Mommy Brain

Today was like Christmas all over again!

When I received an e-mail inquiring whether or not I’d like to review Brighter Mind products on my blog, I said “Sure!” Who doesn’t like free stuff? I figured I’d receive a couple products, the kids and I would try them, and I’d write a review or two.

The box that came today included:

Brain Quest DVD Game Ages 6-8

Cartoon Network All Stars Game CD-Rom

Diner Dash CD-Rom

Extreme Monsters #1: The Blue Moon Effect

Extreme Monsters #2: What’s With Wulf?

Extreme Monsters #3: Meet Mr. Hydeous

Extreme Monsters Joke Book

Marvel Super Hero Fact Book

Marvel Super Hero Mix and Match Story Book

The kids are in absolute heaven! They’re busy playing the Brain Quest game right now. The Marvel books must be good, because I caught Noah reading them when he was supposed to be doing his schoolwork. The computer games will have to wait till the weekend because the kids are being disciplined with a “computer-free” week, but they look like a lot of fun. I’m not usually crazy about the Cartoon Network characters, but the game looks like basic arcade game stuff, nothing that really involves the characters’ storylines from the network’s shows. The Extreme Monsters books are the first three in a chapter book series involving kid monsters that participate in extreme sports. Definitely something my boys are excited to get their hands on!

I’ll be writing more involved reviews later when we’ve had some time to really try/read/play with all this stuff. If you’re interested in checking out these products – or any of the other great products at Brighter Minds, just click on the link. They have some activity books and software that would be perfect for homeschooling families – as well as lots of just plain fun stuff.

Edited to add: This post contains a major spoiler of the plot of Jane Eyre. If you haven’t read it yet, and don’t want it spoiled for you, skip this post!

I finished Jane Eyre this afternoon. I don’t know how I missed reading this for so long, but when I read The Thirteenth Tale, I knew I had to add this to my reading list. I started out reading it by e-mail from DailyLit, but I kept clicking on the “send next fragment immediately” link, so my friend Michelle graciously loaned me her copy.

Jane Eyre was popular fiction for it’s time. Charlotte Bronte was the Danielle Steele or John Grisham of her time. Now, before you jump down my throat, I know that Jane Eyre is a classic and is exquisitely written. But in it’s time, it was popular fiction. And the main idea of the story is choosing your faith over your happiness! I can’t get over that. You would never see a story today in the secular book market where the heroine turns her back on the man she loves with all her heart because he was already married. Especially with Mr. Rochester being married to such a horrible creature. I can hear the rationalizations: “Well, he’s not really married. How can he have a marriage with a woman like that? No one would know he had a wife if we just moved away and started over!”

But Jane does what is right. She chooses the hard road over the one full of love, passion, and comfort. And I am ashamed to admit that part of me was saying as I read, “But how can you leave him like that? He needs you!” Terrible, aren’t I?

On a related note, PBS is airing a two-part miniseries adaptation of Jane Eyre. The first part airs this Sunday, the 21st, and the second airs on January 28th. You can find more info here. It is being billed as the movie adaptation that is most faithful to the book. I’ll probably wait for it to be released on DVD and watch it on a girls’ night, since I know I won’t get Kevin to go for it.

Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes for Mom are hosting The Ultimate Blog Party March 2nd through the 9th. Head on over for all the details. (There are prizes involved!)

Whew! Another week almost done. It was a busy week, but I feel like we’re finally getting back into the swing of things after our long Christmas break. We haven’t added Spanish back in yet, but everything else is caught up, so I feel good about that.

We got some more snow today. The snow we got at New Year’s hasn’t gone away; it melted a little and then froze over, and then more snow accumulated on top. So now we have ice covered with snow. I shouldn’t complain; our last few winters have been relatively mild for this area.

This morning, we read The Snail House during read-aloud time. One of the pictures showed a fox in a beautiful green meadow. Jonathan looked at it, sighed, and said, “Oh, Mom, I miss Spring!” I feel the same way.

Now that the play-offs are over (well, for the Seahawks anyway), I’ll be resuming my Sunday visits to local churches. I didn’t visit last week because the game was on at 10 a.m. I know, I know, I’m now officially a heathen. Although, I will say that when we had a home church, I never skipped services for football games. I recorded them and watched them after we got home.

