Friday's Fave Five (on Saturday)

 OK, so it's Saturday. Friday did not go as planned, with issues involving snow, cancelling planned travel to see my sister and nieces, and a bumper now hanging loosely off the side of my car. I think it's been a good week to look back on even the small things for which to be thankful, as is the theme of Friday's Fave Five hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Hot Chocolate with Friends

This past week's activity as part of the "you can't beat it, might as well join it"/"embrace winter" project in the face of our snow and cold this year was crosscountry skiing at one of the local parks. The six-year-old and I went with a couple of my friends. I'm thankful for the friends as well, because they were able to help/encourage the six-year-old while I tried to get up hills and/or get up after falling down. They could also occasionally lift the six-year-old after she fell down.

I think the both of us need to really improve our skills before we can be thankful for the cross-country skiing ourselves, but the apres-ski hot chocolate treats sold in the park's visitor center, and the time spent with friends sipping said hot chocolate and letting the bunches of snow from our falls melt off our outerwear in front of the fireplace in their gathering room is something to be thankful for.

2. My Dental Hygienist

I had a routine dentist appointment this week. I actually look forward to these appointments, ever since I had to have a lot of dental work done during pregnancy and really bonded with this hygienist, who was expecting at the same time. Her son is about three months older than my daughter, so over the years, I have not only gotten dental care, I've gotten parenting advice about stages that lay ahead -- back when that three months made more of a difference -- and now, same-stage parenting stories, commiseration, sharing, bragging and bonding.

3. My Kitchen Apron

A few years ago, I bought an apron at a "handmade in Iowa" place while we were there on one of our Christmas travels to see family. It's blue jeans overalls that have been turned into an apron, and trimmed with a band around the bottom of the skirt, the tie band and a couple of patches made from fabric featuring bright pink tulips combined with fabric with a black background and white polka dots. Tulips are my favorite flower, I love polka dots, and I also really like the casual look of denim. The apron has a cheery look and is fun to wear; this week, I donned it to make zucchini basil muffins.

4. Hymns at Lenten Church Service

My church is trying a new format this year for the mid-week Lenten services, with almost the entire service being music. I really liked the way it went this week.

5. The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon

I really enjoyed this book, and read it in only a couple of days. Now I'm trying to convince friends to read it so I'll have someone to discuss it with.

(Some) Books Read January 2013

I love to read (like many relatives in the line before me, I probably often read when I should be doing something else...)

Here are a few of the books I read and enjoyed in January.

Village School and Village Diary by Miss Read

These are the first two books in a series about the rural English village of Fairacre during the mid-20th century, "written" by the fictitious persona of the village schoolteacher. I had never encountered these books before finding them recommended on a blog, but read a couple of the Christmas stories in December and enjoyed them enough to start the series. They are a cozy read, with no particular plot, but rather recountings of the different events and characters in the life of the village.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Another book set in Britain (I did have the reaction, about halfway through this one, that I needed to take a break for a while from books set in England), this one with a more contemporary timeframe, focusing on a retired British major who represents "tradition," and his romance with the widowed Pakistani woman who runs the local shop. I enjoyed this book, and (most of) the characters -- except the whiny ones, who you weren't supposed to like anyway. It was an interesting approach to the changing face of British culture, and the development of more multiculturalism -- usually, I see that presented in American books.

Half--Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

This is sort of a memoir of Jeannette Walls's grandmother -- although, since the grandmother died when the author was 8, it's put together via memories of her speech patterns, family stories, and research. I enjoy history, and good biography/autobiography/memoir, so what I particularly enjoyed was watching the development of American 20th century history unfold through the experiences of the author's grandmother -- her move to Chicago and getting a "flapper" haircut not only for social reasons but for safety, with the increasing use of machines in the workforce; her foray into bootlegging to support the family during Prohibition and the Depression, etc. The grandmother's life was mostly centered in the West, and the book has a very strong flavor of that. She was a strong woman, and I could hear her voice through the book.

To find more reading suggestions, visit the Booking It post at Life As Mom, where you'll read about what Jessica, Anne and Carrie have been reading.


