What a Life!

I must confess, when I finish reading a book, it often feels like I’ve lost a good friend. I miss sitting down to read that book, and I worry that none will be able to replace it.

These days it takes me the full six weeks allowed by the library to get through a book. In part by choice, in part by circumstance.

I don’t have long periods of uninterrupted time to read. In fact, I’m lucky if I get through ten pages of the book on my nightstand before I get too tired and must turn out the light and go to sleep.

I’ve also discovered the pleasure of savoring a book over time. There is more time to ponder between readings, allowing for a more deliberate digestion of what I have read. If I read a book quickly, I never have to sit down and remember where I was, what just happened. That remembering locks the story in my mind and builds a place for the book in my heart. Ah, yes.

Here are some recent friends I have known and loved:

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) – Somehow I got through high school and four years of college (with a Bachelor of Arts degree, no less) without ever having to read this book. I listened to it when I went on my walks last summer, so when I think of it I see Ben riding his bicycle through the shady streets of our town while I tried to keep up with him, slow and pregnant as I was. The beginning of the book where it talked about their childhood play and the pranks they came up with seemed to have no point to it, so it took me a bit to get into it. Once they go to the trial, I was hooked. I still can’t believe, with all the books I’ve read, both for school and on my own, that I hadn’t read this one.

Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes) – Steve claims we’ve watched the movie based on this book, but somehow I don’t remember. [I've heard the book is far superior to the movie anyway.] I loved hearing how they renovated the abandoned villa they bought and all the treasures they discovered in the process. Her chapters on Italian cooking were a little dry at first, but now I’m all into making simple Italian food.

This book also inspired the new tradition at our house of taking a siesta after lunch. I am usually working in the evening after the children are in bed so it is hard to find time to read; but an hour spent with a few books after lunch really does make a difference in making my days delightful. When we go to the library, I get a stash of new books for Ben to read, and he gets a new book when it’s time for siesta. The boys even ask me now if we can have siesta – I never turn them down.

Black Boy (Richard Wright) – I found this book fascinating. It wasn’t about the typical black who thinks the white man has got him down. Rather, the author naively doesn’t understand why he should be treated any differently in situation after situation, and the fact that he is treated differently seems to catch him off guard time and time again. Everyone else [other black people, that is] seems to have simply resigned themselves to their fate, but he keeps trying to do things that are unthought of simply because he doesn’t think about whether or not they would be proper for him to do.

Many times I have wondered if race relations in this country would be different if there were a lot more “Black Boy’s” out there. I am not black, so I cannot say I’ve walked a mile in their shoes. But what would happen if the people who seem to have the chip on their shoulder instead put their focus on just going out and doing whatever they would do if they were “equal” with white people. I will never forget, after Obama was elected, hearing Whoopi Goldberg on The View saying that there was no longer an excuse for blacks not being able to do whatever they wanted, that young black boys need to ‘get off the couch, pull up their pants, and go out and do something!’

I realize that racism is real, and that people sometimes are held back just because of the color of their skin. But how much more would they be able to accomplish if they went out like Mr. Wright and tried to do things than if they just sat around complaining about how they’re being held back because of the color of their skin? How much racism is assumed and how much is real? If we could get rid of the assumed racism, how much racism would be left over?

True Compass (Edward Kennedy) – I am not a liberal, so I must confess that I am not a particular fan of Mr. Kennedy. I read his memoir, though, because I wanted to better understand where he came from, to better understand how “the other side” often sees things. Having grown up after John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, there were a lot of things I learned in this book about the Kennedy family. I did not realize the family was so large, that Ted Kennedy was the youngest of all the siblings. I enjoyed getting to know this family I have heard so much about.

It was interesting hearing the stories of how various people rose to power [and were subsequently replaced] in the Senate. I learned more about many people whose names I’ve heard of [Dulles Airport, Hoover Dam] but did not know why they were “name-worthy.” Though I still do not agree with Mr. Kennedy’s opinions on many issues, I did come away with a better understanding of why he was passionate about various legislative issues, such as health care and other entitlement programs. I wonder how many of my liberal friends might also find themselves similarly enlightened if they were to read Going Rogue by Sarah Palin.

The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner) – I listened to this while on our daily walks last summer, after I finished To Kill a Mockingbird. I can’t say I got much out of this book, but I’m really glad I listened to it rather than trying to read it. It’s one of those that you just kind of have to take for what it is. Listening to it while walking allowed me to follow the story wherever it went rather than trying to make some kind of sense out of it. I now can say I’ve ‘read’ Faulkner and am familiar with his ’style.’ Very interesting, to say the least.

My Antonia and O Pioneers! (Willa Cather) – These, too, I listened to while on our daily walks. Very good reads, simple story lines yet very engaging. I enjoyed them both very much. I liked learning a bit more about Nebraska history and life on the plains during the pioneer days. How the various pioneers dealt with challenges the land brought them made life on the prairie seem so much more real – instead of being ‘pioneers’ they were individuals with weaknesses and strengths just like I see in people today. Both very good reads.

