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barns, part deux

I posted awhile ago about my friend Stephen coming up for a visit and going out for a drive in the country to take pictures of barns. Well, this is the second half of those pictures. I won't go on about it in text (as I usually do) because I'm really crunching towards a deadline this weekend and should be spending my evening (and the next one, and the one after that) at my sewing machine. But I didn't want to leave you with nothing, so I'm going to do what I don't usually and make this a mostly picture-full, text-less post. Though you can see how hard that is for me. Because I'm still writing. No, tonight the pictures have to do that talking for me so I can go back to cutting and pinning and cussing about how I always leave things to the last minute. ahem.

Enjoy this little barn. I drive by it every time I visit my parent's place and it always draws my eye. It just feels like I needs a story somehow. So now you can look at these pictures, and make your own story to go with it. 

First five photographs by me, and the last three are by Stephen Altena (obviously, as I am in them). Thanks again Stephen!

 

grandchildren update

Today I'm feeling like I just need to do a good old fasioned 'look at the kids being cute' mommy-blog post. Because I don't want GranGran and Oma to go into withdrawal. So with that in mind, I pulled out the camera this afternoon, post nap, and took a few pictures. 

This was the only good picture I got of the Little Dude. I'm telling you, that kid had a day today! I'm not sure exactly what had gotten into him, but he was pretty much constantly in motion, from at least noon on. And most of the motion was spinning. Or running. And if he wasn't moving, he was at least making a loud noise. At one point, when I was trying to soothe a crying baby (he'd fallen down and was not pleased about it) I turned to L.D. and said "Would you please stop being so loud." "But I want to be loud." he deadpanned. I had nothing to say to that and he went back to whacking a train track against the table leg. Anyhow, in this particular picture he'd just come in from outdoors with a lovely pile of sticks to play with. First he was holding them up to his head as antlers, which was adorable, but when I tried to take a picture he would have none of it. Just wanted to spin from then on, trailing twigs and bark bits everywhere. Which I spent the rest of the day fishing out of the Baby's mouth.

The Baby was much calmer, and happy to sit and read a book. I love this face he gets. I call it his 'mulling things over' face. We also refer to it as 'little old man mouth'.

This is the face he gets when he realizes you've got a camera in your hands and is determined to get it. The "I'm comin' for you" face. 

And of course, there's always a toothy grin. (note L.D. continuing to spin in the background)

And get a load of this:

Yep. He can totally climb up on the little child-sized chairs himself. So great to see him accomplishing things, and yet, now I have to put away all those cute little death-traps. We have at least four of them, and the doll bed and the ottoman might have to go as well.  Pretty pleased with himself about it as you can see. Oh, and what I don't have pictures of is that he totally fell off that chair. Don't worry, I lunged and caught him; it was a slow fall. He was scared though and cried a bit, but that did not deter him from trying to climb right back up on that chair again. As my friend Laura says, "so much for a self-preservation impulse."

And on a completely unrelated note (except that it is about the kids being cute) today the Little Dude was improvising a song, which went like this:

"ooooh, at night, when peole are tucked safely in their beds when the ducks and the sloths come out...."

Awesome. 

 

care bears

Look what I dug out of some boxes in the back of the garage. You see, the Little Dude has this little purple Care Bear, Share Bear I believe it is, that a friend of mine gave to him when he was born, back in Montreal. Recently he pulled it out of the back of a cupboard and has become quiet enamoured of it. So yesterday we were talking about what to get for The Baby for his birthday, and L.D. suggested a Care Bear. So we went online to see what other Care Bears there were, and I could not find anywhere where you can buy them new. Apparently they have a TV show, so I'm astounded that there is not accompanying merchandise. But what I did notice was that people were selling vintage Care Bears. "Hm," I thought to myself "I know I've got a few of those kicking around in the back of the garage." So after everyone was tucked in bed I did a little digging and found six of these little plush lovelies just dying to be played with again. That is, after they all had a good wash and spent the night drying by the fire.  Friend Bear and Tender Heart Bear

You may wonder why I had so many Care Bears as a kid. Well, half of these are my brother's, and half are mine. And therefore I decided to call him up and ask him if it was ok to let the boys play with his old toys. (I wanted to avoid the great Space Lego debacle of 1999. Don't ask.) Lotsa Heart Elephant and Swift Heart Rabbit

