It is time at our Elementary School for the semi-annual book fair. Which I hate. And not just because we are on a very limited budget and the last thing I want to be spending money on is the hardcover version of Super Diaper Baby. I’m just playing; Super Diaper Baby only comes in paperback. I’m serious about not liking the book fair.
I don’t get how Scholastic totally nails it with dandy cheap books in the book orders, but turns the book fair into a super deluxe full-priced book store (that they have the audacity to suggest I work at). Yeah, it’s some sort of fund raiser. I get it. At least this way we’ll have books to show for our contributions to the school and not vile cookie dough.
But this jumps to the conclusion that I want a hard-cover copy of Pinkalicious. I don’t. I really don’t. I am extremely picky when it comes to the books my children read (my husband, not so much. Which explains why we actually own Super Diaper Baby. I made the foolish mistake of sending Jasper to the book fair with Daddy last year. And now said book is hidden because once Mister read it he was appalled that the title character actually battles a giant poop. I’m all, “Duh. What did you think it was going to be about? Tea parties?”)
There are some really great books at the book fair. I’m not knocking Scholastic. But unlike a book store or Amazon where I can pick out what I think is appropriate for my children, at the book fair they are dancing around with some sort of Poodle Princesses nonsense, begging and pleading and writhing on the floor that they will never be happy without this book.
But, as usual, I have to play mean witch stern mother and tell my kids no. “No, Ada, I just bought you two books for your birthday nine days ago.” That doesn’t matter because everybody has rich mothers who buy their children everything they want from the book fair. At least that’s what my children say. I’m so wretched I won’t even buy the $5 Justin Bieber poster.
There is all this peer pressure to buy, buy, buy.
I am getting severely tired of this so I’ve taken matters into my own hands. Here are a couple of books that I “bought at the book fair”. I’m sure my kids will be thrilled!
Is there anyone not completely fascinated with the Amish? Is it not the most interesting culture? No electricity or cars or phones? I’ll admit that there is part of me that always wished I were Amish. Not the part that likes to wear makeup, though. Or the part that enjoys being Mormon. Or the part that uses the internet 500 times a day. But there is something so wonderful about having such a simple life. Which is why I didn’t even hesitate to grab Growing Up Amish off the shelf when I saw it at my library.
It is, obviously, about a man who grew up in the Amish faith. He is in his mid-late 40′s now so I’m not sure how much has changed since he was a boy. From the looks of the Amish, not much. It was fascinating to read a first-hand account of the different sects of Amish. I had no idea there were such things as Old Order, New Order (no, they do not listen to 80′s New Wave music), Nebraska (who don’t live in Nebraska, oddly enough), Schwartzentruber, Andy Weaver and Lancaster. These sects all differ in clothing, buggy styles, shunning practices and the ways they may incorporate “wordly things” (some sects allow a phone at the end of the driveway, some allow one in the area school, some don’t allow one in the community at all). Most Amish sects don’t interact with each other. You can even be excommunicated if you decide to affiliate with a different Amish group than your own (depending on which sect it is). So fascinating!
The author, Ira Wagler, tells the story of how he joined and left the Amish church multiple times. Honestly it got kind of annoying how wishy-washy he is. But eventually he undergoes an actual conversion and finally joins a church that he is happy with.
While I though the author’s personal story was interesting, it was a little frustrating. Why did he keep leaving and then coming back? I had to guess at his motives. Ultimately I would have liked him to spend more time talking about the day to day activities. The world of Amish women isn’t really discussed since he’s a man and didn’t spend much time with women, obviously.
All in all, though, this is a super interesting book. I would highly recommend it to anybody who’s interested in the Amish lifestyle. You can get it here on Amazon as a book for about $10 or on your kindle for 3.99. Or check your library!
*If you buy this book through my link I’ll get filthy rich.
Just got my big box o’ presents from Amazon. Both of my older boys put “Funny Books” on their Christmas lists and I think I hit the jackpot with this fantastic one by Terry Border called Bent Objects. It’s a hilarious book of little vignettes made of everyday objects with little metal hands and arms added. Sounds moronic, doesn’t it? I’m not a laugh-out-louder but I actually did several times while I read this. Terry has a blog called Bent Objects but most of the images in the book weren’t familiar to me.
This one is called “Postcard From a Cat Box”. (Don’t freak out! I’m pretty sure they’re Tootsie Rolls.)
If you find these clever, or know someone who might, it’s not too late to get down to a bookstore or buy it here on Amazon
. (About $18 in stores or $13 online).
