up the hill

i'm embarrassed to say it-- before today, we had not been to the library here.

a fall day.  certainly not a summer day.  cool. not warm.  but cool.  not cold.  

it's not that we don't read.  it's just that we'd shipped a bunch of books over when we moved, including children's books, and haven't gotten through nearly all of them (with the exception of 90% of the children's books, which we've gotten through two hundred and thirty-seven times, on average).  it also seems that whenever we've been near the library as a family, it was a sunday, and closed.  however,  beginning today, and continuing through april, the library is open seven days a week.  then it's closed again on sundays when the weather is hypothetically such that you should be out absorbing your vitamin d.

but still green.  no fall colors yet.  

so what brought us to the library today?  a library book sale of english books.

but leaves.  more leaves on the ground, i'm noticing. 

if we have any hoarding tendencies, they manifest themselves in used books.

the sale was from 12-4.  right around lunchtime and henry's nap.  so we packed up a lunch and ate at the park, across from the library, before it opened at noon.

get in, when the pickings are still good.  get out, so that henry can sleep.

"mama, that tree branch looks like a bird." 

i have to say the sale was much smaller than i'd imagined.  about ten, four-foot long shelves, filled mostly with authors and titles i'd never heard of.  but of course, i'm in denmark, so a book sale of any english books is great.  i'm not complaining about ten, four-foot long shelves.

the deal was six books for 25 kroner-- four dollars and some change.  i got two joyce carol oates books (one novel, one of short stories), one from annie proulx, a michael chabon novel, and middlemarch, in two volumes, for greg (and maybe someday for me).

and we explored the children's section, learned how to check out books, and got two danish kids' books and one english.  there are not too many... maybe no real... kids' picture books in english at the library... probably because most danish kids don't also speak english, but there are maybe fifteen shelves of english big kid (young adult?) books... things like harry potter. we checked out a book of hans christian andersen fairytales.

later we went back to the co-housing community from yesterday in order to get a 'happy (yet frozen) chicken.' william was determined he could ride his bike there.  we were dubious because his bike is a little big for him and he has a difficult time getting on it without our help.  but after he did it six times in a row on the sidewalk outside, we decided he should give it a go.  and it worked.  getting up the initial hill that our house sits at the bottom of, was tough, and generally, he is over-confident about his ability to know when it is safe to 'go' and he's still very much working on riding in a straight line so as not to run us off the road or into the road, but he got there, and then tonight, got into his bed at the same time henry was going to bed, and rather promptly fell asleep.

happy sunday!  may you be as worn out from own accomplishments today as william!