What's on the Coffee Table Now

A quick glance at the coffee table entertained me for its sheer range this evening.  Everyone's been on the couch read and then piling their books on the table when they head off for more.

Here they are starting from the one closest to my lazy, propped up feet:
- Toward The Fullness of Life: The Fullness of Love by Arnaud Desjardins (spiritually, relationships - Sara)
- Gladiator: the Roman Fighter Unofficial Manual by Philip Matyszak (history, Theo)
- Magic Zero: Dragon Secrets by Thomas E. Sniegosky and Christopher Golden (fantasy, Theo)
- Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald (fiction, Rosie and Theo)
- Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess by Phil and Kaja Foglio (audio book, steampunk, Theo)
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu (history, Theo)
- When Life Gives You OJ by Erica S. Pearl (audiobook, fiction, Rosie)
- Twenty Poems to Bless Your Marriage and One To Save It by Roger Housden (spirituality, relationships, poetry - Sara)

Mocha Mama's YA summer reading list

One of my very favorite bloggers, Mocha Mama, recently posted a Young Adult summer reading list.  Some of the books look beyond Theo at this point, but right in my interests.  And of course, there's always next year.

Says Mocha Mama:

Every year I make myself a list of all the great new YA books that have been published during the school year and try to read them all. Lately, however, I find myself looking toward books that I’ve missed in the past (because, really, I cannot read them all) and asked a bunch of friends to help me put together a list of favorites. Some of them are new and some are not, but they all came highly recommended from people whose opinions I trust. Even the school librarian where I work chimed in and loaded me up with a boxful of books for the summer. 

 Click here for the rest of the post!

Good luck with your summer readers.

Theo's Thumbs Up Booklist: 2011-12

Theo has read 220 library books this year!  This of course doesn't include any re-reads of books in the house, comic books or anything his dad has passed to him from the large stack of review books that arrive daily on our front porch.

People often ask what Theo likes to read, so here is a list of his thumbs up from this academic year for your browsing pleasure. You'll notice we were in the Ancient History cycle this year.

As usual, I'm desperately trying to keep him in books, so if anything you see here reminds you of something he might like, drop me a line.  You'll have my undying gratitude!

Still More Stories to Solve  by Shannon
Castle in the Air by Jones
Throne of Fire by Riordan
Lord Sunday by Nix
Tortoise and the Hare (Music CD) by Simon
Hoot by Hiaasen
The Kingfisher Soccer Encyclopedia by Gifford
Maia of Thebes by Turner
Nicholas on Vacation by Goscinny
Ralph Masiello's Ancient Egypt Drawing Book by Giblin
Cleopatra VII, Daughter of the Nile by Gregory
Egyptian Diary: Journal of Nakhat by Platt
Technology in the time of Ancient Egypt by Crosher
Pharaohs and Foot Soldiers by Butcher
Metropolis: Egyptian Town by Steedman
The Ancient Near East by Stefoff
The Ivory Throne of Persia by Coit
The Immortal Fire by Ursu
Olympians: Athena by O'Connor
Corydon & the Fall of atlantis by Druitt
Corydon & the Island of Monsters by Druitt
Corydon & the Siege of Troy by Druitt
Hello, My Name is Bob by Alsenas
Olympians: Zeus by O'Connor
The Shadow Thieves by Ursu
The Siren Song by Ursu
The Battle for Skandia by Flanagan
Olympians: Hera by O'Connor
The Siege of Macindaw by Flanagan
Stormbreaker by Horowitz
Treehouses You Can Actually Build by Stiles
The Glass Cat of Oz by Hulan
Mission: Spy Force Revealed by Abela
Sally and the Something by O'Connor
Uncle Bigfoot by O'Connor
Everything I Know About Cars by Lichtenheld
I Love You Because You're You by Baker
Oh My Gods! by Bryant
Journey into Mohawk Country by Bogaert
Stickman Odyssey by Ford
Children's Book of Mythical Beast and Magical Monsters by DK
Conquest! Can You Build a Roman City by Bruce
Galen: My Life in Imperial Rome by Moss
The Siege of Macindaw by Flanagan
The Sorcerer of the North by Flanagan
You Wouldn't Want to Be A..... by Stewart
...Roman Soldier
...Cleopatra
...Cursed by King Tut
...in the Forbidden City
...Live in Pompeii

Sara's Should Read List

Okay, so I said I was going to put my blog on pause for a while.  And I'm cleaning out my bookshelves so that I have room to store and easily access the materials I'm using for my courses.  This means something has to go - I have books stacked all over.

