Stephanie Shepherd

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:27:00 +0000

One of my goals this year has been to diversify my reading. As I've spent the last 17 years homeschooling anywhere from 1-4 kids, I would probably class my reading choices as 60-70% prereading or reading at my kids' level and maybe 30% for myself. I haven't hated it! And I don't plan to give up reading middle grade or YA books anytime soon, as far as I know. They are just too fun and it's such a great way to have discussions about harder topics with my kids at their level when there's a need.

That said, I'm also a little squeamish about diving into adult fiction. I've been burnt many times with a book recommendation that is not for me and it usually boils down to the fact that it's content I'm uncomfortable reading whether for extreme language, open door bedroom scenes that I don't want or need to be privy to, violence, etc. It just seems to stick with me. Thank you, vivid imagination.

However, there are GOOD adult fiction books out there and I'm slowly growing a to-be-read list that will keep me busy for a while if I need ideas. I've found a few new kindred (reading) spirits on Instagram and if they make a suggestion, I save it.

Here's a list of a few that I'm looking forward to investigating:

The Dry by Jane Harper (a mystery series set in Australia)
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (I just finished this one and it was good. I'd rate it PG-13 for language and situations that are more adult. I have made a note to look for the sequel to this one when it comes out this fall.)
Brandon Sanderson has been raved to me by the 6th grade girls in the homeschool group that we are a part of. I'm not sure really what level the book is - maybe YA? - but I've got one of his books here on the shelf from the library and I've promised to check him out. These are the same girls that have gotten me hooked on the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger. I'm up to book 5 (or 6?) in the series and thankfully they each come with a long wait time at the library so I have to pace myself. Each book clocks in around 6-700 pages so they are a commitment!
The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles. Paris, libraries and WWII. This is definitely in my wheelhouse.
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner. I've been recommended Susan Meissner multiple times so maybe this is one of hers I will get to.
Middlemarch by George Eliot. I'm reading this one next month with a group of women on Instagram and am looking forward to the accountability to get through this monster of a book.
A Study In Scarlet Women (The Lady Sherlock Series) by Sherry Thomas
Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah. I've never read a Kristen Hannah book and so I started with one set in winter. However, I have on good authority from several folks that I absolutely must read her book Nightingale, so a used copy of that one is winging it's way to me.
Six of Crows. I read the Grisha trilogy last year and enjoyed it overall. This book has a series coming out on Netflix and it seems like I'll either really like this or it will be too gruesome for me.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates which I know nothing about!
And lastly, I'm currently working my way through The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It is an extremely dense historical work of what is referred to as the great migration - when Black Americans travelled from the south to the north to escape Jim Crow laws that continued to exist well after the Civil War. It's eye-opening and excellent but it's not something that I can sit down to read for hours like a relaxing piece of fiction. Some sections are heart-breaking and I for sure have to set it aside every now and then for a breather.

Now that I look at the list, they still seem to fit into some pretty predictable genres for me. Historical fiction, for one. Mysteries, which will always intrigue me as a former Agatha Christie addict ... if the gore / violence / crime isn't too much. Murder, She Wrote is just my speed if you remember that old show. But there are a few wildcards in there and they are all new authors to me. Happy with these little baby steps I'm making to add some new depth and breadth to my reading and hope there are several winners here in the bunch!

Currently :: January 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 22:57:00 +0000

I always seem to come back to these currently types of posts when I return to the blog after a long absence. Seems like a good way to dip my fingers back into typing and a catch-all of sorts of what's happening right now. And I just plain enjoy them!

Feeling: the chill in the air from outside the house. It was in the low 60s yesterday and it's raining and 36 outside right now. There is the sliiiiiightest chance that this might turn to snow, but I'm not holding my breath.

Listening: to the sounds of Ethan on his gaming headset behind me playing something with his Dad. The TV in the other room where one of the girls is chilling after school with National Treasure. I know we're not the only family whose screen time has ramped up in the months of just being home.

Watching: nothing. I've realized (over the the last 10 months of being home so much), that I really don't watch or like much TV. I have favorite movies that I will watch again and again, and that's about it. Every now and then the rare TV show will come along that I get sucked into. Lately it was the Mandalorian and I loved that it only gave us one episode a week, just like the "old days." We are eagerly waiting on season 3!

Reading: January has been a good reading month. I just finished The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and it was very good! It is a YA story about a girl who inherits a crazy amount of money and she has never heard of the person who left her the money. The book is a suspenseful and very interesting story on uncovering the riddle left for her and the members of the family cut out of the will. If you are a fan of Knives Out, you would definitely like this book, but with less language. (I'd rate it PG-13 for language and a little romantic interest, but I'd let my 15 year old read it).

Cooking: all the soups. Last fall I started (in my head, it's not like a club or anything!) Soup Sunday. Not every week, but on most Sunday nights I have been making a big pot of soup for dinner and then eating on it throughout the week. It's become one of my favorite things. Favorite soups that have made it into the rotation, some several times, are:

Egg Roll Soup from Gimme Some Oven

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili from Whatever blog

Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup from Skinny Taste's One and Done Cookbook

Whole 30 Zuppa Toscana

Lasagna Soup (no link)

Podcasting: this year, for my read-through-the-Bible plan, I decided to do the chronological plan that goes along with The Bible Recap Podcast. In general, I'm not a podcast person. It's hard for me to stay focused and listen without taking notes, which defeats the purpose of listening to them while you do other things. That said, the episodes are 5-10 minutes long and I listen to them in the morning right after I do the Bible reading for the day. I've really appreciated the short commentary, and what is pulled from the day's reading. Last year, I read through the New Testament, and then spent the end of the year reading through the gospels, so I have really enjoyed being back in the Old Testament!

Missing: life before masks. I'm not here for the mask argument. Having 3 girls in public school right now and also one foot still in the homeschool world with Ethan, I hear both sides of the argument LOUD AND CLEAR. But I'm ready to see people's faces sooner rather than later. Also missing normal outings like field trips, movies releasing in theaters, and church without social distancing.

Enough listing for one day. Happy Wednesday. :)

Consistently

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 18:15:00 +0000

Yesterday, for the first time, I counted up last night the number of days that I have been “home” - using that loosely as I have been out of house as the designated Walmart / Sam’s shopper for our crew. The count begins from the first day both girls were officially out of school for CoVid-19 and never returned. The total: 37 days. Thirty-seven days since I’ve been with friends, since my kids have seen friends, been to school/homeschool classes, or worshipped in our church building. That’s a lot of days! There are probably many that have been home-bound for longer, and the number isn’t letting up for another few weeks at any rate. And, to be honest, will I really rush out the moment that the stay-at-home is lifted?

Over all, the staying at home part hasn’t bothered me at all. I’m a homebody and quite introverted so having my calendar suddenly become clear hasn’t been a huge burden. I’ve missed watching my kids play their spring sports, and I will miss seeing my eighth grader participate in mock trial in a real courtroom - mock trial on zoom just isn’t quite the same. But even with my love of home, it took about three weeks before I really started getting down. Days were blurring and it was hard to be motivated to continue homeschooling my crew and keeping up with stuff. I decided I needed a little motivation to see if I could get myself back into a better frame of mind because that’s really where the problem was centering. My mind was set in unproductive and unprofitable ways and it was dragging me down.

Fun fact - in general, I am not motivated by a daily checklist. Seeing a list of things I have to check off makes me absolutely not want to do them. Which is weird because I’m such a list maker and love making a list of things that I need to get to, but that I work in when needed or it fits ... but a week of boxes marked with things I need to do daily? Such a turn off. I am nothing if not contradictory! I am motivated by routine - creating a flow to my day where things naturally fit in because it’s just what I do then, so I do it. I think it was Gretchen Rubin who talks about this in one of her habit books - that the best way to make a new habit is to combine it with a habit that you are already doing and after so many days of attaching it to something it just becomes part of that routine as well. You would no sooner forget to do B than you would A now, if that makes sense. And then, it made sense as to maybe one of the reasons I was feeling super out of whack and depressed - I was missing my routine. I was no longer getting up to take kids to school daily; when I did that, I made a point to be up before then so I could have some quiet time before the drop off run. I was still sort-of getting up before Ethan at least, but not long enough for a enough time to settle my mind for the day, for sure. And let’s not talk about bedtimes! With not needing to get up for school, we were being fairly lax with winding down at night and that doesn’t work well (for me) either. It makes me laugh a little that it took me so long to figure out what was out of sync!

A couple weeks ago, I started setting my alarm again. Not crazy 5am times like when we had school, but 6:30ish. I enjoyed the sun being up when I got up! I had time to open my Bible and prayer notebook - even if it was 20-30 minutes it was helping me so much. I picked a book of the Bible to work my way through so I had a place to return to (taking that decision fatigue out of the way as well). I also added 3 other things to my day that I wanted to try and fit in as part of my routine - not a checklist to make it mechanical, but remembering to take time to do things that bring me joy v. checking the news and scrolling Facebook, ie., things that do NOT bring me joy! I resolved to try and take a photo, read a little, and create a little something every day. All things that in real-non-CoVid life I did, but that I had stopped making time for because sitting and fretting took up my time instead. Pretty lame. And “create” has a very b r o a d meaning - it might mean that I print one of those photos I took and stick it in my scrapbook. It might mean I crochet for a bit while I watch something with one of the kids. I even might count dinner as being creative if it was a new recipe! This doesn’t mean I don’t still get anxious (unfortunately). Or that I don’t hyperventilate when I tie my bandana on before running into Walmart because I feel claustrophobic. But it’s making me think twice about checking the news, or seeing if I’m missed non-existent texts, or checking my email for thirtieth time in 20 minutes, that kind of thing. One day my days will be very full with driving and going and all the doing, but hopefully these markers for my days will be so ingrained they will stick around.

