books, glorious books

I just finished reading Novella Carpenter's Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. It is due back at the library tomorrow, with a number of other books, and I'm working hard to actually turn books in on time, so others might have a chance to enjoy them also. (When we were reading aloud In Defense of Food, I actually finished reading it in the library parking lot, right next to the book drop.)

I can't remember where I came across mention of Carpenter's book, but I'm glad I did. I think I might read this again one day. At first, I thought the narrative jumped around too much, often taking a short trip back to tell a new little story, but as I hurried to finish the book as the due date loomed near, I didn't feel like reading this was a chore. I enjoyed it. Even when I was trying not to gag as she describes the killing and preparing of her various animals for food. (I've often said to Cardo that if I had to kill animals so that we could eat meat, we'd be vegetarians. I don't think I have it in my to hunt/raise animals and then kill them. If I were ever in some kind of Man Versus Wild situation in which I had to kill my own dinner, I'd probably die. As it is, I just try to not eat too much meat.)

Anyhow, I ended up really enjoying the book. And, I've become reinspired to, when we finally, finally one day have a house, raise chickens (for eggs, of course, unless someone else wants to come over and chop their heads off and do all the other preparing for me) and keep bees. (There, I've said it. I've only ever confessed these little fantasies to Cardo. Laugh if you will. I like to dream about the future, and I tend to get idealistic.)

So, tomorrow, I'll return Farm City and, I hope, pick up The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt. I'm next in line on the waiting list for that one. After that? It's coming up to my turn for one of my guilty pleasures: totally nonserious, nonacademic, nonnon-fiction (got that?) mysteries.

What else? I'm not sure where to go after that. No doubt I'll check out some more children's literature. I'm making up for lost time. I feel like I went from Clifford and Berenstain Bears and Ramona to Little Women and Are You There God? It's Me Margaret and Lois Lowery to Dean Koontz and Steven King, passing by oh-so-many great opportunities along the way. Oh, if only I could stop time and all other activity and read, read, read...my heart would burst with joy!

As for Pic, we are on a dog theme this week. She is fairly obsessed with dogs. There really wasn't much in the Juvenile non-fiction section on dogs, especially compared to the entire shelf devoted to cats, so I only picked up one DK Eyewitness Book on Dogs. Pic loves Susan Meddaugh's Martha (who has been animated for PBS Kids), so we also got Perfectly Martha. I picked up The Adventures of Taxi Dog, which I remembered from a Reading Rainbow...and I also picked up that episode of Reading Rainbow. (I also seem to remember something like Doggy News from Reading Rainbow, so I'll have to try to find that on our next library visit.) We got a couple of other books, too, including one we read today: The Very Kind Rich Lady and Her One Hundred Dogs. We both enjoyed this. It's very simple. I think that in 'regular' schools (ones not housed at my dining room table), elementary teachers sometimes do a 100th Day celebration for the 100th day of school, and this might work for that. We also have plenty of Clifford books and let's definitely not forget Go, Dog. Go!

So, what are you all reading right now?

declutter: days all the rest

My camera battery needed a serious charge last night and I've been lax on posting photos. Anyhow, I've reached the end of my thirty days of declutter. I need to do about 300 more, so I'll keep slowly whittling away here.


First, I have some items I got from an orientation over three years ago. Until the last few days, they've sat in the same bag in which I received them, waiting for me to actually getting around to using them. Not going to happen, it turns out.




(Don't you love how clean my carpet is? I have no idea what that is in that second picture there, but I'm hoping it was just a shadow.)



Cardo found me a new jacket at Goodwill this past weekend and so an older one has to go. This one is definitely warm enough, it's just never been a favorite of mine. Out it goes to keep someone else warm in these colder months.






These last have been with us an embarrassingly long time. I was once off on this whim where I wanted to make flavored iced teas at home. And I did, for a few months. These were all pretty full, but I emptied them, obviously, before I took the shot. I'll stick with honey for my teas (I brew it hot, add the honey and then put the whole mug in the refrigerator to cool).

