all consuming bovine

i've been out to pasture.  i know you'll understand why it's been slim pickins around here.  but me and the cows, we had to come to a meeting of the minds. 

after seven gut wrenching days {you can have those on the ranch} i stumbled into my kitchen to find this amazing stack of mail on the table.  it was not my birthday.  i'm certain it was just a sign from God reminding me that things were starting to look up.  you don't know why these things happen.  you just go with it.

the sweetest letter from japan.  with tons of candy for the boys.  and i kid you not.  these packages are sometimes like a science experiment.  with unreadable directions.  amazing and terrifying all in one box.  but lovely just the same.  and so much appreciated.  {thanks, la!}

the anthropologie catalogue.  enough said.

and something i won on the great monday give courtesy of vintage kids' books my kid loves.  i have to tell you this about once a year if not more.  burgin streetman, formerly known as the scribbler, is my hero.  she's a writer, and a mother, and a book lover.  my hero.  on her blog, i won the book frog went a-courtin'.  she says that it's random luck and the blind point and scroll method that lands me a favorite every now and then.  but when i opened that package i knew otherwise...she just gets my heart.  my dad used to know about one song, and one song only on his guitar.  frog went a-courtin'.  and as i read the first page of the book burgin sent me...the story about the story, i knew even more that this was hand picked for my family.  sadly for my boys they have not been around a lot of quality singers in their life.  but they have insisted that i not read but SING the book to them.  and honestly that's the jist of this tale.  nearly 400 years of parents and grandparents singing the words to their children.  so this silly little song about a frog and his mouse will endure another generation.  amen.  but that's not all.  there was a bird book.  an autographed peter spier.  and a sendak.  there's no doubt about it.  luck had nothing to do with the bounty i received.  {thank you so much, b!}

my sweet pea heads off to first grade this week.  i don't quite have the words for that yet.  except that he is amazing to me in every way.  and this is neither here nor there, but we have been watching one episode a day of the original batman series from 1966.  huh-larry-us!  BLAM!  POW!  THWACK!