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Saturday, September 30, 2006
Books for September
- O Pioneers! -- Willa Cather -- 4
- I actually read this in August, but I forgot to note it in last month's books post. I found O Pioneers! better in some ways than My Antonia, which I read a few years ago for the first time -- it was a lot easier to get a sense of the characters, for example, and the story seemed more straightforward. Perhaps for those reasons, it also felt a bit more shallow than Antonia. Overall I liked this quite well; it was a good quick read with what I think must be Cather's trademark ability to make the physical setting of a novel almost a character in its own right.
- I actually read this in August, but I forgot to note it in last month's books post. I found O Pioneers! better in some ways than My Antonia, which I read a few years ago for the first time -- it was a lot easier to get a sense of the characters, for example, and the story seemed more straightforward. Perhaps for those reasons, it also felt a bit more shallow than Antonia. Overall I liked this quite well; it was a good quick read with what I think must be Cather's trademark ability to make the physical setting of a novel almost a character in its own right.
- Literacy and Longing in LA -- Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack -- 3
(I'm editing this entry to add this book since I forgot it earlier.)
- I got this because the idea of a woman bingeing on books when she had troubles may have resonated with me just a wee small bit, shall we say. I was a bit disappointed in it, though, for three reasons: 1) slightly amateurish writing. 2) slightly inaccessible characters 3) constant casual references to obscure books and also to places in LA, tossed into the story as if of COURSE everyone knows about xyz but really, uh, no. We don't. And you just completely lost our interest there for a few paragraphs, Ms. Kaufman and Ms. Mack.
- Anybody Out There? -- Marian Keyes -- 4
- I'm not sure but I think this might have been from August too. But maybe not. Marian Keyes is known for her humorous not-as-fluffy-as-they-feel novels about Irish women -- sort of a Maeve Binchy without the everlasting sameness or the soap-opera overtones. Or, to be fair, the lyrical prose or livably real bucolic settings. Anyway. Anybody Out There centers around Anna (the sister of Rachel of Rachel's Holiday, Claire of Watermelon, and Maggie of Angels -- I think we can safely assume that Helen's book will be coming down the pike before too terribly long), who, for a reason we can't quite figure out at first, has been brought back to live with her family in Ireland whilst she recovers from some physically traumatic experience. As the story unfolds we find out more about the trauma that brought her home, and we witness her full recovery back in New York which is told with plenty of Keyesian humor and insight. Recommended.
- I'm not sure but I think this might have been from August too. But maybe not. Marian Keyes is known for her humorous not-as-fluffy-as-they-feel novels about Irish women -- sort of a Maeve Binchy without the everlasting sameness or the soap-opera overtones. Or, to be fair, the lyrical prose or livably real bucolic settings. Anyway. Anybody Out There centers around Anna (the sister of Rachel of Rachel's Holiday, Claire of Watermelon, and Maggie of Angels -- I think we can safely assume that Helen's book will be coming down the pike before too terribly long), who, for a reason we can't quite figure out at first, has been brought back to live with her family in Ireland whilst she recovers from some physically traumatic experience. As the story unfolds we find out more about the trauma that brought her home, and we witness her full recovery back in New York which is told with plenty of Keyesian humor and insight. Recommended.
- Digging to America -- Anne Tyler -- 4.5
- This is an intriguing look at the way Americans and foreigners interact, as shown through the eyes of two very different families who adopt daughters from China on the same day. You can't read an Anne Tyler book without learning something about yourself and gaining new insights about people who are fictional but who you would swear could live right down the street from you. She has a way of taking people (sometimes very ordinary and sometimes so quirky you wonder at the genius that makes such unreal people so real) and putting them into odd situations whose oddities you only really realize when you think about them later. The resulting stories are just magical, that's all I can say, and Digging To America -- from its brilliant title to its uplifting conclusion -- is no exception. Can a person win the Pulitzer twice in a lifetime? Anne Tyler ought to.
- This is an intriguing look at the way Americans and foreigners interact, as shown through the eyes of two very different families who adopt daughters from China on the same day. You can't read an Anne Tyler book without learning something about yourself and gaining new insights about people who are fictional but who you would swear could live right down the street from you. She has a way of taking people (sometimes very ordinary and sometimes so quirky you wonder at the genius that makes such unreal people so real) and putting them into odd situations whose oddities you only really realize when you think about them later. The resulting stories are just magical, that's all I can say, and Digging To America -- from its brilliant title to its uplifting conclusion -- is no exception. Can a person win the Pulitzer twice in a lifetime? Anne Tyler ought to.
- Atonement -- Ian McEwan -- 4.5
- This is a disturbing, important, brilliant work. It's a truly masterful novel about the disastrous, life-altering repercussions of a rash decision made by an immature person, and about that person's attempt to redeem herself in the only way she thinks she can. It's a story within a story, and it's the kind of book you think about for months after you put it down. It reminded me a bit of The Life of Pi, even though the subject matter couldn't be more different, for reasons that will be obvious to people who've read both.
- This is a disturbing, important, brilliant work. It's a truly masterful novel about the disastrous, life-altering repercussions of a rash decision made by an immature person, and about that person's attempt to redeem herself in the only way she thinks she can. It's a story within a story, and it's the kind of book you think about for months after you put it down. It reminded me a bit of The Life of Pi, even though the subject matter couldn't be more different, for reasons that will be obvious to people who've read both.