(And, the 'sugar-free' just means with Splenda instead of an actual food. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with Splenda, but I have a looong way to go before I'm only eating what is actually food. One laboratory concoction at a time.)

reading...and how it's learned

I might have vaguely told this story before. If so, ah well, because here it vaguely comes again.

I hated learning to read. I remember it being a stressful time for both myself and my first teachers. I didn't get common, but then-difficult-for-me, words like 'the.' I also was easily confused when confronted with 'b' and 'p.' It wasn't until I was about halfway through my BA that I saw the video where a man was presenting to teachers the 'watch concept.' I really have no idea what the concept is called, but, basically, he holds up a wristwatch and asks, 'What's this?' 'A watch,' his audience dutifully responds. He turns the watch around, 'What's this?' 'A watch.' He keeps moving the watch around, asking the same question. Of course, it's always a watch. Then he holds up a shape: 'p.' 'What's this?' Ah, yes, it's a 'p' now, but when we flip it over, or around, it's also a 'd' and a 'b' and a 'q.' I don't know that it would have helped me to have someone point this out to me when I was five, but it might have been nice to know just how arbitrary letters are. I still occasionally mix up such letters when writing. I still, sometimes, write my 'S's backward and have to think for a moment, 'What's wrong with this?'

Ultimately, I came out fairly unscathed, I think. I love to read. I like to always have something on hand to read: books, magazines, blogs, newspapers, toothpaste tubes, graffiti. I'm a person who will bring a book or other reading material wherever she goes. Cardo's car seat pockets are stuffed with books. (Mine used to be too.) If I have a few moments of spare time to myself (ha!) and I don't have reading material on hand, I'm anxious.

I love to read.

Pic loves books. She loves to have them read to her. She loves to pore over them, taking in the pictures, making up her own stories to go along with them. She's pretty good at repeating a book to us once we've read it to her. I'll often read a book to her and then have her 'read' it back to me. I've recently started helping her make her own books.* But, how do we get to the next step?

Being as overly-educated as I am, with two degrees in Literature, I feel this pressure to be the parent of a child who reads right now. People ask me if she's reading yet or if I'm teaching her to read and then I'm filled with dread. I feel like a failure knowing that she's almost five and still doesn't read on her own. I know it is ridiculous for me to feel this way. (I know it, I know it, I know it.) It's just...the expectations. It's the stories that others I know share: My older sister was reading at four, my mom tells me. My friends were reading at four. And so on. As I said, Pic is almost five. I feel the ridiculous pressure.

Here's the thing: I have no idea how to teach a person to read. There are some who say that children should be taught the phonics approach. There are others who are for the whole language approach. There's the balanced literacy approach. There're probably more that I've never heard of.

I read to Pic constantly, or so it seems. We definitely reach and surpass that fifteen-minutes-a-day marker. She's getting much better at letter recognition and knowing their sounds (although I have to say, soft 'c,' hard 'c,' 'k' and 's' are presenting a bit of a challenge...but I'm just impressed that she's getting that). I'm working with her on sounding words out and recognizing/memorizing very common words like 'the' and 'and' (another although: this isn't so easy when there is no one standard way to write each letter). She doesn't have much patience for this, though, and I don't want to force it. I don't want her to become frustrated and give up. I don't want to lose my own patience and give up, or worse, speak sharply to her and make her associate reading with me being upset.

So, now that I've rambled for many, many words, I'm wondering: What did/do/will you do? What worked when you were learning to read, if you remember? If you've ever taught someone else to read, what helped?

I'd love some suggestions, if you have them, although I have to say, I may say, 'Interesting,' and file a suggestion away, unused. I know that not everyone learns the same way and that there won't be some panacea for all my woes. I know (or maybe just hope) that someone might advise me to just keep reading to her and set the rest of my worries aside for now.