So I get him on the phone and say, "Hey, remember your old Care Bears?" and he's all like "oh, TenderHeart, Swift Heart Rabbit and Baby Tugs?" And I was all like "Wow, I'm so impressed you know all their names, I can barely remember the names of my own, and he says "you mean, Friend Bear, Baby Hugs and Lotsa Heart Elephant?" And I was all like "DUDE, your long term memory is RIDICULOUS!" Baby Tugs and Baby Hugs

As a side note, if you are his girlfriend and you are reading this, he has no reason EVER to forget your birthday or anniversary. If he can remember the names of his toys from the 80's, he should be able to remember when you started dating. Just sayin'.   So here I am (on the far right) at some point in the mid 80's officiating at the wedding of two of my favourite Teddy Bears. Please note that I am reading the actual form for marriage out of the back of the old Psalter Hymnal. If I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. Also, see how early I was a proponent of women in church office? Some things never change. Anyhow, my point is that there are all the Care Bears (or most of them) in the audience in the living room wedding chapel. And how sweet are my mom and sister, patiently humoring me as they sit through the whole thing no doubt. 

Anyhow, early in the morning today, when it was just me and the Baby up, we went downstairs and after taking these pictures put away all but two of them. I'll save the other four for various rainy days when the Little Dude is in need of a surprise. No need to flood the market as it were.     It also appears that the Baby has made his choice. I think he might get Baby Tugs as a re-gift from his Uncle Lemur Boy at his first birthday.

I waited until after breakfast to give Friend Bear and TenderHeart to L.D. And he was absolutely delighted with them. Along with his little purple bear, they are obviously a family as far as he's concerned.  He sat them all down together, re-united at last.

Then they got sat upon chairs...

...tucked into beds...

...and perched onto ladders. 

And just generally loved up. Though the clear winner by the end of the day is Tenderheart Bear. L.D. has declared that the Baby may have Friend Bear (a clear sign of disfavour) though as I tucked him into bed tonight I noticed that all Care Bears were present and accounted for. Its so funny and nice to see him playing with something that I played with once. Kind of lovely. And I have to say they must have been pretty well made because they washed up like a dream and are as soft and cuddly as ever. 

Special thanks to Uncle Lemur Boy, my little brother, for being so generous with his toys. He always was a good sharer. And it warms my heart to see another little boy loving that little brown bear. 

calm

This doesn't happen often during my day. Two quiet, still, calm little boys enjoying their picture books, side by side. Its a sight to warm a mother's heart, I tell you. Rare are these moments. And when they do occur, you treasure it. You nurture it. You grab the camera and take a picture to prove that it actually happened. And then you go and try to get something done while the quiet lasts. By some miracle, this actually happened in the half-hour before dinner. And of course, it didn't last too long, but it was very nice while it did. I managed to got a lot of my dinner prep done for once without having to say things like "Your little brother is playing happily, can you please leave him alone." or "no, that's his, toy, he had it first, why don't you go play with one of your toys." or "no, no, that's dangerous, please leave the garbage can alone." or the ever popular "get that out of your mouth!"
I'm not saying they never play quietly. They do sometimes, but its often a bit more high-energy than this. And if one of them is happily absorbed in some activity, its not unusual that the other is tearing the book case apart. Though for the baby, that does qualify as quiet activity, and I've purposely filled the bottom shelves of the bookcase with his boardbooks, just so he can have the pleasure of removing each and every last one of them. We call him our "little de-shelver" or "the baby marauder". It often keeps him happy and occupied for all of the time it takes me to prep lunch.

And speaking of food, look at the awesome little grocery list I found at the store today.  Have I mentioned that I collect discarded grocery lists? There's something about them that I just love. The handwriting, the crossing out, the weird paper people use sometimes. I love that this one is tiny. 

Also, here's what's on the other side. Um, is it just me or does item number four say 'But Mush'? I hope that's short for something. Buttered Mushrooms? Butternut Squash Mush? Whatever it is, they appear to have found it. Phew. 

Merry Christmas to me!

I did a little last minute, pre-Christmas thrift shopping that I have to show you, because I got a couple of really nice things. The V.V. was having a 50% off day for card members (yes, I have a Value Village Super Saver club card. Don't judge) but I told myself that I was only going to buy things that were awesome, not just fun, or cool. Things that I'd actually use, or were really special. Also, I was not even allowing myself to go into the book section. And I did three major edits of my cart, including leaving a few items behind at the cash, so I managed to reign myself in. I have to keep telling myself, we're going to have to move again someday, and put all this stuff into boxes and carry it downstairs and up stairs and put it all into a truck and then unpack it all, and it had better be worth it, right?

