Jonathan’s Reading - March 2007
Afternoon on the Amazon
Night of the Ninjas
Noah’s Reading - March 2007
Landon Snow and the Auctor’s Riddle
Natalie’s Reading - March 2007
Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo: Who’s Afraid of Fourth Grade
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Read Alouds for March 2007
Egermeier’s Bible Story Book: A Complete Narration from Genesis to Revelation for Young and Old
Favorite Poems Old and New
The Dragon’s Eye: The Dragonology Chronicles, Volume 1
Eragon
How to Be an Ancient Greek Athlete
Hour of the Olympics
Pegasus, the Flying Horse
Outstanding Outsides
All About Your Skin, Hair and Teeth
Mommies Don’t Get Sick
Mother, Mother, I Feel Sick: Send for the Doctor, Quick, Quick, Quick
Twelve Years
For part of our Bible study this year on a woman’s role in marriage, our leader has us compiling a list about our husbands. Each week when we come in, she asks us to write something about our husbands that we are grateful for - something in their character, something they have done for us, etc. Then when we are having one of those days where marriage is hard work, we can refer to the list and remember why we love these men so much.
Today, Kevin and I have been married twelve years. A dozen! And in honor of that, I’m posting my list.
~He values my work as a wife and mother.
~He is a good provider.
~He accepts me as I am.
~He has a great sense of humor.
~He thinks I’m worth it.
~He is protective of me.
~He gives me time for myself.
~He puts his family first financially.
~He likes to have fun with the kids.
~He chooses the right thing even when it’s hard.
~He likes to make me laugh.
~He is friendly to everyone.
~He doesn’t stay angry at me.
~He likes to talk.
Of course, by the end of the year, there will be many more items on this list. I think of new reasons every day to be so grateful for the man I was privileged to marry.
Happy Anniversary, honey. Here’s to dozens more!
One More Link
I had to tell you all about this one! The gals at 5 Minutes for Mom are giving away a Dyson Vacuum! I’m not kidding - check it out.
Links for Friday
Spring Break is here! We finished our schoolwork this morning (Thursday). I am so ready for a break from science and history and math and grammar… Reading and reading aloud will continue, of course. And lots of it. I also promised myself that I will only do normal housework next week. Spring cleaning can wait till summer - I only have a week off!
No big plans this weekend - hopefully the sun will last and the kids will get lots of outdoor time.
Here are a few links:
~In case you’ve been under a rock, the cover of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been revealed. Follow the link to see not only the US cover, but also the UK kids’ and adult versions.
~Next month, Christopher Tolkien will publish The Children of Hurin, a book his father started and he completed.
~Melanie Lynn Hauser has written another hilarious post. This one is titled The Care and Feeding of Authors.
Oops, I almost forgot! Our 12th anniversary is Saturday. We celebrated Sunday night, so it will be uneventful, but I do have a post planned to tell some of the reasons I still love Kevin after a dozen years.
Review of Jump In!
(Jump In! was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)
Take High School Musical, take out the jocks vs. academics, throw in boxing vs. double-dutch jump-rope, and you have Jump In! And that’s not a bad thing.
Jump In! stars High School Musical alum Corbin Bleu as Izzy Daniels, a teenager training to become a boxing champion in order to please his father. His crush and neighbor, Mary, is involved in double-dutch jump-rope competitions and he agrees to help out when their team is missing a member. Along the way, he finds a new passion - but how can he break it to his father?
Jump In! is full of amazing double-dutch moves and catchy music and the kids and I enjoyed it. If your family loves High School Musical, this movie is something to watch while we all wait for the sequel.
Breezing through…
…on our way to Bible Study, then science and Latin classes. Next week is Spring Break - I can hardly wait! I think I’m more excited than the kids are. Just a few snapshots of our life lately:
Kevin and I went out to dinner Sunday night to celebrate our anniversary (a week early) and then we went to see the movie Wild Hogs with John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence. Hilarious! A little coarse in parts - so consider yourself warned - but I expected that with a road-trip movie about four middle-aged guys. It was nice to get out without the kiddos for a few hours.
I swam three times last week and came away with some water in my ear that I can’t get rid of. It has stopped hurting, but I still get this swimmy-headed feeling when I move around a lot. Not fun.
I am very glad we didn’t take our Spring Break this week, when the neighborhood kids are all out. I am beginning to think I’ll only let my kids outside to play when the rest of the neighborhood is in school. They’re never out there more than ten minutes before one of them comes running in to tell me that one of the other kids is A) throwing rocks, B) using foul language, or C) threatening to never be their friend again if they don’t play exactly what they want to play. Aargh!
Lastly, any American Idol fan-atics out there? What was up with Sanjaya’s hair last night? Crazy!
Well, we’re headed out soon, and I need to get the rugrats moving. Have a great Wednesday!
Review of Children of Men on DVD
(Children of Men was provided to me by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)
Last month, I read and reviewed the book Children of Men by P. D. James. I knew the movie was coming out (starring one of my favorites - Clive Owen), and I wanted to read the book first. Unfortunately, I think I would have enjoyed the movie much more if I hadn’t.
There are a few similarities between the book and the movie.