- Little Earthquakes -- Jennifer Weiner -- 3.5
- I liked this pretty well. The characterization reminded me a bit of Jennifer Crusie (as did the TMI nature of some of the sex bits, unfortunately). The cast of characters was memorable, the descriptions of motherhood apt, and the relationships (of every stripe) truly well-done and believable. It's not a book I'm going to go around raving about, but I'm glad to have read it.
- I liked this pretty well. The characterization reminded me a bit of Jennifer Crusie (as did the TMI nature of some of the sex bits, unfortunately). The cast of characters was memorable, the descriptions of motherhood apt, and the relationships (of every stripe) truly well-done and believable. It's not a book I'm going to go around raving about, but I'm glad to have read it.
- Goodnight Nobody -- Jennifer Weiner -- 2
- Almost but not quite a waste of time. I don't think Weiner does whodunits very well, and my goodness did I get tired of being slammed over the head with the woman's politics. If I ever find a popular, well-written "chick book" where a conservative woman appears who isn't either an utter tool or an eeevil villain, I may just have to cry for joy. I admit the ending was a surprise, but that could be because it came pretty much completely out of left field and was as contrived as some of the stuff I used to write in the tenth grade, before I figured out that people who can actually write fiction can write it without having to come up with unnatural twist endings in order to finish a story.
- Almost but not quite a waste of time. I don't think Weiner does whodunits very well, and my goodness did I get tired of being slammed over the head with the woman's politics. If I ever find a popular, well-written "chick book" where a conservative woman appears who isn't either an utter tool or an eeevil villain, I may just have to cry for joy. I admit the ending was a surprise, but that could be because it came pretty much completely out of left field and was as contrived as some of the stuff I used to write in the tenth grade, before I figured out that people who can actually write fiction can write it without having to come up with unnatural twist endings in order to finish a story.
- Sense and Sensibility -- Jane Austen -- 5
- Bliss. Yay.
- Bliss. Yay.
- A Wind in the Door -- Madeleine L'Engle -- 2.5
- When you come right down to it, I'm not much of a sci-fi fan. Or is this more fantasy? It was quite well-written, and I liked A Wrinkle In Time a lot, and it's probably quite Important, but I confess I kept mentally writing a parody as I read it. Or rather the mental parody kept writing itself. When the completely-made-up-words-per-sentence ratio reaches a certain point I just can't stay in the story anymore; I'm bumped right out of the world of the book and reminded quite painfully that I'm sitting (or lying) in a room with pages of words in front of me. Which is not a good place to be. I struggled through this but I don't think I'll go on to the sequel. Which I own, and which I'll keep because who knows, maybe one of the kids will like this kind of thing.
- When you come right down to it, I'm not much of a sci-fi fan. Or is this more fantasy? It was quite well-written, and I liked A Wrinkle In Time a lot, and it's probably quite Important, but I confess I kept mentally writing a parody as I read it. Or rather the mental parody kept writing itself. When the completely-made-up-words-per-sentence ratio reaches a certain point I just can't stay in the story anymore; I'm bumped right out of the world of the book and reminded quite painfully that I'm sitting (or lying) in a room with pages of words in front of me. Which is not a good place to be. I struggled through this but I don't think I'll go on to the sequel. Which I own, and which I'll keep because who knows, maybe one of the kids will like this kind of thing.
- Rose Madder -- Stephen King -- 3.5
- I hadn't read anything by Stephen King since high school. My mother-in-law and I got talking about his books, and she lent me this one, saying it wasn't just your average imaginative horror story. She was right. Rose Madder describes vividly a woman's escape once and for all from the cop/husband who brutalized her for fourteen years. King still doesn't pull any punches -- I distinctly remember feeling so unsafe when I read his books in junior high, because I was not used to authors who would really actually put their characters all the way through what he did without a convenient rescue or at least an averted authorial eye -- but this is a book with real depth and vivid characters. Not that even his -- well, what a snob like me would call his trashiest books -- not that even those weren't well above the level of other horror authors I dabbled in for a time (hey, I was thirteen; people do stupid things when they're thirteen), but really this is a book I can recommend, WITH THE CAVEAT that there are some truly disturbing and painful mental images herein. And swear words aplenty.
- I hadn't read anything by Stephen King since high school. My mother-in-law and I got talking about his books, and she lent me this one, saying it wasn't just your average imaginative horror story. She was right. Rose Madder describes vividly a woman's escape once and for all from the cop/husband who brutalized her for fourteen years. King still doesn't pull any punches -- I distinctly remember feeling so unsafe when I read his books in junior high, because I was not used to authors who would really actually put their characters all the way through what he did without a convenient rescue or at least an averted authorial eye -- but this is a book with real depth and vivid characters. Not that even his -- well, what a snob like me would call his trashiest books -- not that even those weren't well above the level of other horror authors I dabbled in for a time (hey, I was thirteen; people do stupid things when they're thirteen), but really this is a book I can recommend, WITH THE CAVEAT that there are some truly disturbing and painful mental images herein. And swear words aplenty.
- Confessions of a Shopaholic -- Sophie Kinsella -- 3.5
- Fluff. But fun fluff, with a Good Message even (Don't Run Up Credit Card Debt! not that I would know anything about that, of course), and some moments with which I could definitely identify.
