Our ongoing saga of encouraging Mikus' literacy continues...  he is now reading, slowly, but unfortunately all of the Latvian children's books that are Mikus' reading level are about bunnies, and pussy cats, and various other domestic and forest animals.  Which I love, by the way.  But Mikus wants to be BIG.  He wants to read cool stuff, like his brother does.  Fighting and dragons and pirates and boys own adventure stuff.  I remember there were cool series of beginner reader books when I was learning to read in Oz - like the series about the pirates of different colours. Remember them?  But Latvia doesn't have anything like that...

One way I am trying to make things more interesting on the reading front, is commissioning books for Mikus. The boys' friend, G, is a budding author, who has started to write a series of graphic novels about the Black Ninja (mainly because his mother, the hard taskmaster, refuses to give him pocket money for nothing.  She said he has to learn to work for his money!) This seemed like a great idea for me - I thought I'd take advantage of the child labour and pay G to write for Mikus.

So yesterday we went down to the great new cafe open in our neighbourhood to meet G and his mum, and the first "early readers" version of "The Black Ninja" changed hands.  It is perfect - in terms of illustration, interest level, and language, and Mikus has almost finished reading it.  Quite inspiring, too - after poring over G's series of graphic novels, the boys came home from the cafe and spent OVER AN HOUR writing, drawing, and making their own books.  The silence was deafening.

So here's to young authors, and black ninjas, and original literature, and spending way too much money on fancy cakes at groovy cafes :)

I know it's an urban myth - that Inuits have hundreds of words to describe different types of snow. But it's one of those myths that I love. I totally get why you would think so. Especially as someone who hasn't grown up with snow, I have been amazed that there are so many different kinds of snow, depending on the outside temp and general weather conditions. Different types that do different thngs.
There's that fine icing sugar that swirls downwards when its super cold:  "silver rain", the stuff of Latvian folklore legend, which sparkles and shines and twinkles as it falls. There's those big fat flakes, with the classic crystalline structure . Each flake is unique: you can stand and study their infinite, individual beauty as they briefly rest on your coat before melting.  Then there are icy little pellets that probably don't count as snow but more as frozen rain; and many other types.
But the best, the very best snow is the kind that fell today. Sticky snow. Because contrary to popular representations in American cartoons, not all snow is good for snowman building and snowball fights. Much of the time its too cold and powdery, and won't stick together. But not today. Oh no! Just ask Mikus, or me. Today the temperature climbed to around zero, and conditions were perfect for snowmen, igloos, snowball fights, snow tunnels...

It always seems to me that other people have more hours than I do.  I have no idea where mine go, but other people seem to have things like Lazy Sundays.  Weekends where they stay home and potter about, knit, arrange their handmade cushions on the couch, have afternoon naps,  and hang around with their kids watching old movies.
I only do that kind of thing when we go to the country - minus the cushions, and the knitting.  Mainly because in the country there is no possibility there to do any other chores, no list of friends I haven't seen for ages, no home renos or freelance work lurking on my desktop.
But this weekend, I actually worked really hard to make it a lazy weekend in Riga.  I ignored phone calls, I rejected invitations, and stifled the urge in myself to invite people to our place, I pretended the freelance work had all been finished.  Total lazy weekend.  Well ok, we went to the local craft/farmer's market yesterday, and bought marmalade made from the superfruit - Sea Buckthorn berries.  Yep, you heard it right.  Sea Buckthorn berries are a whole post in themselves :)


Another thing, the most important part of a weekend that I'm suspecting was not quite as lazy as it seems - I went and voted in the referendum about making Russian a second state language.  70% of all eligible voters got motivated and trudged over the ice to the ballot boxes, and in our calmly, orderly, dispassionately Latvian way, voted to maintain and protect our small and precious culture and language from big bullying outside influences.  But I better not get started!  Plenty of stuff on the internet about the referendum by people much cleverer than me...



And we had family come over today - but that was a treat, and not much effort.  A wonderful visit from the newest member of our family.  It snowing outside, and the whole world is white, the little flakes have been swirling by in great drifts past the windows.  Hot cups of coffee, and banana bread.  The snow caps on the fence posts growing, and growing.



On Friday night I actually managed to finish a book I started ages ago - a tome snaffled from my grandmother's bookshelf - Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.  Quite an amazing read, when you consider it was written in 1931 - and if you have every seen any movies like the Matrix, or Gattaca or such.  Highly recommended.


Another thing I did yesterday - and I need you to keep me to the following promise, dear reader - was to dash into the local op shop, which was having one of its "everything for 1 Lat" sales again.  Of course, I came home with way more stuff than I need, or want. Stupidest thing I got was a lemon yellow machine-knitted cotton cardigan, which I couldn't leave behind because it was almost new, soft as anything and comfy.  But seriously - LEMON YELLOW?  Of course, I've got a theory which totally justifies the purchase - I'm going to dye the cardigan, not with commercial chemical dyes (oh no, can't make it simple and practical, can we?). I'm going to use onion skins and see what happens.  Because if my theory works, the cardigan will be just the colour for my mismatched earthy wardrobe. I'm blogging the decision so that I can't back down now.  I expect y'all to be asking me about the finished product. If it's not better than the current jumper, I'll eat my hat.  Or maybe those onion skins...

The best way to spend a day off school because of the super duper cold...

I know Canadians and Siberians would scoff at this post - but holy HELL, it's cold in LV at the moment!  It's so cold that even the locals are talkin' about it - it's one of the main stories in our daily newspaper every day this week.  Last night when we went to bed, our thermometers told us it was approaching -28 degrees celsius (that's about - 18 degrees farenheit).  It's been so freezing that the boys got two days off school last week. Mind you, I think the rule about primary school kids not having to go to school if it's under minus 20 was invented for those poor country kids who have to walk 3 kms to school.  Not the spoilt city kids who go from a heated house to a heated car to a heated school.  In my book, the boys should TOTALLY have been at school every day last week - but I just couldn't let them down when they were excitedly jumping around in their pyjamas because the thermometer said they were getting a day off...  could you?  Don't you remember the days in Brisbane (if you grew up there, that is) when you wished for the thermometer to hit +40 degrees so you could get a day off school?  I can't remember if I it ever happened.  But I certainly remember wishing, hoping, dreaming that it would.
So last week I left the kids all toasty at home and braved the walk to work.  In this cold your nose hairs snap freeze everytime you breathe in.  Your face  has pins and needles from the freezing air, and after a 10 minutes or so, the tips of your toes and nose start to get sharp, searing pains.  Or at least that's what it's like for me.  The cold is all pervading, and although our new house is well insulated, the sub-zero winds (dare I call them - evil Latvian draughts) seem to find their way in through random cracks and tiny un-insulated portions of wall.  As a result, I no longer have any water in my kitchen or laundry taps - the pipes are full of ice, as they are for many other home owners around the country.  Lucky the loos still work :)  Power lines for trolley buses are snapping, in Vilnius the central heating central burst last week. Our wood pellet heating system is chewing through the pellets, and even so, our indoor temperature would not be more than +16 or 17 degrees. Great temp for museum objects, not so comfortable for humans.
On a lighter note, cold days like this always come with no cloud cover and bright sunlight on white, snowy terrain.  Ice flowers on windows and clear, crisp, crunchy outdoor dashes - to the car, to the shop, back home again.  Friends of ours are going on a quick trip to Italy, leaving tonight, and are looking forward to "winter" Italian style - can't help wishing it were me.  Instead we get to babysit their dog until they get back, and I am under strict instructions to take it for a walk twice a day.  HA!!!  Poor pooch will have to make peace with one quick - VERY quick - trot around the local park occasionally...