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.

Some Science-y Stuff

While we don't homeschool, per se, we do engage in some (very informal) "supplemental" schooling. And, since there's an interest in science from the household small person, we're trying to encourage that. A few science-y things from the past week or so:

- We watched the solar eclipse on May 20. Poked a hole through a sheet of white printer paper and held it over another, intact, piece of paper until we could see the glowing dot of the sun -- and the shadow of the moon moving across it. My mom was visiting that weekend, so she, Nora, and I were all outside doing this for a while -- we kept having to move to slightly different spots around the yard/neighborhood due to trees and the process of the sunset. We also got a neighbor girl involved for a little while after she came home from dinner with her family while we were all standing outside.

- When I repotted the ever-bearing strawberry we purchased at this spring's plant sale into a larger pot, I found ants herding aphids within the soil it had come with. While we had a brief discussion of the concept of ants herding aphids -- like the uncles in our family raise cows (sort of; the uncles raise beef cattle, while the ants drink the aphids' excretions -- which would be more the equivalent of dairy farming), the upshot is: we want to eat the strawberries. Not feed them to aphids. Which led to some methods of natural pest control: spraying the plant and the soil for a few days with a mixture of warm water, dish soap -- and cayenne pepper. (So far, it seems to be working.)

- We discovered, as a result of a 5-year-old kindergartener performing self-designed experiments with the equipment from the science kit she received for her last birthday, that
a) one good reason to have hummus containers (and their well-fitting lids!) on hand in the "plastic containers" cupboard is that they are clear, so they make a decent substitute for test tubes in which to grow the polymer crystals that have been mixed into a solution of water, red cabbage juice, citric acid, baking soda
b) regular spray stain remover will not remove red cabbage juice from a pale purple shirt; you need to use something like "Goop" -- or possibly another enzymatic cleaner
c) when the 1 tablespoon measuring spoon is missing from the kitchen, perhaps Mommy should check the baking soda supplies in the science kit

A Thursday Report on Wednesday's Cleaning Activities

Today’s outfit is a cool contrast to yesterday’s. Today I am attired in dark lime-greenish slacks, lime green sandals, a faux-wrap style white T-shirt, with a three-quarter sleeve white cotton jacket, with a scarf with a lime green and white geometric design threaded through the lapels.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was sweaty and sticky, in a stripey T-shirt and capris. The sweat and stickiness was partly due to the humid, muggy weather -- the predecessor to last night's and today's pouring rains -- and also partly due to finally getting to some of the tasks on the spring cleaning list. I did a major clean of the master bedroom, which also involved doing my seasonal wardrobe switch. (I took advantage of this opportunity to dust and vacuum the closet. Which has really scratched-up walls and will some day need to be repainted. That day is Not. Today.)

Of course, now that I have the summer clothes at the ready, the temperature dropped along with the rain. Sigh. I also purged a few items from the wardrobe, made notes of things I need to add and/or replace (for both winter and summer), and began the process of washing and drying sweaters. (This would not take as long if I actually remembered which ones I had previously washed during the course of the winter wearings. Maybe I should make a checkoff list or something for next year.)

Plus, I took all the drawers out of my dresser and dusted the interior recesses -- and found an earring that had been missing for months!! Score!! I took down and washed the curtains, and spent some time trying to remove a piece of hardware on the curtain rod that belonged to the blinds that we got rid of, I believe it was last year. Unfortunately, not having a sledgehammer on hand, I think I'm stuck with that darn little bit of metal for a while.

I moved (some) furniture and vacuumed behind/under/the spaces that don't normally see the light of day. There is some furniture, like our headboard with built-in nightstands, that I don't think has been moved since we moved into the house. Because I am not moving it. And, seeing as I feel I need to remove the mote from my own eye -- or, more specifically, the piles of papers I'm supposed to be organizing in the household -- before attacking DH's mysterious piles of paper in the bedroom, I choose to let that sleeping dog lie. (Currently, I just vacuum the dust bunnies they attract, and think that some day, in the future, we really could get rid of that paperwork from an insurance company we don't even use anymore...)

I also stripped the bed down to the mattress -- and beyond. I washed the dust ruffle, mattress pad, and bedding, then remade everything without the extra blanket for winter and with the summer bedspread. (And without the dust that probably accumulated on the bed while I stacked things on there during the whole cleaning process.) And I did move the bed to vacuum under it (luckily, it's on wheels), and I flipped the mattress.

