Category: Books

Books

books, of late

I’m on a reading binge again.

I have no idea what order I read these in, as I entered them into GoodReads.com all at once in some cases, but here’s the list:

7. Halting State by Charles Stross

This was really interesting, but took me forever, it seemed, to get through because of the multiple viewpoints.  I wasn’t really emotionally invested in any of them, which may have been part of the point.

8. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks

Surprisingly, I was unable to finish this book.  In part because it’s listed at “New Fiction” at my public library and I’d had it out, then renewed it once, then tried to recheck it out the day I returned it (but they don’t let you do that).  But really it was because all the case studies sounded freakishly the same after a while and I was tired of hearing about people with perfect pitch whining about no longer having it.

9. The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong

Another book I didn’t finish, but by choice.  It just went on and on and I found that I wasn’t really that interested.

10. Atonement by Ian McEwan

I loved it up to the last section and then I loathed it.  Read it, you’ll see why.

11. Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs

The usual, pretty muchly.

12.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Omnibus 2

More yummy extra stories to my favorite vampire series.

13. Magic’s Child by Justine Larbalestier

You know what?  While I loved this book, I was still disappointed by the lack of tying things up at the end.

14. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

Lovely.

16. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

I’d seen all the movie versions (and loved them all in their differentness), but never read the book.  Wow.  This was sooo boring.

17. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

Yum.

18. The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards

The movie was coming on in 24 hours, so I sped through this one.  It was readable, but not as outstanding as the recommendations would have had me believe.

19.  Devilish by Maureen Johnson

This was so good & cute and I wanted so much more.

20. Mozart’s Sister by Rita Charbonnier

Umm, I was once again thwarted by our library’s weird check-out rules (although I guess since I’d had it a month and hadn’t finished it, I can see their point a bit), so I didn’t finish it, but by about half-way through I was annoyed with the “And so yet again, while I was more talented, my brother got all the credit/attention/women/etc.”

21. The Forgetting Room by Nick Bantock

Either his books are A)getting predictable or B)lost they’re magic or C) I’ve just read too many of them now.  (I’m thinking the answer is A.)

22. A Year Without ‘Made In China’ by Sara Bongiorni

This was an interesting look at one family’s decision to stand up for what they believed in.  I learned a lot about where a bunch of products come from.  It was entertaining, too.

23. Sky Coyote by Kage Baker

Steph warned me that this one would be harder to get through than the first one and it was, sort of.  Technically I got through it faster than the first book in The Company series, but it wasn’t as interesting.  I felt like they just made up the tribe and location (though they didn’t) and the language versus the setting was a bit weird.  Still I’ll read the next book (the worldview it’s set in is very interesting to me)

I’m currently reading: 1) The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and 2) The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Books

This week at the library…

Books we checked out this week:

For the kids:

Ellsworth’s extraordinary electric ears and other amazing alphabet anecdotes  by Fisher, Valorie.

Izzy and Skunk  by Fitzpatrick, Marie-Louise. *

Grandpa takes me to the moon  by Gaffney, Timothy R.

Dinner at Magritte’s  by Garland, Michael,

The stupids take off  by Allard, Harry.

There’s something at the mail slot  by Alborough, Jez.

Ida and the wool smugglers  by Alderson, Sue Ann.

Miss Nelson has a field day  by Allard, Harry.

Henrietta the clumsy hippo  by Greaves, John.  *

Basil Brush builds a house  by Firmin, Peter

For me: 

The monsters of Templeton  by Groff, Lauren.

The *’s are for books we’ve checked out more than once.  Here’s our method of choosing books.  It happens one of three ways; either a) Ben or David has a subject in mind.  We spend forever finding books in this category that are actually on the shelves.  This does not work often.  b) Ben &/or Greg go through the shelves and drag things out at random. c) I get fed up, pull off anything I can find in either New Kids Fiction or in the Awards Kids section.  My own method of choosing books is either a) looking endlessly in the catalogue & find something I want & then search fruitlessly through the shelves, where the book is never at or b) go to “New Fiction” or “New Non-Fiction” and laugh maniacally when I find things from 1998 or 1993, then check them out, because really, it could be worse.

Books

This week

Books we checked out:

For the kids:

  • A Froggy Fable

This was Ben’s favorite.  The afternoon after we got it, he handed it to me and said “I’m doing reading ‘A Froggy Fable,’ Momma-mema,” which was amazing, as I’d not yet told him the title, nor read him the book.  I asked about how he knew the title and he said “Sometimes I can just read things inside my head.”

