Friday Morning Book Post

My friend, Jenn writes a Friday Morning Book Post and I thought this is something I'd like to try this new year. I just posted a list of my favorite books that I happened to read in 2013, but a Friday round-up of sounds like a lot of fun. I mean, when do I not want to talk about books?

So, we gave Luke a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas. He was skeptical that he would like reading on an E-reader, but I think he was convinced by how small and lightweight it is. He wanted to read Divergent. I did not get the chance to pre-read this for him. I re-read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire before handing them off to him a year ago, but I simply could not get to Divergent in time. I decided to let him read it without my checking it out first. This makes me uneasy, but I know that I won't be able to pre-read everything for him. So far, he's really liking this totally different dystopian novel that is Divergent. It's on my to-read in 2014. I'm sure that Luke will want to see the movie in March. The rule is that if there's a book version, we read it before the movie comes out. (I didn't do so well with that rule when it comes to The Hobbit.)

Sam and I are taking our time with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It's not my favorite book in the series, but I do love that flying car that Ron and Harry use to get back to Hogwarts after missing the train. I'm not sure if I will continue this series after this book. Sam's only eight and the series gets a little intense after book four. I'm on the fence about reading The Prisoner of Azkaban just yet.

I gave Sam my old Kindle last year. I downloaded Ella Enchanted when it was $1.99 recently. He was reluctant to begin reading it. Unlike Luke, he cares if the main character is a girl. I told him that Luke and I read this a couple of times and we really enjoyed it. I'm sure that I will have to encourage him through the whole book, but I do think he will like it.

As for Tess, She received Vader's Little Princess for Christmas. This book is just hysterical. It's genius and oh, so funny. Don't you just love that Princess Leia's stuffed bear is an Ewok?
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The twins got a ton of great board books for Christmas and just in time too. Paul and I are burned out on so many of them. There were a couple of old board books that Paul asked that we just flat out get rid of.  It turns out that we both  really dislike Curious George and we really don't like Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. Perhaps, we just don't like monkeys?

The twins love reading Boynton's Pajama Time. They have it memorized! In fact, we end reading time with them by reading Pajama Time! They received some of these Cozy Classics for Christmas even though, technically, they're too old for books with only one word on each page. I'm enchanted with Emma. I'm amazed that one can get the gist of Emma in only a handful of single words. So, I might like Emma more than both the twins and Tess.

As for me, I'm settling into a novel titled When Sparrows Fall. I haven't read any Christian fiction in a very long time. Hibernating on my Kindle is The Night Circus.

I'm supposed to be reading Longbourn for my book club at the end of this month. It's the re-telling of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of the help.

So, that's our week in books!

Off My Game

I'm off my game. It's no secret that since the twins arrived, I've been way off my game. I can't just blame the twins. Life got bigger and fuller and busier and well, just more. My husband constantly tells me that "this too shall pass". I get a little sad because I don't want it all to pass too quickly. I don't want to wake up and realize that I missed it all hoping it would pass. It's the 5th of December and I haven't done much in the way of getting ready for Advent or Christmas. I'm going to sound like a total Grinch here, but getting all the decorations out feels like just one more thing I have to do. Of course, I don't want to Christmas to feel like a burden, but, right now, it does. 

The other night, I started reading our Christmas books to Tess and Sammy. This ritual is one of my favorite activities of the season. Sammy flipped out because I asked him to read one of the board books to Tess. He just didn't want to and well, it disrupted our book time. In my mind, reading to my children is one of the things that makes for an idyllic childhood. On the very first night we started reading, my ideal scene turned into a classic meltdown. I was more than disappointed. I felt like Advent was already a loss. Yes, you can say it. I'm very all or nothing. I tried to let go of the awful  frustration do something I struggle with. I hoped that our next reading time would be better. I tried not to dwell on the bad.

I've ranted a lot (on Facebook) about my absolute dislike of the 24/7 Christmas music radio stations beginning in early November. Somehow, the Christmas music seems less magical when it gets nearly two full months of constant air play and don't get me started about how depressing some Christmas music is. Yes, Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year.

Life move pretty fast. If you don't stop and take a look around, you could miss it. Ferris Bueller said that. There's wisdom to be found in Ferris Bueller.I expect that Advent will move quickly, but slow down? Seems impossible.