Disclosure: Book titles in this post are Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase at Amazon after clicking through here, I will receive a (very) small percentage of the profits; there is no additional cost to you.

Spring Reading Thing Wrap-Up

Officially, this week, spring is over. And, with it, comes the end of the 2012 Spring Reading Thing challenge hosted by Katrina at Callapidder Days.

How did I do on the challenge? Well, I read all but one of the books on my list. I plowed through Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley
by Alison Weir -- in which those who had motivation for the murder could be summarized as "everyone in Scotland" -- and, after reading a book about British history with the constant references to "Lord So-and-So," which was, of course, not his name but merely his title, so that he (and there were many, many such "he's") would be referred to a couple of pages later by his name, or later, by a new title he might have acquired ... my brain just was not up for more mind-taxing references to titled nobility. So, "The King's Mistress," despite its being a fiction title and likely a lighter read, was postponed.

I did, however, read: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
by Laura Hillenbrand, Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, Book 2)
by Suzanne Collins (plus Mockinjay), State of Wonder: A Novel (P.S.)
by Ann Patchett, Food in History
by Reay Tannahill, North With the Spring: A Naturalist's Record of a 17,000-Mile Journey With the North American Spring (American Seasons, 1st Season)
by Edwin Way Teale, Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation
by Andrea Wulf -- and a few more that were not originally on my list. I'm still working my way through my chronological read-through of the Bible this year (currently in Kings and Chronicles), and my read-alouds to the (now) six-year-old have continued, even though we haven't managed to get in there all of the classics that I'd like to implant in her brain. (It's hard to balance this out, with also having enough time to do read-alouds of the books she picks -- like the entire unicorn oeuvre of our library.) Probably our biggest read-aloud success this spring was Uncle Wiggily's Story Book. I was even willing to incur a two-day overdue fine (we couldn't renew it because it was on someone else's request list) so we could finish the book.

All of the books I read this spring were good; I loved Founding Gardeners. (I also felt very patriotic for reading it over Memorial Day weekend.) It focused on four (and a half, sort of --- Benjamin Franklin was referenced quite a bit, but he didn't get his own section) of the Founding Fathers -- George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison -- and their involvement with plants, plantings and gardenings. (I can't remember what order they were addressed in the book, but it amuses me to list them in the order they held the U.S. Presidency; the first four people to do so.) I feel like I have not read as much about Madison before as I have the others, and was particularly intrigued by his section of the book. Also, now I want to go back to Monticello some day and focus more attention on the gardens during the visit.

I liked North with the Spring, but I think I liked Wandering Through Winter, with its daily diary approach, better. This one did make me wonder, though, what some of those natural areas Teale traveled in the 1950s look like today. Can you still camp on the island he references, etc.? 

Probably my favorite discovery during this challenge -- partly related to the challenge, partly to the need to read it for a book group -- was my use of my library's "Bestseller Express" program for Unbroken. I had never used it before and, while I still have some resentment about paying to use the library service, the 10-day rental fee of $4 for a book whose free circulation copies had 400-plus requests ahead of mine on them was pretty easy to use. I might use it again if there's something I really, really want to read right now (although usually, I can wait).

Thanks, Katrina, for hosting the Spring Reading Thing; I always find it encouraging to have some external motivation for accomplishing something (in this case, reading certain books) that I've been wanting and meaning to do anyway.

Spring Reading Thing 2012

So, I have been in a bit of a bloggy slump for -- checking post dates -- about the past month. It could be attributed to busy life, end-of-winter dreariness, etc. But: now spring has sprung, and it's time for the 2012 Spring Reading Thing (hosted by Katrina at CallapidderDays). That means it's time to post my personal list -- a challenge to myself, as it were -- of books to read during spring 2012.

1. Another of my goals for the year is to do a chronological read-through of the Bible, using this Bible reading plan. I'm using a study Bible for this read-through, and reading the footnotes and such as well.


2.  I'm supposed to be reading Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand for a book group, but considering the huge number on the library wait list -- and some of my other reading goals -- it kind of seems unlikely, especially in time for the early April meeting date. Luckily, this particular book group is mostly a gals' get-together with the book as an excuse. :)




3. On the other hand: Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins is the second in The Hunger Games trilogy. We read the first volume for my church book group, and now I want to find out how the story ends. (I'm borrowing these from a friend, avoiding the library issue.)