I was an avid colorer growing up. I wasn’t a good enough artist to make up my own artwork, I much preferred coloring someone else’s drawings. But not all coloring books are created equal. Even as a 9 year-old I understood that. On the bottom rung were the cheap coloring books featuring manilla paper pages and big boring drawings. To me, the more detail the better. Coloring a big area–a giant Carebear, for example, was not only boring, but wasted a lot of one color of crayon. The best coloring books were from Dover Publishing. Their drawings had tons of details. Plus they assumed that I might have interests other than animated pets and Strawberry Shortcake.
I was totally thrilled to find that Dover still puts out wonderful coloring books. The paper quality is excellent and there are about a thousand different topics. They are all about $4.00 so they are pretty affordable. You can check out their huge selection here.
I bought this coloring books for Arabella because it’s a bunch of old-fashioned farm scenes (I am an armchair farmer and wanna-be Amish. Not for real. Just in my mind. ) Not only that, but the farm in this coloring book really exists in Dearborn, Michigan. I used to go there all the time as a little girl and pretend I really lived there a hundred years ago (see? I’ve always been slightly demented this way).
The drawings are non-cartoony, full of detail, and feature all the aspects of old-fashioned farm life like feeding calfs:
And . . . . . butchering a hog? Who wants to color the bloody entrails?
I’m pretty sure Strawberry Shortcake never did that in a coloring book!
When I was a child, I would spend hours at the library (Sometimes with my friend Beth–not every friend likes to hang out at the library. Sometimes with my sister.*) My mother would drop us off at the really large three-story library in town and arrange to pick us up a few hours later.
In my earliest days of library freedom I hung out on the third floor where the childrens books were. I was particularly fond of tiny books. Beatrix Potter’s were the smallest, but I found the illustrations to be dull and there were too many boring words. As I got older I discovered the kids non-fiction section. There was a book about making dollhouse furniture from things around the house–again I loved small things (nearly every project involved matchbooks, which we never had on hand. I should have asked my friends whose parents smoked, but at the time I wasn’t clever enough to think of that). I must have checked that dollhouse book out a hundred times. Second on my list of favorites was a book about making really dreadful-looking Halloween make-up: mummies, monsters, that sort of thing. I tried a few ideas, but there are not very many occasions that call for wearing monster make-up. And it turns out that a face coated in dried oatmeal is extremely itchy.
When I hit the double digits I found the main floor of the library to be more my speed. This was the floor of magazines (always a huge weakness of mine) and fiction. What budding adolescent girl doesn’t love to get lost in novels? Many girls don’t move past novels, but after a while I got tired of reading about people who didn’t exist. I still find it a little frustrating to invest so much time and emotion in a fake person. Some fiction is so good that it doesn’t matter, but most fiction has never really floated my boat.
Thus I ended up on the first floor (technically the basement.)
I’m quite sure I read every book on that floor. I fell in love with Biographies and Memoirs (still my favorite genre).
I also discovered a whole section of floor plans. As in houses. I was charmed. Twitterpated. Hooked.
You see, I had been clipping house plans out of magazines since I saw my very first one in a Southern Living at my Grandma’s house back in fifth grade. I had accumulated a tidy little stack of them. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined whole books full of floor plans.
I would stare at them for hours, imagining what the rooms would be like; picturing myself walking through them; pondering the wisdom of putting a door here instead of there. It was my secret little passion. Most teenage girls dream of boys. I dreamed of those too, but mostly I dreamed of Dutch Colonials and Gothic Revivals.
It was only a matter of time until I started designing houses. I spent hours–hours!–thinking of rooms and façades and window placement and built-in closets. Strangely it never occurred to me that I might like to design houses for a living. I mentioned something of the sort to my father when I was in high school. He told me that architects must be very good at math. My fate was sealed. Math killed me. I have never understood it. Numbers in general just swim around my head and make no sense at all. I can barely even remember a phone number. So I crossed off “architect” from the list the guidance counselor gave me of possible future careers.
But I have continued to design houses. I can’t help it. It just happens. Me with my piles of graph paper. Designing houses requires lots of time walking through houses. Which I also adore. I love to tsk, tsk over a poorly-designed kitchen or absurdly-placed bathroom. Fortunately my sister spent many years as a realtor and all the houses in our city were open wide for our thorough inspection. Those were some good times.
Now I am getting to the point where my children will soon be gone all day and I am thinking of going back to school to become an architect. If it means I have to become good at math, then I will. But hopefully the computer will take care of all that nastiness. Don’t get me wrong; I like to write and I love to bake, but the thing that gets my engines firing is drawing up a house plan.**
I hope they have scholarships for housewives who are ready to wake their brains up again. If not, I guess you’ll be able to find me in the house plan section of the library.