  I think about that quote a lot. So, maybe finding a way to experience deep joy even in the midst of chaos is the path to choose rather than constantly telling myself that this too shall pass.

We celebrate St. Nicholas day in my house and typically, I get each of the kids a new ornament and some chocolate coins. This year, I wanted to knit ornaments, but I didn't. It's not like I haven't been knitting because I have been knitting in every spare second of my days. I just didn't get to the ornaments. I still might try and knit them, but instead I ordered each child a Christmas/Advent/Winter themed book to add to our holiday collection. I discovered that it's really difficult to find the perfect holiday book for a 13 year-old.  I ordered The Best Christmas Pageant Ever for Luke. I remember reading it when I was about his age and enjoying it. It wasn't my first choice. I think I will dig out our copy of Letters From Father Christmas by JRR Tolkien for him as well. 

Before I started writing this post, I knew that it was going to be kind of a downer. It turns out that I'm not alone.  Christmas can be overwhelming and yet, we're supposed to be joyfully and peacefully awaiting the baby in the manger. My good friend Elizabeth has been posting all kinds of good stuff about Advent and Christmas. She's been my inspiration for years and this year, I honed in on something about gift-giving in her recent post.

Gift-giving is a whole other source of stress. I love choosing just the right gift. I spend a lot of time searching for the best gift. I love buying supplies to make just the right gift. Any excuse to buy yarn or fabric, right? I used to go with the three gift rule for each child. Since the Wise Men brought Jesus three gifts, I thought three gifts per kid seemed reasonable. I think many people use this rule of thumb for selecting gifts for their children. I usually give something that they need, something to read, and something that they want. Five children multiplied by three equals brain overload. I can't do it anymore. Our house is small and the things that go here have to be meaningful. Elizabeth mentioned selecting one gift that really speaks to the child. What a burden lifted! Even with three gifts per child, Christmas started to feel like it's all about the gifts. Gifts are great and gifts are fun and gifts can be magical, but gifts aren't everything. 

So, I'm changing some things this year and I hope that these small changes give me some peace and hopefully, the less-is-more approach will make for a more restful, peaceful, and happy Christmas. Hopefully.

I know that this rant isn't organized and well-crafted. I just let the words come and I didn't try to fix them much. 

By the way, here are the books that ordered for the kids. Board books for the twins. Fancy Nancy for Tess.    

Lighthouse Christmas for Sam. I am enchanted with lighthouses and I hope he will like it as much as I think I will. 

Yarn Along

I haven't updated my blog in almost a month! It's not because I haven't been thinking about it, I have. Summer has gotten me and the entire family off all of my routines. It's actually been nice to have long days stretch out before us. We've been relaxed about bed times with the older kids. We've been relaxed about a lot of things. I suppose that we have immersed ourselves in Summer.

 I've been knitting a lot without completing anything until yesterday. I've actually started to have some pain when I knit. Oddly enough, the pain is in my left shoulder and elbow. Most of my yarn movement is in my right hand.  After many years of knitting without pain, I suppose that I may be developing some repetitive motion injury. I know it's something I can't ignore forever, but I have been  kind of knitting through the pain.  I finished a Color Me Pretty hat in what should have been a toddler size, but came out sized more for a 6 month old baby. I really wanted to learn how to knit Fair Isle properly. Up until this hat project, I always picked up and dropped the yarns when doing color changes. This time, however, I held one working yarn in my right hand and the other yarn in my left. I had two happy results by changing the way I held the yarns. The yarns did not become twisted and the actual Fair Isle sections were less tight. I deleted the photo from my computer yesterday. So, go here and you can see my baby hat. About half way through this project, I realized that the two colors that I had chosen didn't have enough contrast. It's pretty difficult to see the flower     on the hat. I definitely want to make this hat again, but bigger and with better contrasting colors!

I read Phoebe's Birthday to Tess last night. In full disclosure, I kind of ordered this book for myself. This is a delightful little picture book, but the exciting thing about Phoebe's Birthday is the knitting patterns in the back of the book. Actually, this book also includes both a quilt pattern and stuffed "Mermouse"  pattern as well. The simple story includes some nice artwork and the patterns are featured in the book. Okay, so, I'm going to make this for Tess. So, I guess, in the end, this book is really for her after all. She gets the book and the Phoebe's Sun Tunic that I will knit for her!