- Fluff. But fun fluff, with a Good Message even (Don't Run Up Credit Card Debt! not that I would know anything about that, of course), and some moments with which I could definitely identify.
- Night -- Elie Weisel -- 4.5
- Everything I could say about this book has already been said, often, and better than I could say it. I mean, the guy won the Nobel Peace Prize; you think I'm actually going to come up with anything original to say in a review in my stupid little blog? This book will haunt me for the rest of my life, and it belongs on every human being's bookshelf for that very reason. Go buy it if you don't already own it. Even though it has Oprah's name stuck on the front and I can't get it off.
- Everything I could say about this book has already been said, often, and better than I could say it. I mean, the guy won the Nobel Peace Prize; you think I'm actually going to come up with anything original to say in a review in my stupid little blog? This book will haunt me for the rest of my life, and it belongs on every human being's bookshelf for that very reason. Go buy it if you don't already own it. Even though it has Oprah's name stuck on the front and I can't get it off.
- Little Children -- Tom Perotta -- 3.5
- This wasn't what I expected at all, which is an OK thing. It turned out to be about a man who was trying to reclaim his youth by having an affair, and about a woman who was trying to escape her humdrum life with a detestable husband by having an affair, and if this reminds you of Madame Bovary that's apparently not an accident at all. Throw in a new neighbor who's a convicted sex offender and you have this book, which angered me at times (although it's lighter, on the whole, than I thought it would be) but which overall I'm glad I read.
- This wasn't what I expected at all, which is an OK thing. It turned out to be about a man who was trying to reclaim his youth by having an affair, and about a woman who was trying to escape her humdrum life with a detestable husband by having an affair, and if this reminds you of Madame Bovary that's apparently not an accident at all. Throw in a new neighbor who's a convicted sex offender and you have this book, which angered me at times (although it's lighter, on the whole, than I thought it would be) but which overall I'm glad I read.
Happy Birthday Princess!
I just wanted to take time out of a crazy day of party preparations to post a Happy Birthday to my little seven-year-old princess.
When I picked my daughter's name, I kind of had a mental image of this violin-playing, blue-velvet wearing Emily-of-New-Moon-sleek-dark-hair type. Not that the velvet or the sleek hair or the violin were at all important, really.
Which is a good thing, because in the intervening years I've also learned that hers is a wonderful name for a girl who looks like this:
and like this:
But look:
BLUE VELVET(een)! (or was that black?)
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Silas Marner, chapter 9
I guess I forgot to post about this one when I uploaded it last week.
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, chapter 9
Federalist Papers 64, 65, and 66
I finally felt like doing some recording tonight. What with being busy with school, and gone at the retreat, and sick, and having a husband and son competing for computer time on weekend nights, plus all that -- you know -- real-life stuff I tend to need to do like care for my family and sleep, I'd not done any Librivoxing in I think a week and a half or two weeks. I know you all were having a hard time carrying on without these updates. I'm sorry.
These are the last of the Federalist Papers I signed up to do. I'm going to focus on my solo projects for a while instead of taking on more portions of collaborative efforts, but if I get close to done with Silas Marner and Five Little Peppers..., I may volunteer to do some more of these, if they're still available. Awesome fun.
P.S. if you're lost (ie if you found this via Google and have no idea what's going on), click here and all will be made clear.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
let's play a little game
When I was in second and third grades, I had a teacher who liked to use Fortunately-Unfortunately Story-Building as a class exercise. So, in honor of Miss M (who is still teaching and now lives right down the street from me; otherwise I might use her whole name), here is
Fortunately, I went to the retreat with my beloved mother and sister-in-law and had a fabulous time and God spoke to me about several Important Things. We went for hikes and it was beautiful and I took some nice, happy pictures.
Unfortunately, I felt rather manipulated by the music much of the time. Maybe it was just me.
Fortunately, there was one song we sang that is now my favorite even though it made me cry every time we sang it:
Blessed Be Your Name
by Matt Redman
- - -
Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your nameBlessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your nameEvery blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will sayBlessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious nameBlessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your nameBlessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your nameEvery blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will sayBlessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious nameBlessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious nameYou give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
I have a rather -- is it stoic? -- interpretation of that passage of Job (referenced in that last bridge/verse in the song), a passage which many people find perplexing or hard. Not me. To me it means, dude, everything beyond our bare-bones basic existence -- the nakedness with which we came from our mother's wombs -- is an extra -- a bonus -- and if God chooses to give us stuff, awesome. Praise Him. If He gives us some stuff and then he takes it away, well, it was all a bonus anyway, so: awesome. Praise Him. I don't spend a lot of time wrangling with questions like "Why does God let this stuff happen to me?" when I'm in pain. I figure, hey, God let life happen to me, and we live in a fallen world so bad stuff will happen during that life, and I am small and God is big and if the Why matters, then I'll find it out later, and if it doesn't matter, then I won't. Kind of boring, I know. But I love that song, because the idea of praising God through good and bad is a really important, difficult, beautiful idea, and also because it's quite catchy.
Whoo. I digress. I totally strayed from the formula there. Back to it.
Unfortunately... um, can't think of another Unfortunately that fits here. Mom, Debi, and I had two roommates who snored so loudly that we made a trip away from the retreat into town on the second day to buy earplugs? (I don't say that to be mean. Everybody snores sometimes. These people, bless their hearts, just did it very energetically. Whatever your hand finds to do, etc.)