4. Another friend from the church book group gave me her copy of State of Wonder
by Ann Patchett. I've got about two and a half chapters left. I've also read Bel Canto (P.S.) and Run, and am really impressed with this author's writing. Reading this is also part of my personal "off-the-shelves" goal: reading some volumes that have been on my bookshelves for a while, and likely determining that some of them are not keepers which can therefore move on to their next home (and declutter mine).


5. Another "off-the-shelves" book given to me by a friend (and yes, there's a subtheme here of "books I feel guilty for not having read yet" and/or "books from friends") is Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnleyby Alison Weir. Nonfiction history.



6. Still another "off-the-shelves" book from a friend is Food in History by Reay Tannahill. I had never heard of this book before and have no idea what it's about -- other, than you know, exactly what the title suggests. Since I generally like books that deal with the subject of food in history -- with, you know, less "in-your-face" titles about it -- both she and I are guessing and hoping that I'll like this one.


7. I also need to get "off-the-shelves" this historical fiction book that I received via the Crown Publishing Read It Forward program. I enjoy expanding my world history education -- which was quite wanting -- via historical fiction; this particular novel,  The King's Mistress: A Novel by Emma Campion, is about the mistress of England's King Edward III.


8. Next up are a couple of seasonal books (from the library). I stumbled across mid-20th century naturalist Edwin Way Teale's  Wandering Through Winter
at a used bookstore a couple of years ago, and greatly enjoyed the journal entries for his travels across the country on each day of the season. I would eventually like to read all of his seasonal books. North With the Spring somehow seems a logical choice for the Spring Reading Thing.


9. Also spring-y -- and historical; see, I've combined the two! -- Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf is sort of like The Federalist Papers of gardening. Kind of. Well, anyway, they both relate to historical figures of the Revolutionary War era like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and others. Nonfiction. With plants.

10.? I feel like I should have a number 10 to round this out; however, at the moment, I have no number 10. (Not that I won't read 10 books this spring; I just don't have anything specifically planned out.) I will just have to feel incomplete. Or else, I could count some reading goals with the five-year-old as number 10: I would like to incorporate into our read-alouds some additional classic works that I feel are basics she needs to have under her belt -- things like (more) Beatrix Potter stories,  Dr. Seuss stories (in addition to those we've already read), Winnie-the-Pooh books, the Blue and/or Red Fairy books, Betsy-Tacy, Milly-Molly-Mandy...and the list goes on. This is part of the problem: it's a challenge to fit so many good books into a family schedule, while simultaneously letting her pick out some of her own reading material.

Are you going to read this spring? You can find Katrina's Spring Reading Thing guidelines here and the post with everyone's link-up here. Happy reading!

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Spring Reading Thing 2011

The calendar has officially ushered in spring this week, and with the vernal equinox has sprung up the annual Spring Reading Thing hosted by Katrina at Callapidder Days. During the months of spring (official dates: March 20 -- yes, I'm behind on getting this post up -- to June 20), you come up with a list of reading material you want to get read, post it, link to Katrina's post here with all the details, and get reading. (Family-friendly titles and pictures in the post, as kid participants are not unusual.)

So, without (much) further ado, here are my reading goals for the 2011 Spring Reading Thing

1) During this period of time, I want to catch up on my periodicals. For me, this means

a) going through the several weeks' worth of back issues of the local newspaper, reading and clipping what's relevant, and then recycling. (It's a very good local newspaper; it just gets delivered on a day that I rarely have time to read it, and then the "getting behind-ness" snowballs.) I generally start with the latest edition and work backwards, since the coverage of some stories -- such as the brouhaha about our local school district's redrawing of the neighborhood schools' boundaries -- is ongoing.)
b) by June, have read up to -- and hopefully including - the June issues of the magazines I receive (I'm a sucker for a free magazine subscription.) I may be forgetting some, but among these titles are Woman's Day, All You, More, Scholastic Parent and Child (yay for their summer break ;)), Family Fun, Parenting, Minnesota Parent, Minnesota Women's Press, my alumni magazine, The Lutheran and Lutheran Woman Today.