One entire bookshelf is dedicated to books I think I should read - but haven't gotten to. The shelf started a few years ago and continues to grow.  The problem is when I'm looking for something to read, I never stroll over and pick something out because there are 4 other books someone just handed me or recommended.

With a deep breath, I'm clearing off the shelf.  I figure if I list everything here, I can easily come back to the list and then request the book from the library.  In the meantime, such desirable titles should fetch me a pretty penny at HalfPrice, right?

I was going to make a paper list, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find it again. Ditto for a list in some random place on my computer.  But my blog, I'll remember and be able to find the list again on my blog.

Without further ado:

- Echo by Terry Moore (no wait, this is a graphic novel by one of my favorites, I'm putting this book upstairs on my bedside table)
- Nurtured by Love by Shinichi Suzuki
- The Magic of Matsumoto: The Suzuki Method of Education by Cr. Carolyn Barrett (okay, this has actually been on my to read pile since Theo was 18 months old.  Boy am I glad to see it go, though I hear it is a lovely book.)
- A Young's People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (uhhhh, I can't let this go.  I just need to preview it a bit for Theo. Guess it goes in the homeschool shelves.)
- The Explosive Child by Ross Greene (I don't know why this book is on the shelf.  I read it.  It had some good points, though I didn't love the solutions. I'm putting it on the parenting shelf for helping me identify my kids' triggers.)
- The Seven Days of Kwanzaa by Angela Medearis (I read this one, too. Goes in the Christmas box).
- Sula by Toni Morrison (I love Toni, I just can't do dark books right now)
- Playing Smart by Susan Perry (This is a great book about all sort of fun things you can do with kids to improve their physical, social, emotional and academic intelligence.  Just leafing through it makes me feel inadequate.)
- Can We Talk About Race by Beverly Tatum (I've read parts of this, too.  She's a great writer, and this is a subject I think is vitally important to our family and I'm 10 steps behind on. I feel really guilty for not taking the time to finish it right now.)
- Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier by Chriss Enss. (I think my mom lent me this book.  Time to start a new pile.)
- Growing up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World by Homa Sabet Tavangar.
- Freemasonry by Giles Morgan (left by one of the British soccer coaches we hosted.  Apparently very interesting peek into the old boys network of George Washington et al.)
- Dance of Attachment by Holly van Gulden (OH!  I've been looking for that)
- In Their Sibling's Voices by Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda (Oh, I was looking for that, too)
- Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies by Kenneth Bock
- The Oxytocin Factor by Kerstin Moberg (losing my resolve on this on, it was a hard to find book about a subject that may still come in handy to understand more deeply, putting it back on a shelf somewhere)
- Ultra: Seven Days by Luna Brothers (recommended by my hubby, putting it back on his shelf)
- Our Red Hot Romance is Leaving me Blue by Dixie Cash
- Money for Nothing by PG Wodehouse (okay, Wodehouse books makes me laugh so hard I cry.  It goes back on the shelf.)
- Little Birds by Anais Nin (ooohhh, I was looking for this, too.  Goes back on regular book shelf. Maybe up high out of 10 year old reach.)
- A Short History of Ancient Times by Philip Van Ness Myers, part of the History At Our House series (another hard to get one.  Goes in the Ancient History bin for Theo to read next time we hit this cycle, he'll be 13 or 14)
- White Men on Race by Joe Feagin & Eileen O'Brien. (gosh, another one I know I will benefit from reading in the long run and be so glad I read)
- One Minute Mysteries: 65 Short Mysteries You Solve with Math by Eric Yoder (WHY is this on MY to read shelf??)
- 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Math by Ze, Segal and Levy (obviously I know everything I need to know about math because I survive or go ask my hubby or buddy Jenn.  This must go on the homeschool shelf.)
