Library Bags and Bug's Journey to Being a Bookworm

My oldest daughter has always been a voracious reader.  She pretty much taught herself how to read when she was four and she hit the ground running and never looked back.  Bug took a little longer to fall in love with books.  She still would rather have mommy read her a book before bed than have to do it herself.  The unfortunate part for me is that she chooses the most boring books ever for us to read together.  There are only so many Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen books that I can take before throwing my hands up and screaming "Enough!"

So our new rule for bedtime reading is that we take turns picking the chapter book.  I pick one (usually I stick to classics like Pippi Longstocking or Little House on the Prairie) and when we finish she gets to choose one (almost always an Olsen one, why so many Olsen books in my house??).  I think that actually helped to jump-start her reading more on her own because she had so many books that she was interested in that I refused to read to her.  The only way to find out what happened was to read them herself and for the last couple of weeks she's been a solo reading monster!  She discovered she loves The Rescue Princesses, The Guardians of Ga'Hoole and Weird School and so many more standalones and new series are being happily discussed in our house lately.  We've made two library trips in the last week and she's came home with handfuls and is powering through them at the rate of about one every two days!

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I was cleaning my closet out and found these two plain bags that I bought years ago with big plans to do something for the girls with and never got around to it.  I bought a couple of pretty iron-on patches for each girl and raided my craft box for another stack of smaller patches and let them choose which, if any, that they wanted me to put on.  Then when the patches were finished I let them go completely wild with Goose's Sharpie collection.  I know fabric markers would have worked better since I've discovered from personal experience that Sharpie's smudge in the wash, but I didn't feel like buying any and I don't have any plans to wash these so I figured it wasn't a big deal.

Bug wanted to use as many patches as possible and as many designs as she could fit on her bag.

Goose was a little more reserved, just drawing a few simple designs on her bag.  I love how their personalities really shine through how they designed!

(the white blocks are where they wrote their names so I marked them out of the pics)

Now my sweeties have their own bags to pack with as many library books as they can hold!

More Insta Love

I've been reading and reading and READING pretty much every spare second I've had lately so almost all of my Instagram posts are books.  Books and coffee, books and treats, books in a pile, books on the streets-
No.
No, that was a lie.  I would never let my books touch a dirty street.  I would have to put it in a biohazard bag afterwards.  No dirty books!
They're pretty much only photographed at my kitchen table since that's where I do most of my reading.  Put a cup of coffee and a cookie in front of me and I will literally be a statue for the next two hours.
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Most important thing to know about my bookish habits lately is that I read A Game of Thrones.

I did it.  Took me a few weeks, but I actually did it.
I.  Read.  All.  800.  Pages.
As you can see, this is an older version of the book.  I think this copy is from 1997 maybe?  I found it a few years ago from my local used bookstore and it was only a few dollars so I grabbed it and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since.  I knew it was a long series and I knew not all of the books had been released yet so I just let it stay tucked away.  I have the next three books in the series all ready to go (at 25 cents apiece they were a steal!) for when I want to dive back in. 
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Another "big" series I started this month was Death Note.

There are 12 manga's (I believe) and I've read the first three with the next two on their way from my library.  I am not a huge fan of manga but I see people everywhere saying that even if you don't enjoy the genre very much that these are still a worthwhile read so I gave it a shot and fell in love.  Ryuk is so sassy and hilarious and L is growing on me, but Light is just no.  Just 100% no.
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My husband lets me add things to his Amazon wishlist and occasionally he'll buy a few random things off it and surprise me.  In this box I got a new copy of Jane Eyre (my fourth!).

And a travel mug since I keep complaining that I never have anything to take coffee in while I drive.

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One of my favorite things to do each year is to go mushroom hunting with my daddy.  When I was younger we went multiple times every spring and it's something I love sharing with my kids.

Poppy took us to a new place and even though we didn't find many we still had a good time and I got to claim bragging rights that I found the first one.  And a white one at that!
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I won a gift card to my local library bookstore a long time ago and finally finished it off with a huge stack of books. 

 I think I paid $4 or $5 dollars for this after the remaining gift card was used.I actually bought these before I read and despised Moby-Dick and that's why Ahab's Wife is in there.  I thought it would be interesting to read it after reading Melville's original story.  Hindsight and all that.  We read Sir Gawain and the Green Night and Beowulf in high school and I'm interested to see how they hold up compared to my memory of them.
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My local bookstore changed ownership and the new owners had a "$1 for everything" sale going on with all of the leftover inventory so I charged in and made my way out with a few books I've been contemplating reading.