2) Finish my 2008 library list!

My library allows patrons to keep several "lists" in your electronic account -- of, says books you want to read. I started separating "my list" out by years when it got too long and unwieldy -- BUT I now have ONE title left in my 2008 list. I think I can achieve this goal -- especially since it's an audiobook download!

50 Success Classics: Winning Wisdom for Work and Life from 50 Landmark Books by Tom Butler-Bowdon

3) In the spirit of easily achievable goals, I'll put the April and May selections for my book group on here, too (since I know I'll read those)

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff


3) And in the spirit of moving forward with goals and continually challenging oneself, let's start on the 2009 library list. :) (There are only 28 titles on here to start with -- I think the 2008 list began with a count somewhere in the 50s or 60s. I either got choosier, or smarter.) Hmm...I think four might be a good number to shoot for?

The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd by Mary Rose O'Reilly

Do-Over: In Which a Forty-eight-year-old Father of Three Returns to Kindergarten, Summer Camp, The Prom and Other Embarrassments by Robin Hemley

Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert by Terry Tempest Williams

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Like Mother, Like Daughter compiled by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

It would also be nice if I got some of the books around my house read (these are all library titles listed here), but that may be a goal for a later date.

Book List: An Introduction

So, I am a reader. I love to read, participate (more or less) in two real-life book groups, and usually read around 100-ish books a year. (Last year, I made it only to 92. What a slacker.)

As part of the experimentation that is this blog, I may be posting my reading list for the year here. Or there may be some bulging gaps in it -- because it is entirely possible that not everything I read is high quality literature that I would be proud for the whole wide web to know about. (I am not talking here about the books I read to the four-year-old, including that truly awful Barbie novelization from a while back; I am talking mostly about the books that I occasionally read and consider "brain candy.") Also, on principle, if one gets upset when the government talks about wanting the ability to subpoena records of what people check out of libraries, and one's librarian friends, family and acquaintances get so up in arms about this that they then start talking about how their systems are designed to make it impossible to keep such records, one has to have a smidgen of second thoughts, then, about posting everything one reads on a website.

(Some college friends of mine were once freaked out by finding a book I had left lying around about nuclear arms treaties. It was for my political science class, people.)

Other introductory thoughts: the book links are Amazon affiliate links, which means I make some small amount of money if you buy them (or anything else on Amazon) by clicking through the links on this blog. Partly this is because I may someday get around to actually setting up a page on this blog with links to things I think are particularly cool on Amazon, and partly because my theory is that this may make it easier to show/link to the book cover images from Amazon, instead of going through the pain in the patoot process of photographing book covers I own in order to provide visuals.

Do note, however, that, personally, I am cheap enough that I get most of my reading material from the public library -- and you can, too.

Which brings me to another introductory point about this list: my library has this great feature which lets you keep "lists" on your online account. I have several such "lists" of things I want to read -- and I try to only be about two years behind in getting the books on those lists read, so that I can then add a bunch of new stuff to the current year's list and not feel *entirely* overwhelmed. (Sometimes there are waiting lists of, oh, say, 500 people for a new book the year I put it on the list. If I wait a couple of years to read it, it's often a lot easier to access from the library -- and is, usually, still a good book.)

Of course, I do read books acquired from other sources, as well. Like the ones that are sitting all over my house.

Week in Review: Doubting the Groundhog

They say that official groundhog Punxsatawney Phil did not see his shadow today, and that it will be an early spring. Just based on empirical evidence (i.e., looking around at the weather here and around the nation), I'm dubious. Of course, we were lucky to have a 40-degree temperature rise last week -- it hovered around 20 degrees above zero for a while -- but this week, we've been plunged back into the deep freeze of below-zero temperatures. And we were lucky enough here in Minnesota to miss the mammoth snow and ice storm that hit much of the rest of the country. But we got another three inches or so Monday, to add to the several-feet-tall drifts on either side of our driveway and sidewalk. Know what I'm mostly tired of this winter? The constant need to kick out accumulated snow and crud from the wheel wells of my car. It never gets warm enough for these annoying appendages to melt away on their own.

