happy birthday to...

...Nevada! One hundred and forty five today!

Pic and I have been doing a small bit of learning about this thirty-sixth state, known as Battleborn. We've been reading S is for Silver: A Nevada Alphabet, which I love. I think we'll be trying to add this book to our library (once buying new books is in the budget). Actually, I'd like all the books in this series so far -- not all of the states have yet been covered, and I think I saw a Canada book also.

This book has a quatrain on each page, focusing on a letter of the alphabet and a Nevada-related noun. A = animal (bighorn sheep, our state animal). S = sagebrush (our state flower). V = Virginia City (home of the Comstock Lode). The illustrations are also nice. On the sides of the pages are a couple of paragraphs pertaining to each topic. For this year, Pic and I just focused on the pictures and the quatrains. When she's a bit more ready for it, we'll also read the side information. We did read about Virginia City today. When she's ready to move past that, we can do some more thorough research, using the information presented in the book.

I had big plans for Halloween/harvestime/Nevada Day this year, and most of them were cut back. I had planned out all of these pumpkin patches and harvest festivals we could visit, but we ended up only visiting one. It was great and perfect for Pic. I was thinking we might go trick-or-treating both yesterday and today, but we ended up only going today. I had been planning on us going to Carson for the parade today, but we didn't make it out. I'm okay with that.

Yesterday, we did manage to get in an impromptu trip to the above-mentioned Virginia City. We drove past the more modern parts of it to get downtown. We haven't been in a while, but I love to go. I love to read the historical markers, look at the buildings, walk on the boardwalk sidewalks and imagine what life might have been like when Virginia City was born in 1860. While I really try not to idealize the time (I'm sure that I can't even imagine the hardships of life then and there), I do like to think about the history, about what this part of Nevada was founded on.

So, now, I've rambled on and on. I'll share more on this night of the living dead later, except to say that pretty much as soon as we got home, Cardo pretty much passed out asleep in bed and Pic has also been asleep for quite a while now.

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Before I go, of course, I have one more item of clutter needing to move out of my home. I bought this at Costco quite some time ago, and even wore it quite a few times, although it isn't at all my style.



We now have four bags in Cardo's trunk waiting to be dropped off at Goodwill tomorrow. I'll be starting a new bag and hunting out new treasures to add to the outflow.