Snapshots from a random Thursday:

1) All the kids at this morning's toddler story time received a copy of Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse as part of Pennsylvania's One Book, Every Young Child program. Despite recent debunking of the theory that book ownership on the part of the very young results in increased literacy in later years (somewhat raining on the parade of organizations such as First Book) I am charmed by this and look forward to reading this very sweet story to my kids for years to come.

You know, taking a look just now at the First Book website I'm thinking that literacy isn't really the point. I admit I could be wrong about this, but this book lover is seeing something totally different than what some would have me believe. Does distributing books to at-risk and/or low-income children increase literacy rates? Does distributing books to at-risk and/or low-income children make economic sense? I won't pretend to know, but then I don't much care, either. I grew up with the gift of shelf after shelf of books in a family that consumes the written word at a furious pace. Why not share the love?

2) The farmer who leases the fields around our house is doing something today in the plowing/tilling/fertilizing department, giving our environment that "hey, we've live on a farm!" smell which is by turns romantic and nose-wrinkling. Kind of cool for this city-girl-at-heart.

3) I was just informed that there is a plot in the community garden available for me! Wait, let me add more exclamation points to that: !!!!!! Because I was late getting in contact with the gentleman who organizes the garden (turns out he lives next door-ish to us, but I didn't know that until last week) it appeared I'd have to be on the waiting list for next year.

In theory, I have a lot of space to garden outside the community garden's gates. In reality, though, there are many mature trees surrounding the house and I swear we live in the deer capital of Pennsylvania. We actually see more deer here than we did in rural Virginia, and that's saying something. So....yay! We'll have lettuce and radishes after all. Not to mention beans, squash and tomatoes. And right outside our front door, too.

4) You may have heard that April is Use What You Have Month. Although created by and intended for crafters, I think there are a lot of areas where I could stand to do a little more using what I have and a little less acquiring of more stuff with which to do nothing. In other words, I already own every shade of embroidery floss available. I think I should actually make something instead of buying more just to have. I also don't need: canning jars, cookbooks, writing paper, sealing wax, terra cotta flower pots, seeds, measuring cups, tea cups, little glass marbly things or food coloring pastes. I love these things, adore them even. I just don't need anymore and this month am resolved to use what I have.