Plenty

As a mom with three kids I appreciate a book that multitasks.  Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon was one of those books.  On one hand it is a memoir of a year in the life of a couple, the chapters told alternately in a his point-of-view/her point-of-view style.  We are let in on their individual quirks and how they function as a couple.  Both authors are extremely good writers and their tangents fulfilled my need for a good story now and then including the history of Vancouver and personal histories of the authors themselves.  Plenty is also a bit of a travel guide for anyone hoping to visit British Columbia , not to mention a cookbook as a result of recipes thrown in for good measure.

Collectively, the book becomes a manifesto on how we could live better if we chose to do so.  The authors don’t sugar coat the process of the 100 mile diet.  While eating locally proves to be healthier and easier on their budget, the authors admit to spending more time cooking than ever before and feeling deprived of certain foods they love.  However, in the end, you understand that they have benefitted from their trials and have emerged at the end of the year better for their efforts.  After all, what adventure doesn’t require a bit of hard work?

I did have a few frustrations with the book, but they mostly came from the differences in lifestyles and locale.  The authors are vegetarian and therefore don’t have to deal with the meat-eating, gluten-free issues that confront my particular family.  Also, Mackinnon is the type of cook who can open a cupboard and throw  together a gourmet meal using only a toothpick, apple cider vinegar and rice.  I need a recipe, a picture, and usually someone available to ask questions.  Lastly, I found myself seriously wishing they were writing from Southeastern Minnesota instead of 1500 miles west!

Even with these difficulties, if you are anything like me, this book will entertain, educate and maybe even motivate you into trying something new....a completely local cupboard!

Boys, boys, boys

We got an email from our son's teacher recently saying he was having problems at school.  He was disruptive, grumpy and not finishing his work.  This wouldn't be such a horrible thing except that he's in kindergarten!  Of course, I jumped to the extreme thinking, "If he is unhappy in kindergarten how will he ever make it though high school!?! "  I never realized I was such a drama queen until I had kids.  :-)

That night at work, as I was browsing through the new non-fiction section, I ran across a book called The Way of Boys:  Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World by Anthony Rao.  The chapter heading that grabbed me was "He hates school", a sentiment our son had voiced loudly and often.  I loved this book!  Right off Rao ticked off many characteristics that we have noticed or have been pointed out to us by teachers in the last year or two, short attention span, lack of eye contact, short temper and an inability to follow directions.  Rao makes an effort to point out that all of these things are normal in most boys before the age of about eight.  Now, obviously there are exceptions, and if a parent is seeing extreme forms of these characteristics they should talk to their pediatrician.  But, most of the time, these things are just the "darkness before the dawn" kinds of things.  Rao says that most boys will hit a real low point in their behavior before making a big developmental leap.  Good to know!

Rao also makes a point of talking about the differences between girls and boys.  This was also very helpful for me.  I try not to compare my kids to each other, but sometimes it is hard not to do!  Our girls are very verbal and strong willed.  Our son is strong willed too, but because his verbal skills have developed more slowly he often gets bowled over by the girls.  They finish sentences for him, or move on to other topics all together!  While this is difficult to deal with at home and in the classroom, it is also completely normal.  (At this time I would also like to point out that when I created a post on Facebook about the trouble we were having I had at least ten people say they were in the same spot with their kids!  Which begs the question of how we could be adapting our school days to help out these boys who need a bit more activity and physicality?  But that is another blog....)

The Way of Boys gave some good advice on how to make home life a little more like school (talking about how the same basic rules apply at both places, practicing organization) and how to work with your child's teacher so everyone is on the same page.  All in all, it allowed me to take a deep breath and relax.

And then I was also reminded that it is March, we have had snow on the ground since December and Spring is nowhere in sight. It snowed again last night and, truth be told, I'm feeling a bit uncommunicative, grumpy and peckish myself!