Currently :: April 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 15:05:00 +0000

This has been on the list of things to do for a few weeks, but I've apparently hit that point in our sheltering in place that I've dusted off the blog!

Cooking: all the things. I know I'm not the only one who has funneled all their monthly money into groceries! I'm not spending it on gas or sports or (too many) books. I'm not complaining though - this time at home as rekindled my love of slowly chopping veggies, simmering sauces, and cooking dinner. I won't complain when our evening sports start up, but I have really enjoyed cooking real meals and not something that we eat hurriedly before heading out the door or warm up when we get home (or figure out how to pack it). Some favorites that we've enjoyed:

Whole Kitchen Sink's beef and broccoli. If you don't have the coconut aminos and arrowroot flour to make it Whole 30 (sometimes I do and sometimes I don't), you can easily sub soy sauce and cornstarch. Delicious and came together super fast in the instant pot.
Naptime Kitchen's Salsa Verde chicken. Yum and one that I made substitutions with as well - I didn't have salsa verde so just threw in regular salsa instead. I love recipes that I can tweak with what's in the cabinet. Of note: her greek-ish crockpot chicken is in regular rotation around here and it is so good.
Lazy Genius' from scratch tikki masala. SO GOOD. I usually use a jar of sauce to make this, but no more.
homemade sausage gravy with biscuits (from a can). This was a huge crowd pleaser so I need to do this again.

Lest you think dinner is from scratch every night, I've also bought a ton of frozen pizzas from Sam's as well. I'm so thankful that some of the food buying frenzy has slowed down in the last week or so - at least I can tell it has in my local store. They still are limiting things like bread and eggs, but the last couple times I went in, I was able to get everything on my list (minus yeast which I can't find anywhere!) The first few weeks when I would go, I would get a horrible tightness in my chest and pit of my stomach just looking at all that was picked over and empty. The Lord has totally provided and we haven't missed a single meal, but seeing those empty cases and shelves made it seem very scary and real.

Empty meat cases at Sam's

Baking: not me, but the girls. Almost every day someone is asking me if they can make chocolate chip cookies, muffins, etc. It's a blessing ... and a curse! They, like me with dinner, have time to do it, and unfortunately, they are pretty good at it. I will leave you with the one thing that I have baked several times now and think about all the time: SkinnyTaste's everything-but-the-bagel bagel balls stuffed with cream cheese. So so good.

Going: no where for the most part. Perks of this - I'm on the same tank of gas going on three weeks now! Downside: the only time I get out is a hurried trip into Walmart or Sam's. I've just decided that those are the two places I'm going to go and I get in and get out. I made an exception yesterday with a trip to Target (my first in a couple months it seems like) to try and by some yeast for a request for homemade pizza dough but I totally struck out. We have made a couple trips into the pediatricians for wellness appointments and their office has done a great job getting us in and out the door. I would have put those off like everything else, but my school girls needed some forms for registration for the fall and I felt like we would be safe doing it.

Reading: currently I have a couple books that are in the queue or in process:

Christine Hoover's With All Your Heart: Living Joyfully through Allegiance to King Jesus. This book hasn't been the easiest to read. It's pointing out some sin in my life that has been uncomfortable, but I'm thankful for the words that she's put out there for me to work through.
Ethan and I have read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH together, and just finished the 4th Paddington book, Paddington Abroad, last week. Reading aloud with him after lunch has been a gift (and a needed screen break for him) with so much home time. We're about to start the first book in the Wingfeather series by Andrew Peterson. I've never read these aloud with any of the kids, but since I've been wanting to reread them, Ethan will be a willing participant along with me.
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. Natalie (the 14 year old) has read this twice in the last few years and I'm jealous. One of my favorites and most significant books in my life and I am overdue for a re-read.

There are always others on the shelf waiting to be read as well! I've really cut back on the number of books that I've bought in the last couple of years, choosing to utilize the library for the most part, but I've treated myself to a few used books the last few weeks and hopefully I'll come back and share those finds after I've read them.

Studying: I've been in a CBS (Community Bible Study) study of the minor prophets this year but when school let out mid-March, it ended. I've worked a little on finishing the lessons, but the class has moved to zoom meetings for the last 4-6 class times. To be honest, I don't have time (even with being home so much!) to do zoom meetings during the day ... it's hard with a 9 year old that wants help with math and other kids coming in and out for help as well. I've chalked this up to one of the unfinished things of the season and have pulled a study on James off my shelf to work through. Since he starts right off with a word about steadfastness during trials and handling it with joy, it seems like it might be timely.

Schooling: Several have asked me how it's been going with my two school girls returning home. (In case it's new info, our 16 year old is a sophomore at a public high school and our 12 year old is in 6th grade in public school. The 8th grader and 3rd grader and I are still in Classical Conversations / homeschooling). The 6th grader has settled back into working at home really well - huge props to her school, they have done an outstanding job getting packets of work together for the students. She works a little each day, and even knowing that it's review material and it won't be graded on return; the fact that she has a little work to do each day helps her have something to do and she's keeping up with it. My 10th grader is a different story - her school has NOT provided a lot of guidance or instruction while she's been out, unfortunately, and has really only encouraged the kids to use this time to complete any outstanding assignments. She doesn't have any so as of now, she's in the midst of a six week spring break or so. Nice for her, but I'm curious how they will handle the rest of the year's work? That's the question on everyone's mind ... along with whether or not they will call school in our state for the rest of the year. As of now, our two are supposed to go back the last week in April, but I'm highly doubtful.

The homeschoolers are plugging along as normal, for the most part. Natalie (8th grade) has a ton of zoom calls a week with her Challenge B class. At least half are for mock trial which she is still preparing for even though they will miss the experience of trying their case in a real courtroom with a real judge. That's been a disappointment after all their hard work for sure! Ethan has gotten to zoom with his little homeschool peeps and it's been precious. He has a great class and you can tell they miss being together. He and I have done the CC science experiments we would have done in class together, like building an egg protector and throwing it off the roof of the house, so that has given us some fun projects to do.

This is gone on long enough for an update! It's a beautiful Saturday and I have a strawberry pie to bake for our small Easter lunch we'll have tomorrow. Thankful that even though I can't celebrate with others, I still have a Savior who is with me today and who I'll celebrate tomorrow. Hallelujah.

A New Word of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 15:40:00 +0000

It took me several days before I settled into a word for the year for 2020. To be honest, I don't think a word of the year is required. I haven't done one every year; in fact, I think it was 2014 when I last thought hard about having and committing to one to focus on.

This year I decided to spend the year thinking about courage. As I was looking at definitions I settled on this: courage is strength in the face of pain or grief; the ability to undertake an overwhelming difficulty or pain despite the eminent and avoidable presence of fear. I kept coming back to this word and arguing with myself about it. I'm not fighting a horrible disease or on the brink of bankruptcy so I thought courage might be a bit too ... bold of a choice. I could settle for something "easier" like joy or gratitude! But no. I couldn't shake it and started to settle in and see what it might look like for me.

Courage means taking a bold step forward even when you are pretty sure you are going to mess it up. It means trying something new, even when it seems like it's too late. It means admitting I like something even if it's super nerdy and not hip. It also might mean admitting that something isn't that great for my life and that it's time to sever ties from it. It means trusting God even when I don't know what the next month, season or year will look like, and for a planner-girl that is h.a.r.d.

There is obviously way to more to unpack here, but I'm slowly starting here. So, for the first three weeks of January what has that looked like, from the trivial to the hard?

making a hair appointment after way too long. (The last haircut was so bad, I had to have my then 12-year-old clean up the back after two trips to the stylist).
signing up for a crochet class in February. My mom made afghans for me and my sister and all the baby blankets for the grandkids and I started to feel a little sad that that was fading away.
commiting to a Whole 30 in February (plus one day in January) ... for real. I've done a couple what I would call faux-30s, but I need to reset my eating habits and taste buds. I'm needing all the courage I can get to break a diet coke and sweetened coffee habit!
showing up in hard places when I don't want to because it's where God wants me to be. (Vague but it needs to be right now).

Some of these things are super silly but there are fears associated with them of failure, rejection, pain, and baggage. Making some progress in a few smaller areas (looking at the dreaded hair cut and trying the class), will hopefully gather momentum as the Lord takes me to other areas he wants me to step out in the coming months, both internally and externally.

Soli deo gloria.

Week in the Life 2019

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 04 May 2019 15:30:00 +0000

Once upon a time, I liked to scrapbook. A lot. I read scrapbook magazines, bought scrapbooking books, read alllll the scrapbooking blogs. You can guess where a chunk of my play money went, too. 😉 I loved this creative outlet. In a sense, it was my form of gratitude journaling as I documented school memories, places we went, books we read, etc. However, as it's gotten busy, scrapbooking has taken a backseat to schooling, teens, all the driving, and just life. Scrolling through other people's photos and adventures took place over documenting our own. (Sad, but true!)

This week, I'm taking back a little bit of me. I miss writing and story telling and taking photos. I've found an old Week in the Life kit I purchase a few years ago from Ali Edwards and have dusted it off. (Quite literally with the dust!) I'm making plans to be mindful of next week. What I do, where I go, what I eat, what I'm reading, and what I'm grateful for. While I'm also working on getting back into the swing of our family's Project Life albums, I think this project will mostly be for me. I haven't decided if and/or how much I'll document online. I don't want to pronounce that I'm going to blog every single day ... that's a sure-fire way to set myself up to fizzle out by Wednesday. Maybe an occasional photo on Instagram here or there, but maybe not. This is about really being present and so grateful for MY life and no one else's.