- Raising Black Children Who Love Reading and Writing by Dierdre Paul (This book is from 1964.  I know I've got the children who love reading part down pat.  When I got this book I was looking for good books lists starring black children for my kids to enjoy.  Now, there is so much more out there, I need an updated book.)
- Dear America: the Diary of Dawnie Rae Johnson by Andread Davis Pinkney (book from the perspective of a 12 year old just after Brown vs Board of Education. A quick glance tells me it is a pretty great book.  Going into the American History bin for next cycle.)
- Pie by Sarah Weeks (a book about a cat name pie, just the picture on the front sort of makes me want to gag.)
- book with homemade cover out of green construction paper.  (It's a great book with a HORRIBLE title.  I call it the book of shame, but I'm for sure keeping it. And no, I probably won't tell you what it is.)
- The Man with the Iron Mask, the Marvel Comics version. (Apparently I don't do Dumas in picture form.  Giving back to Bill.)
- Lapham's Quarterly: Ways of Learning, Gall 2008.  (From a friend, guess I need to figure out if she wants it back first)
- The 100 Best African American Poems by Nikki Giovanni, with CD (definitely goes in the poetry book shelf)
- The Power of Rest: Why Sleep is Not Enough by Matthew Edlund (this book ROCKS.  I have the revie copy and have loved it.  Another one of those books I've been looking for.  I wonder if the released book is different.....)
- Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring home the Lost Children of nepal by Conor Grennan (I have literally NO idea where this came from or when)
- Hey, Cowgirl, Need a Ride? By Baxter Black (whaaaa?)
- Baby Bargins, 8th edition (sadly, no need for this anymore)
- The Nature of Animal Healing: Definitive Holistic Medicine Guide to Caring for your Dog and Cat by Martin Goldstein (filed back on health book shelf, this is one of my faves.)
- Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog by Volhard and Brown (refiled, too)
- To Teach, the journey, in comics by William Ayers (back to Bill)
- Teach Like a Champion: 49 techniques that put students on the path to college by Doug Lemov (the picture on the front looks like one of those inspirational golf posters, sigh)
- A Children's Garden: 60 ideas to make any garden come alive for children by Molly Dannenmaier
- The Family Kitchen Garden by Karen Liebreich
- The Crochet Answer Book by Edie Eckman
- PhotoReading by Paul Scheele (another mis-shelved book)
- Cartwheels in a Sari by Layanti Tamm
- The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
- The Cheese Chronicles: a journey throughout the making and selling of cheese in America, from field to table by Liz Thorpe (sounds delicious...)
- How to Open and Adoptiong by Patricia Martinez-Dorener (haven't read yet, but goes on the adoption shelf)
- Branded, the Making of a Wyoming Cowgirl by Deirdre Graves (must be from mom)
- Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood by bell hooks
- What Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum (I read this forever ago and was actually looking for it the other day.  Goes in the shelves.)
- African American Firsts by Joan Potter
- Eternal Life: A New Vision by John Shelby Spong
- killing rage: ending racism by bell hooks
- Nature Walks in and around Seattle by Stephen Whitney (I think I'll hold onto this, and put it in the homeschool shelves, we could use some new adventures)
- Race by Marc Aronson (this is an awesome book I'll really enjoy some day)
- Fearless Girls, Wise Women& Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World (definitely goes in the homeschool pile)
- Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (lent from my mom)

Three books I'm putting back on the to read shelf because they were gifted to me by girlfriends when I asked for copies of their favorite books:
- The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Ahhhhh.  That narrows it down from 2 full shelves to 5 books.  That guilty knot in my stomach feels much better.  Now I know what to pick up when I finish my current read, "Before she gets her period" by Jessica Gillooly.

On Talking Terms with Dogs

On his show, Cesar Milan often talks about reading dog's body language and off-handedly mentions various behaviors that he sees.  The behaviors are so quick and subtle, I often have to stop the video and go back several times to really see it on the screen.  Cesar is so confident about what he notices and what it means that I've been longing for a clear list of behaviors and their meanings.

