orchard house

On our trip to Boston we went to Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott. Louisa wrote Little Women, one of my favorite books as a young girl.

It was so amazing to see where she lived and hear stories from the guide about her life. My favorite part of the tour was seeing her desk by the window where she wrote her books. Very inspiring.

It's a great experience to see the home of someone you look up to, it makes them more real, and more normal. It cuts away at their idol status when you see that their life is not always too different from your own. They just ran with their ideas and dreams, something that is not always easy to do.

This side trip was definitely encouraging to me as I've been dreaming about stories again (and hoping to write that novel one day). I just need to sit down and write, write, write.

Seeing Orchard House the day after Thanksgiving reminded me that is time to break out my Little Women dvd. I don't know what it is about that film, but I absolutely love watching it at Christmas time.

I am very grateful to my husband Tim and brother Isaac for making it possible for me to see Louisa's house. My brother kindly drove us there and waited for us while we took the tour (he had already been on it), and Tim made sure I got to see and hear everything about Louisa (even though he hasn't read the book yet:-)

If you are ever in Concord, and you love Little Women, go see Orchard House. It's well worth the trip.

boston road trip playlist

I had big plans to blog on the road while we were on our road trip over Thanksgiving. But, life is not a slave to the blog (thankfully), and I didn't have the time. It was a very fun trip and we had a great time being with my family.

There are two things that I still want to post, despite their untimely fashion. The first one is our playlist... Tim and I must have listened to it 20 times or so on the trip. I'm not exaggerating. It was that good, at least we liked it anyway (a lot).

The 11 songs on this playlist we bought the night before we left, here they are:

1. The Water- Johnny Flynn with Laura Marling
2. Maps- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3. In These Arms- Swell Season
4. Home- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
5. Solitary Gun- Rogue Wave
6. The Suburbs- Arcade Fire
7. Little Lion Face- Seabear
8. My Shepherd- Neko Case
9. Lisztomania- Phoenix
10. High Horses- Swell Season
11. Until the Twilight- Franklin for Short

So that's it. We especially love "The Water." I don't know why we are not tired of that song yet, but it sure is great.

What songs (or albums) do you like to listen to on a road trip?

road trip-niagra falls, canada

On our trip to Buffalo, Tim and I took a jaunt across the border to see Niagra Falls. It was so sweet. It was pretty cool being in Canada, and the falls were amazing. It is one of those things you just have to see, I can't explain it... so I will leave you with these photographs.

top ten: buffalo road trip

My top ten favorite things about a road trip to Buffalo with the husband:

1. Unforced, quality conversation-time, if you don't have anything to say for an hour, no problem, still have eight hours to go.

2. Listening to music, especially picking out songs that fit the mood- just leaving joyful songs- moody moonlight songs- autumn leaf songs-etc.

3. Filling out a mad lib with words like squirrels, bologna, pants, boisterous, and chinchilla.

4. Stopping at a rest stop and discovering interesting, new things. For example, a woman shaving her armpits in the ladies bathroom. No joke.

5. Going to a Chik-Fil-A in Cleveland, finding it had the most leisurely, friendly, happy service at a fast food chain, ever. Delightful.

6. Laughing about many, many things. So many I can't remember them all.

7. Reminiscing about childhood, particularly what were our favorite things to do when we played outside and what cartoons we watched.

8. Planning our next road trip.

9. Admiring the beautiful, absolutely incredible autumn colors. The crimson, the orange, the gold, the green.

10. Being with my favorite person in the world for ten hours straight. Glorious.

And that was just the ride to Buffalo! More coming soon about our adventures in the city of wings.