I also, yesterday, managed to get some salmon grilled for supper before it started raining, and served it with mashed potatoes heated up in the crockpot from a container that had been in the freezer. (I'm trying to get the freezer contents down so I can defrost it before stocking up on Memorial Day meat sales, this year's berry-picking season begins, etc.)

Plus, I sewed and/or ironed on patches to a Girl Scout uniform. Oh, and I stopped at a neighborhood garage sale run by a family with a girl two years older than mine. Nice when they have clothes for 50 cents or a quarter; I bought some winter pajamas and a few long-sleeve shirts for next winter, plus a Care Bears Christmas book and a Disney princess towel set.

And, today, it was back to the daily grind. Where I discovered that a bunch of things I typed into a file on Tuesday did not, for some reason, save, so I had to retype them all. over. again

Comestibles from the Kitchen

While, at the moment, we're in a season of not doing a great deal of decent cooking (everything either seems to wind down in May for the end of the school year, or gear up for the summer), there have been a few comestibles of note lately for one reason or another.

For one, I used up the beets that had been preserved in our freezer from last year's CSA produce boxes. My original intention had been to use them as borchst, but I think I missed the winter window for that. But, since I don't actually like beets, I needed to find another option. (I know: I don't like beets, but I do like borscht. Or at least, I have liked the borscht I've eaten that was actually made by Ukrainians. It's entirely possible that if I were to attempt to cook it myself, it would have been a different story.) I ended up making them into a Chocolate Beet Cake. It's similar to the idea of replacing some of the liquids in a cake recipe with applesauce, except this uses pureed beets. Some people might use it to hide veggies from their kids. I told the kid upfront; I just wanted to hide the beets (or at least the taste of them) from myself. It worked! I liked it, ate it, and now know of at least two useful uses for beets. (Plus, I got to use the Tupperware cake keeper my grandma gave me when she cleaned out her house: always a bonus getting to use some fun specialty kitchen item.)

We're still using up some other CSA stuff, too: some garlic went into a spaghetti and shrimp dish recently, and tomatoes got unfrozen (in boiling water) to be plopped into a cheeseburger pie. It's possible the tomatoes may have come not from the CSA, but from the generous neighbor. My attempts at growing tomatoes myself have been fails, so I didn't even buy any plants this year. Perhaps the neighbor will again be generous? I had intentions of using the raspberries thawed from the stash from last year's raspberry picking in some sort of recipe, but they got eaten plain. I find them rather tart served so, but apparently the kindergartener who complained after I quit putting them in her lunch (because she'd eaten all of them) disagreed.

And we've had a couple of fun opportunities to review foods, too. I received a free sample of Knorr Homestyle Stock from Smiley 360, and we cooked it up as part of the broth for a dish of pork chops baked atop stuffing mix (yes, this was back in the cold spring -- you know, a couple of weeks ago). It's little packages of dried broth ingredients that you reconstitute with boiling water. The idea, I guess, is to replace cans of broth. It does take up less storage space -- and I imagine would hurt less than a can if you dropped it on your toe -- but I'm not particularly happy about the relatively high sodium content in the ingredients list. When I do buy canned broth, I generally opt for the low sodium type. And the taste was just OK - I didn't find it spectacular, and I don't think the rest of the family even noticed. Still, it's nice to have some broth on hand (we have one more package we haven't used yet.)

I also received a coupon from Kraft First Taste for their new Teddy Graham Soft Paws. It's a snack item in their Teddy Graham line, except instead of being tiny teddy bear-shaped graham crackers, it's a larger, bear (cub) paw-shaped softer pastry, with filling in either apple cinnamon or oatmeal raisin flavors. We tried the apple cinnamon, since the kid has decided that her growing palate now rejects raisins (grrr!). It was actually a pretty tasty little snack, had whole grains -- and was hugely convenient for packing in the lunchbox.

Weekend Update

Dear Weather: Get with the program! Tomorrow will be the first of May, and I'd like to be done for a few months with my feet feeling like icicles. Thank you.

Last Friday afternoon, I volunteered as a "book club" leader in the kindergarten class. That involves reading a storybook to a small group (thankfully, my small group was less rambunctious this time than previously; and this includes my kid) and then doing some activities based on the book. We read Dear Bear, about a little girl who is scared of the bear living in the closet under the stairs. Our activities included making bear puppets with paper lunch sacks, cutting and assembling (with glue sticks) sandwiches from coloring pages, and then having a brief tea party with a toy tea set and some pretend tea.