Outlander is another series like Game of Thrones:  not sure if I want to read it THAT badly, but a lot of people seem to like it and there's a TV show of it.  So for a dollar a book I figured it was worth it.  That Series of Unfortunate Events book was the only one Goose didn't have so I was excited to finish off her collection.  She wants to reread all of them since she heard there's a TV show of it coming out.
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Besides Game of Thrones, my favorite book I have read lately is North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I honestly hadn't heard of this book before stumbling over it on Goodreads but as soon as I found out there was a BBC miniseries starring Richard Armitrage I was IN.

This book was beautiful and thought-provoking and everything I love reading in a classic English novel.  I wish it was more well known because I would have read it ages ago.  It reminded me of a working class Jane Eyre.  I borrowed mine from the library and it's a gorgeous edition, but I now have my eye on this beauty for a forever home in my bookcase.  *also I have a new owl mug and I'm in love with it*
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Mother's Day was a few weeks ago and my girls woke up with breakfast in bed.

They made this flower all by themselves and were so proud when they gave it to me.  I ate everything but the green Jell-O grass because A) I don't really like it and B) it was warm by the time it made it to me.  My sweet girls love me and nothing else in the world matters to me.

Dewey's Wrap-Up

This was my first Readathon and I think I did pretty good!  We were really busy all morning with kid stuff so I didn't get to start reading until after lunch, but I kept at it all day and way up until around 3am.  Then after a few hours of sleep I got up and finished strong for the last hour.

My original pile changed a smidge from when I took this pic in advance.  I started The Beach House and just could not get past a few pages.  I managed to read three books start to finish and then a big chunk of one I've been working on for weeks.

Somewhere in Time Richard Matheson was my first pick.  I was a little disappointed in this since the synopsis sounded so interesting but it was pretty much just a 12 year old's fanfiction come to life.  It was full of plot holes and made absolutely no sense.  The writing was really easy to follow though so at least it was a quick read.

Because of Winn-Dixie was so short that I breezed through it while walking on the treadmill.  I wanted something quick and easy and light to break up the two bigger books and this was so cute.  I put the movie on order from my library because I told the girls about it and they thought it sounded interesting.

The Red Badge of Courage was the late night book for me.  I stayed up until three reading this pile of garbage and I've come to the conclusion that whomever decides what books are "classics" needs a foot in their face.  *don't even get me started on how idiotic Moby-Dick is*  This book was boring and all the characters were full of themselves and I hated every second of it.  So glad it's off my shelf.

 I also made some pretty good headway on Moby-Dick.  I wanted to try and finish it by the end but I had a little over a hundred pages left and was too exhausted to keep going with it.

I'm pretty proud of my tiny pile of books and I can't wait for the next Readathon to try even better.  I think I read around 800 pages since I'm including Bug and I's nighttime books as well.  Next time I think I might try for one large book instead of a bunch of short ones and see how I do.  I might try Anna Karenina.  We'll see.

Mom Fears

I am scarily obsessed with my kids coming down with lice.  I know, I know, it's not considered a "dirty" disease and that anyone can get it no matter who they are or how they live.

I understand.

But diarrhea can happen to anyone too and I don't think anyone would call that a fun time.

So when I say obsessed, I mean that I religiously check their hair every night after showers, I mean that if they casually mention someone in their class was sent home with lice that I attack them like a shark on a wounded baby seal, I mean that if I see them scratching anywhere within a twelve inch distance from their head I screech like a pterodactyl and make them come into the bathroom to check them over.

When Bug came home complaining another girl in her class accidentally took her hooded coat home over the weekend I was almost in tears thinking of my daughter getting it back on Monday and putting it on with no second thought whatsoever.

When Goose's best friend and classmate was found to have it I told her that if she even THOUGHT about getting near that kid for the next two weeks that I was just going to shave her head and get it over with.

I've threatened a complete stuffed animal genocide, I've held a razor up and told them exactly how this was going to go down, I've even banned certain kids from my house because they are chronically coming down with it.

Lice is one my biggest fears and I'm not ashamed to say I would fall into a deep, dark depression if it ever entered my home.

And now my head itches.

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

I'm going to be participating in my first readathon ever with Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon next Saturday.  It starts at seven AM for me so I'm taking that as a good sign I can do it.  If it had started late at night or too early in the morning I wouldn't have been able to stay away for it and would have been demotivated.
I've already got a small stack of books that I think are doable for it.  I have a classic, a Newbery book, a book that's been on my shelf awhile and a book I want to read just because.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
The Beach House by Jane Green
Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson

If I don't have Moby-Dick done by then (which I probably won't since I'm only 300 pages in right now) and I finish these four then I'm going to spend the rest of my time working on that beast.

Getting three of these books (minus Winn-Dixie since it belongs to my girls) out of my bookcase and into my rummage sale pile makes me very excited!

