January Twitterature

Today I'm linking up with Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy to share "short, casual reviews" of the books I've read in the past 31 days.

Our January weather has been especially brutal.   We've experienced high temperatures in the teens with wind chills below zero.  My comfort zone has been inside on my couch with a book.  Of course, we've had some un-winterlike warm days, too, and my comfort stone is still inside with a book.

I love to talk books on my Facebook page , too, so stop by if you have a chance. 

{As always, post about books contain my affiliate links.}



Call the Nurse: True Stories of a Country Nurse on a Scottish Isleby Mary MacLeod

This memoir is the story of a nurse who moved her family to a remote Scottish island in order to experience a different pace of life.  Visting her patients through snow, fog, and bitter cold temperatures, she delivers everything from routine daily diabetic injections to prenatal care.
#memoir  #scottishnurse  



The Return of Sherlock Holmesby Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes begins work again after being presumed dead in this, the third book of short stories about the famous detective.  I read the book to tide me over until the BBC mini-series returns (on Sunday night!).
#mystery  #classic  #shortstories 





Okay for Nowby Gary D. Schmidt

I picked this up on a whim and I am so glad I did.  The dialog is natural, the narrative is superb. I laughed, then cried, then laughed some more. And added bonus: Audobon paintings and Jane Eyre are woven into the story line!
#comingofage   #1960s   #nationalbookawardfinalist   #favorite





Stones for Breadby Christa Parrish

I read the book and then began an obsession with sourdough bread.  Parrish is one of my favorite fiction authors and this book brings more of her trademark storytelling which rolls out slowly while developing strong characters.
#fiction  #bread  #strongcharacterdevelopment





Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook From Scratchby Jennifer Reese


I want to make my own yogurt (healthy!) and marshmallow cream (not so healthy!). 
#nonfiction  #recipes  #fun




From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

I re-read this primarily because I remember reading it as a kid but couldn't remember anything about it.  It was okay this time around, though I was surprised by the small "revelation" at the end. 
#kidlit  #blastfromthepast





With the kids...

Missing Grace: A Kit Mysteryby Elizabeth McDavid Jones

Snuggling on the couch with my girls and their dolls was cozy. We learned about basset hounds, dog shows, and pedigree, too.
#americangirl   #mystery  #greatdepression





Meet Caroline: An American Girlby Kathleen Ernst

We choose a new American Girl series to read together each winter.  This year we picked Caroline. The girls are all starting to run together, though.  I'm still partial to Kirsten and Molly.
#moreamericangirl  #warof1812




Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Jumping Frogsby Donald Sobol

To balance out all the girly reading, we share a chapter of Encyclopedia Brown a few evenings a week.  It's a challenge to see which of us can solve the mystery.
#mystery  #shortstories  #dinnertimereading

Our library basket is always loaded.  In January it includes seasonal picks like Kay Thompson's Eloise and the Snowman, plus Callie Cat, Ice Skater and Cold Snap, both by Eileen Spinelli.

 #coldweatherstories   #itswinter  #betterthanbuildingasnowman

Thirty-Five

Remember when you were a kid and how you wanted your birthday to fall on a weekend so you would be off from school?  It's still fun to have a few days off as an adult, too! 

Today is Brian's 35th birthday!

He gets to be off from work every year because his birthday comes during his winter break. ~Thirty-five~ is a pretty special age so we partied all weekend long and we're keeping the party alive today, too. 

On Saturday evening, I cooked cider beef with root vegetables (onions, potatoes, turnips, and carrots) and we invited one of Brian's friends to share the meal.   It's not a birthday around here without good food and people to join in our celebrations.

Before and after the meal, the guys watched football and cheered for opposing teams while all five kids played Lego in the boys' room and I read another can't-put-down book by Kate Morton.  It was relaxing and celebratory to each of us in his own way.  ~wink~

After the kids were in the bed, the adults indulged in piping hot molten lava cakes!  More good food.  No, I didn't say good for us, just good tasting. 

On Sunday, we moved the party to my parents' house.  Brian's mom joined us for lunch, but the crowing glory was the dessert-- Kati's Peanut Butter Fudge Brownie Trifle. 

Would you look at that? Just look at it!

Following dessert, we squeezed around the kitchen table for games.  First up was Big Picture Apples to Apples which Kati won before we even finished one rotation around the table...and then on to Beat the Parents which the kids won after a long, hard, competitive battle! 

In the midst of our game playing, the 49ers won their game, too, and made Brian a happy birthday boy.  