The weekend was cool and rainy. We spent time indoors, watching the Chimpanzee movie at our local movie theater and visiting the play area at the mall. Sunday was a special celebration of music at church, with musical participation from all the choirs -- from the littlest ones, including the three- to five-year-olds choir that Nora sings with -- on up to the adult choir, as well as the bell choir. (There were also some people sitting in the choir loft with trumpets, but they never appeared to play them. I haven't figured that out.) The music was wonderful and joyful, as befitting the Easter season, with the little kids giving a very enthusiastic singing of "We Are the Church" (which I also frequently hear practiced at home).

After church and dinner on Sunday, we headed over to St. Paul for the Minnesota Horse Expo. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I had time to flip through the program on our way home that Kate Chenery Tweedy, daughter of Secretariat owner Penny Chenery, had been there. (Our family owns the movie Secretariat and has seen it many, many times --- particularly the smallest, most horse-obsessed member of our family.) We did, however, see and pet lots and lots of horses, and Nora took one of the free pony rides. She informed us that Chester was a nice pony. She was also impressed with the horses that had won prizes -- and the pony with the pink nail polish on her hooves. And we watched for a while as some members of a group that does gymnastics while standing on a horse's back demonstrated some of their techniques and talked about their training.

We also finished up reading The Unicorn Princess (Fetlocks Hall) by Babette Cole, a chapter book that was one of our library finds a couple of weeks ago. I don't think we knew what we were getting into: it's the first in a series that's essentially Harry Potter with unicorns instead of wizards. Between the British-isms, the horse terminology, and the words the author made up, I don't think either of us knew what was going on half the time. I console myself with the thought that it's increasing her vocabulary.

April Spring Doings

So, if I update once a week, can I call it weekly updates? I don't think so, since I'm still catching up on my remembrances of more than a week ago.

Lately, in our household: we learned a bit about how to use the library catalog to find books. This came at the request to "use the computer to find books about unicorns." We did a subject search, wrote down the title, author and shelving locations, and searched for and found the four titles deemed acceptable. (Our library system evidently has 76 children's books under the subject of "unicorn," but the catalog displays cover images, and some with jousting knights in stormy backgrounds were deemed "too scary.") So far, we've made our way through a Candy Fairies book, A  Valentine's Surprise by Helen Perelman.

After that library outing, we then attended our city's parks and recreation department's Animal Open House. The resident reptiles (turtles, lizards, etc.) of the Outdoor Center were on display, and additional animals were brought in for the day: a chicken, a couple of miniature horses, a raccoon (used in a demonstration by the city naturalist), a chinchilla. There was a display of pelts for the kids to feel and guess what they had come from, and a "quiz" game for prizes of a bottle of water or a box of Cracker Jacks. (I do think they could have geared the questions up a little bit from the toddler/preschool level for some of the kids. One of the queries was: "What color is a bluebird?") Nora also got her burning question of the day answered by the city naturalist: "Does anything hunt owls?" (Answer: "Other owls.")

It was kind of an animal-themed week, as it also included a kindergarten field trip to a nature center, and a special guest star at the Girl Scouts meeting: one of the other girls' family dog, who was there for a discussion about "how to take care of dogs and other animals." And we followed up the following weekend with a trip to the Minnesota Zoo to see the annual Animal Babies exhibit: bunnies, chicks, calves, piglets and excitedly hopping goat kids at the farm, a baby monkey clinging to its mother's tummy.

I spent part of a weekend this month volunteering at a fancy gala, too: I got to get dressed up and go to the ball -- to work the carnival games and sell the fundraising beads. :) The money from the event goes to support a variety of local charitable endeavors.

Nora and I made a pecan pie with the leftover pie crust from our Easter lemon meringue version and some pecans picked up on sale after Christmas. (I figured we should probably eat the pecans before they went bad. And we haven't attempted homemade piecrust yet.) I also baked some banana muffins for breakfasts this weekend with some bananas from the freezer. I've been in a bit of a menu planning rut lately, and I've kind of lost track of my freezer inventory, but I do need to see what other produce is in there that we should be eating down before the next season.

The weather this month has been alternating between lovely spring, and rainy. There has been some park time, but probably not enough. I did finally find a dry (enough) day to mow the lawn and trim the edges. I chopped off a bunch of dandelions in doing so, making the yard noticeably less yellow, but two full bouquets had already been displayed in a green vase indoors. I'm enjoying watching the birds this spring, too. I've seen wild turkeys wandering about on my drive to work, a ring-necked pheasant running across the street in front of my car in our suburb, robins hunting in our yard, chickadees perching in our trees, and a pair of purple finches sitting on our deck with nesting material in their mouths. And, upon our return from church choir last week, we helped the next door neighbor uproot some of the dozens of maple seedlings that had self-sown in her yard (with a brief discussion of how we'd end up living in a forest if we let them grow, and a suggestion from the five-year-old that we could turn our house into a maple syrup factory).