Boo by Neil Smith *review*

I won Boo by Neil Smith through a Goodreads giveaway a few weeks ago and after a rough start I pretty much zoomed through the rest.

This book is beautiful.  I love the colors and how the picture ties into the story. And the inside flap was also a nice surprise.

Each chapter is numbered according to the periodic table and while I think the author took used numerous numbers at once just to advance us closer to the 106 number, I was really glad to see a different way of using the chapters.

To be honest I must have only skimmed through the summary before I entered the contest because I assumed this was going to have a bit more of a horror element in it based on the title, the creepy cover and the fact that it's about a dead boy.  When I read the first 50 or so pages I was so confused as to what I was actually reading that I got on Goodreads to read some of the reviews already posted.  A lot of them mention that this book is similar to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and my heart sunk a little because I really didn't enjoy that book.  After I made it through the introductory part of the book the pace picked up a little and I wasn't quite so leery of it.

Boo is a thirteen year old boy who believes he died of a medical condition and wakes up in a surreal form of heaven where everyone who dies is divided by their age and country.  While this is an interesting and new take on heaven, I'm a little confused as to what happens if you're a newborn baby that dies.  Boo makes it a point to explain that life in heaven is pretty much the same as on Earth where you need to eat and can be hurt (even though you heal quicker).  Even though you exist in this version of heaven for fifty years you may grow wiser but your body never ages so can you imagine living for fifty years in the body of a two year old?  I think that up to at least age six or seven it would be impossible for these rules to apply and I wish that had been explained.

Johnny was my favorite character because you could tell he kept an enormous amount of secrets close to his heart.  A part of me thinks that he might have had a little bit of a crush on Boo back in their real lives and I am completely on board with that because it explains why he does everything that he does for him throughout the book.  Even though he arrives at heaven five weeks later than Boo he quickly turns into the leader of their little group and tries to protect Boo and build up his confidence.  He smirked a lot, though.  Pretty much every chapter had someone smirking and it was almost always Johnny.

A book with an autistic narrator is interesting and I'm glad we didn't have the same boring old character like 99% of other YA novels.  On the other hand, autism is very clinical and matter of fact and I feel like it was hard to connect with Boo through most of the book.  It wasn't until towards the end that we kind of cracked his shell and got to really feel for him. 

The side characters were all colorful and full of personality and once again, extremely glad that Smith included so many different types of people.  We had a girl with dwarfism, an African-American and another African-American who suffered from vitiligo. 

The twist in the middle of the book was easily read from a mile away but I loved how the twist slowly unraveled the further you read and up until the very end you were still confused as to what actually happened. 

Boo and the portal was a little bit of a deus ex machina and I didn't enjoy that part much.  Too much had changed and it was a little jarring to have him out in the real world even if it was for only a chapter.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I'm glad I got the chance to read and review it even if it wasn't what I was expecting. 

3/5 stars

My Insta Life

Have I mentioned I love Instagram?  I have?  A couple of times?  Oops.
I go back and forth on having a Facebook (I've been deactivated for two weeks and loving every second!) so it's nice to have a page that I can post pictures of things that make me smile and not have to deal with drama, drama, drama every second.

For example, I can ask my kids to clean out their bookcases because every dollar we make selling junk this year is going into our Disney World Food Fund.
Look at how many they got rid of in one afternoon!  And it didn't even make a dent in their bookcases.  We have an addiction.

I can take part in the CleanHouse2k15 program myself and fill the back of my living room up with junk, junk and more junk.
This was another long afternoon spent cleaning.  As you can see there are even more books in this pile.  Honestly this pile goes out to the shed every few weeks and it's only a matter of days before it's this high again.  Where is all the stuff coming from?  Surely I will start seeing my floor any day now, right?

My most-posted pictures are of books (I told you we are addicted).  I love seeing pictures of other people's current reads so I just throw mine out there as well.
I finished The Three Musketeers last month, a long-running TBR of mine.  It wasn't the best book ever but I passed many a beautiful afternoon relaxing at the table with this book and a hot cup of coffee.

Speaking of books (aren't we always speaking of books over here?), I recently won a box of books from the amazing blog Jump Into a Book and was so excited to come home from work and see it sitting on my front steps.
We haven't read them yet because right now Bug is only letting me read Little House on the Prairie to her, but they are in our book basket and a full review will come once we finish off the second book in the Little House series.

Another book I've recently received was the absolutely amazing Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian.  I won this in a Goodread's giveaway and could not put it down.  Please, please if you're looking for a new book to read do yourself a favor and look this one up.

And lastly, another thing I enjoy sharing are pictures of my zoo.  Minus the kids.  I don't really post my girls.  But my BOY.  He gets featured quite regularly.  I love you, sweet man.