Finally, currently on my bookshelf…

Chewing the Cud (Dick King-Smith)

The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (Philip Roth)

Keeping Faith: A Father and Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps (Frank and John Schaeffer)

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)

and on my iPod…

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)

Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin)

It’s been ages since I took pictures of my knits.

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The view from our front porch today. And yes, more snow is falling.

Piled high and deep.

We have too many toys. Seriously, they drive me crazy. So the boys didn’t get much along the lines of toys this year. I did finally give them those fish hats I knit last year. They were quite a hit.

We set up the train for them so they felt like they had something “new” to play with. We managed to keep Joey from disassembling the tracks, but we finally put it all away because Ben wouldn’t stop hiding the train engines and cars.

Caroline’s first Christmas. She fell asleep while we were opening gifts.

It’s hard to summarize a year in just a sentence or two, so instead, I offer highlights.

• I taught Ben how to read. This was our first year of homeschooling, and I am loving it so much more than I had ever imagined.
• In fact, homeschooling should be an item of its own. Choosing curriculum and establishing a routine takes a lot of initiative and creativity. I have enjoyed every minute of it and look forward to continuing on into the new year.
• Miss Caroline joined our family. Once I was no longer pregnant, I realized how tired I had been the entire pregnancy. But we have our little girl now, and we’re so glad she’s here.
• I made lots of little sweaters and blankets and other handmade things for our precious little girl.
• I picked up my old reading habit again. I listened to a number of audiobooks on our daily walks during the spring, summer and fall. I also started checking out and reading books from the library for myself.
• I only paid $1.40 in library fines. We’ve developed quite a library habit this year, with close to one hundred books checked out at any one time.
• I served as Vice President/Program Director of the local knitting guild this year. It was fun, but now with three small children in my charge, I have happily passed those responsibilities on to other worthy and enterprising individuals.
• I have worked part time as a technical editor, working with knitting patterns. I’ve developed a clientele and enjoy working directly with designers.
• I played the piano for the children’s performances at a local church where the boys attend Sunday school. I also helped out during Vacation Bible School, helping herd forty preschoolers from activity to activity for a week.
• And if all that wasn’t enough, I survived surgery and general anesthesia when my appendix was removed early one Sunday morning in November. We are so blessed that it happened this year since I’d already met the [high] deductible with our health insurance.

Just thinking about all of that makes me tired…which is probably why I haven’t blogged much over the past year. It was a year of transition – a new baby and beginning our homeschooling journey.

And yes, the blog is back. Now that I’ve found my groove again, ideas for blog posts have begun popping into my head. I’ve missed blogging – I love writing – but it’s hard to write about things when they are changing. I’m hoping 2010 will be a year of ‘normal’ for us – it certainly would be nice for a change.

Here’s to a Happy New Year for all!

She’s here…and has been for about a month. Caroline Elizabeth arrived on September 8, 2009 at 4:01 p.m. 8 lb. 12 oz. 22 inches. She arrived one day before her due date, after I had acupuncture induction – it was the latest appt I could schedule in hopes to have her born on her due date. Ha!

She is a high-needs baby. She is either sleeping, eating, or crying. Ben had to be swaddled in the evenings or he would cry and cry. Joey had an hour or so of fussy time in the evenings, but we never swaddled him. Caroline needs to be swaddled practically 24/7. I swear she is held more than my other two ever were, but with all that crying I still am left to wonder if 1) I am too distracted with two other children to give her sufficient attention, 2) I am too self-confident as a mother to take her seriously enough, or 3) she is just a fussy baby. Now that she is a month old, I have gotten a couple half-smiles from her here and there, but no big smiles…yet. I’m still hoping!

She is growing well. At her one-month check-up, she was 11 lb. 2.5 oz. a la 95th percentile. So apparently she is getting enough to eat. She has settled down on the sleeping end at night, for the most part. She is fussy mostly in the mornings – like she’ll sleep a half hour and be awake and screaming again. She sleeps during the afternoon and then does the fussy thing again in the evenings. But for the past few nights she has only gotten me up two times or so, which means I am getting more sleep and thus feeling more like a real person.

Mom came a week before she was born and stayed two weeks after. Dad came two days after she was born, then spent a week in South Dakota checking on his land, then was here for a few more days before he and Mom left together. I went back to work the week that she was born, albeit slowly. When one is self-employed, you work or you don’t get paid. I’ve gotten back up to speed with that, for the most part.

The nicest thing about no longer being pregnant is that I have my energy back. I hadn’t realized how much pregnancy made me tired…the entire 9 months. Last week we got back up to speed on homeschooling. Now I’m ready to try resuming other things…like blogging. We’ll see. I’m quite busy these days. I’m hoping for once a week, at least.

I have gotten caught up on uploading pictures, at least back to when Caroline was born. The picture at the beginning of this post was taken the day after she was born, so if you click on it, you’ll be back to about the beginning of recent pictures. I have lots of things to blog about, but for now, I wish you happy viewing!