Imagine, then, how thrilled I was to discover On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas.   While the book doesn't cover every doggie movement, the focus on calming signals is quite fascinating.  With a list of about 15 calming signals, I've found the information useful for both communication with Mason and other dogs and for better understanding the state they are in.  Each page includes lots of great pictures to illustrate each signal.  The book is short, concise and easy to read. All the pictures makes for a super kid-friendly dog guide, too, as my kids are compelled to leaf through, enjoy and try to interpret every dog in each photo.

In the past few weeks, I've focused on a few signals, getting comfortable at recognizing them as dogs use them.  I've also started adding them into my communication repertoire.  Somehow even though I understand this is how dogs communicate with each other, I'm amazed at the success.  Mason, a little low on exercise this week, was having a full-out puppy crazy session upstairs.  He usually gets on all fours really low and then tears around at a berserk pace knocking people and things down as he goes.  Normally getting him to stop and calm down takes a while (or a really big treat) and involves some personal risk.  Instead, I turned sideways to him, yawned a few times and then as he watched me, I knelt down and scratched the carpet for a bit. He relaxed and sat down, calm for the moment.  Pretty cool!  Pretty easy!  (I did take him down to the lake for a serious swim shortly afterwards.)

For fun, I'm going to do a quick run down of the signals - if you're interested in using them I highly recommended checking the book out as Rugaas' clear descriptions of the signals and what they mean are invaluable.  Here are the major signals: head turning, softening the eyes, turning away, licking the nose, freezing, slow movements, play bow(!), sitting down, lying down, yawing, sniffing, curving approach, splitting up two animals and tail wagging.

Enjoy experimenting on a canine nearby and let me know what you learn!

May is Paleo Month

After years of weird food choices driven by weird hormones, I'm desperate to return to habits of old.  Habits that really worked for my body - giving me lots of energy, eliminating seasonal allergies, inflammation all over my skeletal system and menstrual cramps, and slimming me down to a trim and easily buffed state. Habits that worked for our ancient forerunners

Thus I've declared the month of May to be Paleo Month in the Barnacle household. And by declared I mean I closed the door to the office and elicited Bill's cooperation, and the proceeded to eliminate food from the pantry, pull out beloved yet dusty recipes, borrow several cookbooks from the library and almost completely change the food I present at the table at meals, all without saying a word about it to the kids.

You may be asking yourself what Paleo is.  The long name is the Paleolithic Diet, a lifestyle modeled after our Paleolithic ancestors.  They were the folks who lived 2.5 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture.  Basically, we're going back to eating meat, veggies and fruit.  Fortunately we get to add in cooking and spices, healthy oils and some coconut milk and a few nuts for fun. As a lifestyle, this also includes getting plenty of sleep and a varied and a short but intense exercise regime.


I started us out May 1st, and promptly got a migraine that left me eating saltines and feeding the family pizza from the place around the corner.  Dang.

Still, we're now on day 6 and I'm noticing a huge difference in how my body feels and the children's behavior.  I feel lighter, less sluggish and my jeans were a bit easier to put on today.  The kids seems to be evening out emotionally some, and they aren't begging for snacks every 20 minutes.

Why didn't I update the kids? In my experience there is *nothing* like an announcement that food will be changing to elicit tons of anxiety and defiance about mealtime in my short people. Where as, if I don't mention it and tell and interesting story or joke as I bring food to the table, they fail to notice (or at least complain) about the lack of bread, pasta, cow dairy or dessert at the table.

In returning to healthy habits, I really, really didn't want to read through the 640 pages of Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories to re-inspire myself.  Fortunately, my hold for Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution came through in late-April (after about 9 months of waiting!).  His book is full of good information, encouragement, meal plans, recipes and CrossFit workouts. He offers a challenge to try Paleo for 30 days and then decide where to go from there.  I always love a good challenge, and it fits my longer-term plan with the family, so I'm in. Thus the May thing.

At the same time, I borrowed one of Mark Bittman's books, Kitchen Express.  While in no way meant to be Paleo or low carb, lots of the recipes are or can easily to adjusted to work.  And his recipes taste like they were created by a foodie who loves good flavor, along with being fast.