April's Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Thu, 02 May 2019 03:00:00 +0000

There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason as to when I get on here and post a reading up date. I used to be more consistent, but that has fallen by the wayside. Either way, I felt like sharing my April books tonight so here I am. We'll see how coherent this is as it's approaching bedtime, but I'm trying to hang in here for bit longer so I can make sure kids go to bed at a decent time. (I miss little kid bedtimes!)

I read nine books this month - most on the lighter side. They were:

Seed of Rebellion (Beyonders #2) by Brandon Mull (a reread) - I started rereading the Beyonders in March (I think?) when I was wanting something familiar. So far, anything by Brandon Mull is a great story and since I'd read these before, easy to pick up and put down when it was busy. Also, I only own books 1 and 2, so after finishing this, I wasn't dying to go on to #3 since I already know what happens!

The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman - I have listened to Emily Freeman's podcast of the same name on and off again - I'm just not a great podcast listener! It's too easy for my mind to wander when I have earbuds in and no words to follow along with. I was a last minute orderer of her book, but I really did enjoying seeing her podcast live and breathe here and it all made so much more sense to me on the written page than in audio. Decision making wears me out and the guiding principles and thoughts she shares in this book are golden - many are just common sense, but sometimes you need someone to tell you that it's ok and give you a couple nudges if you are wrestling through big decisions. This book was that for me and I'll be revisiting it.

The Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton - This was a series I recently spotted at our library. They had books 2-4 on the shelves, but no book 1 so I found an inexpensive used copy online and ordered it. Such a fun little book. Reminded me so much of Swallows and Amazons or the children in E. Nesbit tales. I've finally gone back to the library and gotten my hands on a sequel or two to this series and want to revisit these children in May now that school is winding down! This will be a read-aloud with Ethan soon, I hope!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - I read this one to fulfill a requirement for the Modern Mrs. Darcy bookclub that I'm working through with a few friends. The category was a book recommended by someone with good taste (I think that's the gist ... it's late and I'm not being exact). My friend Amy at Hope is the Word has talked about this one several times and it was already on my shelf so it made an easy pick. As I told my friends in the group, I couldn't decide how I felt about this book. It was very unique in the way it was written (I don't want to give too much away if you haven't read it), and it was extremely well done. Maybe because it was a WWII book from a child's vantage point that made it harder. I'm glad I can move this from my to-be-read pile, but I don't know that it will go down as a favorite or one that I'll reread though it would be a good book for a younger reader without much of the atrocities that come with other WWII reading.

The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis - Ethan and I knocked another Narnian tale off our list. This is my favorite story, mainly because of the conversation between Aslan and Shasta when he finally meets the great lion and realizes that he was with him all along the way, from the moment he was abandoned as a baby to the dangerous moments on his journey. It reminds me so much of the verse: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." (Isaiah 43:2)

Bluecrowne by Kate Milford / The Left-Handed Fate by Kate Milford - Sometime in 2017, I fiiiinallly read The Greenglass House which had been tucked away on my kindle for ages. I was completely mesmerized by that book, along with it's sequel, The Ghosts of Greenglass House. (I need to go back and reread both one of these days). These two books are prequels to the Greenglass books, telling the story of the Bluecrownes who where sailors (privateers) and the original owners of the Greenglass house. I'm already eagerly looking forward to another prequel coming out in this series later this year. Super fun reading for junior readers.

Snow and Rose by Emily Winfield Martin - The last book I finished was one I found on my bookshelves that Natalie had brought to me. Sometime last year, I signed her and Ethan each up for Amazon book boxes. I've it set up where they rotate who gets a box (they come alternating months) and if we spot books we are interested in, we make our selection and set it to ship. (And when nothing catches our eye, we pass on the box with no penalty). It's the first time I've done any kind of a book subscription service and we've really enjoyed it. This was a book that came in Natalie's box sometime last fall - she devoured it and immediately brought it to me to read. I confess, I read 20-30 pages of it and set it aside. It didn't grab me so I moved on. However, as I was cleaning my office this weekend, it surfaced and I finished it off in about two days. It's fairytale in the style of Grimm, a little on the dark side, but with an unexpected twist at the end that I enjoyed. If you like Jonathan Auxier's books like The Night Gardener or Peter Nimble / Sophie Quire, you would probably like this, though it's much shorter and without as much wit and depth. Definitely more fairy to it, if that makes sense!

Hank the Cowdog by John Erikson - Ethan and I finished a second read-aloud this month! We blame spring weather and new chairs on the front porch entirely! He has been reading the Mercy Watson books aloud to me and I have been reading Hank the Cowdog to him. This has been recommended as a book for boys so many times - we needed a break from Narnia (and to be honest, I'm not sure about reading The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle to him now. I know he's going to miss all the cool stuff that makes those books magic!) This book was perfect for an 8 year old. Hank is trying to solve the mystery of who is killing chickens in the coop and he gets into all sorts of predicaments along the way. Ethan loved it so much that he immediately requested that we find a copy of Hank #2 (which I now have on Kindle) and we're already one-third of the way into it. That said, there are 62 books in the Hank the Cowdog series (last I checked) and we are NOT going to be reading them all out loud! But I'm hoping I'm piquing Ethan's attention enough that he might be interested in reading them on his own soon.

Lots of fun kid-lit books here this month - I always seem to default to that when my brain is heavy and burdened with other things. Now that we are about 17 days away from the end of our school year, I'm looking forward to even more reading - my library hold list is crazy!

Currently, April 2019

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 02:39:00 +0000

Listening ... to the sound of a boy watching nerf gun you tube videos on a Friday night (he's living his best life right now) and an Avengers movie on my computer.

Waiting ... until it's time to go pick my oldest up from her job (!) and then I can get pjs on and head to bed.

Field-tripping ... with the boy to see a real tyrannosaurus rex. Not gonna lie - these Jurassic Park fans were very, very excited! Locals should check out The Earth Experience in Murfreesboro. It's small (and not too expensive), but was a great way to wrap up this year of school where we studied animals and plants, and their systems, and ended the year with a study of rocks and minerals.

Counting ... the days left for our school year. (We're in the twenties now!) Our school girls finish up the Thursday before Memorial Day, and our goal is for the homeschooled crew to finish up right about then. We may have a boy with 1-2 math lessons to tack on, but thankful we aren't straggling into June this year.

Cheering ... all the baseball.

Baking ... my mom's strawberry pie. True signs of spring and Easter.

Planning ... a stay-cation sort of summer this year. We trekked to England last year, and the year before we took a two-week road trip to California. This year (for the most part), we are staying put. (See also: teenager with job). We've got a few days we're going to drive to visit recently moved grandparents in Kansas, and one overnight trip to Memphis to visit the zoo and Ikea. (Mom's pick). 😉 I also am now realizing, as the girls especially are getting older, the weeks fill up fast and fly by with VBS (helping, not attending now that they are too old), a middle school camp for one, and many days at the pool.

Cleaning (out) ... all my materials from directing our homeschool group for the last two years. Since we have put two of the girls in school (for very good and right reasons for both of them), our homeschool organization decided not to renew my contract for the next year. I get corporate policies but I loved directing and visiting with moms and tutors in that role, and was not ready to move on past it. It will be nice to get all the stuff packed up for its new home with an amazing mom who's stepping into the role after me.

Reading ... on the front porch. He reads to me (right now it's the Mercy Watson books) and I read to him (right now we're reading the first Hank the Cowdog book). It's been a good break from our Narnia streak that we've been on since January. We've two chapters left in Hank and he's informed me that we're headed back to Narnia after that. Fine by me!

Closing ... with a photo of Kitty, just because. She here in her current favorite spot where the morning bird watching is premium. She has it good around here.

Spring Break Best Life and Tolkien Tales

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 22:31:00 +0000

Living her best life after the exhaustion of the vet and groomer

We are spring break-ing this week. No travel here (minus a quick overnight trip my husband is on this week). So far we have mostly hung around the house and tackled a few less glamorous projects - deep cleaning the kid bathroom 🤢, a trip to vet/groomer for the pup, and an eye appointment for me. (Embracing my worsening eyes with prescription sunglasses this year - woo-hoo!)

I did finish one book that I've been working my way through this month as part of the Modern Mrs. Darcy reading challenge that I'm doing with a group. The theme of this month was "a book on the backlist of a favorite author." This book by Tolkien came to my attention several months ago when Rachel mentioned it on Instagram. In the last couple years, I finally read through the full LoTR series and have been wanting to turn right back around and read them again. I haven't though I did squeeze in a re-read of The Hobbit around Christmas! Anyway, this is a collection of some of Tolkien's short stories and poems that I had never heard of so it seemed like a great fit for this category.

First off, I did enjoy this book. Tolkien is just a master at story telling and characters and I enjoyed every bit of that in this book. That said, I have decided that I just don't love short stories! It takes a bit to get into the story and figure out the characters and what's going on ... and then the tale wraps up and it's done and we're on to the next group and tale. As someone who loooooves a good, long series, it's no surprise this frustrated me. 🙂 I also went into these stories expecting more LoTR type tales. These weren't with the exception of one poem that went on for a good 30-plus pages about Tom Bombadil (from The Hobbit). There rest were all stand-alone tales and the introduction to the book was well worth reading the explanations behind some of them. Ie., the first story about a little dog that gets lost from his owner is one based on a tale Tolkien told his son when a beloved toy was lost and the adventures that pup went on. The backstory made the tale even more enjoyable.

If you are a Tolkien fan, this would be a fun addition to your library if you like short stories. I did enjoy it, even though I'm still looking forward to that LoTR reread hopefully sometime soon. 🙂

Lent

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 23:42:00 +0000

Lent is not something that I grew up with. I have always gone to your basic expository Bible teaching church - a good thing - but I wasn't exposed to church calendar concepts like Lent and Advent until an adult. Even then, they were fuzzy foreign concepts. The more I have learned about them, the more that I have come to look forward to these seasons, even though I still feel like I am no expert!