During our brief warm spell, the four-year-old and I went sledding again -- many more families there this time. We also took a moment at the bottom of the hill (out of the way) to stare out at the snow, the ski trails, the trees bare of leaves and the lake covered with ice and snow, and to offer a prayer of thanks for its beauty.

Upon arriving home, she hauled out the sand buckets and shovels again for more snow play. We've also tried making and painting with snow paint -- a recipe from Let's Explore's January play suggestions , involving flour, salt and water -- which did not come out as sparkly as we'd been led to believe. Perhaps we applied it too thickly to our construction paper. I also tried introducing cutting paper snowflakes -- which did not go well. I think she needs more scissors practice, but I obviously need much more patience to deal with her frustration levels when she's doing a project that would give her that practice.

Weekends have brought visits to the soft play area at our local mall, and to an indoor park with gym and climbing structure, both for "running around" time. And, this past weekend, we took her to her first theatrical play -- a local children's theater's premier of If You Give a Moose a Muffin, based on the book by Laura Numeroff. It's a musical, about an hour long -- and the casting of Max the Moose is what makes the play. (This book series has been very popular with our four-year-old; we currently have If You Give a Cat a Cupcake checked out of the library, and own an anthology with the mouse, moose and pig stories, as well as the Christmas-themed If You Take a Mouse to the Movies.)

We also acquired the movie Secretariat and have so far watched it twice -- and listened to several household horse racing play-by-plays which culminate in an excited "Secretariat wins!"

She seems to be feeling fine after getting everyone up in the middle of Friday night to vomit. (She was fine the day before; she was fine the day after; it seems to be one of those "I am a kid and every so often I am going to throw up in the middle of the night for no reason and get everyone's schedule off track.")

I am hoping that the leftover pound cake I meant to take home after a Bible study meeting -- we're doing some Beth Moore DVDs -- last week is somewhere that I am not going to find it by smell in spring -- since that meeting was on Thursday, I remembered it Sunday, and could not find it in the likely locations.

And, also last week, we registered the kiddo for kindergarten.

Week in Review: Cold, Grocery Shopping

First, let's get the weather out of the way: it has been coo - ooo - ooo -ld here this past week. When I looked at the thermometer outside of our kitchen/dining room on Friday morning, it read 20 degrees below zero.

Of course, that thermometer is in the shade.

On the up side of winter, the days are getting noticeably longer -- the evening sky around 5:00 on Tuesday was a beautifully glowing blue, seemingly moonlight-infused in all areas of the sky. And the full moon itself was absolutely stunning as it glittered in the sky. (I believe the most appropriate name for this full moon of January is "Moon of Strong Cold.")

We had no babysitter on Wednesday (somehow, she didn't feel like dealing with preschoolers on the day of a double root canal. Huh.), so the four-year-old and I were sort-of home together all day -- except that we went to the grocery store in the morning and her church choir in the evening. We also made cookies (peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses on top), and played Play-Doh®.

At the grocery store, I replenished supplies of things like frozen pizza and hot tea, and put her in charge of finding six General Mills cereals that had a "10" on the sign -- since they were running a deal where, if you bought six G.M. cereals, it took $10 instantly off your bill at checkout, plus you got coupons for free milk and eggs on future trips. I required that two of the six choices be varieties of Cheerios, and only ended up with Cocoa Puffs as something I wouldn't normally purchase. We also picked up a tad bit of guacamole from the deli, since it was being prepared on a cooking show the four-year-old and her father were watching in the past week, and one of our dinner table conversations was about how avocados are "healthy for your body." She also helped unload the cart at the checkout lane; as she was hoisting full jugs of milk and 64-oz. bottles of juice out of the cart, the elderly couple behind us commented, "Wow, that looks heavy." To which her response was a confident, "Yep. But I'm a strong girl."

I also had a book group meeting (to discuss The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck), and a women's group meeting this week. I used a bit of time before book group to go to Bath and Body Works in the nearby mall and smell the scents of spring.