

Now to finish up the summer reading lists for Montessori. My body may happily be in Kentucky but a part of me is still back in that tiny library on St. Thomas. I loved it when the teens came in and went back to their small section of the library and I could booktalk with them. :-)