Happy Independence Day! don't forget to visit Ginny for more Yarn Along adventures! Happy Summer friends!

Yarn Along- Leap Year Edition

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? ~

Here's the stack of books currently on my nightstand. I'm reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to Sammy and I'm reading The Sherwood Ring to Luke. I'm reading Bittersweet and it's about finding grace in every moment. I just finished a simple hat knit in sock yarn, but I'm back to knitting Sammy's Dragon hat. I've gotten the dragon's feet and tail done. It's hard to tell without looking at the chart, but trust me, the dragon, stitch by stitch, is slowly emerging.

Head on over to Ginny for more yarn and books!

Yarn Along: hats

I like to knit hats and I knit a lot of them! The thing about hats is that they're small enough projects to tote anywhere. When I don't feel like hauling my entire knitting bag, I can easily put a hat project in my purse. There's an endless variety of hats and I can learn lots of new skills knitting hats. So, right now, I'm knitting two different hats. The hat on the left is the Snowtracks Cap and it's got a lot of fun cables. I really enjoy cables and this one is challenging in that there are several different cables twisting in every direction.  I can't really work on this hat mindlessly though. It requires lots of concentration and well, that's why I'm not much past the ribbing section. I'm also working on a Fair Isle hat using two different yarns. The main color is the navy blue and the coordinating color is a variegated color. This hat is extremely simple, but looks more challenging than it really is.


As for reading, I just finished Between Shades of Gray and it was a fast-paced gripping novel about Stalin's cleansing of the Baltic region during WWII. With so much emphasis on Hitler's atrocities, I didn't even know that similar events occurred under Stalin. Lina and her family are deported from their home in Lithuania to a labor camp and ultimately end up in Siberia above the Arctic Circle. It's  a fascinating read!

I received Seeing Trees for Christmas and it has some fantastic photography of trees. The detail is excellent. The book challenges to really look at trees and see their amazing complexity.  Luke and I just finished The Westing Game last night and it was a very clever mystery! Now, we're chatting about what we're going to read next. I'm thinking about The Fellowship of the Ring. I wonder if this will be a godd read-aloud. We've made no decisions yet.

It's always fun to talk about books and yarn and I'm so happy to contribute to the weekly Yarn Along!

Yarn Along- a little sewing too

I am largely reading most of the same books that I was reading last week.  Luke and I finally finished The Penderwicks at Point Mouette and we started reading Tom's Midnight Garden last night. It's a book  that I missed as a child although I remember seeing it on the shelves at the libray. I don't know why. It seems like I would have been enchanted by this book. Well, I'm getting my chance to enjoy it now.

 I didn't finish the second sleeve on last week's sweater. I do things like that. I start new projects when I'm stalling on a project that seems too tedious to finish. It shouldn't be that big of a deal since the sweater is a 6 month size, but I still put it away. Next week, I hope to have several finished projects for the Yarn Along. The knitting bag is overflowing with gallon size Ziplocs with various almost finished projects. Anyway, I began a new hat and yes, it's another pattern by Alana Dakos.  It's the Molly beret and it's knit on size 1 and 3 needles. I don't mind using such small needles. I'm using JoJo Land  Melody and it has some interesting color changes.I see some deep orange coming up in my ball of yarn.

I also started a new patchwork quilt. I have been wanting to sew again lately and I've been inspired by some quilts I've seen on Pinterest. I found a quick pattern at the Moda Bake Shop.  I had a Layer Cake that I wanted to use for this quilt.  Somehow, I managed to cut some fabric, lay it out and sew a few rows together. I'd work on it now, but the twins are sleeping in their co-sleepers in my room and my sewing machine is in there too. I hope to finish the topper today, but I may be a little overly optimistic given everything else I need to do today!

Do check out other yarn adventures over at Ginny's today!  You might find something inspiring.

It's not all about knitting, is it? - Yarn Along

Little T won't really model for me.  So, these pics will have to do.