*The only time I remember for sure that my sister was there was one day when I was about eleven and Arianne got a really awful bloody nose. The librarian came and got me. I don’t know what for. Was I supposed to provide bloody-nose expertise? Comfort my sister (ha!)? I just looked at my sister lying on a bench with tissues up her nose and shrugged. Then I went back to my stack of novels about the Holocaust, which was my favorite subject at the time.
**I have a firm belief that nobody except a stay-at-home mom should be designing houses. We understand them. We know what works and what doesn’t. We live in a house like nobody else.
The saga of my laptop is still not over. I got it back and it has decided to not boot up ever again. Even my huband/Mac wizard couldn’t get it to boot up. So back to the shop it went. The verdict is still out but the upshot is I’m still relegated to the computer in the playroom. Let me tell you, getting the kids off the computer during the summer is quite a feat.
The good news is that I have read more in the last month than I have since the internet was invented. The gigantic pile of unread books that has been languishing next to my bed forever is almost gone. There are two very promising books left, but I am saving those for our plane trip next week (Am I foolish enough to think that I might actually get to read on a plane with six children in tow? Yes. There is a fine line between foolish and optimistic.)
My favorite books of the last month (in order):
Recipe for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty. It’s fiction. And WONDERFUL! I don’t generally care for fiction but I loved this. It is maybe the best book about marriage I have ever read.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’ve been avoiding this one for a while because it’s been so popular AND I thought it was a self-help book (but it’s a memoir. My favorite genre!) I figured I needed to read it before the movie comes out. I so loved this book (!!!) that I went straight to the bookstore and bought the sequel Committed (the review is further down in this post. Here’s a preview: hated it.)
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley. The guy wrote his first novel (Sweetness) at almost age 70! (Way to go!) His books are charming mysteries set in 50′s England.
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (yet another novel. Great characters and great setting.)
My Life as an Experiment by A.J. Jacobs. A.J. is my very favorite humorist ever.
My least favorites:
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. It should be titled “A Survey of the Horribleness of Western Marriage”. Ugh. The writing was dry and the subject matter was a downer.
Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich. I really wanted to like this but it was just so all over the place. I couldn’t follow it; the chronology was too chaotic. I tossed it aside after 100 pages.
How about you? How’s your summer reading going? Anything you can recommend? Or recommend we avoid?
(Melinda, Me, Jeannie, Cheryl, Chelon and Sara)
Pioneer Woman came rolling into Austin last night and we had a rip-roaring good time at her book signing (since you read my blog, you are most likely a female and, well, you just seem like the type who would like Pioneer Woman. But some of you don’t know. Some of you are missing out on the funny, sassy charmingness of her massive blog. If this is the case, repent ye!) Only three of you bothered to say you wanted to go with me even though I announced it on Facebook. Never you mind, though. I managed to scrounge up a few friends at the last minute. So there!
(Can I just add that it’s so incredibly wonderful to have children who are old enough to babysit the younger ones? I just told Finn what to make for dinner and waltzed out the door. I did have to get them a new DVD because six bored kids can get into a lot of trouble. But they are so very easy to please, especially since we don’t have TV, just a DVD player. York–who is a 12 year old boy, keep in mind–actually said, “hey, there’s a sequel to Swan Princess? Cool.”)
Pioneer Woman (whose name is Ree, short for Ann Marie in case you didn’t know. And I didn’t until she told us last night) was as lovely and friendly as can be. Apparently the raucous hordes of women who attend her book signings haven’t jaded her yet. Not only was Ree/Pioneer Woman charming, she had free t-shirts on hand for the adoring masses (free and very cute t-shirts).
I have been to signings at Book People before and while I love the store, it’s a bit too cozy for such a large event. I actually had to stand the entire time. Ugh. You know me and my mantra: don’t stand when you can sit; don’t sit when you can lie down. But standing was all right since it gave me a chance to stare at Ree who was, like, this close [scream]. (She sure doesn’t dress like a country girl. Love those Anthro boots!)
We were one of the first groups to have our books signed, so we had plenty of time to talk to Marlboro Man (talk, Cheryl, not touch!)
Chelon (say it Shuh-LAWN) is quite the vinyl letter wizard and made PW an adorable plaque, which she was gracious enough to let us all sign. I love taking credit for a present I had nothing to do with! I signed “I know we would be best friends. I’m a redhead trapped in a brunette’s body.” Hoo boy, I crack myself up. But it’s true about the hair. I’m a spunky gal and this brown hair just doesn’t communicate that. (Especially when it was as limp and lame as it was last night. Seriously, hair, you really let me down.) In heaven I will have hair the color of a brand new penny. No, no, that’s a weird color. Darker like an old penny. But shiny. And curly. Big, slow curls.