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* At Poke's suggestion, I checked out (actually, I bought) How to Get Your Child to Love Reading by Esme Raji Codell, which I use as a fantastic resource for lists of children's books by subject. One of the things Codell suggests is 'taking dictation': have a child dictate a very short story to you, as you write out about a sentence per page and then have the child illustrate the story as you read each of the sentences s/he has composed. Pic's first story was a variation on Jack and the Beanstalk in which all the characters were female and Jack and the giant were friends.

and, so, goodnight

I haven't quite figured out where to fit in time to write here in my day. I'd like it to be a somewhat regular time, but, well, ideas don't come to me at a set time every day. (And, sometimes, they don't come to me at all, and then you're serenaded with complete nonsense, much like what is going on right now.)

I'm needing to get to sleep in just a few moments here, but a quick note first.

I don't like Sherlock Holmes, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for that matter, any more now than I did when I first read my Holmes collection about ten years ago. I don't care that Doyle had garnered canon-status, I'm not going to take it (no, I'm not going to take it! I'm not going to take it anymore!). Okay, so, actually for the next day, at least, I'm going to dwell on Holmes, but after that, I'll stick with my Millhone (when is "U" coming out?), Fletcher, Qwilleran and Swensen. I really don't care how frivolous any of my choices are/seem, I enjoy them. And, Grafton's books and Murder, She Wrote carry a kind of nostalgia, I guess, for me. I see no reason to stray from that. Especially for Mr Holmes, who irks me ever so much.

Actually, real quick, before I turn in, I suppose it'd only be fair to explain why I don't like Holmes. He seems to only slightly tolerate women (those silly creatures). And his arrogance? It makes me crazy. I've recently met someone who likes him, in part, for just that trait, but I can't stand his let-me-gaze-into-the-distance-as-I-slowly-explain-just-how-simply-simple-you-are attitude. Okay, so he's good and he's confident in that, and perhaps I should be happy for him, but I won't be. He's fictional, so I don't feel the need to be nice to him.

And, so, goodnight.

scheduling for a laid-back (as far as scheduling my day goes) procrastinator

[I actually wrote everything before 'Decluttering?' yesterday, but never got it posted. Perhaps I'm not off to the greatest start, but today has gone pretty well so far.]

I’ve been trying at something of a consistent rhythm around here for the last couple of months, but I’ve been largely unsuccessful thus far. Now, though, I’m craving a somewhat regular schedule even more.

First, though, let me talk about ‘schedule.’ I don’t mean something along the lines of the following:
8a: drag self out of bed
8:15a: make breakfast
8:30a: eat breakfast
and so and and so on. I mean more of a loose schedule. I’ve been reading others’ writing about rhythm so much lately and I feel that ‘rhythm’ is a much better word. I’d like to have a somewhat set rhythm to most of my days (notice how I’m not exactly pinning down any specifics here).
So,…

The biggest hindrance to us having some sort of unwonky rhythm is my wonky sleep. I will again begin trying to work on this. However, that means that I’ll have to get more accomplished during the day which, in turn, means we need less random running around in what feel like pointless circles. Whew.

I’m not exactly sure what our loose schedule is going to look like, but I’d like it to be something along the following lines:
• wake up (at decent time, after having had decent sleep)
• morning abultions
• make and eat breakfast
• learning/exploring with Pic
• lunch
• picking up
• resting
• writing/reading/work prep
• make and eat dinner
• stuff
• bed

This only really works for some days. For instance, Pic and I only have four days worth of dedicated learning time (of course, that doesn’t mean that we don’t explore/learn at other times…that happens for all people at all different kinds of times in all different kinds of places). And, one of our days is a library field-trip day. We used to go at least twice a week, but our library is now closed two days a week and the hours have been shortened for the days on which it is open. I like us to be pretty free on Cardo’s days off, as this is when we run our errands and generally just enjoy his company. I very, very much appreciate that he works full-time-plus to keep us in a home with food on the table and so on, but I am also very aware of how little time his job seems to leave him for spending time with Pic.