Fortunately, there were the much-anticipated Six Meals No Planning No Cooking No Cleaning.
Unfortunately, I came home just in time to endure two days (and counting) of the worst bout of (I think) food poisoning I've ever had (based on incubation periods and the non-illness of the other people who were there with me, though, I think it was from the salad bar at the Hometown Buffet at which we ate on Thursday, and not the retreat. Or else it's a virus.).
Fortunately, this meant that even though I overate wildly during the 48 hours of the retreat, I now weigh four pounds less than I did on the morning I left. How sick is our skinny-obsessed culture that this makes me want to get food poisoning once a week for the rest of my life? (do not tell me about how all I lost is water weight. I don't want to think about that. Rather, I am happy thinking about the simple fact that The Scale Went Down.)
Unfortunately (sort of), the combination of Very Unhappy Innards and the Very Important Things about which God spoke to me at the retreat has kept me away from the computer almost the entire time I've been home. I am dreadfully behind on my blog-reading.
Fortunately, LT just finished teaching C her math lesson and made me a bed on the couch where I am supposed to lie down and read. Because I feel sick. They are so nice to me.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Thursday Thirteen
Thirteen Random Things That Don't Quite Warrant A Post On Their Own (because obviously if they did I'd have been posting about them... right?)
- I am thisclose to getting my hair cut to my shoulders. I had been thinking I'd do it when I lost ten pounds because I have this thing about my head being tiny and out of proportion to my body and that being worse when I'm heavier, but it occurred to me this morning in the shower (where the world's geniuses do all their best thinking, obviously) that since my hair is always UP, in a little clip on the back of my head (because it's totally unsightly down, truly), it's not exactly lending my head an illusion of added size. So there goes that reasoning. Maybe when I get back from #2:
- The Ladies' Retreat is this weekend. Oh my gosh I hope it's better than last year's, which was about organizing and simplifying our homes, which, OK, yes, I need to learn (funny how these people never take into account a husband who's even more of a pack rat than you are... am I supposed to throw his stuff away while he's not looking?), but it wasn't exactly spiritually reviving like the year before. And also, plus, six meals no planning no cooking no cleaning. And 48 hours during which nobody says I'm hungry to me as if I'm expected to pop out food like a snack machine. And nice walks among the tall pines with my mom and my sister-in-law and JENN WE WILL MISS YOU. Waah. :(
- School's going pretty well overall. It's a lot of work this year, for me.
- I've decided to do TWO years of US History and TWO years of World History, rather than one of each. This is, of course, because that way the kids will retain it better. Not at ALL because I had no idea how I would cram everything into half that time without giving homework, which considering I'm a homeschooler would be rather odd.
- I think fall is finally really truly here. [does happy dance.] Yes, I know that it's officially here as of today, but in California that doesn't always mean much.
- I successfully shopped for clothes last week. I spent more on clothes for myself than I had in five or ten years. That isn't saying much, trust me.
- I'm putting off writing The Family Letter even though I totally shouldn't or it will end up sitting above my computer for months and months. Explanation: My mom's family (six sisters and a sister-in-law, plus their mom and now assorted adult female cousins and cousins-in-law) started a round-robin letter in the mid-80's. It usually takes about three years to get around even though they are constantly -- in EVERY cycle -- resolving that it should take no more than six months. My last letter in it is from 2002. I really should be doing that now instead of this.
- I have a crick in my upper back which has been periodically causing my neck to clench up in the most amazing cramps I think I've ever had. The other night it was so bad that I took a muscle relaxant, which made me so sleepy that I was in bed at 8:00. PM. I think in my post-kids life I've gone to be at 8 AM more often than at 8 PM.
- My kids have been getting videos of the Ramona series from the library. I am hopelessly addicted. Why did they make only one season? For most women my age, Must See T-V involves, I dunno, emergency rooms or deserted islands or something. For me: the antics of an 8-year-old Beverly Cleary creation. I am so happening.
- I have read so many library books this month. This means that:
- I have been sadly neglecting my Librivox commitments. Next week I promise.
- C's birthday party is coming up in a week. Well, a week from Saturday. To say that she's excited would be a vast understatement. She will be seven. Fortunately her brother has blazed this trail before her, so that number is not so terribly shocking as it once was. She's actually almost as excited about getting to ride in the front seat of the car (see: California's oppressive Big-Brother-style laws) as she is about having a party.
- We have a 'school-year reading program' which mimics the library's summer reading program. For each (appropriate-length) book the kids read, they get a treat or points toward a big prize (25 books' worth of points = a trip to the Monterey Aquarium, for example). Plus every thousand pages they get to buy a new book. I'm thinking that last bit is going to break us. They've each already earned a free book, and if they continue at their current rate (which would, you know, totally break my heart) they'll be getting one every two weeks or so. Maybe it's time to start visiting the SPCA yard sale.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Sunday Seven
lifted from Jenn, who I think made it up herself. :)
1. What is your first memory?
I have a few scattered bits of memory from when I was around 2. One is from, if I'm correct about this, the national bicentennial, which would have been when I was nineteen months old. I remember bunting everywhere and being at the history center in town with the stamp mill going, and I remember I was wearing something frilly over my diaper. I don't know why I've always thought this was the bicentennial, come to think of it. I'll have to ask my mom where we were that day and see if I'm right.