Finally, one of Wolf's associates, Sarah Fragoso, just came out with her own cookbook, Everyday Paleo. As the mother of 3 kids, she gets the challenges of feeding a family against the grain of the standard American diet (hahahaha did you get the pun?). Again another book with lots of warm, practical advice, meal plans and recipes.

Wolf and Fragoso both keep helpful and inspiring blogs - I've put them on my Google reader and find it helpful to check in every few days to keep me focused.

I'm fascinated to see how May goes and what my body (and the rest of my family's) is like at the end of 30 days.  I'll keep you posted.

How about the rest of you?  What "lifestyle" do you choose?  Any you don't follow but *know* work great for your body?  Any other crossfitters out there? How do you get back on the health wagon when you've fallen off for a long stretch?

Book Request: Warmth of Other Suns

Warmth of Other Suns comes highly recommended to me recently by someone I respect. So I've put it on hold at our public library.  Here is the message I got:

Hold requested on The Warmth of Other Suns. You are number 306 in line.


I hope the library considers getting second copy soon. I could die of old age by the time my turn comes around!

From a Past Life

Or at least part of my life that seems long, long past.

In my final year of college, where I majored in French Language and Literature, I developed a penchant for  medieval French literature.  Yeah, talk about obscure professional training.

This evening, 20 years later, Theo came down raving about an advance review copy of a graphic novel he's reading called The Song of Roland.  Smoke coming from my ears, the wheels slowly churning, I dug up archaic neural pathways to remember that The Song of Roland, or for we French speakers La Chanson de Roland, is one of the earliest works of French literature.  I remember war, dying and love, nothing more specific.

Thank heavens for wikipedia where you, too can now explore the high points of ancient French literature.  Here's The Song of Roland for you, and my favorite, The Book of The City of Ladies. Christine de Pizan took a first stab at feminism way back in 1405, in a story that fascinated me for many, many years.

Old dear friends, long passed by.  I hope you enjoy getting acquainted with them.

Synonym for Labrador

Remember the new dog we got a few weeks ago? Turns out he's not actually a dog, he's an 80 pound walking mouth.

He puts everything in his mouth, if not to chew it to at least taste and feel it.  Books, the recycle bin, his toys, the kid toys, the couch, the dining room table, my butt, kids feet, the bathtub, everything.  Turns out, I come armed for information to deal with this.

Just shortly after Bill and I married, we decided to get a dog.  Being child free, I had tons of time to read and investigate having a dog.  I remember a few of my favorite books being The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete, Good Owners, Great Dogs by Kilcommons, and some books I can't find that has Puppy in the title and a Dalmatian puppy on the cover. Once the puppy came, I still had loads of free time for puppy school.  Tella, the chocolate lab, and I finished canine good citizen training and began showing for obedience trials before I became pregnant with my human puppy.  The ensuing 26 weeks of laying on the couch and puking pretty much put a stop to our serious training. Always a sucker for dog training, in the past year Rosie and I have devoured the Cesar Millan videos (available at our local library!) plus one of his books.

All this to say I'm not new to the ways of teaching a dog what I want them to do and prevent them from doing what I don't want them doing. Still, I feel like an over worked hamster keeping this pooch in positive activities. After spending over $70 on dog toys and chew treats (because that's so much cheaper than buying a new couch or a new iPhone), here's my daily run down:
- Keep the dog on a leash near me at all times.
- Put him in a crate when I can't watch him.
- Liberally douse everything that can handle it in bitter apple spray.
- Give Mr. Mouth something else to do like sit or play fetch.
- Reward him for "bringing" things to me that he is trying to sneak off with.
- Wear the dog out.  Take him for a walk or through the ball for him until he's too tired to put anything in his mouth any more.
- Keep the house littered with things he's allowed to chew on.
- Teach him, through liberal treats and praise, the idea of "leave it."
- Remember to feed him.

So far we've lost a hose, several bags of charcoal (turns out I've got to watch him outside, too), one leash, one stuffed tiger, several legos pieces and one foam block.  Not too bad for the first two weeks.