Today is Brian's official birthday and he has requested time to relax before we begin a whirlwind week.  He wants to sleep in so the kids and I will tiptoe through the morning and wait to eat a breakfast of banana chocolate chip oatmeal together as a family around 9-ish.  (Remember, the food is important to us!) Then we'll give him his present and enjoy the day together.  The wrapping paper belies the fact that we are expecting temps near 60 today-- a full 50 degrees warmer than a few days last week. 

Three days full of birthday is the way to party!

2 Felted Sweaters

Last spring, I met a friend for dinner.  It was a chilly evening and as we sipped our soup, she mentioned that she was wearing a pair of socks she made from a felted thrift store sweater.   She said she had a few more felted sweaters in a bag in her van if I wanted them.  I drove home dreaming of cozy socks and yet when I attempted to make a pair of socks with this tutorial, my clumsy brain got confused with the pattern and my clumsy fingers cut it out the wrong way. 

I turned my mess into two pairs of leg warmers for my girls instead. 

I love leg warmers, but I've never figured out their practicality.  When it's warm enough for skirts, it's too warm for leg warmers and when they need to bundle up and get cozy, the leg warmers are covered by jeans that hide the intricacies of the knit pattern.  Why not wear boring old socks instead?  Someone help me here.  How do you wear leg warmers?

With the leftover sweater pieces, I cut out a bunch of wool hearts with plans to make a bunch of  heart applique shirts with this tutorial as Christmas gifts.  I made three sets of t-shirts for three sets of sisters.  One pair of girls was my own. 

I {heart} those faces!

Linking up with Joanne today:

New Year, New Goals

In 2013, my life centered around routine.  There were no major changes in our family and our school year was one of our best!  My goals were a type of branching out-- trying new things, learning new things, and reaching out to each other and the people around us. 

My goals of 2014 are more of the same.   I tell my children that learning is a lifestyle and once you start, you don't want to stop.  I also tell them that even if you don't expect to like something (whether it be a food or an activity or a book or a place), it never hurts to try it once.  If nothing else, you'll appreciate the experience. 

My personal goals for 2014 reflect those philosophies. 

Last year I divided my goals into short term goals and long term goals.  This year I'm making one big messy fun master list.  I'll update quarterly and include notes and plenty of photos.  As I complete goals I'll cross them off and I'll add new goals to the bottom. 

Experiment in the kitchen.  Try making my own granola bars, yogurt, vanilla, sourdough bread, and marshmallow cream.  

Eat at Chipotle.  (Am I the only one who hasn't been?!) 

Run a 2-mile race with Brian. 

Train and run a 1/2 marathon.  Build my upper body and core strength.  Hold a plank for 4 minutes.

Learn to change the oil in the van and learn to change the wiper blades, too.

Take each child out individually for a meal at a restaurant they would enjoy. 

Read 50 books-- not including books I read aloud to my kids or books we read for school.

Develop a new chores system for the kids, including responsibilities for the two youngest.  

Take (or have someone else take) new non-candid photos of my kids. 

Fresh Perspective

{As always, post about books contain my affiliate links. All opinions are my own.}

The first book I completed in 2013 was Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breatheby Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. It was a perfect start to the new year and put my thoughts and perspective in the right place for a fresh start.  (It's still only $2.99 for Kindle if you want to grab your copy.) 

The book I'm carrying into 2014 is Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches by Rachel Jankovic. When I first heard of this book, my children were 8, 6, 4, 2, and newborn.  Back then, I was fully immersed in the little years.  I was nursing, changing two sets of diapers, nurturing a needy pre-schooler who cried just as much and often as the baby, plus I was struggling to homeschool two other children while in the midst of house hunting. 

I never got my hands on the book when I thought I needed it most.

Now my kids are 11, 9, 7, 5, and 3 and most days I feel only marginally looney.  Everyone can dress themselves.  No one wears diapers and I have help with the meals, so when I finally received a copy of the book in the fall, I figured I'd passed the "statute of limitations." I assumed the book was written for moms of tiny ones and that it wouldn't apply to my life with slightly older children. 



What surprised me about Loving the Little Years was how much it addresses attitude and issues of the heart...and those are things that every mother, not just a mother of babies, needs to ponder!  Instead of a how-to book with ideas of how to get through a typical day, it digs deeper into matters of pride, obedience (mine, not my children's), and grace. 

I have spent many moments contemplating what Rachel says about laying a foundation for our children to build on.  She points out that as mothers, we are equipping our children to know what the Bible says and be able to serve the Lord on their own. We have the responsibility to guide them and teach them, but our ultimate goal is for them to know and follow His Way because they themselves know it is The Right Way.  If we say, "Tell your brother sorry because I said so," we are demanding obedience (arguably a good thing in itself), yet failing to show them that we love and forgive because of Jesus' example. 