I also remember sitting on a railing made of pipe in front of someone's house and falling off it into a bed of cactus. THAT was fun. I asked my dad about this later and he said that was at someone's house in Maricopa, where we lived for five or six months in 1977, the only time we've ever lived away from here since I was born. So I was about 2 1/2 when that happened.
2. What was your favorite thing to do as a child?
Reading. Closely followed by playing outside. As I got older, after I got my horse (I was 9), riding her was definitely way up there too.
3. What was your favorite family moment as a child?
When we were in the car going for a drive. This was a good cheap fulfilling form of family entertainment. We'd sing and play car games and look at the scenery. Much of the time we'd be in the pickup truck and my brother and I would ride in the camper. We had an intercom so we could talk to Mom and Dad in the front, or in some of our campers we had that boot-thing where you could open the back window of the truck and the front window of the camper and put the boot-thing around the opening to block the wind and voila, an SUV. Except without seatbelts (or even seats) in the rear. Man that was fun.
4. When and what was your first exposure to religion?
We went to the Methodist church my whole childhood (my mom had gone there for HER whole childhood as well). So my first exposure to religion was sitting on a pew surrounded by a bunch of VERY nice people whose Bibles were very dusty, listening to bland but brief sermons without any noticeable connection to the Bible. Your Methodist mileage may vary.
5. What was your worst nightmare as a child?
You know, I don't remember. I remember some strange dreams (going swimming in a river of paint with my brother's friend; this was when I was maybe 7) but I can't remember any nightmares right now. I know I had them.
6. What was your most embarrassing childhood moment?
I'm trying to think of one from early childhood but I was so clueless then. I have some memories that are painful ones because at the time I didn't know that I should be embarrassed, but those don't technically count as embarrassing moments. So I'll count childhood as including sixth grade. (no, this is not the dog-biscuit story; I've told that one too many times already). One day I found a note in my desk from a boy I liked, saying that he liked me and would I "go with him"? I was on my way to the library where I helped check out books, so when he put his book on the desk to check out, I put the note with a Yes written on the bottom into his book like a bookmark. He pulled it out and looked at it and was pretty embarrassed himself (he was a nice kid; I wonder whatever happened to him. I can't even remember his last name) because he hadn't written it. It was a prank, masterminded by a girl I still don't like much (not just because of this) and carried out by a boy with whom I later became decent friends. I never mentioned that incident to him, though.
7. Name one person who hurt you as a child that you have forgiven.
Tim Preston. I always swore I would hate him till the end of my life, because he had truly been very mean to me. Then I ran into him a year ago at the county fair and he approached me, spoke very kindly to me as if we'd never been anything but great friends, shook my hand, and walked away, and I couldn't hate him anymore. Sometimes I forget that they were just children, all those children, and that most of us grew up to be adults who didn't necessarily have a whole lot in common with our younger selves.
Sam M., though, that's another story. ;-)
Saturday, September 16, 2006
it's a beautiful life really.
Don't mind me; I'm always a little bit this way when summer starts to end. I went for a walk with the kids yesterday. It was about 65 degrees, blue sky, puffy white clouds, bright sun on a clean world, with brisk clean air that felt good going into my lungs. I literally shouted what a wonderful day! as we were walking. More than once. It's a good thing I don't have to care if people think I'm crazy. Or maybe I should say if they know I'm crazy. A little bit anyway.
I made apple pork for supper. The oven warming the house during the afternoon was a good thing for a change, and the hearty food was exactly what we all wanted.
We split wood in the evening -- 'we' being mostly LT and myself, because T is still on light duty (although he feels better than he has in ages). LT is actually quite good at splitting wood. He's getting really broad shoulders and a deep chest, and now instead of standing as tall as the level of my chin, he's up to my nose (and I'm tall). I'm putting my money on him passing me up in height when he is... twelve. And I foresee plenty of maul-swinging for him in that time and beyond; the reason we started this particular job yesterday was that he was having, shall we say, anger issues, and I remembered how when I was his age, a little bit of woodshed time had been an excellent vent for the kind of pent-up frustration that would otherwise have caused much intrafamily conflict*. LT found the technique equally effective, and I think we will probably be using it rather a lot over the next, say, eight years. Good thing we have a woodstove.
* (Plus when people had been mean to me at school I could come home and do a little bit of imaginative play. Quite satisfying really.)
Next week we're supposed to be in the low 80's again, so I'm going to take the kids to the valley today while it's still brisk and lovely, and we'll do some necessary shopping (I need new clothes, and I actually feel like shopping for new clothes, and we actually have the money for some new clothes, so I am going to capitalize on this rare confluence of events), and we may walk along the creek too, and look for turtles and trains. life. is. good.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Friday Feast
Appetizer
What was the very last song you listened to?
It was a Scarlatti piano sonata. Not sure which one.
Soup
What is one company/store/corporation you would recommend that people stay away from?
There's a guy who runs a business selling auto interior parts and my husband placed a $2700 order with him last November. Ten months later the order is, eh, about two-thirds complete. The guy doesn't return phone calls or emails and when he DOES contact T, he feeds him a line about how it's all just about ready and blah blah blah. Except it's not. So. In case any of my blog readers were going to go and purchase any auto body parts ;), steer clear of A 1 C a n v a s. (I'm so softhearted I can't stand to think of the guy googling his business and finding this).
Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy having your picture made?
Someone else taking it: 3. My grandmother in particular taking it: 1. (for some reason I gain thirty pounds and look absolutely hideous -- as in, literally, like scarily bad -- whenever she takes my picture). Me taking my own picture: 8, because I know that's my best chance to make myself look like a normal person when really I don't.
Main Course
Besides a bookmark, what is something you’ve used to keep your place in a book?
Oh, everything. A bill (especially fun when they come due and you can't find them), junk mail, a CD, a hair elastic, a barrette, a pencil, a napkin, a photograph, an envelope, a receipt, another book.
Dessert
Name a food that you like that most people don’t.
Leftover spaghetti with ranch dressing mixed in. MMM.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, chapter 8
Chapter 8: Joel's Turn
Silas Marner, chapter 8
It's interesting: reading this aloud, I almost find it boring, because it's taking to long to get to what I consider the Good Part. Lots of set-up and fog and people sitting around talking in taverns and things. When I'm just reading to myself I read quickly enough that I don't even notice that a good third of the book is set-up, I guess.
The Federalist Papers -- paper #62
Federalist #62: The Senate, by James Madison
(in case you're new and/or lost)
this turned out to mostly be about school
I'm staying up late tonight, hoping to make it until T gets up at three (yes, THREE. Thank you, boss-man.) to go to work, so that I can make him coffee and oatmeal (and maybe some bacon just for the wake-up scent value) for breakfast.
There were two parenthetical statements in that sentence. I do try to avoid that, usually. I'm too tired to mess with it now. As soon as I get done here -- I actually logged on to post Librivox updates, and got sidetracked -- I'm getting off the computer and doing some reading, where I know I can't a) damage anything or b) embarrass myself, no matter how tired I get.
Grammatical embarrassment just reminded me of my kids' favorite part of school this year: Fix-A-Sentence. In high school we did a thing called Daily Oral Language (not sure if this was a local teacher's invention or not; maybe everybody does this in high school; I don't know) where there would be a sentence, rife with errors, on the chalkboard, and we as a class would have a discussion wherein we repaired it and made it all proper and satisfying and correct. I think we had to write it down too but it's been a lot of years and plus it's 1:30 AM and I just don't remember. I should call Mr. Keller and ask him, right now, don't you think? I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Anyway. I have started doing this with my kids, and calling it Fix-A-Sentence or Sentence Doctors instead of DOL which is kind of a boring title, and besides, oral language involves a whole lot more than eliminating phrases like "very unique" (although I am certainly all for that), putting commas where they belong, and knowing where to put the hyphen in the phrase "fortieth-birthday party" (am obviously in favor of those, too. Oh, how I loved DOL).
Dang. Shut UP Rachel.
Anyway. The kids love this. They LOVE it. They would do it all day long if I let them. Especially if it got them out of doing math. Really, though, math is going well for them too. LT has some challenging stuff going on right now, but he's handling it. We're handling it, I should say, since I'm the one with the headache at the end of each lesson. History is actually turning out to be fun -- we're doing the history of the United States and right now we're just getting to Columbus' voyages. I didn't get a history book in time so I'm using a college US History book as a source text and coming up with my own curriculum for the two of them, which works fine for them and is a great refresher for me too. And we're doing science stuff and reading The Incredible Journey and the book of John and we're really having fun. Not that the kids (*cough*LT*cough*) would ever admit that.
Friday, September 08, 2006
in which we officially arrive in the twenty-first century
Last night, just as we were supposed to be dashing out the door to AWANA (for which we are perpetually late because they start the meeting fifteen minutes after T walks in the door needing his supper, and it's a half-hour drive) we got the kind of phone call nobody likes to get. The kind that is all, "dude, we noticed some suspicious activity in your credit card account. Did you spend $1600 at Apple Computer today?" And of course we didn't; we're PC people, not Mac people. (no granola or raw-silk scarves in our house either.) So that began a really fun phone conversation about all kinds of interesting things like: dude, the people bought flowers with our credit card. "Happy anniversary, honey! And they were free, too! Sorta! bonus!"
So now we're sincerely hoping that it was only that account that was compromised, and that this isn't the beginning of some identity-theft hell where we're trapped in a bad Sandra Bullock movie and people in black coats start trailing us and we try to check into hotels but we're already there. Or something. I never actually saw that movie (did anybody?). The good news is that we only had that one credit card account open, and it's actually closed now (duh), so it's not like they can do this with a bunch of other accounts. Which would, uh, not have been the case say a year ago. We're going to sign up for that credit monitoring thing where they notify you anytime anyone tries to open credit in your name, but anyone else who's been through anything similar who has advice about additional steps to take, please please feel free to lay it on us because we are woefully inexperienced as crime victims. Thank you.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, chapter 7
Chapter 7: The Cloud Over the Little Brown House
Poor Polly.
(if you're lost, here's an explanation)
Silas Marner, chapter 7
I've not been 'librivoxing' as much as I had been, what with the fair and preparing for school and things.
If you've no idea what this is all about, try going here.)