In my Bible study that I'm doing with Community Bible study this fall, we are working our way through Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Throughout these pages, you see so many times where God is telling his children, the Israelites, to look back and remember what he has done for them. Make a memorial, build a remembrance, tell the stories to their children. Then He tells them to look forward to see what is to come. For His people, wandering in the wilderness until they finished their 40 year debt for their grumbling and lack of trust in Him, he reminded them over and over that a promised land is coming! A land of milk and honey! A land where one day God would lead them in victory over the surrounding pagan armies! But, as it was for the Israelites, it sure is easy to keep my eyes focused on what I'm lacking in the moment, than the bounty that is ahead.

This is mirrored in the New Testament when young believers in churches across the Middle East and Asia are encouraged to look back on their old self and see that it is done away with. Behold, a new thing has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17) But again, it sure is easy for me to get bogged down in my self-pity, my lack, my suffering, etc. Instead of staying in the suffering, look forward to what the Lord has in store - his grace that is sufficient for me, his peace that passes all understanding, his joy that will be my strength, both here and in the new land that he is preparing for us this very moment. (Revelation 21:1)

The past two (+) years have been doozies. Harder than hard. I have grieved over some things and cried and asked God why is he not fixing ___ and making it right! But God is not mine to command (thankfully!) so even though He hasn't "fixed" things, I haven't given up on Him even if the "fixing" needs to be me.

For Lent this year, I decided I needed to just sit with God on this. See what he says about suffering. Look for beauty in the midst of hard seasons. To that end, I'm reading through Job. I did get the She Reads Truth journal so I will have somewhere dedicated to journal and scribble my way through this, but I'll probably be taking it more my speed than theirs. I'm also reading Christine Hoover's book Searching for Spring. I love what she said in chapter 1: "We may not be able to see and comprehend clearly all of what God is doing in the present, but we can always mine the past the future for treasures."

I'll be doing some mining for treasure as I prepare my heart for Easter. Looking back to see what God has done for me, counting those blessings one by one. Looking forward to what is yet to come.

Soli deo gloria.

Reading Round-up - January & February 2019

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sun, 10 Mar 2019 03:32:00 +0000

Settling back into this space on a wet Saturday evening, as one does. Actually most of our weekends have been wet the last month - ridiculously so! Spring is here and early this year by the sight and sound of it. I am ready for the sunshine and warm breezes and all that brings. I am nearing the end of a commitment to direct our homeschool group and with that "freedom" I'm hoping to putter here a bit more. I find I think about this space more than just a bit and miss stringing thoughts together, even if just for myself. :)

On to the bookish bit!

In January, I read six books and uncharacteristically, 4 of them were rereads. There are certain times of the year that I crave a reread - fall especially as school starts back and I don't have the mental energy to tackle something new for myself. I lapse into a reread of a good series - last year it was the Harry Potter series - and feel no guilt about it one bit. This year I participated in Carrie's LM Montgomery reading challenge for the first year in ... a few ... and revisited her Emily series. Thanks to Goodreads, I realized I hadn't read through this series since 2011 and I really enjoyed getting into it again. Definitely a "darker" series than the more popular Anne, it fit my mood and season of life perfectly.

Our read aloud for January was also a reread - Ethan and I started from the beginning of the Narnia series and have a determined purpose to see it through this spring. :) We had read The LWW last summer but it didn't click with him enough to jump into book two, however that has since changed! He is enjoying it so much that we have been reading a bit during our school day and then continuing it at night before bed when we can (instead of our usually school day and separate bedtime read-aloud). No complaints here.

In other January reading, I dabbled in two series mentioned via Sarah (Read Aloud Revival). I'm a sucker for a good junior or YA fantasy series. I read Flyte by Angie Sage, which is the second book in the Septimus Heap series. I think this could be a fun read aloud for Ethan down the road or one to hand off to him in a few years. Adventure and quirky characters galore, but yet not one that I'm dying to fly through myself. I also started the YA Ascendance trilogy by Jennifer Nielsen and read the first book, The False Prince. I will probably finish this series slowly - enjoying it, but no rush to devour it.

In February, Ethan and I finished Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in our Narnian journey. Onward and upward! I also read several stand-alone books this month. I dearly love a good series, but haven't found a good long one to draw me in right now! I finished:

Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge. I love her books The Little White Horse and The Scent of Water. This one was a little bit more of chore to get through, but I finished it and enjoyed it. Not as much as the others, but it is beautiful writing set in the English landscape which drew me in!

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden. I had read Arden's The Bear and the Nightingale which was a haunting folktale set in Russia. I couldn't put it down - I really loved the glimpse into Russian folklore and legend - but yet haven't moved on to the sequel. This book is also a creepy ghost story but set for 10-12 (and up), I'd say. (I'm starting to get the impression she writes more spooky stuff than I am used to). I would be careful what child I handed this too as I hustled to finish it - I really wanted to find out what happened but I also wanted to get to the end of the book! If you like Jonathan Auxier's The Night Gardener, you would probably like this book!

I also did go ahead and read The Runaway King (book 2 in the Ascendance Trilogy). Not as captivating as the first book, but still a great series so far.

My first non-fiction for the year - Finding Holy in the Suburbs by Ashley Hales. I LOVED this book. For someone that has always struggled with measuring up, fitting in, and trying to hard, t this book was a needed reminder to me of who I need to rely on to fill my needs - not a spouse, not my children, not my calendar ... the Lord is the only one that can bring contentment and peace and when I do slow down to ponder and grasp that, the outflow into my life and the life of others is world-changing. Of all I have read in the first two months of the year? This book, hands down, is my first highly recommend of the bunch.

And there's the first two months of the year wrapped up in a nutshell. And now, to curl up under a blanket and maybe get a few pages in this evening!

The Literary Best of 2018

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 18:25:00 +0000

For a sporadic blogger, I've been looking forward to looking back over my reading for 2018 and making this list of favorites! 2018 was a good reading year for me, helped along by many hours sitting on the benches at gymnastics as well as moving my phone to charge across the bedroom instead of using it as my alarm on my nightstand. After last year's post, I had some reading goals for 2018 and I think I improved in the areas that I wanted to. I read more over-all (91, up from 70), more non-fiction (14 versus last year's 8). (You can see the full list in my sidebar here).

One area where we have slipped has been read-alouds - 12 total for the year. That makes me sad, but it's where we are right now. My 15 year-old goes to school outside the home, and my 7th grader doesn't join us for read-aloud most of the time because of her schoolwork. Most of those books have been bedtime ones with Ethan at night and I'm so grateful that he and I still have that time together! He and I are actually participating in the Read-Aloud Revival's 31 day reading challenge in January - we each have to read to each other 10 minutes a day. He needs to build some fluidity in his reading and I need the help getting back into our routine!

All that said, here are some of my favorites from this year, in no particular order!

Come and Eat by Bri McKoy :: This was a surprise read that I ended up LOVING - I had been eyeing the book for a while, and when it was on sale on Kindle for a song, I snatched it up. I went into it thinking it was a cookbook/memoir type story, and while it does have some recipes in it, it's more about cultivating hospitality in your home and what that looked like for her and her husband. I loved it, and it has made me think about those that I want to invite to sit around our table in the coming year.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas :: This book was recommended to me by my 15 year old - her History/Geography teacher handed it off to her and she read it and said I HAD TO READ IT. (Emphasis hers). And then she wanted me to take her to see the movie. :) (Which I did!) This book was super outside my comfort zone but wow, I'm so glad I read it. This was an eye-opening look into the lives of inner city African Americans - something that I will never, ever experience or understand. The book was excellent (warning: there's a fair amount of language), and the movie was just as much so. So glad she pushed me to read this.

Renegades / Archenemies by Marissa Meyer :: A few years ago, I stumbled upon Marissa Meyer and her Lunar Chronicles and devoured that series. This is her newest YA series - teens with superpowers, good v. evil (but who is good and who is evil?), clean ... I love these books. Renegades is the first in the series and I've already read Archenemies (book 2) ... book 3 doesn't come out until late 2019!

The Ministry of Ordinary Places by Shannan Martin :: Another from my non-fiction stack from this year - I've read Shannan Martin's blog off and on for some time now, and this book was heart pulling in both good and hard ways. If you aren't familiar with her story (and I won't even try to do it justice), she and her husband left a comfortable lifestyle and beautiful farmhouse to move into the inner city area of Goshen, Indiana, and learned to love the neighbors around them right there in their hardest spots. A call to loving those around us where they are ... not where you want (or think) they should be.

The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers :: One of the read-aloud wins for us this year ... Ethan and I read this series aloud together and it was delightful. I was tipped on to this series by Sarah and she didn't give any spoilers away so I'm not going to either - other than it is allegorical and brilliant and I loved it so so much. Read this series (there's three, but I only could find photos of two), buy it as gifts, etc., etc.

The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie :: Even though it is getting harder and harder to read aloud with my crew I still 1000% (not a typo) believe in the power of connecting with my people through books. This book deserves a spot on your shelves and should be part of baby gifts as friends start their own families.

The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge :: This languished on my shelf for far too long - English characters and countryside and delightful story to boot. I am making a plan to read more Elizabeth Goudge in 2019!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline :: My husband took me to see this movie earlier this year and it was a surprise hit with me. (I don't know why I was surprised - futuristic, young underdog wins, and 80s themes abounded!) Travis bought the audiobook for one of his many, many work trips this summer and since this was the summer of carpooling kids all the time, I started listening to it as well. It should be noted that there is more language than I like in this book and one chapter is extremely mature and could be skipped all together without detracting from the story. That said - this book was outstanding. This is one of those works of fiction that (even though it is not "Christian" material) that continually pointed me back to God because the incredible creativity of its author. I've not read anything else like it and it reminded me of how creates his people with such amazing creativity and ingenuity and what we create is a reflection of his Creation and creativity. I don't know if that makes sense, but it was a book that moved me to praise because of what he allows us to do ... and though I don't think I have it in me to write a Ready, Player, One, he has created me to be creative in His image and am I doing so?

