Nostalgia Trips

Just in time for Halloween, one of my favorite childhood books suddenly appeared on Paperback Swap, so of course I snapped it up.

It’s Jane Emily by Patricia Clapp. Very creepy. The book arrived and I waved it in front of both of my children, neither of whom seemed remotely interested. I want to re-read it, but I’m a little scared that it won’t live up to my memory.

Meanwhile, out of the blue M was feeling crafty and made herself a miniature chest of drawers out of matchboxes. Which reminded me of another absolutely favorite from my childhood:

Dollhouse Magic by P.K. Roche. I lucked out with this one, because the Schenectady public library has a copy. I brought it home and J immediately set to work. Here are a few of her creations:

So cute! She’s having a good time. But we’re going through a lot of sponges.

On a related note, after years of resistance, I have caught up and embraced the skinny jeans now that the fashion trends have cast them aside and swung into 1970s nostalgia with bell-bottom flares.

As you know, I hate shopping. So I tend to bulk-buy the same items. My “uniform” is jeans and a print t-shirt. Unfortunately, when you buy all of your jeans simultaneously, they wear out almost simultaneously. It’s always a bummer when your jeans rip. But when your jeans rip and then you put on another pair of jeans and they rip and then you put on another pair of pants and they rip, well. . . it’s discouraging. So I put on my one pair of skinny jeans (which you’ve heard about), and I got multiple compliments. So I bit the bullet and went to Old Navy to scoop up some new ones and decided that I would go skinny. If I were smart, I would set one pair of the jeans aside for two weeks so that I don’t have another simultaneous rip-fest in my future. But I will not do that. Because rip-fests are a bummer, but laundry is more of a bummer. Which is why I also picked up an extra twenty or thirty pairs of socks for J.