The Man Catcher Cake

For Christmas, my always thoughtful hubby, gave me the cookbook All Cakes Considered.  I fell in love with it while humorlessly waiting for the kids at the Costco book isle. For months, I dropped subtle hints like sending him a picture of it from my phone and emailing links from amazon.com. The author Melissa Grey, a writer for the radio show All Things Considered, started a personal cake baking project that morphed into this lovely book.

Rosie and I made the first cake in the book last week.  More than a mere cookbook, it is an entire cake baking curriculum. The author recommends aspiring bakers start at the first cake and work through to the end, about 52 cakes. So, signed onto that tantalizing journey, we began at the beginning.

These recipes are not your basic "cream butter and sugar" version.  "Cream butter..." was followed by 5 useful, entertaining, and convincing paragraphs on how to properly cream the butter.  "...and sugar" required several more paragraphs of enlightening information and directions.  By the time we got the 4 paragraphs on "add the eggs" our cake looked unlike any cake I'd ever baked.  I was hooked.

Our results were amazing. The first cake in the book is a lemon sour cream pound cake, called The Man Catcher.  (The author promises the cake will always catch the man, but makes no promises on the baker's abilities to catch or keep one.) The one that emerged from our oven was fragrant, fluffy, moist and dense.     Once we mixed and drizzled on the lemon glaze, the cake was catching every living thing in sight.

Now, how many posts have I written about the wonders of the low carb lifestyle? No, these cakes aren't anything close to low carb, but I have come up with a clever solution to the delicious-cake-hanging-around-the-kitchen-all-day-long problem.  Park Day.  If Rosie and I bake on Monday evening while Bill and Theo are at Boy Scouts, then there is cake at lunch on Tuesday and an hour later the rest goes to the masses of enthusiastic homeschoolers at our weekly park date.

What do I love best about this book? The writing engages and entertains me.  The pictures make my mouth water and create serious desire to move forward to the next projects.  The instructions are clear and very easy to follow.   Still, my favorite part is being able to learn beside my child, tailoring the study of several subjects to her level and needs with something she is truly passionate about.  And then serving all this "schooling" up for dessert

PS  Yes, that lovely pictures is OUR cake.  Isn't it amazing!

Savin' My Bacon

Currently I am experiencing something close to lunch ecstasy.

How, I'm sure you must be asking yourself, is someone who serves 5 meals a day most days enjoying her lunch experience?

Well, let me tell you!

First of all, the normal lunch whine around here goes something like: I don't know what to fix, the kids are sick of the same old meals again and again, they want trash and I'm aiming for nutritious and delicious, I couldn't think of any good ideas while I was at the grocery store so really now we're scrapping the bottom of the fridge.

Enter my impulse purchase at the Whole Foods magazine rack two weeks ago: America's Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers, 96 tear out cards.  Standing there I thought, wait!  this works.  I easily spend 30 minutes moping around the kitchen trying to figure out what to make and cobbling some lame thing together.  So why not be prepared to spend those 30 minutes cooking?

Because the magazine is produced by Cooks Illustrated and their test kitchen, I knew the food was going to be good.

And the magazine is brilliant.  First of all the format works - each page has four 4x5 tear out recipe cards.  The front of each card sports a tantalizing picture of the meal in question, grouped by protein source: chicken, beef, pork, soy, veggie. The back covers the usual recipe basics: ingredients and directions.   Did you catch that there are 95 recipes?  This means even if my family only likes 1/3 of the recipes, I have an entire month's worth of novel, delightful lunches.

Now on Sunday night I pick 5 meals, tear the cards out, flip them over and enter the ingredients list directly into amazonfresh.com.  Then I post the cards on our bulletin board.  Viola, lunch is planned for the week.

What I most love about the recipes, besides the fact that they really do only take 30 minutes to prepare and they taste wonderful, is that 90% of the ingredients use whole foods.  Other quick recipes that I've used call for all sorts of processed foods to create the illusion of a nutritious meal. Speed at the cost of quality is not my thing.