This little book is barely over 100 pages and is short enough to be read in an afternoon, but it is meaty and meant to be savored over days and weeks.  It is worth reading and re-reading and worth contemplating. 

Be looking for details of the social media party that I'm holding at the end of the month on my Facebook page where you can win your own copy of this book!

Making a List and Checking It Twice

Okay.  So Christmas is over, but around the New Year, we all start making new lists.  To-do lists.  Book lists. Grocery lists.  School lists.  Resolutions lists? 

I stopped making resolutions because resolutions seemed doomed to fail.  Instead, I like goals. The word goal indicates that I'm working toward something, even if I don't quite get there.  

Today I'm looking back on some of the goals I made at the the beginning of 2013.  Most I completed.  Some I didn't and a few I'm still working on.  Next Wednesday, I'll post a fresh list of goals for 2014. 

Goals For 2013 (in semi-particular order):

• Print 10-15 baby pictures of Alaine to include in her photo album  Thanks to a great Walgreens deal, I accomplished this early in the year.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Attempt some of the ideas on my Winter Pinterest Board (a few pictures of my projects here)
  
  
• Work on the walls
  
  1. Have the 3 boys paint pieces of abstract art for their bedroom wall
  
  
  
  
  2. Make a large photo poster for our living room wall
  
  
  
  
  
  3. Update some of our  frames with more current photos
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Finish moving our books from boxes to shelves
  
  
  
  
  
• Learn to change the oil in van...and maybe the wiper blades, too  Never learned how to do either one, but I'll be rolling this goal over into 2014. I did learn to operate a chainsaw.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Potty train Alaine I hadn't intended to work on this until spring, but some things in life don't wait! I shared a few details here. I shared in that same post that the only problem we were having was that we were not able to night train at the same time as day train like we had done with our first four kids.  I need not have worried.  Within another week or so, Alaine asked to start wearing undies at night, too, and she hasn't looked back!  For the first time in over ten years, we stopped buying diapers. 
  
  
  
  
• Spring clean the house using this plan  I scrapped this altogether because I found myself cleaning things just to check them off a list and feeling guilty if I missed a day.  Instead, I stuck to my regular light cleaning routine and did more heavy duty cleaning if we were expecting company.
  
  
• Run a 5K!  I ran a 2 mile race as a warm-up and then I complete 4 other 5Ks here, here, here and here!
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
• Work with the kids on responsibility and finishing tasks to completion This is still a work in progress, but once we formulated a plan, the kids began to take more responsibility for their own work, plus they learned a lot of new skills-- laundry, changing light bulbs, washing the car, taking out the trash-- in the process!  
  
  

• Compile the kids' portfolios for their school records Compiling the portfolios was easier this time as I kept up with our records all year long.  We had a bunch of friends (5 moms, 10 kids) over to review everyone's portfolios for our umbrella school... and then I breathed a sigh of relief.
  
• Finish the e-book I'm writing by the first week of June You can still access my free reading guide for families here.  Good reading doesn't need to stop when summer is over!
  
  
  
  
  
• Plan our 2013-2014 school year  I shared my curriculum choices here, here, and here.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Give The Dress  a radical new design for fall I did it!  I remade The Dress in April and I redesigned it once again in September, but I also started to face the reality that I'm tired of that dress now.
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
• Finish the preparation for my October blog series, 31 Days, 31 Printables  Click on button below to access the entire series.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Do a  push-up (I've never had the upper body strength to do even 1!) and hold a plank for 60 seconds I still can't do a push-up, but I took the 30 Day Plank Challenge in November.  I got stuck on Day 22 (holding a plank for 180 seconds), but I try again every few days and I'm almost there.  A 160 second plank still far surpasses my goal! 
  
  
  
• Have a date night with Brian (at home or out) once a month  Whether we were able to go out or had to improvise at home, we had more than 12 dates in 2013!
  

• Continue to find ways to welcome people into our home  We had guests over at least a couple of times a month.  That included birthday parties, dinner guests, play dates, an Easter egg dyeing event, 2 Survivor viewing parties, a Mother's Day dinner, school review group, a Thanksgiving party, a New Years' Eve game night, and a before-Christmas visit from these 2 cuties.
  
  
  
  
  

Do you set goals at the start of a  new year?  Do you write them down or keep them informally?  Next Wednesday, I'll share my goal list for 2014!