All that to say, this was a GREAT book and an even greater life lesson out of it.

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson :: I wasn't sure about putting this on my favorites list because it's a book about books, and I read it fairly late in the year. The author is Sarah Clarkson, daughter of my beloved Sally Clarkson, and I enjoyed reading her short essays on her reading history and I really enjoyed the book lists in the book. This book will be referenced many times over the next several months for inspiration for my own reading. While I do love me some juvenile and YA fiction, I'm inspired to also read a bit more for me v. all the reading / prereading I do for my kids. I'm looking at Dickens, Anna Karenina, and other authors to round me out a bit more in 2019.

The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street / The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karina Van Glasser. My favorite juvenile series discovery of 2018! If you love the Penderwicks, All of a Kind Family, the children from The Saturdays ... basically any family whose children get into all sorts of adventures (and scrapes) sometimes (and sometimes not) through no fault of their own. :) We've flown through books 1 and 2 here - book 3 can't come fast enough!

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome :: Nestled in this stack is another favorite - one that I read on my own after (again) having it sit on myself for far too long. I loved Swallows and Amazons and see this as becoming a fun read aloud with Ethan down the road. English children, adventures and scrapes (reminds me of the book just above!) and things always working out in the end. This is whole series, but I have managed to hold off on devouring the other 7-8 books or so that I understand are out there!

Lastly (and without a photo) are two books by Jen Wilkin worth mentioning worth your reading. This summer, I worked my way through her study of the first twelve chapters of Genesis, God of Creation. As someone who is pretty familiar with the book of Genesis, I loved her insight and perspective and came away with thoughts that fueled my planning for my home and my CC community for the fall of 2018. God is a God of order, of form and function, and creativity and we are in his image. Speaking of In His Image, that was the title of another book of Jen Wilkin's that was was excellent and worth adding to your stack. She walks through ten characteristics of our God that we are called to imitate (in contrast to her book from last year, None Like Him, where she explored ten attributes of God's that are his and his alone.) I recently heard somewhere that with the plethora of media we have available to us (podcasts, books, social media accounts, etc.) it is so easy to jump around and take little bits of insight from too many people. "Back in the day" you might have just a few authors that you follow, through their written work only, and you would revisit their works and let it settle in more and more with each reading (I think of people that have influenced me like this such as C.S. Lewis and Elisabeth Elliot). This is something that I'm trying to embrace more in the coming years, just because I follow someone on social media doesn't mean I need to buy and read their book - there are very few that I want to mindfully support financially and invest lots of my head and heart knowledge into. Jen Wilkin is just one of a very few current authors that I would call out that makes that cut for me.

If you made it this far, thank you! What were some of your favorites for 2018? Anything I should add to my list for the coming year?

And Happy New Year to you and yours. ❤

Currently :: A Present Participle List

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 18:27:00 +0000

Shaking :: the cobwebs off my blog. I'm seriously rusty at writing but I miss it. Here's to a brief catch up list.

Hearing :: the cat investigate things underneath our Christmas tree. She is up to no good!

Seeing :: my calendar in front of me as I need to figure out what's going on next week. 'Tis the week before Christmas yet it's still a full one. I'm looking forward to the two weeks that come after when my calendar is blank!

Watching :: movies! As you have probably seen, several companies came out with monthly movie passes - buy a pass and you can see X number of movies a week in the theater. This summer, T and I each got a movie pass through our AMC theater and it has been so fun. We don't go to the movies every week (there's not enough good stuff out there for that, for sure!), but we have enjoyed going more often and getting nicer and reserved seats like Imax, Dolby surround sound, and dine-in seating - seriously spoiled with that one! This past Thursday, we went to see the new Peter Jackson movie, Mortal Engines, on opening night in IMAX with the reclining seats. It's been a great investment in date nights for us!

Reading :: it's been a good year of reading - five and half hours a week of gymnastics will do that for you! I made my list last week of the top 10-ish books I've read this year and would love to figure out when to blog it. It's on the to-do list! Currently, I'm reading Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard. It's the second book in the Red Queen series (YA dystopian novels are my thing right now apparently) and I'm enjoying it. I read the first book a couple years ago, but didn't love it enough to finish the series. Not sure what's different this time, but I've made it to book two!

Educating :: three out of the four kids at home this year. This fall, for the first time, we have put one of our kids into public school and has taken some getting used to! It has been a great change for our oldest for many reasons and she is settling into 9th grade and has survived her first semester and enjoyed it. I miss having all my kids at home with me, but it's been a good step (for her and me!) We're taking the other kids a year (or a semester) at a time and seeing what they need - isn't that what we as parents do about everything. No kid is the same, and that becomes even more apparent as they get older and you really start to see how they learn differently. There's such a stigma in the homeschool community when you do something like this with one of your kids and I haven't loved that.

Planning :: to work on my power sheets this weekend. The last several years have been "ugh" for lack of a better word. Power sheets aren't the answer to my problem, but I'm looking forward to using them as a tool to help me process some things that have been going on and move in a different direction in the future. (It's vague, I know).

Creating :: not much. This is first year that I've haven't diligently worked on a Project Life album and I miss it! I have worn out two little selphy photo printers and decided that this year I would use the Project Life app to make our family scrapbook pages. It's a great app, but it's not for me! It's too hard for me to sit and create scrapbook photos on my phone without my eyes crossing. :) I love writing out the journaling cards and printing my photos, so I'm hoping to get back to in 2019.

Here's to a quick catch up and moving on. Happy December!

January Reads

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 01:44:00 +0000

January ended up being a pretty decent reading month for me, all things considered. It turns out that the first month of the year is one of the busiest for the person who is a director of a Classical Conversations community. It's time to re-register families for the coming year, hold informational meetings, figure out how to fill out 1099s for the first time, and the list goes on. I've been sticking to a pretty strict to-do list and just checking off the next thing. That said, the majority of the stack above are read-alouds - that's where most of my reading time ended up taking place. Personally, I read a couple books on my Kindle and one fairly good-sized series which was fantastic and a great way to end the month.

To recap our read-alouds, the two books leaning to the left in the photo above were actually December's read-alouds. They were all I finished in December (besides the big Bible reading project that I'm nearing the end of) and I never got a monthly wrap up for that month written. We finished Mr. Popper's Penguins and By the Great Horn Spoon this month. Mr. Popper's was a HUGE hit with my 7 year old. We read the book, we saw the play at our local children's theater, and he has the audiobook loaded on an ancient iPad and has listened to it several times. It's fun to look back and now and see when I had last read that book aloud (before he was born), so the 7 year cycle of repeating books is working out pretty good for me!

We also finished Sid Fleischman's By the Great Horn Spoon which tied more into the American History memory work that we are doing in CC this year. I admit, I wasn't sure about this book when it started. However, it did pick up about halfway through the book and by the end we were to the "just one more chapter, please!" and finished it up rather quickly. It was a great story as far as describing what it might have looked like for someone heading out to try their hand during the great gold rush.

In January, we finished The Prairie Thief by Melissa Wiley and Little House on the Prairie (and who all should know who that author is). :) The Prairie Thief was a just-for-fun read and requested by my 10yo girl - since she is the one that I seem to have the hardest time engaging with a read-aloud, I obliged her and we all enjoyed this one. (Again, this was another re-read, last enjoyed in 2012, so the girls would have been 4 and 5ish, and the boy not quite 2).

Little House on the Prairie was as reread for Natalie, who remembers it the first time we read it and has since read the series on her own at least once. Betsy didn't remember this at all ... and I have to say, I pick up different things every time that I go through the series, and especially the farther along I get into parenting. What a hard life it would have been to travel with three little girls with her husband to build a home literally from the ground up. And to read aloud Ma's feelings towards their Native American neighbors was not exactly pleasant, but we did have some good conversations about it.

The last read aloud worth mentioning is The Hobbit which the boy and I read before bed off-and-on in December and January. It doesn't even need to be said how great a book The Hobbit is, but I might argue it's an even better read-aloud. So, so good.

On my Kindle this month, I read two books: The Boneshaker by Kate Milford and Lost and Found: Losing Religion and Finding Grace by Kendra Fletcher. I had such high hopes for The Boneshaker after I read Milford's Greenglass House books. As you might predict from the cover alone, it was a little creepy and I didn't love it. Lost and Found was a book that I've had on my wish list for years, and was able to buy for a steal as a Kindle version. I used to read Kendra's blog (Preschoolers and Peace) years ago when my girls where tiny. A year-ish ago she wrote this deeper work about her and her husband's shift in faith through some deep trials in their family and how they were drawn deeper to Jesus and from a works/checklist based faith. Her testimony in this book spoke to me, and I'm thankful I finally got the chance to read it.

The rest of the month was completely taken up with Brandon Mull's Beyonders series. Last summer I fell hard for his Fablehaven series, and decided to try this series featuring an older protagonist. I loved this series just as much! Where the main character in Fablehaven is a young teen girl and her younger brother, this series is focused on Jason, about 15, and how he becomes embroiled in Lyrian. He takes on a cause that he has no tie to because it's the right thing to do and becomes the unlikely hero of the tale and one well worth recommending. While I handed Fablehaven immediately off to my 12 year old, (and I'll be recommending the Beyonders to her as well), I'm excited about this series with a male hero for Ethan when he gets older.

Happy reading. :)

Reading Anne in January

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 23:03:00 +0000

It's been a tradition for several years now, that my friend Carrie over at Reading to Know hosts an L.M. Montgomery reading challenge every January. I think I've participated almost every year ... some years I'm reading on my own, and a couple of those years, the kids and I have worked through a read-aloud together.