So, here are a few things that are worth it.

Adorable little girls vintage dress. Tags still on. Awesome. 

Probably from the 70's, so not that old, but still, it will look nice on my wall with all the other vintage little girls dresses. You know, when I get around to putting them up on the wall of my studio some day. 

A couple of men's shirts for cutting up and sewing with. The Baby needs a couple more droolers. Also, you should have seen how many shirts I had in my cart, but I narrowed it down to just these two because they are really iconic plaids, the epitome of men's plaid shirt-y-ness. In fact, I tried to talk Hubs into wearing them, but the black one was the wrong size and he was having none of the red one. "maybe as a costume" he says to me. Meh.

This is another little vintage kids item, though not as old as the dress probably. I just love the simple stripes, and the slimness of the cut. I have a similar little t-shirt that a friend got for me at a thrift shop when I was expecting the Little Dude. He wore it all the time, and the Baby wears it now, (he's wearing it in this post) and its one of my favourite clothing items for him. I just really like the fit on these slightly older things. They have to be from the 70's though, because kids clothes from the 80's (especially toddler and baby clothes) are really horrid and boxy in their fit, which I don't like the look of at all. I haven't tried this on L.D. yet, but when I do I'll be sure to take a picture and post it. 

But the best score of the day is what I'm calling my Christmas present to myself. Feast your eyes on this.  LOOK at that; a good sized quilt for our bed, at last! I've got such big plans for a quilt that, one day, I will make myself for our bed. But you know how it is, I've got several sketches, lots of swatches, and no foreseeable chunk of time in the near future when I will actually get around to making it. It'll probably be something I finally get around to for our twentieth anniversary or some such thing. But in the mean time, we really, really needed a proper quilt for our bed (we used to have a sweet little twin quilt laid sideways across the bed that did not fit it at all, but we were making do with just the same) and so, the universe sent me a quilt for Christmas.

I have to tell you, I almost left it behind on the rack because at first glance, all folded up, I wasn't that impressed. The colours were not unusual or inspiring and it did not look particularly vintage. But upon reflection, I decided to unfold it and look at the full item, and the simplicity of the traditional pattern, done up in simple solids it makes such a great visual impact that I decided it was coming home with me. 

What really got me of course is that it is hand stitched. A hand-quilted quilt (do you have any idea how time consuming that is?) and its on the rack at the V.V. for $12.99! Which made me sad for the person who made it, but then again, happy for me, because it was half price day, so I got a hand made quilt for $6.49. Ridiculous!

Although, I have to say that its not the most well made quilt I've ever seen. The binding is really weird and wonky, with no batting in it and seems to have been added as an afterthought, just kind of haphazardly whip-stitched in place. Very strange. But on the other hand, this means that since its not someone's masterpiece, I can just use it, and not be too precious about it; not worrying if the baby spits up all over it or if it gets worn a bit. Also, it withstood washing and drying very well (my Mom kindly took it home and washed it in her large capacity washer and dryer, so it did not get a wrung about as it would in my tiny little apartment sized washing machine. Thanks Mom!) Though I really should not be too critical of this quilt. The patchwork is an eight pointed star pattern made of diamonds, which is something I have yet to attempt. Working with diamonds is much harder than squares or triangles, as the sides of the diamonds, since cut on the bias, tend to stretch making piecing very difficult. Also, it was set on the diagonal in a Union Square set pattern, with an unpieced block alternating which is what gives it such a great negative/positive flow.

And look what else the unknown maker of this quilt did. There is no signature or date, but there is this one tiny little bit of embroidery. Which is find is very interesting in an otherwise very plain quilt. I imagine that this was her signature, which is really a very lovely idea. Perhaps there are other butterfly embellished quilts floating around out there, being rescued from thrift stores by other handwork loving sentimentalists.

And no matter what I put on top of the bed, look who takes every opportunity he can to crawl under it. Its so funny, whenever I put him down on the ground in the bedroom, he heads straight under the bed. And it is filthy under there; herds of dust rhinos gathering between the boxes of summer clothes and winter blankets. He always comes out looking like a baby swiffer. But he is always so pleased to be under there playing peek-a-boo that I don't have the heart to haul him out too soon. Plus, he pretty much does the dusting for me, so I can't complain. 

frost and axes

The whole world was glazed with frost this morning. It was so ridiculously beautiful that even though I was still groggy from the 'awake at night with the sick kids hangover' I still managed to pull on some boots and a coat, abandon Hubs to deal with the little people's breakfast on his own, and stumble outside to take some pictures.