Brisingr and Food Obsessions

I enjoyed Eldest by Christopher Paolini enough that I decided to go ahead and finish out the series with Brisingr.  It was a really good read, maybe even better than the first two, but as I got closer to the end I kept thinking, "How is he possible going to finish this up with so little of the book left?"  Well, the answer was that he didn't!!!  Apparently, at some point, he decided to turn the Inheritance Trilogy into the Inheritance Cycle and I missed the update.  This is totally his prerogative but it would have been nice to know ahead of time!  I like to know when a 750 page book is going to be followed by another big book!  Ugh!  And the worst part is the last book isn't even out yet!  Grrr....This is my only real objection to Fantasy, there is always another book you have to wait for to find out what happens to the character you have just gotten really attached to!

Alright, moving on....

Most of those reading this blog know me so it won't come as a surprise to you when I admit to having a bit of a food obsession.  I'm not sure when it started, but finding out our youngest child has Celiac Disease definitely kicked it into high gear.  As a result, I am often reading several food related books.  Right now they include,  American Artisanal:  Finding the Country's Best Real Food, from Cheese to Chocolate by Rebecca Gray, You Can Farm: the Entrepreneur's Guide to Start and Succeed in a  Farming Enterprise by Joel Salatin and How to Grow a School Garden by Bucklin-Sporer and Pringle.

The first book is something I ran across in the cooking section at B&N.  They usually have a selection of books about food along with the cook books and I have found several of them to be really interesting.  This one covers a different food in each chapter, each one being the best of the best that you can find in the U.S.   I like the idea that a food can be specialized in a place because of the place it is grown/cooked/created in.  For instance, Michigan blueberries, Alaskan Salmon, etc.  Gray is an interesting writer and even makes the history of beef production in Chicago seem interesting.   I especially like that I can read a chapter, put the book down for several days, or weeks, and then pick it up again an start a new chapter.  It makes it handy for when I have a half hour here or there.

You Can Farm is actually a book recommended to me by my father-in-law who we have been trying to convince to buy a farm we can all someday relocate to.  Salatin is the author of several books I have run across on Amazon, and I am finding this one particularly inspirational and entertaining.  He is a very opinionated man and spares no ones feelings in telling you exactly how it is.  I seem to like this in an author and have no problem ignoring the rants that I don't agree with and accepting whole-heartedly the parts that I do.  So far I have loved his philosophy for farming which includes environmentally enhancing agriculture, seasonal production cycles and humane animal husbandry.  I also like that he encourages the reader to get off her duff and do something now!  Don't wait for when you can afford land which might just be never.  Just do what you can to get as much experience as you can right now.  Dig up your flower beds and plant veggies, stop mowing your lawn and plant herbs, grow chickens in your backyard!  Do what you can and do it now.  (Well...not right now when there is three feet of snow on the ground, but soon!)  I like his attitude and even if by the end of the book I decide there is no way I would ever make it as a farmer I will have learned a lot about how food is/or should be grown.  Which is something I think everyone needs to learn if our children and grandchildren are going to have any chance of thriving  in the future.

The last book was prompted by my high hopes of getting a garden started in my oldest daughters elementary school.  I realize that this endeavor will probably land squarely on my shoulders, but at least it is something I am passionate about.  The book is based in San Francisco so I realize my biggest hurdle might be the Minnesota winter, but I'm determined to figure something out.  I think it is worth the time and effort if it means the kids will get the chance to eat something they grew with their own hands, if it means they know french fries come from potatoes and potatoes grow underground, and if it means my kid will get to go outside a little bit more when the weather is nice!

Dragon Yoga

I recently went to a lecture offered in town about children and creativity.  The lecture was accompanied by a suggested reading list so I promptly went home, logged on to Amazon and ordered several books.  (I'm nothing if not obedient!)  I spent Thanksgiving reading several of those books and as a result got totally burned out on the topic.  I won't go back and discuss these books now (The Element: How finding your passion changes everything by Ken Robinson and Your Child's Strengths: Discover them, develop them, use them by Jenifer Fox) as I still have the third to read and can cover discuss them when I get to that third book.