I'm hoping to pick up something by LMM this month and join in the challenge ... but I'm having major indecision on what to pick. So far I've:

reread the Emily series (2011)
Story Girl and The Golden Road (2012)
Jane of Lantern Hill (with the girls and my personal favorite for a LMM read-aloud with kids) and Rilla of Ingleside (2013)
The Blue Castle, Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat (2014) ... Mistress Pat has one of my favorite literary quotes ever and I always forget how much I love those two books.
The Story Girl and The Golden Road again, this time as a read-aloud (2015). The summer of 2015, I also did a re-read of the whole Anne series for the first time in FOREVER.
Anne of Green Gables, read aloud with the girls (2016)

I would love to do another read-aloud with my munchkins but with a 7 year old boy in the group, I don't think Anne is up his alley. (I do think he would love Jane of Lantern Hill! That's just a good, all-round fun story). I am would love a reread of Emily, but I'm also not sure I want to dive deep into a series right now when I have an imposing stack of things on my to-be-read list.

I think I'm leaning toward A Tangled Web to start with and we'll see what happens after that. Classic LMM with quirky family characters that I remember being quite humorous. Based on my GoodReads account, I haven't marked that I've read in since I've started logging books there (2006), so I can also justify that it's time for a reread. :)

All the 2018 Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 02:24:00 +0000

Happy 2018!

Our Christmas break has been a whirlwind around these parts. While we didn't travel, I realized today that (I think) there was only one day that I managed to stay home the entire day we have been on break. Not nearly enough hibernating for me! However, in spite of the busy-ness, it was a good break with lots of just-us family time, movies in the evening (we finished our annual watching of Lord of Rings / Hobbit movies, extended editions of course), and mornings without an alarm clock. We have reached the point where it's time to go back to school because we need more structure to our days!

I've spent some of the last week thinking about the coming year and where I think I need to put a little more focus and diligence. I hesitate to call them resolutions ... one, because as a New Year's Eve baby, on top of it being a new calendar year, it's also a new year around the sun for me. I just happen to be able to combine the two. :) There will always be books that I want to read in the coming twelve months (or revisit) and new promises to snack less and drink more water, but I've had a word stuck in my head and on my heart for several weeks now, and it's something I want to pursue in the coming months. The word JOY has been on the forefront and I want to be conscious of it in my own life (instead of tending to be a glass-half-empty person) and how can I cultivate that in my life (spiritually, physically, emotionally ... and all the other -ally words). :) This isn't something that I can make lots of lists about - my preferred method of working on something and getting it done! But I'm excited to keep this in the forefront of my mind and heart and work on a new perspective in several areas.

Here's to a new year, a fresh clean calendar (for now), and the promise of what's to coming the next twelve months!

Of note: JOY was apparently my word of the year in 2009. I guess it's the season to revisit this one again! :)

2017's Favorites

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 23 Dec 2017 22:45:00 +0000

One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is to look back over the books that I've read and remember what stood out to me as the really good ones. The ones that I went and added to my shelf if it was a library copy. Or the ones that I finished and went and told one of my girls "you have to read this RIGHT now."

What follows are my top ten (plus one bonus, of course) from 2017. They are in no particular order - I decided to just blog them in the order that the pictures uploaded so I didn't have to rank them!

Just to give you some idea of numbers, here's what I tallied up from this year:

I read 70 total books this year.
24 of those (34%) were read-alouds. (We did a LOT of reading aloud.)
11 of those were ones that I read aloud with just Ethan in the evenings.
8 of those (11%) were non-fiction.

Bark of the Bog Owl by Jonathan Rogers. This was one of the read-alouds that I did with Ethan in the evening and I LOVED it. Sarah Mackenzie has raved about this author and series on her podcast and after reading book one of this trilogy, I can see why. I'm not going to spoil it for you (Sarah didn't for me!), but it's an allegorical tale done so well and so cleverly that it wasn't until about half-way through that I started putting the pieces together. This has been our go-to gift book for our boy friends that are 8-9 years old and upwards this year.

Sally & Nathan Clarkson's book Different was one that I really needed this year - encouragement as we homeschool and parent some munchkins that would fall in to the category of "out of the box" kids. (She defines that as a child that doesn't fit the mold or expectation of how a child should learn and behave whether it is because of a larger than life personality, a learning struggle, clinical diagnoses of some kind, or a combination of any and/or all of the above.) It was very timely for me and I've recommended to several friends who have munchkins wired the same way as one of ours.

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan. Delightful and magical and wonderful. The story of three children all tied together by a single item. Just read it if you haven't. Why I haven't purchased a copy of this for our shelves yet, I do not know, but I'm rectifying this ASAP.

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. This was my fun, guilty pleasure reading this year. For the fantasy fan or Harry Potter enthusiast that needs another series, I highly recommend this one. This was one of those books that I finished and immediately hunted down N2 (age 11) and said you MUST read this. And she might be getting the whole series under the tree this year. Completely creative storyline and a perfect series for junior (or YA) reader that love fantasy.

Greenglass House (and Ghosts of Greenglass House) by Kate Milford. This is where my bonus book comes in. I've owned Greenglass House on my Kindle for ages, but I finally picked it up this fall and started reading it. It's a ghost story, but it doesn't go the way you think. Another one that I think my girls would all LOVE and I'm contemplating a read-aloud of it in the spring. (But I enjoyed reading this one on my own because I couldn't put it down and when you read-aloud you have to go slower!) When I finished the first book, I immediately got the second one on my Kindle and am hoping to read more of Kate Milford in 2018. I love authors that make you want to find all their books and read them all!

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I bought this pretty copy last year for Christmas and it's a book that is worth rereading every few years. It just gets better with age.

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton. This was another new author to us this year and one that we fell in love with. To repeat what I wrote back in January when we finished this one: this is a delightful stand-alone story that was recommended to me by a fellow homeschooler on Instagram. It is a blend of nonsense and wordly wit that reminds me of the great Roald Dahl. (High praise, indeed!) There were so many lines that I wanted to go through and flag so that I could read them to my grammar class that I teach in our Classical Conversations community - fantastic uses of alliteration, rhyme, -ly adverbs, etc. The author is a crazy, talented illustrator in her own right AND is the sister in law of Andrew Peterson, author of another of my favorite series, The Wingfeather Saga. So many good signs that pointed to us loving this book. And we did. Highly recommend as a read aloud and for your library.

Note: We also read Jennifer Trafton's newest book, Henry and the Chalk Dragon, and loved it as well. (But Mount Majestic was my favorite). :)

Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie. If you don't have this book in your homeschooling arsenal, why not? I've blogged about this book some here and revisited again this year. I took away from it something completely different this go round (a reminder that teaching from my strengths v. what I see others doing is always the better choice). Sarah has a new book coming out in 2018 about reading aloud and y'all know how I feel about that.

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. This ended up being one of my absolute favorite read-alouds of our year! I picked this one this past spring because we needed a "boy" book thrown in our rotation. I was dreading it because I remember the old Disney movie from when I was a kid (and how I had bad dreams about the shipwreck at the beginning of the story!) By the time we got to the horse race at the end of the story we just had to read through to the end!

The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong. Last in the list and another surprise read-aloud favorite. I picked this one because I'm eventually going to read all the books that have one the Newbery Award. We were captivated by the school children of Shora, a small Dutch town that doesn't have any storks. The children of the school want to know why the storks don't land and nest in Shora anymore and it turns into a project that pulls the children, and eventually the town, together.

There you have it. :) The best of 2017. I'm already plotting what I want to read next year - definitely more non-fiction. I have several books that I've bought and started or are just waiting to be picked up that I'm eager to get to. What was your favorite book of 2017? I might need it add it to 2018's list as well!

PS. I've edited and updated our Family Read-Aloud List up through 2017, and my full list of what I read in 2017 if you're interested in all the books. :)

November 2017 Reads

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 22:52:00 +0000

My reading stack for November. It was a light month for me as far as books go. I've got a big project that I'm working on book wise and it will probably take me through the end of the year (more on that in a minute).

We'll start with read-alouds. The boy and I finished Prince Caspian as our bedtime read-aloud last month. We are slowly but surely making our way through the Narnia books - if I'm counting right, this is my third time through reading them aloud. We were going to jump into The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but we have taken a slight detour (though a worthwhile one) and he and I are reading The Hobbit together right now. Just so you know, The Hobbit is so much FUN to read aloud. This is the first time that I've ever done that and I think it's easier to follow when I'm reading it aloud versus reading it to myself. And, since Ethan has watched the movies (4th child with older siblings problem), he can ask if this is the part with the ring or Gollum or the goblin cave and is following along just fine.

The other read aloud we finished in November was our school-time read, Little House in the Big Woods. N2 (my 11 year old) remember much of the story from when we read aloud several years ago (and has read it on her own since then), but I'm not sure how much B remembers. She would have been 3 when we originally read it! Ethan hung in with this "girl" book pretty well ... there is a lot of Pa in this book so that helped. We'll see how he feels when we get to something like These Happy Golden Years. :)

As far as personal reading, I read Emily Ley's book, A Simplified Life. I enjoyed this book - Emily has a very friendly and encouraging writing style as she walks you through ten different areas and ways to simplify your life. I think I need a book like this every so often to remind me that it's ok to let go of things (clutter does not equal joy) and where I can tighten up ship around here in other ways. The book also has blank pages if you need workbook space to work through your simplifying needs and strategies. I haven't used those but those could be a great tool for a wife and/or mama that is completely overwhelmed and needs even more help on where to start.