In order to be able to stick pretty much with this rhythm, I’ll have to be more disciplined. I’ll have to have sort-of set times to do certain things. I’d like to have a set time to write and post to this here blog. As it is now, I write and post whenever, very often in the middle of the dark when I should be asleep like everyone else in my home.

I’ll also have to stick to my meal-planning. We’ve actually been pretty decent with this, excepting times when we have company or extra commitments.

Finally, I’ll have to set aside some time for myself on Sundays in which to prepare for the rest of the week.

I think that this is all doable. I’m not sure whether it is all doable by me, so we’ll see.

So, now: I’m wondering how you all keep a healthy rhythm in your own lives. Do you make lists? Do you have spreadsheets? Do you have no choice because your day-job forces you to squeeze in the rest of life in the remaining moments?

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Declutter? The camera has been living in Cardo's car the last few days. I had it out yesterday, but last night was one of those nights that I went to sleep freakishly early (a bit before eleven, I believe).

Days 26-8 (I'm almost finished!):


I kind of like this shirt, it just fits me all wrong. It hugs too tightly in some places and sags in others and is just unfortunate. Ah, well, back to the thrift shop it goes.


An album that was gifted to me, I believe, in high school. I haven't listened to it in the last ten years, so out it goes.


Another high school gift. Ah, gotta love Spencer's (or not...no, really not at all, although it was funny and fitting at the time).

book love

We currently have nineteen books checked out of the local library system, and two more on hold. I've also got three of a friend's checked-out books. I can't tell you how much I love libraries.

Here are some of the children's books we're particularly enjoying right now:

-- The Quiltmaker's Gift, written by Jeff Brumbeau and illustrated by Gail De Marcken. The overall message is so in-line with how I'd like to live my life (I'm working on it) and the pictures are so intricate and beautiful and we could pore over them for hours. We'll be checking out The Quiltmaker's Journey next.

-- I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie, written by Alison Jackson and illustrated by Judy Schachner. Pic has had me read this to her so many times that I'll soon have it by heart. She's fascinated with it. It's wonderfully silly.

-- It's Not the Stork!: A Book about Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families and Friends, written by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley. This has definitely generated much discussion, but it was also much discussion about anatomy and birth and such that led to us checking this out. Actually, the first time I checked this out was for a rhetorical theories seminar presentation. I'm still not exactly sure how we used this in the presentation and I suspect that I must have been pretty close to brain-fried by that point in that semester. However, I was happy that I had come across the book because I knew that I'd want to come back to it when Pic was a bit older.

-- With Love, Little Red Hen, written by Alma Flor Ada and illustrated by Leslie Tryon. Cardo really liked this one. I have to admit that I think I like it, but I'm not exactly sure, as I was reading it aloud with my mind half elsewhere. We still have it and I'll read it again before I turn it in to the library. I think it would be a great book for introducing letter-writing. Also, it would be cool (I just said 'cool' like I'm ten-years-old again) to use it as a basis for a writing project, doing something similar with other children's stories. We might return to it when Pic is a bit older and can better grasp the whole story.

-- Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face, and Other Poems: Some of the Best of Jack Prelutsky, written by [of course] Jack Prelustsky and illustrated by Brandon Dorman. I am loving this collection. Prelutsky's poems are fun and use some great vocabulary. I also enjoy Dorman's illustrations. We're having fun with this collection now and I predict we will still be for a long time to come.

And, finally, last and certainly not least:

-- Te Amo, Bebe, Little One, written by Lisa Wheeler and illustrated by Maribel Suarez. This is one of Pic's all-time favorites. Cardo's too, actually. I love that it has become such a happy part of our lives. Often, Cardo will start reciting this and then Pic will join in. They do a kind of call-and-response with the verse. Little things like these make me happy.

a happy birthday...

...to Auntie L! I hope it was good enough, although I know it could have been much better. Here's to a wonderful year!

Love,
v