(PW with the lovely Chelon)
I am not daunted by fame* and I asked PW a question at the Q& A (“what are you really bad at cooking?” Answer: bread) and as she signed my book we had a nice little talk about baked goods and me being the Utah Cookie Making Champion of 2007 (Really. I have the ribbon to prove it. Obviously it was before we moved to Texas).
(note to self: never wear this sweater again. Cute on the hanger, but super frumpy on the body)
We had a great night and topped it off with yummy Tex-Mex after we left the bookstore. When I got home all the kids were in bed (yipee!). The kitchen was a bit of a disaster, but a girl can’t have everything.
*may I remind you of the Stephenie Meyer incident. Cheryl, one of the most ardent Twilight fans, was rendered speechless when we met Stephenie last year in Houston. I was left to chit-chat with Stephenie about church and if people there are nice to her or gossipy, and do people act weird when she does normal things like pick her son up from preschool? (she doesn’t do a lot of normal things like that. Mostly her husband does, in case you were wondering. And she’s been in the same ward forever so everyone knows her and they’re really nice.)
If you have a daughter over the age of seven (especially if you have a teen), you must–and I mean must–get this book:
Brilliant, scary, hopeful, eye-opening, must-read.
Really, if I could recommend you get only one book this year, it would be this one (and get this year’s edition. Not the one from 2003.)
You need this book (unless you only have sons. Or your daughters are really little. Or you keep your teenage daughter locked away in a castle tower. With no cell phone. Or Facebook access.)
Wedding season is closing in and I usually give aprons and cookbooks to the brides-to-be. I like to make the aprons and I have a great new pattern to use (thanks Mom!), but I haven’t been able to get it together enough to sew. I’m hoping that if I mention it here, I’ll feel some additional accountability. Like people will post comments next week that say, “how’s it going with the aprons?” And I’ll feel shamed into finally making them.
(Let’s have a little smidge of reality here. I’m teaching a sugar cookie-making class on Thursday night and all my mental and physical effort will be going into that. So I’m pretty sure that means I won’t start on my aprons til Friday.)
By the way, here’s my favorite cookbook to give new brides. Costco carries it a lot of the time. Or you can get it on Amazon. Everybody should have this one. I give it sometimes as a high school graduation gift too (depending on if the person will like it or just think I’m a dork for giving it to them.)
Spring is in the air. To many people that means Spring Cleaning. But that’s a total drag. To me Spring means decorating! I always have a notion of what I want to do, decorating-wise. I walk into a room and have a pretty good idea of what I want it to look like. But it wasn’t always so. I’ve talked to so many people who don’t know where to start. This is Step One:
What Color Is Your Slipcover by Denny Daikeler (available used on Amazon for 1¢. That 1¢, people! Even with shipping it only comes out to $4.00. Bargain!) It’s a decorating book with no pictures. What an absurd concept! The whole idea behind this book is that your house is your haven, your sanctuary. What it looks like can stress you out or fuel your creativity. It can make you frustrated or feed your soul. It should be a place that will make your heart and soul sing. This means different things to everyone, and this book will help you figure out exactly what makes you happy.
In my last house I walked into my family room one day and thought, “this room isn’t me at all! How did this happen?” I bought everything in there. I picked it all out. But I bought things that I didn’t really want at the time, and wanted even less later on. I picked out furniture I wasn’t crazy about just because it was comfy and we could get it right away. I bought accessories because I needed something that was a certain size to go in a certain nook and it fit my requirements. I didn’t love my accessories. Or even like most of them.
The colors in the room were picked because they were popular; they were the things that other people were using. They weren’t “me” at all. I had a nebulous idea of what I did like, but I couldn’t really put it into words. That’s where What Color is your Slipcover comes in. It has a bunch of really unusual but profound exercises to help you figure out what kind of surroundings make you happy. They’re all important, so do them even if they seem dumb.
There are also great chapters on making a house a place both you and your husband can agree upon. Or you can just say to your husband, “look, I spend all of my waking hours in this house and what it looks like is really, really important to me. Do you care all that much?” In my case Mister said he doesn’t really. As long as he can do whatever he wants in his Man Cave, I can decorate however I like. (Hopefully you’re not married to a control freak who doesn’t actually care but still wants to have a say. That’s the worst of both worlds.) So we sold all our family room furniture and accessories when we moved here and started from scratch.
Our family room is still a work in progress and I know it’s not most people’s taste (pale blue, bright green and pink) but I love it. I absolutely love it. Every time I walk in the room it makes me happy. *
*Until I look down and see the crappy, gross carpet. But we have the replacement flooring. We just have to install it.