The other book I have read this month is an advanced PDF of Kristen Kill's book Finding Selah. I read this book in one sitting (started it on my phone at gymnastics on night - my least favorite way to read ever!) and I am eagerly waiting my advance copy to get here so I can highlight in it. I became aware of Kristen when she began co-hosting Sally Clarkson's podcast with her and was eager to read her writing since Sally (one of my top homeschool mama mentors) thinks so highly of her. Her writing is lovely and I hope to share more on this one later.

The other big reading project that I've been working on - and the reason my book stack is so small - is that I've challenged myself to read through the whole Bible this Christmas season. Instead of a chapter a day, I'm getting through as many as I can with the goal of absorbing and taking in the big overarching scope of the Bible. I have read through the whole Bible before as a year long project, but if you are like me, by the time you get three-fourths of the way through, it's a little harder to find those connections with what you read at the beginning. Plus, I love to spend time also doing in depth verse by verse studies of certain books ... again, well worth my time, but hard to get the feel of the book as a whole. Which is what it is - one whole book, subdivided into different books but with one overarching theme and story that it is telling. I've just finished up 2 Samuel this morning and am about to dive into the lives of the kings of Israel and Judah. I can't wait!

November in a nutshell! I foresee December's stack will be small with my Bible project, but I'm sure there will be a read-aloud or two to share in a few weeks. :)

Making Advent Harder Than It Needs to Be

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 23:06:00 +0000

Apparently, I'm not the only one that makes things harder than they need to be! After hitting publish on that last post, I thought of several areas where this is glaring at me right now. (I'm sure there are others, but two are in the forefront of my mind right now.)

The first is Advent.

I realize that it is December 1 today and if you are like me you have been inundated with Advent every where you turn for the last few weeks. Daily activities for children. Countdown calendars. Devotional books for adults. Devotional books for children. Jesse tree projects. Christmas book projects. And, on and on. There are just so many options - good options - that it gets overwhelming. And I tend to think that I need to reinvent the wheel every year and if we don't do all the things I will fail my kids utterly.

That's really not true. (Whew.)

I am giving myself permission to keep out Advent simple. For the most part, I'm not planning on buying anything new. (Except for the chocolate Advent calendars ... last year's were eaten). :) I'm reading an Advent devotional that has been on my Kindle for at least a year (maybe two) and I've never read it. We are going to read all our Christmas story books without wrapping them. And that's really as far as I've thought about it. Micromanaging our month is not just stressful, but it's not really all that fun either. Most of the things that would probably be on my "want to do" list happen naturally without needing to make a note that we are making gingersnaps on the 8th of December no matter what unfolds on that day's schedule.

December always seems to hold a magic of its own and when I overplan and overschedule, I tend to miss it. And for me, instead of December being about all the extra activities, it is about the margin that comes to our schedule because of the break from Wednesday night church and gymnastic practices and music lessons. It's more nights at home and time to make a real dinner as opposed to eating quesadillas over the stove as I cook them up for everyone before heading out the door. Margin to take a meal to someone that needs it, or for those one-on-one shopping trips with a child that usually always includes a trip for coffee or a donut.

Maybe that's where I've been getting it all wrong ... focusing on the more, more, MORE that comes with December instead of embracing less. Less stuff, less going, less "me, myself and I" this month. I think this is the direction I'm going to head this way for this year.

Making It More Complicated Than It Needs to Be

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 01:51:00 +0000

I've gone back and forth over the last couple of months over whether to let my blog fade a slow death, start something new, or just pick up here like I haven't fizzled off writing except for the occasional monthly book report. (Of which I haven't written one on here since May!) My kids are older now. I have one who starts high school in the fall of 2018. (High. School. Not possible). The days of all of sitting around the table doing our school work together have faded over the last year so posts about art projects and joint curriculum have fallen by the wayside. More often than not I ask to take their picture now instead of the cute candids ... and then I need to ask before sharing it.

Like most moms that have a houseful of littles, I have found that several of my hobbies have fallen by the wayside to getting this child reading, or getting that child sleeping better at night, or filling the need as tutor for this child's class. I've lost a little of my own individuality in the process. My schedule has turned into less of the hands-on-all-the-time parenting to the role of chauffeur and cheerleader on the sidelines. While not an overabundance, there's margin in my days that comes with older kids and I'm struggling with how to fill it. I'm still very available, but instead of the time consuming need to sit on the floor to tie all the shoes and cut all the food and get everyone's clothes laid out and ... and ... and ... before heading out the door, it's now coffee and chocolate and all the conversation. Parenting tweens and teens is an entirely new animal altogether and most days I'm not quite sure what I'm doing.

All that rambling monologue to say, I may use this space once again. I don't know what will turn up ... most likely I'll write about books some (a lot). Photos and photo projects. (December Daily is coming up and I'm in the mood to do something with it this year.) Whatever I'm reading in the Bible and what God is teaching me.

We shall see what comes of it!

May 2017 Reads ... or Lack Thereof

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Wed, 31 May 2017 00:16:00 +0000

Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas

El Morro National Monument, New Mexico

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Hoover Dam, Nevada

Hollywood

Ventura, California

Malibu, California

Santa Barbara, California

Arches National Park, Utah

And that is the reason I have little to no reading to post this month! We were either frantically wrapping up school, packing or preparing for the trip, or traveling across the United States over the past two weeks. It was all sorts of fun, but left little time for reading. A grand total of two things were read this month:

one was a read aloud that the boy and I finished at bedtime, Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary. It has been a LONG time since I have read Henry and Ethan and I promptly went to the library and checked out some more books about him.
I also finished Outlaws of Time #2: The Song of Glory and Ghost by N.D. Wilson. This is the second book in N.D. Wilson's Outlaws of Time series. While I am a big fan of his 100 Cupboards books, and enjoyed one of his stand-alone mysteries, this series continues to baffle me a bit and I seem to have a hard time keeping up. However, I don't mind adding his books to his library because I have a fantasy-loving girl that will enjoy them, and I feel sure the boy will down the road.

This week is our Classical Conversations practicum (3 days of a mini classical homeschool convention and training for next year) and then I'm hoping there is much pool and reading time in the near future!

What She Read in April 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 20:52:00 +0000

Squeaking in on the last day of the month to report on April's reading. Such a good month for read-alouds in this house. I'm not saying it's because we are thisclose to the end of the school year, and right now reading aloud is about all we feel like doing! (Math and a few other things are still in the loop, but the end is in sight.) We finished four read-alouds this month, and I read three books - two in the last week ... another sign that I'm about to get a small reprieve from school stuff for some fun reading downtime. :)

Our read-alouds that we finished were:

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. The boy and I read this at bedtime over the last month and as I mentioned in March's post, I really enjoyed reading it this time around. The stories are just so clever and funny. I know some of the humor went over Ethan's head, but they were animal stories which automatically makes it a hit with him.

The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong. This was such a great book. We were totally sucked into the story of the school children in this small Dutch town. The towns surrounding their small area all have storks that come and nest on the roofs of the houses - why doesn't their town have storks? A simple question asked leads to this small town on a quest and several unexpected friendships to bring the storks back to Shora. Loved this one!

Henry and the Chalk Dragon by Jennifer Trafton. This book is such a gem. The story of Henry who loves to draw. But one day one of his drawings escapes and comes to life and, as expected, mayhem ensues. Lots of big thoughts about how it can be scary to be an artist and let your work out so others can see it ... and comment on it! My books is littered with little post-its of great quotes and turns of phrases that I wanted to remember:

Quest. It was probably the best word of all the words ever made up. It meant going on a really long journey to find something you want a whole lot.

Henry was telling the truth. Dragons aren't scary - well, they are, but they're a good kind of scary. They're the kind of scary you want to be scared of. People are the bad kind of scary, he thought. Dragons can only eat you, but people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death with a smile.

It is a dangerous thing to open a door. But that, after all, is the only way to find an adventure.

Of note: we got to meet the author at a book signing for Henry, and she was delightful. :)

Stuart Little by E.B. White. This is the first time that I have ever read this one which surprises even myself, considering I'm such a fan of Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan (review). We enjoyed it - I do have a soft spot for mouse tales - but I also found this book a little on the odd side. It was a nice short read-aloud, but Stuart is no Wilbur.

The books that I read this month:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. I picked this one up for Amy's Newbery Challenge. I'm just sure that I read this at some point as a child, but it has been a while! It's the story of young Kit who must move to colonial Connecticut to live with her extremely strict relatives. The religious liberty that these colonists came to America to find have them extremely suspicious of anything that doesn't fit into their mold, and Kit finds herself very lonely until she meets a women who most of the village suspects is a witch. Fascinating read about early America and one that I think I'll pass on to N2 this next year when we return to American history in our studies.

The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertram. This is fun literary mystery set in San Francisco. I read Bertram's Book Scavenger last year enough to make sure that the sequel was on our shelves when it came out last week. If you liked Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library or books with lots of literary references sprinkled throughout, I recommend this one!

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro. This book was recommended to me by Nicole on Instagram. I enjoy mysteries (can't get the Nancy Drew out of a girl once she's hooked) and when she said this was a YA series based on the descendants of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I decided to give it a try. This was a great mystery and I definitely liked the premise of the Watson and Holmes descendants always finding each other. That said, I didn't care for some of the language in the book, but that is my only quibble with this.

And with that we are on to May. :) With the prospect of school ending, a family road-trip, and the pool opening in the next several weeks, I have high hopes for more reading time to come. Which means a summer reading list, naturally!

March 2017 Reads

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 13:10:00 +0000

March has come in like a lion and is going out like a lion! It has been a full month as we are about one week away from winding up our Classical Conversations work for the little folk in this house. (N1 still has about a month left of her Challenge A class). Thus, it has been a light month for personal reading around here. We did just come off of a week of spring break, but there wasn't much downtime for reading as I was on a decluttering mission, as you do when the weather starts to warm up and you want to shed all your winter fluff in all areas! We have been reading aloud a ton and that is the sum of most of what I have to report this month.