A definite advantage I've discovered to this new system is that when we're out on a homeschool adventure and I know there is a 30 minute delicious, nutritious meal planned, it is so easy to say no to the kids' begging to go out for lunch. Honestly, aside from fast food, rarely does a restaurant seat and serves us food all of us will eat in less than 30 minutes.  Since we're easily out several times a week, we're talking measurably enhanced nutrition and money saved.

And did I mention the food is great?  Today we enjoyed muffuletta panini.  The other day there was a chicken parmesan so good I'm still geeking out about it.  Later this week I'm anxiously awaiting the Thai chicken curry with sweet potato and green beans.

Magazines usually only last a month at the stands - so run quick and grab one of these so you can join me in lunch nirvana.


 

Happy Reading Days

I'm on a reading tear recently resulting in a few books I'd like to recommend. Somehow I don't seem to come across bad/useless books anymore. Maybe this is because I get such high quality recommendations from ya'll or perhaps my tolerance for shlock is so low the mediocre books never make it out of the library. This month I've hit 2 inspiring non-fiction books and a set of entertaining junior novels.

From the land of inspiring:

The New Global Student by Maya Frost. From another UPS alum, this book is all about why and how to take or send your child abroad. Super inspiring for me. It is the ideas behind books like this that steered us towards homeschooling in the first place. The specifics of how we can experience the world with our children at many ages has me in an international frenzy.

The Explosive Child by Ross Greene. In desperate search for relief to some of the conflict going on around here, I picked this one out of a rather large pile of "behavior" books at Barnes & Noble. I've just started implementing the ideas from the book and we've already seen a reduction in screaming/tantrums or at least their duration. We'll see if the strategies hold for the long term, but I have high hopes.

Someone asked why I chose this book over the many others out there on the subject. 1. it deals directly with the brain and its pathways - there is actually some scientific basis for the theories behind this book 2. it treats the children (and parents) with a great deal of compassion and respect. The solutions have to do with understanding our children and coaching them to grow the missing pathways rather than manage, rewarding or punishing (which I know from experience just do not work with my child) 3. at a glance, I recognized that mastering the strategies recommended by this book would help me be more the parent I want to be, whether I have "explosive" children or not.

From fun land:

Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede. This is a series of 4 books full of stereotype breaking princesses, witches and dragons. With lots of action and clever conversations, Theo and I have been competing for turns at them as each title rolls in from the library.

I've got a new stack from the library, hopefully something that will inspire me to share again, soon. In the meantime, what are you reading? Anything I should add to my list of must check-outs?

True Love

I know my husband loves me because he bought me the mug I've been obsessing about for several months now. It's white and orange ceramic with a silicon band around the middle. Beautiful and so fun to hold.

Gifts are one of the Five Languages of Love. I think it might be my primary language based on how loved and understood I'm feeling right now.  Also, I'm still high from the electric toothbrush he gave me about 10 years ago. 

The book is highly religious yet I've found the concept it proposes - that others can feel the love we are offering them best if we speak their "love language" - works well in my family.  Of course there is still the small matter of remembering to be mindful of it. But days like today remind me how effective small efforts can be.

Doesn't the orange look great with my coffee in it?

Lucky Girl by Mei-Ling Hopgood

As part of their comic strip, hubby Bill and friend Gene post a weekly book review.  Publishers love this, which translates into many boxes of "advance reading copy" books at our front door. Once in a while, one of them piques my curiosity.

I spent most of Sunday morning curled up on the couch ignoring my kids (who were playing happily near by) so I could explore one of these advance copies that Bill put in my space. Foremost, Lucky Girl was a pleasure to read. Mei-Ling Hopgood is a journalist by trade and her storytelling skills pleased me.  But the story interested me particularly because Mei-Ling, who is close to my age, was born in China and adopted by an American couple living in the US. She chronicles her reunion with her birth family. 

Reading about others on the adoption triangle keeps me open and thinking.  Hopgood's story and outlook differed quite a bit from many stories I have heard, and I always welcome a new perspective. The book is out in hardcover now (and there is a really cool video for it). Pick up the book, or ask your library to buy it - for the authentic and warmly practical style as much as the interesting and compelling glimpse into someone else's experience.