I'm attempting to enjoy spring as it's here (I did finally finish reading North with the Spring by Edwin Way Teale; for some reason, it took quite a while), but summer approacheth -- at least, in terms of planning kid activities. I need to get on that.

Dance class had costume/photo day this week (so they make sure all the kids are looking right for recitals), and they handed out the class schedule for next year already. I asked Nora if she was taking dance next year, and her reaction, in a tone of voice that assumed this was sooooo obvious, was "Yeah! Every year!" I guess there's an interest. (Which I knew: she frequently tries to teach me dance steps, and her dance teacher's evaluation sheet for her, with recommendations for next year's classes, said she's a natural dancer -- and "full of energy.")

And, oh yes, I also meant to write down: inspired by the litter we've seen blowing into yards in the April winds, Nora's current plans for her grownup years include being "a paleontologist, what digs up dinosaur bones, a mom, and someone who cleans up all the litter in the world."

April - Easter (Was) In It

Somehow, I need to find time to blog. The longer I go without doing so, the harder it is -- the harder it gets to think, even.

So, April. The cruelest month? Perhaps. After early warm spells, we had to dig out our winter coats again yesterday. At least we didn't have tornadoes -- just a hailstorm early in Holy Week. (The guy who is supposed to be checking the roof for damage has so far managed to miss two appointments. Frustrating.) We need rain, and have been getting some -- but this also means that the grass has been too wet to mow when I have time to do so. Pretty soon, it's going to be too long in spots for our reel mower to handle, and I'll have to call in the yard-obsessed (soooo not us) retired neighbor and suffer through his ill-concealed disdain for our natural approach. (A different neighbor refused the five-year-old's proferred bouquet of a fistful of dandelions the other day. I can't imagine why....)

I started out in productive mode this month (helped by the spring break trip of DH and daughter to visit his old college friends, so that I actually had time in the house By. Myself. for a couple of days) -- but I have since fizzled. The "scary room," however, is no longer scary, and is actually clean (for the first time in, yes, years, because it had been so messy it had been impossible to clean in there). It's neat, too: a section of project A that needs to be done, Project B that needs to be done, etc. and so forth. Not that they're getting done.

Fun stuff: Easter was a beautiful day, and Nora's choir sang nicely as church began, standing in front of all the lilies on the altar. She had a new dress -- pale blue with different colors of flowers on it, including purple, which matched a little purple shrug sweater from The Children's Place. My mom made the dress -- and matching ones both for her 18-inch doll and her favorite stuffed sheep. (The doll has since been spotted wearing her Easter dress along with a jaunty riding hat.) My only new "clothes" this year was a purse, but I wore the skirt my mom made me last year.

Our Easter menu entailed: Resurrection rolls (crescent rolls, rolled up like shrouds around marshmallows that have been dipped in melted butter and then rolled in cinnamon-sugar -- symbolizing the oils and spices that the women in the Bible wanted to apply to Jesus's body; the marshmallows melt when the rolls are baked, so the "tomb" is empty); ham done in the crockpot with pineapple and pineapple juice, mustard and brown sugar; asparagus (DH's favorite); a green salad with some of last year's strawberries from the freezer; Rice Krispie treat nests (we formed them up the sides of our muffin tins and then made indentations in the middle), filled with egg-shaped M&Ms; hard-boiled eggs; and lemon meringue pie. Breakfast -- for us and for contribution to the church's Easter breakfast (I made two) was rhubarb coffee cake, with some of last year's rhubarb from the freezer.

We did an egg hunt and Easter story at a local church the day before (outdoors, and it rained just beforehand, so all of the eggs -- and kids -- were pretty wet, but it was fun), and Nora received an Easter basket (which, conveniently, has now morphed into something that looks *exactly* like those dollar store wastebaskets and is now serving her in her room. We spent some time blowing and chasing bubbles from the bubble wand outside. (She also received several books, including One Lost Sheep, a retelling of the parable but that may be a little too young for her, as well as some "I Can Read" type titles; elastic ponytail holders and headbands; a Barbie sticker book; paint -- to replenish the dwindled supply --  and fingerpaint, and fingerpaint paper. Plus some candy.)