 And I'm so glad that I did. I know these are not the most amazing pictures of frost in the world. A quick google search will surely turn up better, but there is so much pleasure for me in taking the pictures, that the final image almost doesn't matter.

Just the action of looking through the lens, the way it focuses you down on one tiny object, or single leaf is such a great process. Especially for a Type A freak like me, who is just so busy hurrying and accomplishing her way through life that she sometimes forgets to stop and be amazed by something as simple as frost. 

Note the poor little fly, frozen so beautifully to this cattail. 

Frost turns the whole world into jewelry.

I could take pictures of these things all day.

Its hard to believe that they are not from another planet sometimes.

It was such a gorgeous time, just before the sun came up over the valley to melt it all away. I finally went inside when my hands were too cold to press the shutter button. And it was lovely to step back into the warmth of a room filled with the smell of oatmeal and messy bed head and wriggly little bodies all finished their breakfast and in a hurry to get on with their day too. (I don't think I'm the only Type A person who lives here)

And now on to axes. The Little Dude has requested one for his hallowe'en costume (more on that tomorrow of course) so that he can go "CHOP!" as he puts it. So during nap, Hubs went out to the garage and performed his magic with wood and saws and made the most beautiful little axe. Which he made the crucial mistake of presenting to the Little Dude the moment he woke up from the aforementioned nap. Somedays L.D. hops out of bed with a smile and somedays he does not. And today was a NOT day. He was surly. And cranky. And constantly on the verge of tears. And severely in need of a cuddle and a snack. And not at all impressed with the axe. The axe got completely rejected, and it is very unlikely that he will carry it tomorrow night as part of his costume. (We should have just left it laying around, so that L.D. could discover it on his own, and think it was his idea. Then we might have had a chance.) Ah, toddlers. 

Luckily, we now have two children, and one's loss is the other's gain. The Baby could not have been more pleased with the axe had he whittled it out of a block of wood with his own three teeth.  One of the cutest things about his current state of baby physicality is his tendency to brandish things.

If he is excited or pleased about anything, from asparagus to socks, it gets hoisted aloft and waved around with glee.

Which is particularly cute when that thing is a small axe. Oh the trees he will fell!

One of the particularly funny aspects of this photo is the sea of plastic crap he is surrounded by. I do hate the plastic, and yet, it encroaches upon us like vermin. 

A terribly blurry picture, but it still has such a great sense to it, you can just feel his joy in the axe. At least someone likes it. 

Oh, and I'm making the Baby a hat to wear when we go trick or treating tomorrow. Ten bucks says that it will suffer the same fate as the axe, in that I'll bet he won't wear it. Who knows, maybe L.D. will take a shine to it. Though I'm probably not that lucky. 

Happy Hallowe'en preparations to all of you.

baby hat

The Baby got a new lid the other day.

Its a loaner from his big brudda. I know, I know, 'baby in hat being cute' is not exactly a very creative blog post, but as the saying goes "It works on so many levels!" (Bonus to you if you know which long running tv show that quote is from.)

Either way, he was no shortage of fun to watch in this hat, as he could not figure out how it had gotten on his head, nor how to get it off.   He knew something was up there. He could feel it. He could sort of see it, but every time he looked up to try and get a better idea of what the heck was up there, it would slip out of his view. It was pretty hilarious to watch him craning his head back to see what was on it. 

Yep, still there. He turned it this way and that and finally...

...get it off of his head....

...and set about examining it in the way he likes best. Nom. 