  • You are special, little one
  • Let’s pretend

Greg loved this one.  It featured kids dressed up as mommies, daddies, firefighters, dragons, etc. and tried to maintain a storyline throughout.

  • Sleepers
  • What is that?

For me:

  • A year without “Made in China”
  • The Palace of Illusions: A novel

We’re trying to track favorites and such.  Usually I’ll be copying/pasting from my library account, but this week I made due off the print-out they gave me, so there’s no authors listed.  Most of the kids books this week were board books, since it was just me and Greg doing the picking.  A Froggy Fable was not a board book.

Around the House, Books

*waves to Nick’s co-workers*

This week has been weird.  We’re using the laptop for all our computer needs, but it’s not our regular computer, so it has none of the nicities that our old one did, so we’re back to basics and little things like links & saved files are not to be found and it’s quite maddening.

David and Ben have both been acting up at school this week.  My mom attributes it to the Wii and the loss-of-Wii that’s gone on, but I don’t know.  Ben’s becoming a little chatterbox.  He can’t keep quiet.  Not ever.  David’s been sullen and rude to everyone.  He’s not paying attention to directions at all.

So we’ve devised a new schedule to help with things.  First off: no TV after school unless it’s been earned.  Ways to earn TV include: helping out around the house without yelling or sulking, being nice to your sibling without being asked to be, etc.  First we have snacks (because when we’re hungry, we’re cranky), then we go outside and have play time.  After a half hour (because every kids needs an hour of exercise a day, so says the government), we head inside for some cool-down & reading.  Then there’s the part of the schedule that’s designed to help me to remember to sign David’s folder and ask about homework.  If there’s no school-assigned homework, there’re always Bible verses & songs to learn for both churches as well as Cub Scout stuff & sign language to work on.  After homework, there’s 15 minutes to half-hour of “free play” where I leave them to their own devices (and get my own housework done).  Then, just before Nick comes home for the day, we tidy up all our messes so we’re all ready for dinner.

The younger kids and I also have a new daily schedule, but it varies by day and is way too complicated to try to tell about here.  Basically, instead of the massive amounts of TV we got used to watching while the house was under construction & then during my bout of pneumonia, we’re going without TV during the day as well.  Our new schedule includes exercise, art, music, reading, and free play.  I don’t have thematically planned days like I did last summer quite yet, but I’m working towards that.

We also finally had a playdate with someone.  We’d had a run of bad luck with playdates & lunches (for me with friends) the last several weeks where either I had sick kids or the other kids were sick or my friends got called into unexpected meetings for work or kids school.  But finally!  A playdate where there were kids the same age as both my kids!  We’ve got two more scheduled for next week–here, at the house.  Insanity, I know.  (All three of these are with new-ish friends, as it seems that all our old playdate friends have either a) already moved or b) are in the process of moving.  )

In other news, I’m still reading.  I know I haven’t posted about that lately, but I’m wishy-washy about what I’m reading lately and I’ve got about six books going right now.  I just finished Summers at Auburn Castle by Sharon Shinn and Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.  Currently reading: Mozart’s Sister by Rita Charbonnier, Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, my book for Bible study, my chronological Bible, Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” (probably one should be: don’t read 6 books at once), and Songs from Distant Earth (because ACC died a couple weeks ago).  I think of them this way: the couch book, the car book, the bathroom book, the Other Bathroom book, the homework books, and the book by the bed.  You can guess which book is where.  Go on, I know you want to.

I’m sure there’s other stuff I’m forgetting, but what?  No idea.  What do you want to hear about?

Around the House, Books

my day so far

5:30am Nick’s alarm goes off

5:55am Nick wakes me up for my shower

6:29am I am clean, dressed, and still not quite awake

6:32am Nick goes back to bed.  We torture him for 20 minutes

6:53am I tell Nick it’s nearly 7am and to get up.

7:00am David has been awake 20 minutes and still is not dressed.

7:11am I discover that Nick is not awake.  He usually leaves for work at 7:15.  This is not good.  (Apparently I was supposed to wake him up “at” 7am.)

7:25am I’ve finally persuaded David to make his lunch (he’s dressed now) but he can’t figure out how to clean out his lunch box (which is filled with velvet pear jello)

7:35am We’re heading out the door and David says “Today’s the Storybook Character Parade!  Where’s my costume?!”  I grab the Harry Potter stuff out, throw it in a bag, and we’re off.  Drop David at school

7:45am  At home, but still in the car.  Realize 3 things: 1) David’s forgotten his lunch & schoolwork, 2) No one’s eaten yet, and 3) Greg’s poopy.