Well, I should add my links and close. Kevin will be heading upstairs any minute now to watch the next episode of Battlestar Galactica. (Even though the title says “Links for Friday,” I’m writing this Thursday night.) We’re on Season 2.5, graciously loaned to us by our friends, and we’re completely hooked.

Here are some great links for free printable bookmarks I found. I can never have enough of these – I always have a few books laying around with a kleenex marking my place.

~Graphic Garden
~Basket Biz Help
~Jan Brett Bookmarks
~MacFarlane’s Dragons Series
~Nestle Signatures
~Beautiful Grape Vines and Hydrangeas

~Any kite-flyers out there? This video is amazing.

~For my fellow mama/writer-wanna-be’s: Dena Dyer has info about a new writing contest over at Amazing Graceland.

~Tonia, who formerly blogged at Intent, is now writing with Ann at The Sacred Everyday. Beautiful writing and encouragement.

May you all have a joyful, restful weekend!

“Unfortunately, in most of our schools the history of Europe and North American is taught as if it were the history of the world. The rest of the world is referred to only when Europeans or Americans were invading or trading.”

from Education of a Wandering Man

On a related note, I am enjoying very much our history studies this year. We switched from Bob Jones University’s Heritage Studies to A Story of the World. We’re doing the first volume, ancient history, and I have learned so much! The only non-western history I remember learning in grade school was a short unit on Greek myths and a unit on pyramids and ancient Egypt. My kids are getting a great idea of how big the world is, and how it doesn’t revolve around the United States. I love America, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it’s healthy to have such a narrow focus when learning history.

First lines:

“Call me Jonah.” Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 1984, George Orwell

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy.” I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.” The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger

“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.” A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean

“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.” Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler

Last lines:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

“He turned now with a lover’s thirst, to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks; an existence of soft and eternal peace.” The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane

“And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I been there before.” Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

“Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.” All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque

“At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.” Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

“She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.” The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

“That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.” Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Empress Carrie the Kind of Melbury Bubblewick Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Found at lovin’ life.

“I better understand now the pressures that King faced his entire adult life, pressures that surely contributed to his failures. King’s moral weaknesses provide a convenient excuse for anyone who wants to avoid his message, and because of those weaknesses some Christians still discount the genuineness of his faith. (These Christians might want to reveiw the list of outstanding people of faith in Hebrews 11, a list which includes such moral deviants as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Rahab, Samson, and David.) I certainly once dismissed him. Yet now I can hardly read a page from King’s life, or a paragraph from his speeches, without sensing the centrality of his Christian conviction. I own a collection of his sermon tapes, and every time I listen to them I am swept up in the sheer power of his gospel-based message, delivered with an eloquence that has never been matched.”

from Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Phillip Yancey

No amount of screaming, finger-crossing, or praying made a difference this week. The Seahawks played well, the Bears played well, it went into overtime, and the Bears won. Here’s to next season!

Bibliotopia: or, Mr. Gilbar’s Book of Books & Catch-all of Literary Facts & Curiosities is a book for book-lovers. Steven Gilbar is also the author of Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading and Published & Perished: Memoria, Eulogies, & Remembrances of American Writers.

This book is a miscellany of odd facts about books and literature in general, from lists of award winners to favorite quotes from several authors to a list of common diminutives used in Russian novels (so you can keep all those characters straight) to lists of authors graduated from various colleges to…well, you get the picture. Along with giving me some titles to add to my huge to-be-read list, this book was a perfect read for some scattered days spent in and out of orthodontist and eye doctor waiting rooms and rare moments of stolen reading time.

Here are a few favorite tidbits:

The Reader’s Bill of Rights:
~The right to not read
~The right to skip pages
~The right to not finish
~The right to reread
~The right to read anything
~The right to escapism
~The right to read anywhere
~The right to browse
~The right to read out loud
~The right to not defend your tastes

-from Daniel Penner, Better Than Life (1994)

“Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself – it is the occurring which is difficult.”
~Stephen Leacock

Mr. Gilbar also includes lists of memorable opening and closing lines that I plan to post as a quiz sometime in the next week – when I find the time!