And now a short digression about the above photos. I'm going to wax rhapsodical about Someday, here. You know, the Someday in which we will own our own home, be really well rested, have a good stable income and lots of free time. I don't know if that Someday will ever arrive, but if it does, I swear the first thing I will do is DECORATE. You know, as in make conscious decisions based on our personal taste about all the aesthetic choices regarding the environment we live in. (I know that other people do this because I read blog post like this one that make me want to weep at the beauty of their spaces. I want a studio like this SO MUCH. Also look at anything in the mer mag blog, for example this post; pictures of her kids playing, but everything is beautiful. No crappy backgrounds anywhere. It makes me despair a bit, but also gives me hope because she has two boys and seems to manage to have a beautiful house. So I know it can be done.) Because whenever I take photos around the house I am constantly in despair about how bad the backgrounds look. There are several reasons for this.

a) we don't have a lot of income these days. Don't get me wrong, we live in Canada and as such have a great standard of living, lots to eat, plenty to wear, warmth and light and high speed cable hook-up etc. So I'm not complaining. We are blessed and all our most important needs are met. But we don't really have a budget for decor that goes beyond the basics. By which I mean to say we get a lot of our stuff second hand. Which I don't knock; I love second hand stuff. Its good for the environment and you can find awesome stuff sometimes. But sometimes we get stuff that we didn't really choose, if you know what I mean. Like a kind relative offers a bookcase to us, and you know, we need a bookcase, (to store all my sewing supplies and fabric in) so we take it. Even though it is not to our taste at all. Can't look a gift horse in the mouth yada, yada, yada. But someday I hope to have the budget to make, well, choices instead of just taking whatever is offered. Another example is that the photos above make me crazy for the fact that that baby in them is ensconced in his bouncer/excersaucer/ activity center. Aka "The ugliest piece of crap every designed by humankind" or as a friend of mine calls it "The Circle Of Neglect". har har. The Dutch blogger Nina, of Ninainvorm talks very eloquently about the ugliness of baby gyms here, and I basically agree with her. Except that we needed one, because it keeps the baby out of trouble and away from the poking fingers and overzealous love of his brother. And also, it was free. Hubs literally found it by the side of the road. It looks not very old and we cleaned the daylights out of it, and now it sits, proud and nearly aggressive in its ugliness in the kitchen. I hate it but I need it. Is there any such thing as a wooden one? My only consolation is that this one is old enough that its probably done the worst of its plastic-y off-gassing in its original owner's home.

b. We are renters. In fact, we rent from my parents and live in their old house, aka, the house I grew up in. Which is great. Because its a great house. More room than we've ever had. Surrounded by beautiful country side, yet close to a grocery store. And the biggest selling point by far; only minutes away from my parent's current house. And that proximity is worth more  than rubies, my friends. The downside however is, we don't really feel like making the investment both time-wise and financially to change things, since we don't know how long we'll be here. So we live amongst my parent's decorating choices. And I think its fair to say that we have different tastes. They made good quality, well executed decisions that don't exactly ring our bells, as the saying goes. Also the result is a weird design mash-up where we have furniture (ours) that to a certain extent clashes with the wallpaper, window treatments and flooring choices (theirs) in a way that is almost comic at times. Like our black leather sofa with the blue shag carpeting. Though I tell you what, on the upside, shag is the way to go with a baby who is just learning to sit up by himself. Also, it hardly shows any dirt at all, and is very comfy, big selling points when you spend almost all day on the floor. 

c. I'm a little bit lazy/busy and not very organized. That is to say that often there are piles of things to be found in my house. Piles of dirty laundry. Piles of clean laundry. Piles of paper. Piles of magazines. Piles of library books. Piles of fabric waiting to be made into something. Piles of paper to be filed and organized and dealt with. Piles, pile, PILES! I like to tell myself that one day, when the boys are a little bigger I'll have more time and my home will be lovely and clean and organized and any time I whip out my camera to document a special moment, I'll have a nice, tasteful background all ready to go, and won't have to take a moment to move the kids/ myself so that the background to their cuteness is not full of dirty dishtowels and socks waiting to make their way to the laundry room. 

Don't even get me started on the laundry room. 

eeeeuuuuwww

As Karen pointed out in the comments the other day, sometimes ugly is so ugly its pretty. And decay can be quite beautiful, or if not beautiful, at least fascinating. For example,look at what's happened to those puffballs.  No longer those pristine, white otherworldly globes, blooming from the forest floor. They are now in their full on putrid decay sporifying, er, glory. 

They don't normally get all torn up like this, but the Little Dude and Hubs had to poke at them with sticks. Ah, boys, they just can't leave a gross thing alone. 

Here's a less torn up view. Its quite amazing how many different textures and patterns and shades of brown and green and yellow are going on in this one organism.