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
dream analysis 101 followed by a wacko introspective about housework
What does it mean if I have had a week of very memorable dreams, all involving either a) world-scale disasters such as nuclear war and comet collisions, b) massive failures in various attempts at important tasks due to my blistering inadequacy at, say, walking, or c) both?
Oh yes. It means today's the first day of school.
********************************
update:
School went fine. Everyone was quite cooperative and so it took less time than I thought it might and actual learning took place. Oh, that's nice, Rachel, you might be saying. Then why is it that your hair is standing on end and your chest feels tight and you want to run far away into the hills? Ah. Well. That'd be because of room-cleaning time.
We give ourselves a bit of a problem in this area, I admit. Well, really, we (T and I) give me a bit of a problem, since I'm the one who has to deal with it on a daily basis and he is not. On the one hand, we can't just bring ourselves to be the bohemian, tie-dyed, parents-are-pals kind of parents who tell their kids, "I don't care how messy it is, just keep the door closed," for several reasons: First, we have to traverse their rooms to get to the laundry room and to the clothesline, and LT has to get through C's room to get to his. Second, how do those parents deal with it when it's time to go somewhere and the child can't find a single thing he or she needs, from socks on up? Third, well, we're just not that bohemian, I guess. We're school-at-home types too. Oh. That kind of parents. Yeah.
On the other hand, though, I refuse -- I patently refuse -- to clean their rooms, especially C's, or even to help her clean it, because it makes me absolutely bananas, even more bananas than I am at this present moment and that's pretty darn bananas to tell the truth, to do the work of cleaning with or for her only to have the room be an utter disaster area again within 48 hours. I am Not A Good Mommy when this happens.
So this leaves us requiring the kids to clean their own rooms. LT is not so bad at this nowadays. He's finally figured out that it's a job he has to do and the quicker he gets going and gets it done, the sooner it'll be behind him. C, on the other hand, will cheerily spend all day -- literally all day -- in her room, supposedly cleaning it and then weeping remorsefully every time she gets scolded and/or punished for not doing so. This makes me absolutely insane. Do you ever feel like having your head explode would be so, so nice, not because you want to die -- that would, indeed, be an unfortunate side effect -- but because the release of pressure would feel so, so good? You don't? Do you... have kids? Oh. Must be just me then. Because I feel this way every time it's time for C to clean her room.
And we've tried so many things. We've tried rewarding her for keeping it clean. We've tried racing her to get it clean (against, say, me folding all my clean laundry) and whoever wins gets a prize. We've tried keeping it lighthearted. We've tried spanking. We've tried taking away privileges (there have been times where she was on computer restriction for three or four weeks at a time, all as the result of one particularly nasty bedroom-cleaning incident). We've tried taking away cherished possessions for various lengths of time. I yell. I explain. I rave. The only things that have ever worked are:
1) T or I stand in her room and tell her what to pick up, continually reminding her to move along and not dawdle, until her room is finally clean. (see above re: wreck in 48 hours and I Am Not A Good Mommy, etc)
or
2) She has to clean it every day before she can do anything fun at all whatsoever. Even reading.
Number Two actually lasted for maybe a month last spring. The difficulty with it is that things intervene -- school, a necessary trip somewhere, whatever -- and before you know it three days' worth of mess have piled up and you're back to square one.
Complicating this whole thing is the simple fact that I am not a good example. Sometimes, in fact, I feel like a complete hypocrite, going ballistic at her for stalling and dawdling when my bedroom looks like a clothing tornado went through it and I have four baskets heaped up with clean unfolded laundry sitting in the living room. I rationalize by saying that I'm trying to teach her good habits so that she won't end up like me. Except maybe I should spend the same effort teaching myself good habits, so that I can stop ending up like me. Hmm.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
a really, really weird entry. sersly.
So, what do you want first? The county-fair rundown or the grisly details of yet another splinter removal (C's, of course)?
The splinter? OK. Gotcha. I'll throw in a side of Mother Of The Year Award goodness for you too.
This actually started on Friday, which was, ohmygosh, one of those days where, when you're living it, you're all, 'no way is all this nonsense actually happening to me. right? this is some kind of joke?', what with the truck breaking down a few times and the hundred zillion degree heat and all. While we were in the middle of this (during the second attempt to revive the truck, which had conked out this time with its nose fully out all the way across the road my in-laws live on, which was the SECOND-worst place it died that day), C fell down, cried a little, and told me she felt like she had 'something in her leg' which had a bit of a scratch along it. I said it was probably just swollen a little because she had hurt it, and went back to looking sympathetic and praying that T would get the truck started soon, before a) we all died of heat prostration and b) someone came along and T-boned our truck which would totally have helped our day be way more exciting than it already had been. And this was BEFORE the truck died at the gas station, taking up an entire row of pumps because of the trailer behind it. Did I mention that we don't have tow insurance on the truck? We don't. So. Anyway. C fell down. Fast-forward to today, when I noticed that she was still feeling the pain of that scrape a bit more than I thought she should, and really sat down and looked at her leg, and saw that the area around the bottom of the scratch was swollen and tight and red and hot. And it looked vaguely like there was some pus under the edge of the scratch. And I pulled off a scab and some pus came out. Of my daughter's leg. This is not supposed to happen, because this isn't the eighteenth century and I am not (praise be to God) some time-traveling doctor woman who's performing surgery in the wilderness. So I called T in (T's hand-eye coordination is way better than mine) and amid many tears and a little screaming and much hydrogen peroxide, we performed a minor surgery in our bathroom and pulled a 3/4" sliver of wood out from under my child's skin. There was... more pus. A lot more.
