Monthly Archives: July 2011

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At this moment

It’s 8:44.

The girls are asleep. B is out at a concert with a friend who needed his company. He’s a good friend.

I’m listening to Robbie Williams. I had forgotten about Robbie Williams until I heard him in the song from Cars 2. So thanks, Cars 2, for that.

I’m trying to figure out what do do with my evening. I just finished a baby blanket for a friend, days early for the shower. I changed direction mid way through, but I like how it turned out.  I’m in the middle of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, which is marvelous. I should just go lay in bed and read it.  BUT- I’m planning out a series of posts about getting organized (why? I don’t know.); and I’m thinking about entering a quilt contest where the theme is “finding your own voice”, which means I have to determine what exactly my quilting voice is; and I really should finish cleaning up this room. And I’m writing this. So there we are.

I’m also thinking about school, which starts in 3 weeks, which is a little weird. I think I’ve planned as much as I can plan at this point, but I’m a planner, and so I keep going over and over things. (For anyone who doesn’t know, we’re homeschooling.) I have my master plan, but that plan might not work, so I don’t want to plan too far out, so that I don’t have to scrap a ton of work to change things.

Because of all this planning, I’ve been reading lots of books about books and about education. I’ve finished Charlotte Mason Education and More Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levinson, as well as Book Crush by Nancy Pearl and Books Children Love by Elizabeth Laraway Wilson.

I also read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which isn’t education related (but is about books) and was completely wonderful. I really really enjoyed it, and it brought to my awareness events that I had no idea about. It’s mainly concerned with the German occupation of the Channel Islands during WW2, which I didn’t even know happened. But it’s charming and funny and sad and I loved it.

I also just read this post, and it almost broke me.  So many things I feel (or have felt) so deeply, expressed so beautifully.

And aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh! A big huge lightbulb just went on over my head just now. The writing group I’m part of is participating in an essay contest, and the topic is “When did you first understand the meaning of love?”. I’ve been putting it off, because how do you write that essay without it being hokey? How do you find a new approach? And I’ve just found it as I thought about that post. Lovely!

And now Suede has come on, and speaking of love, I don’t know that there’s a band that I love quite so much as I love them. Goodness me. Brett Anderson’s voice is just so much. Much muchiness, he.  (If you want to see for yourself you can check him out here, but be warned, the song is heartbreaking.)

Hmmm… I think that’s all I’ve got for now.  I think I’m going to go watch more videos. What’s going on with you at this moment?

 

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Hello there

It’s been a while. Shall we catch up?

Home:

We finally got someone to come and spray for the spiders that plague our house. He also sprayed for wasps in the back yard, but informed us that the suspiciously wasp like creatures flying around the tree are actually honeybees. So there’s that.

Crafty goodness:

I’m making a dress. 3 dresses, actually, one for me, and one for each of the girls. I may have lost my ever loving mind. Would you like to see? (The dresses, that is, not my mind.)

I’m thinking of doing it in black with white polka dots and either a red trim or white. Or maybe red with white polka dots. Who knows.I do know that I won’t have that awesome hair. :)

This is the one I’m making for the girls:

I’m making it without the pants. The girls each got to pick out their main fabric for the skirt, and they both chose “Eiffel Tower of Paris” fabric- Z’s is blue with Eiffel Towers, little shops, and poodles on it, Tiny’s is cream with pink and black Eiffel Towers. Then Z’s will have a gray brocade-y bodice and solid blue straps that tie, and Tiny’s will have a pink polka dot bodice and solid pink stripes.

Keep in mind that I’ve never sewn anything to wear off of a pattern before, and then cross your fingers while I attempt these. :)

Reading:

Since I last posted I’ve read:

Soft Spoken Parenting: 50 Ways Not to Lose your Temper with your Kids  by H. Wallace Goddard,  which was excellent and very helpful. I have found myself losing my temper less since I read it.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs : This was a really interesting book. B saw the cover and thought I’d like it, and was quite right. The premise is that a boy grows up hearing stories from his grandfather about the grandfather’s childhood when he was sent to live on an island with other peculiar children to escape the monsters that were after them.  At this point in reading it, I thought, “oh, interesting, I wonder if this will be analogy for WW 2″. But then the boy’s parents explain to him that this is his grandfather’s way of talking about being shipped out of Poland during WW2 because his family was Jewish. But then when the boy is 15, the actual, real live monsters show up, and it’s not an analogy or actually about WW2 at all. The book is full of real photographs taken back in the day and used to promote carnival freak shows, of peculiar kids doing peculiar things. It was a fun, solid story, and while it looks like it’s probably the first in a series, I kind of hope it isn’t- in the end the boy finds his place in the world and answers to his questions, and is off on an adventure. That’s a pretty good place to leave a book.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel: I reread this for book club, and it was just as powerful as the first time I read it, years ago. The end wasn’t a shock, obviously, but knowing that there were varying narratives just made some of the passages more poignant and meaningful.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Cat Valente: I love this book more than I could possibly say. To explain why I’d have to copy huge sections out of it word for word. It’s a gorgeous, self aware ( but not irritatingly meta) fairy tale that has turns of phrase I just want to live in, a darling story, a fully realized world – it’s just SO good.

I also read  James and the Giant Peach by  Roald Dahl and TumTum and Nutmeg: Adventures outside of Nutmouse Hall and The Rose Cottage Adventures by Emily Bearn with the girls. The girls loved the TumTum and Nutmeg books passionately- each is a collection of 3 books, so they were delighted that we had 6 stories about these adorable, adventure prone mice to read.

Events:

Z had her birthday, and a star studded “rock star” party to go with it, but I my pictures aren’t working at the moment, so I can’t post them. I will post them tomorrow.

Day to day:

We’ve been spending a lot of our summer days at Great America, since it’s only about a 10 minute drive to get there. The girls are now completely enamored with the Peanuts gang, and Tiny routinely declares that she is Snoopy, or Linus, or anyone else.  It’s been a lot of fun- there are a lot of rides they can go on, and they love it.

Church:

I got a new calling, I’m now a Relief Society teacher. I’m also still over playgroup, until they get someone else to do it. And I’ve been subbing in Gospel Doctrine class, so I’m keeping myself busy. :)

I think that’s all I’ve got for the moment. More later, I’m sure, and with pictures.