The interior looks like a cross between old styrofoam and that last piece of sponge toffee that lingers at the bottom of your bag of Hallowe'en candy well into November. I'm quite torn about the fact that I want to know what the texture of this thing feels like, but at the same time am not at all eager to touch it. I don't really have the opportunity to anyhow, because whenever I see them I'm out for a walk with a little person who needs to hold my hand or a little person who needs to be carried, and so its not practical to get all spoored up. 

And not quite as gross, but still can be catergorized under the heading of 'compost' is the remainder of the Baby's lunch the other day.   Thats a still life composed of the remnants of a sweet potato, asparagus, egg yolks and watermelon. And really, it was quite beautiful, the way the colours blended and the sort of luminosity that the yellow of the yolks brought out in the pink of the watermelon. 

Ah, beauty is where you find it right. And if all this leave you scratching your head, just be glad that I did not take and post a picture of the Baby's perfect little poops floating in the toilet. Yep, after a bit of a stall with the ECing we are back at it with the great success of almost all poops happening in the actual grown up toilet. Just a simple flush and we are done. I can't tell you how happy I am about this. And if you are not a parent, its hard to explain to you how great it is to almost never have to clean smooshed up feces out of the back of your baby's shirt. Suffice it to say that its awesome. 

Hunh, I just reread that and there is a lot more fecal content in the post than I intended and I have half a mind to edit it out, but whatever; I blog about my kids and if there wasn't a little reference to crap now and again it'd just be ingenuine. 

an infestation

Do you notice anything odd in this picture?

How about this one? Look closely. Well, I tell you what you don't see. Those aren't stray volleyballs forgotten on the edge of the lawn. 

They are puffballs! The crazy, otherworldly, giant mushroom. I know that nature is generally kind of incredible and awe inspiring, but you know how it is, you get used to the area that you live in and are not really impressed by the things you see around you all the time. But then you go somewhere else and are amazed by the most mundane things, only because they are not familiar to you. I always have this with visitors from BC, who get excited to see our common Blue Jays, whereas we get all impressed when we are in BC and see Stellar Jays. Its relative rarity in action. 

But I am always, always impressed by puffballs. Even though we see them every year. They just seem so... alien somehow, so unusually large.  Here's the Little Dude's hand, to give you an idea of scale. And these were two of the smaller ones. The others are even bigger. 

We had dinner guests drive in from Toronto last night, and we had to drag them out in the back yard to see the puffballs. And then we picked one and brought it inside to dissect and wonder at. And even fry up and eat. Our guests humored us and went ahead and had some too. They are quite edible. But as with any mushroom or fungus, do be cautious and look at a good guide to make sure you have an actual puffball. Though they really are the most distinctive mushroom, and I'm not worried at all about eating them because they could hardly be confused with anything else. There is really only one, giant, globular, white, un-gilled and unstemmed mushroom and that is the puffball. But really, go look here if you are concerned.   The Little Dude really likes to go and visit these, if for no other reason than that he is allowed to smack them like they are drums. They make a very pleasing thump. They are nature's nerf ball. There are so many of them that we're definitely going to let at least one go to spore and then go and throw it onto the road just to see it go "PUFF!" just like we did when we were kids. 

We ate a couple of slices of one today too, fried it up and then folded the whole giant slice into an omelet with some cheese. It was quite good. They aren't overly flavourful; mostly they just taste like what you cook them in (butter!) and the texture of the omelet and the mushroom was oddly similar. But still, I always like to eat something I've had no hand in growing and foraged for myself. Makes me feel like a pioneer. But without all the hardship and never ending manual labour. So in a good way. 

another reason why I love my husband

Because he was 'cleaning up' his studio the other day, and I noticed this, as he was getting organized:

Hm, broken doll house table, clock, headphones, china music box and toy trailer.

All slated for repair. I don't know what exactly it is about his little handwritten notes, but they make my heart swell. That he took the time to write the dot-dot-dot at the end of this phrase is what I love the most. The way the directive sort of peters out, that kind of sums him up. Like he has big plans to repair these... but he's not quite sure when that's gonna happen.... dot, dot, dot. So perfect. So him. 

I also love that he uses shallow fruit box lids, picked up from the local grocery store, as a sorting mechanism for all the detritus of his life. They are like in-box, out-box trays, but more capacious. Proving that he's not only a pack rat, but also thrifty. Check, and check. 

ps: the music box plays 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head' and was one of my greatest treasures when I was little. The Little Dude also loves it, and that's how it got broken. But as I now know, it will get fixed... someday.