8:05am  After cleaning up baby poop from everywhere in the universe, dressing him in different clothes, re-shoeing everyone, and grabbing cookies to tide us over for the duration, we are finally back at the school.  Since the parade starts in just 10 minutes, we decide to stay.

8:15am  Starting to regret staying, as it is cold and there’s no parade in sight.

8:20am Parade starts.  Kids that do not belong to me run up to me, hug me, call me “mom.” The parade is awesome!  I take pictures of the teachers we know that dressed up.  Also take pictures of kids I’ve taught in Sunday school & VBS & mom’s group at various places over the years.  Most of them remember me enough to smile & pose.

8:45am  On the way home, realize we need tampons & hot cocoa.  End up buying: tampons, hot cocoa, strawberries, ibuprofen, salad mix, & Nilla Wafers.

9:15am  Finally actually home.   Feed kids strawberries and hot cocoa.

9:30am Start looking in car for library books.  They aren’t in the car.  I didn’t take them out.  Call spouse, ask if he let books loose.  He saw some on the kids shelves, mixed in.  *sigh*

10am Have finally found all 17 books.  Load up books, kids, and recycling into van.

10:15am Leave house again.  *sigh*

10:25am Actually early for storytime.  Only’s happened once before.  Wow.

11am Ben is hiding behind a tree while other kids are flying homemade kites.  A grandmotherly person comes and tells me this will make her daughter feel better.  Oh yay.  Later, daughter comes over and introduces herself as “L’s mom, from MDO”  Yeah.  So apparently all four of our younger kids are in MDO together during the week.  I pass on my phone number on the way out to check books.

11:15am Look for book I saw on another mommy blog.  It’s listed as being there, but it’s not on the shelf.  Enlist help.  Am told that it’s probably been remaindered and that if I really want it I can request they buy a new copy or wait for the big library sale and buy it then.  OH JOY.

11:40am  In driveway, with two sleeping children.  Realize we forgot to go to the recycling center. (Goodness, how often are they going to redesign the city website this year?!)

And now it’s 12:04 and Ben’s been asking for either a) Lego.com or b) a cookie for twenty-two minutes.  Yeah, that nap didn’t last long.  I demand a nap of my own now.  NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP!

Around the House, Books, Crafts, Family Time, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Parenting

how it all gets done

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net. You can comment here or there.

I’ve had a few people wonder how I get everything done on themed days. So here I am explaining:

I made the list of themed days about a month ago and gave it only the tiniest bit of thought as to what I’d be doing for each day at that point. So it comes down to this: every morning I get up, turn on Thomas the Tank Engine for the early rising midkid, and spend about twenty minutes on the internet looking up stuff for the day* (by “stuff” I mean wikipedia entries, worksheets, craft ideas, science experiments for kids, etc). Then I wander the house to see what supplies we have. By that point the rest of the family is up. I feed people, explain what the theme for the day is, and then we start the fun. We do something crafty and I explain facts to them. Then the kids ask bizarre questions and we go back to the computer to look up that info, along with other “stuff” to go with that if it’s interesting.

At some point no one is interested in the theme any more, so we take a break to play outdoors first, eat lunch, then indoor play/reading/rest. After that they’re usually interested in more theme time, so we do something else theme related, like coloring sheets I’ve printed off the internet or building something with legos. By late afternoon the house is a wreck, so we have races to see who can put away the most whatever-is-out. They race, I wash dishes. When someone wins they get something special, like getting to choose what color plate they eat dinner off of or what kind of dinner beverage.

And what does the baby do while all this is going on? Smashing his hands into play-doh or getting paint on his hands or eating construction paper or toppling all the blocks or taking apart the train tracks as fast as the boys lay them down. He’s busy.

*I’ve gone back on the previous themed days and put up links to websites where I got ideas from.

Books

Library-Bleh.

Bleh.

I finished the book I was reading tonight so I could return it to the library tomorrow. While I liked this book better than the first in the series in several ways, it was much whinier than the first. Too much of the “Oh, I love you, but we can never be together” kind of crap. Oh well.

Of course, I was all proud of myself because I thought I’d finished all my books from the library…but I’d forgotten that I had one more to go. *sigh* There’s no way I’ll finish it by tomorrow. I’ll take it back next week or something.

Ahh…time for me to go to bed.