So, I'm not sure when this blog became all about knitting, but it looks like that's all I talk about these days.  I haven't even mentioned homeschooling in a long while, but believe me, I've been thinking about education more and more these days.  I just haven't written anything about it.  It would seem that I spend all my spare time knitting.  Wait. What spare time? I fill in all the nooks and crannies of my life with reading and knitting and that translates to a minute here or there, but somehow, I've learned over the years that I can do a lot in the space of just a few minutes.  I don't need a lot of dedicated time to knitting or reading.  Any spare minute, I pick up my knitting and knit a round or even just a few stitches and amazingly, I'm starting to finish things quickly. I've learned that there's power in just a few minutes. I cast on for this on Saturday night and I bound off today. I guess it doesn't hurt that this little capped sleeve shirt is knit top-down all in one piece! It's knit in Liberty Wool and the crazy colors remind me of the Pacific Northwest.  Something about it reminds me of the totem poles I've seen in British Columbia.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've been pondering education a lot lately. I think about it while I'm knitting. Somehow, knitting frees my mind for contemplative thought.  I guess I'm late to the debate, but I just downloaded The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  I started reading it yesterday amidst other titles like Cinderella Ate My Daughter.  The latter title piqued my interest due to the fact that I detest much of contemporary girl culture. I don't like the Disney Princesses empire.  So much of all that pink plastic stuff is just so kitschy to me.  This book explores post-feminist girl culture and there's lot to think about here.  I'm nearly a third in on that one and I'll be reviewing it on Goodreads when I'm finished. I'm also reading this to Luke. Life's busier than ever so we usually only get about two nights a week for read alouds before bed these days, but I'm really enjoying this novel quite a bit. Luke still enjoys when we can snuggle in my bed while I read to him.  Last night, I read to him for about a half hour while he knit a hat on his loom.  I told him that I find that I listen better when I can keep my hands busy and my needles keep my hands both busy and happy. 

Please go visit Ginny for more yarn and books!

Christmas books

I've thought about going to bed for the last hour or so since
I've been staying up so late these days. It's becoming rare
that I'm in bed before 11. I'm usually up enjoying
the quiet and knitting or reading and tonight's no
exception. The last few nights I've enjoyed getting to stay up late with Paul since he's on
vacation and we've been having a LOST marathon. We've been watching Season 5 and if you're a fan of LOST, there's more questions than answers on the mysterious island. Well, tonight, Paul is out with my brother-in-law. They went to see The Road. They both read and loved the book. So, I'm up thinking about Christmas and New Year's. I have to admit that I am a fan of shopping the day after Christmas especially at Barnes & Noble. I usually try to pick up a couple of picture books at 50% off to add to our holiday collection. This year, I bought a beautifully illustrated A Christmas Carol despite having at least three other editions at home and well, the new Interweave Knits! So, it's been a busy month despite my best efforts to keep things a little more low-key and we haven't been sitting down leisurely to read through our big collection of picture books, but tonight, I sat down and read to the boys. We read The Nutcracker illustrated by Susan Jeffers and The Mitten by Jan Brett and Woodland Christmas illustrated by Frances Tyrell. This book is really just the lyrics to the Twelve Days of Christmas, but it has the most enchanting pictures. Who doesn't love a bear on skates? It's the kind of book that makes me want to learn how to draw like that. I remember buying this book used last year at the end of the Christmas season and packing it away for this year. I'm so glad that I brought it out today. I'm not ready to stop celebrating Christmas yet. I went to Jo-Ann the other day to buy some yarn for a hat for Paul and I was saddened to see the Christmas shelves cleared off making room for St. Patrick's decorations. Why the rush?? Did they skip over Valentine's day? Anyway, I digress...Okay, that's enough rambling tonight. Paul's home now and it's time for another episode of LOST and some more knitting. Goodnight!

Why can't we finish this book?

I realized that we've had this book on our sidebar for several months now. We've listened to a lot of books on CD in the mean time, but I cannot manage to motivate to finish reading this one to Luke. We loved the first Penderwicks book, but I have to say that I'm really not enjoying this sequel very much. Neither is Luke, but that's because he usually prefers fantasy and well, there are no dragons on Gardam Street! I kind of would like to find out who Bug Man is, but I really want to start something new and I hate not finishing books!!! Ugh...
I guess we'll keep on going and I'll demonstrate some perserverance and then maybe we can start reading The House of Arden.