Excuse me, I just had to go give her another guilt-hug. I've been doing this all afternoon. I hope she doesn't know why.
So now she's OK, and we've cleaned the site and put on ointment and drawn dotted lines around the red area so we can monitor it to make sure it gets smaller instead of larger. Because, you know, I am such a good parent.
OK, no more pus in this entry, I promise.
County fair, let's see. We went on Friday night, after all the truck troubles, and had a good time. They had bumper cars this year, which -- oh my gosh we are SUCH party animals -- we had been hoping and wishing they would, and then when the kids and I went to the fairgrounds to buy ride tickets last week and saw the truck with the bumper car ride actually being pulled onto the grounds to get set up, it was, I am not joking, the highlight of the day. Or maybe even the week. We went out again later to make sure that they hadn't changed their minds just because they knew we wanted this so badly. While we were there, we had to drive kind of close to a trailer and we heard this kind of clattery sound like we'd knocked over a garbage bag, and I half-jokingly-half-freaking-out said, as we were driving the two miles home, that I hoped it hadn't been a PERSON we'd hit, you know, like some passed out carny or something, and it wasn't. No, it was a really large black cargo net kind of thing. This we knew because when we got home and I went to open the trunk, I tripped over it, because it was still attached to our car. We felt like felons, tossing it in the trunk, driving back out to the fairgrounds, tossing it out where we'd accidentally picked it up, and then driving away all calmly, not knowing whether to giggle like maniacs or not. (honestly, I kept thinking about Jennifer and myself and how if this had happened when we were in high school we'd still be talking about it like every time we talked to each other. And snorting with laughter.)
Anyway. Fair. Rides were fun. Pictures I entered did OK but not fantastic. Same with kids' entries. Spent too much on food. Parade was hot and rather boring but a nice fireman gave C a stuffed unicorn. The end.
pictures:
Cautious LT LOVES the Tilt-A-Whirl.
bumper-car madness
more bumper-car madness
the forestry guys had a little-kid obstacle course contest thing set up where they'd put on fireman clothes and run around looking all cute and doing funny things. C had a great time.
(teach YOU to stand there taking pictures of me.)
Friday, September 01, 2006
books for August
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH -- Robert C. O'Brien -- 5
- Read this one aloud onto CD for my dad. I reviewed it here, last year.
- Assorted short stories -- O. Henry -- 4
- I'd only ever read his "Gift of the Magi", which I think everyone has read and which I have always loved. I bought a compilation of his stories at Barnes and Noble and have been really enjoying them; they're great for when I want to read something quick and yet complete (duh, Rachel, that's a really new thought about short stories!).
- Island of the Blue Dolphins -- Scott O'Dell -- 3.5
- I was fascinated by this book when we read it in the fourth grade. I bought it used because I collect Newbery winners, and read it again this month as I was planning for our upcoming school year and trying to decide what books we'd read as a "class" (all three of us).
- A Wrinkle in Time -- Madeleine L'Engle -- 4.5
- I hadn't read this in YEARS and I had forgotten a lot of detail, so when the neighbor kids started discussing it with me I pulled it off the shelf and read it. It was more classically sci-fi than I remembered, and I had never noticed how overtly Christian it was. I think the last time I read this book I was in high school, to tell the truth. Brilliantly done, truly. On to the sequels, which I've never read.
- There Will Never Be Another You -- Carolyn See -- 1.5 (it would be a 1 except I save that for books I don't finish)
- Eck. This looked interesting, just reading the jacket flap -- in the very near future (set in 2007, mostly) a doctor is hand-picked to work with the government in case of biological terror attacks. Unfortunately, pretty much the entire thing fell flat, most notably the scenes where the doctor deals with the military, which were so badly done, using every stereotype about military personnel in the book as wel as some of the most heavy-handed writing I've ever seen, that I'm giving the author (and her publisher) the benefit of the doubt and assuming that she meant them as parody. And as the only bits of parody in what is otherwise apparently meant as a serious novel, they just don't work for me. The doctor's personal life is messy and unpleasant, and not a single character in the book is likeable or even memorable. It's supposed to be this angsty see-how-anxious-we-all-are post-9/11 cultural cross-section kind of thing. I am apparently (judging by the Amazon reviews, which are glowing) the only person who thinks it failed completely.
- The Abortionist's Daughter -- Elisabeth Hyde -- 3.5
- I think I just felt the earth shift on its axis when I typed that 3.5 there. Truly, though, while this book's politics, if you read deeply between the lines, don't agree with mine, Hyde is very careful not to hit anyone over the head with them. The 'issues' here go beyond the pro/anti-abortion debate; this is a taut whodunit and not a morality tale. It has characters I liked and characters I hated -- notably, it has sympathetic characters on both sides of the issue, which is rare -- and rhetoric I didn't buy (but I don't think I was supposed to) from both sides. I give the author a lot of points for not making a good novel into a Very Special Episode where everyone who was on The Wrong Side realizes their mistakes by the last page and ends up converted. However, I have to take off a point for a couple of very jarringly inappropriate metaphors (inappropriate in a literary sense, not a moral one) near the end of the book.