The boy and I have been in a fantastic night time reading routine and finished two bedtime books this month. We read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - that book just gets better with each read through! We also finished Akimbo and the Lions by Alexander McCall Smith. This was one of N1's favorite series when she was reading small chapter books and it was a winner with Ethan as well. Really, anything with animals is a winner with him. Right now he and I are about half way through Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, another one that I am enjoying immensely more this time through. Maybe it's because I just came off a year of teaching grammar in our homeschool co-op but Kipling has such great plays on words, alliteration, and clever turns of phrases that it's just been a delight to read. And the stories themselves are fun, too.

Our school time read-aloud for most of March was The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. I remember seeing the old movie as a child (and was slightly traumatized by the shipwreck portion at the beginning of it!) but had never read the book. It was mentioned in Sally Clarkson's recent book Different as one that really resonated with her wild boy she was trying to tame ... off I went to the library for our own copy to hopefully inspire a couple of mine, likewise. :) This was was actually first published in 1941 (I also didn't realize it was so old) and tells the story of how Alec and the Black were the only survivors of a tragic shipwreck. They learn to depend on one another and Alec becomes the only person able to tame the savage horse. They make it back home and the book culminates in a fantastic horse race - I'll save the spoilers of who won, but I bet you can guess. :) This was a GREAT read-aloud and one I'll pull back out in a few years when Ethan is ready to read it on his own. I could see him getting lost in this whole series.

Personally, I read three books (I guess I did read a little more than I thought!) but one definitely took the a huge chunk of my month. Johnny Tremain was my pick for Amy @ Hope is the Word's Newbery challenge for March. I had never read this one (shock!). Set during the Revolutionary War against England, this is one I am considering revisiting next year when we work through American history.

I also read The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill and Pekoe Most Poison by Laura Childs (both on Kindle). Pekoe Most Poison is a light mystery in Laura Childs' tea shop mystery series. A nice clean mystery series sometimes is hard to come by and this is perfect for someone who was a die-hard fan of Murder, She Wrote when she was in junior high, a-hem. :) The Girl Who Drank the Moon was the 2017 Newbery winner and I loved this one. So much that I went in search of more Kelly Barnhill books from my library. On its surface it is a simple tale of magic and love and protection, but through out the story we are unraveling the little lies that the main characters have told to "protect" each other. But were those lies really worth it for all the heartbreak and misdirection they caused? It was one that I picked up for a song on Kindle last year, and it was well worth the couple of dollars I spent on it.

It's almost time to start thinking about SUMMER READING. :) (I'm eyeing my Mitford stack and wishing I could while away the hours rereading those favorites - there is new one coming in September and I am ready!) I'm hoping to start pulling together a summer to-read list for myself and thinking of what would make a good evening family read-aloud with our whole crew. Book lists are definitely some of my favorite things.

February Reads for 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 23:46:00 +0000

Last day of February ... sneaking in here at the last moment to catalog what has been read around these parts this month. My stack is still on the smallish side, but there has been lots of reading-aloud done and I've checked a couple books off my list that I've been wanting to get to so it's a win for me.

As far as read-alouds, we finished three this month, though only two are pictured above. One was the bedtime book for me and the boy - we are working our way through his sister's Roald Dahl collection and it has been such fun to read these again with him. The nice thing about Roald Dahl, besides his fantastic writing, is that his chapters are just the right length for a little boy winding down at night and on a good evening we can get through two during a reading sessions. Fantastic Mr. Fox was the recent read and enjoyed by both of us. We have since moved on to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which is always an excellent read-aloud. However, as I read, I go back and forth in my head between the Gene Wilder version and the Johnny Depp version of the movie, depending on which part of the book I am in. So confusing! And don't ask me to pick a favorite because I love them both! :)

As a collective bunch, we read aloud Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. This is the second time that I've read this one aloud - the last time was in 2010, before the boy was born. At that time, I had one 7 year old girl hanging in there with me while I read it (and two tag along little sisters) and it was a new book to both of us. This time, I just didn't love it as much. Peter and Tink really aren't very nice people! I think I prefer the polished up Walt Disney version.

The last read-aloud (not pictured) that we checked off this month was our science text, Apologia's Land Animals of the 6th Day. We started this "text" in the Fall of 2016 and it has taken us about a year and half (minus summer) to work our way through it. We have learned so many things about mammals and I'm so thankful that I got to read this along with the kids as part of our schooling. And now, I see the fruit as the three younger will spout out random and interesting animal facts that they have retained at different moments, ie., when the boy and I were emptying the dust canister from the vacuum and he comment that there were probably a lot of dust mites in there that we just swept up. Um, yes, there probably were! Ick. :)

Personal reads for me were all over the board this month! I finished Sally Clarkson's newest book Different, which was written with her son Nathan. This book probably deserves more discussion than I have room and time for here, but this is different than many of Sally's other books that she has written. This was a book written for the mama who is parenting that child at home that is what she calls an "out of the box kid." They don't fit the mold or expectation of how a child should learn and behave whether it is because of a larger than life personality, a learning struggle, clinical diagnoses of some kind, or a combination of any and/or all of the above. It was an encouraging read for me as we navigate different scenarios with a couple of our own and I need to go back and make note of some of those things that I marked the first time through. Highly recommend this one.

I read Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer as part of Amy's (@ Hope is the Word) Newbery Challenge. I'm two for two so far for 2017! Roller Skates is a story set in New York in the late 1800s. And, as always when I read books set in a time since past, I am amazed at the freedom given to children in that day and age. (A similar feeling struck me as I read the All of a Kind Family books and The Saturdays, and its sequels by Elizabeth Enright). You can read Amy's review of Roller Skates here - this could be a great read aloud as you study America during this time period, but might need a parental pre-read if you have super sensitive little ones.

Another one that I finished, not pictured in the photo was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. This was the 2010 Newbery winner - and again, recommended by Amy - and it was good. There was mystery, fantasy, and lots of literary tie-in's to A Wrinkle in Time and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The last book that I read this month was one that I picked up on a whim at the library and read over our winter break. The After-room by Maile Meloy is the third book in the Apothecary series. I had read the first two books quite some time ago. Long enough that I was VERY fuzzy on characters and story line and pretty much everything going into the third book. That probably should have been a clue that I didn't love them enough to spend the time reading the third book, but I did anyway if just to see the series wrap up and move on.

And there's February and it's on to March. I realize that February is the shortest month, but it seemed to FLY by this year. If you read anything amazing and wonderful in the last while, do share. I am realizing that my books seem to be junior and YA lit heavy lately, but that is where I'm finding all sorts of reading gems so I'm unapologetic about it. :)

Mama's Successful Winter Break Involves a Crockpot

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 15:49:00 +0000

Our CC group was on break this week, and it worked out perfectly for us. I seem to do better (as do my kids) on a six/seven weeks on, one week off schedule. Sometimes this lines up with our homeschool tutorial, sometimes not. But I was ready for a week to recharge. Usually these weeks involve lots of cleaning out of closets and tasks around the house, but I didn't do as much this week. All of our regular activities were still on the calendar (music lessons, Awana at church, gymnastics, etc.) so our days were still humming. However, unknowingly, I managed to give myself a bit of a break by putting four brand new crockpot recipes on my menu plan. I know! Totally risky. Crockpots are funny things - the right recipe is gold, but there are plenty of bad ones out there.

In the spirit of mom solidarity, I thought I would share the four that I made with our comments. All of these recipes came from Six Sisters Stuff. I've been following them on Instagram for a while now, and when I see them post a recipe I like, I use Instagram's new little save feature (the flag that is underneath a photo on the right). Then when I'm menu planning, I pull up my saves and go through and see if anything new jumps out at me to try.

Slow Cooker Steak Fajitas - this recipe is actually one that the Six Sisters made from the 100 Days of Real Food Cookbook. We had some taco meat left over from the weekend from something at our house, and I found one smallish steak in the freezer. I knew my kids would not be fans of the onions and peppers cooked with the steak, but the grownups were. One smallish steak plus a load of veggies was perfect for me and my husband to have for dinner ... and the kids got taco leftovers. I'll make this again.

Slow Cooker Lasagna - this was another good one. I made this on Valentine's Day. (Nothing says Valentine's like something Italian). It was tasty and just the right size for our crew. FYI - on all these recipes I used my 4 quart crockpot, instead of my bigger 6 quart. If I make a recipe to fill my larger 6 quart size, I generally end up with more leftovers that I want to eat! The 4 quart has been working out perfectly for us, but I know that won't last long. As different children enter different growth spurts we run out of food some nights!

Crockpot Creamy Ranch Pork Chops & Potatoes - this one got RAVE reviews from my kids. I honestly don't know the last time they have gushed about a dinner like this. The six year old boy kept asking for more "chicken" (we corrected him several times that it was pork, but it didn't stick) and said that this meat was "'ah-licious!" multiple times. (I will be so sad when he stops saying delicious that way). My 11 year said that if it wasn't considered rude, she would lick the sauce from this dish off her plate. High praise indeed for this one!

Crockpot Swedish Meatballs - another major hit with my kids (and me!) This is the only recipe I took a picture of and, other than the fact that my meatballs fell apart in the crockpot after cooking all day, it was such a good comfort food dish. I did what Six Sisters suggested, and served it over mashed potatoes and that was pretty fabulous, and I'm not a mashed potatoes person. I think the meatball problem was that they were turkey meatballs made from a Pioneer Woman recipe and in my experience, I have not yet learned the trick to getting my meatballs to stay together well. It didn't affect the taste in the least!

All these recipes are going in my keeper pile and into rotation. I have my favorite recipes and cookbooks that I fall back on time and time again, but it's always nice to find a new recipe / blogger / Instagram account to add into the rotation for some new inspiration!