A Blog With A View

I admire a lot of edu- and personal blogs out there, and I've admired Poppins' blog for a long, long time. Okay, maybe Poppins intimidates me with her astonishing will and resourcefulness to try new things - constantly, and with ever-increasing momentum, until the new things become new projects, new skills, new ways of life. I think we started knitting around the same time (she beat me by a few months, and it must have been pure zeitgeist that I tried it at all; I had no idea Poppins was doing it as I had dropped off her blog for a bit). She was running around the same time I was doing my morning runs in the park. Then she started the secular homeschooling community site. No surprise that in typical Poppins fashion, I now plunk myself on her blog and see "Triathlete training log" thingy that she has created for her husband in her own watercolors (Flickrized) and in special font, no less (a little 70s nostalgia in the font?), a few more knitted duds with technical level up to THERE, and the kids are now sporting home sewn duds in fabrics too cool to find in a store, and they are climbing entire mountains (or something). Somehow, amidst all the fun, I figure she manages to feed her kids, and not the Dunkin' Donuts variety of food. AND -- and this is the big AND, because it's sort of "the proof is in the pudding" that she enjoys doing what she does -- Poppins looks great. Her whole family looks great. Nay, Poppins family is the hotness.

Like, mercy.

I don't wish to mention the sorts of projects I intend to attack with Poppins-like vigor (let's be honest and call it "Maitresse-like" vigor, because "Poppins-like" is a marathon, and I'm a sprinter...but darnit, my 5 seconds of doing whatever can yield pretty darn good results!). Let's just say the manuscript is on the desk, with edits, and this is looking pretty good to me right now. Plus, the other night while I was sitting in The Bitter End with a friend, I heard there's a big bluegrass contingent in Connecticut. Zeitgeist?

Also reading Poppins blog, it reminds me of how unnecessary living with the kid problems mentioned here should be. If Poppins suddenly was given a 500-American million-dollar check that didn't bounce, I think her crew would be doing the same things they are doing now. Only picking out more stashes of fabric, yarn, and traveling to more places to do their watercolors, and finding more projects to do. In the snow, and out. Still, the kids would know how to clean up after themselves and make their beds.

I could be wrong, but it's on a good hunch that I would be right.