As often happens when burned out on one topic I head the opposite direction and read something very different.  So, I turned to an old love....fantasy.  I think I was in junior high when a friend turned me on to authors like Terry Goodkind, Robert Feist, and David Eddings and they definitely struck a chord.  (Case in point, our oldest daughter is named after an elf Queen from the Shannara series.  I'm sure we will hear about that someday.)  I picked up Eldest by Christopher Paolini.  This is the sequel to Eragon which I read several years ago and enjoyed.  For some reason I have always enjoyed the stories where an average person is thrust into, and told they need to save,  a world they never knew existed.  (Think along the lines of Nickolas Cage's movie The Sorcerer's Apprentice which I recently watched with my kids.)  I am also slightly intrigued by the fact that Christopher Paolini was only fifteen when he started writing this series.  I can't really remember exactly what I was doing at fifteen but I can guarantee you it wasn't anything as industrious as writing a 500 page book!  While the story is slow to develop in parts, it has managed to keep me coming back and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Another current interest of mine is yoga.  Ever since reading Eat, Pray, Love I have been curious about yoga as something more than simply a way to get in shape.  While perusing through Amazon one day I ran across Return to the Sacred:  Ancient Pathways to Spiritual Awakenings by Jonathan Ellerby.  The reviews were mixed, but I was intrigued by the idea that he was offering up numerous options for getting to a better place in your life and not just saying, "Here, do this and everything will be better!"  I have always thought it obvious that different people need different things at different times in their lives.  The first part of the book was WAY more information on his personal journey than I really needed, but once he actually started talking about the twelve pathways I got sucked in.  According to him there are 12 master paths split into four groups, body-centered practices, mind-centered practices, heart-centered practices and soul-centered practices.  He says that every human being is a "complex expression of the four main dimensions" but that each of us tends to favor one over the others (p.64).  I haven't read through them all, but have discovered that I lean toward the body and mind centered practices which include yoga, meditation and prayer.  What I do with this information is yet to be seen.  :-)  I have been going to more yoga classes at the Y, but I'm not sure that is necessarily what the author had in mind.

It turns out Ellerby is also something of a poet and while poetry has never been a strong suit of mine I can appreciate it when I find it.  Here is one I liked:

In a circle of stones

We turn toward the sky

Our hearts become the drum

Songs sung by our ancestors

Become sunlight dancing around us

We turn ourselves

Into prayers

We hold our hearts

Candles flickering in the wind

Hold on

Burn just a little longer

We have come through such a dark dark night

Call to the Patient Earth

Call the Divine Light

Everything wants this Mercy

All things want this Grace

We touch the ground

and surrender who we once were

In exchange for hope

And a world reborn.

--J. H. Ellerby

p. 69 of Return to the Sacred

Reading anything good lately?

This is my favorite question to ask or to be asked.  There is just something I love about knowing what other people are reading.  I read a lot.  And it dawned on me recently that my reading habits are not entirely normal.  I read when I'm curious, relaxed, tired, bored, busy.  I also read to avoid doing other things like the laundry!  I'm a moody reader.  I don't read one book at a time.  I usually have one fiction and at least two non-fiction books going at once.  I blame this on too many years in college.  The difference between now and college, however, is that in college I had to go to class and discuss what I was reading.  I'm afraid I burn through things too quickly now and don't process information as thoroughly as I should.  Granted, I have a few other things going on in my life now than I did in college including a husband, three kids, a dog, a cat, and a house to keep from falling down around me.  But that is no excuse!  So here is my attempt to think about what I am reading and to reacquaint myself with the process of writing which, for me, has faded away in a world of brief emails, facebook posts and quick notes to teachers.  (And apparently, to practice my spelling!  Geesh!  I would have never guessed reacquaint was spelled that way!!)  This will also hopefully be a journal of what I have read.  Something I can use at the library when someone comes up and says, "I need something to read.  Any suggestions?"