~They are both set in the future.
~In the future, the human race has stopped reproducing.
~There are characters named Theo and Julian.
~Theo meets a young pregnant woman and helps her evade the government.
That’s really all they had in common. The characters are completely different. In the book, Theo is a retired college professor. In the movie, he is a disgruntled office worker. In the book, he has a friend named Jasper who is also a retired college professor. In the movie, his friend Jasper (played by Michael Caine) is a pot-growing hippy ex-activist.
In the book, Theo’s wife Julian (portrayed by Julianne Moore) is a shallow character who barely makes an appearance. In the movie, Julian is an underground political activist who cons Theo into helping the pregnant girl by offering him 5,000 pounds. In the book, Theo decides to help the girl on principal and because he is drawn to her - not for money.
I could go on and on. Why is it that people find a book that they enjoy, think would make a great movie, and then promptly change everything about it? I just don’t get it.
And more than the character and plotline changes, there is the whole theme of the book: the sacredness of life and how a world divorced from a Christian worldview becomes a place of horror and outrage. The movie becomes a political manifesto of a different sort. In fact, the whole idea that people have stopped reproducing seems to be secondary to the fact that Britain has started deporting all immigrants and has descended into mass chaos.
As you can see, I was disappointed in this movie. Perhaps if I hadn’t read the book, and didn’t know what P. D. James’ original vision for the story was, I would have enjoyed it, but I’m not sure. If you are a fan of futuristic sci-fi and haven’t read the book, you might enjoy this movie. But if you loved the book as I did, the movie will be a huge let-down.
On a related note, writer/director Alfonso Cuaron will be the guest speaker at an online forum hosted by Amazon to address the political and social concerns in the movie. The event will be held on Monday, March 26th at 6:00 PDT.
Top 100 Book List
Magistramater pointed me to this list at The Telegraph. People in Britain were asked to name the ten books they could not live without, and their answers were compiled into this list of the Top 100. So, how many have you read? I’ve read the ones in bold and the ones in italic are ones I want to read. If there’s a star after it, then I own it. A question mark means I’ve never heard of it.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling *
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (planning to re-read soon)
6 The Bible *
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ???
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare * (I’ve read many of them, but not all - yet.)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien *
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks ???
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams * (planning to re-read the “trilogy” this year)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ???
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky *
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy *
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens *
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis *
34 Emma - Jane Austen *
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen *
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis *
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne *
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown *
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery *
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - ICK!
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ???
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ???
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ???
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens * (reading right now)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ???
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ???
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett *
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (I tried reading this to the kids, and none of us liked it enough to finish.)
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ???
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ???
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White *
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ???
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ???
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ???
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare *
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
How many have you read? Can you fill in some of my question marks?
Links for Friday
Happy Friday, everyone! We made it through a whole week and seem to have gotten rid of the tummy bug. And spring is here! It was cold today, but we did spend a couple hours at the park. The kids are definitely ready for some warmer weather!
Hmm, lots of other stuff going on, let’s see:
My sister Marni and I were asked to give a concert at my mom and dad’s church on May 5th, before their Mother’s Day luncheon. I’ve been spending lots of time gathering music, transposing music, practicing music, etc. I’m singing three songs, Marni’s singing three, and we’re doing three together. I’m learning the vocals for mine - two of which I’ve never done before - plus the piano accompaniment for her songs, plus memorizing a monologue, which I have not done in a really long time. Our theme is the seasons of a woman’s life: singlehood, courtship, marriage, motherhood. I’m excited - I haven’t done something like this in several years, but drama and music are a first love of mine.
I’m going to take a creative writing course through our community education program here at the community college. I saw it listed in the brochure and wanted to do it, but I wasn’t crazy about going alone. Then Michelle mentioned she wanted to take it, too, so we’re signing up next week. Another thing I haven’t done in several years - taking a formal class, I mean. I’m looking forward to it.
We have one more week of school, then a week off for spring break. We will still be reading and reading aloud, though, and the kids are excited to have some extra time to finish Eragon since I won’t let them rent the DVD until I’m done reading it aloud to them.
I can’t believe Easter is almost here! Time flies…
Tomorrow we’re heading up to Trail, B.C. to the aquatic center. We always have so much fun there. And then Sunday (if no one gets sick!) we will go to church. Together. For the first time in a while! Kevin took the three kids that weren’t sick last week to the church I’ve visited several times, and he really liked it, so I’m tentatively optimistic. Good teaching straight from the Word, good worship, sound doctrine. And the kids really enjoy Sunday School - so much so that having to sit through the service doesn’t keep them from wanting to go. Our old church had children’s church for all ages during the service, and that’s what they’re used to, so this will take some adjustment.
I’ll leave you with some links for your weekend reading:
~Great post for would-be writers at Charis Connection by an editor of Christian fiction.
~Would you be brave enough to try this?
~Read everything by your favorite author and wondering what to read next? Throwing Marshamallows posted about a cool tool. Plug an author’s name into the Map of Literature at Gnooks and get a map of related writers.
~Randi posted a hilarious video that I just had to share.
~Mindy Withrow has a great interview with Susan Wise Bauer about writing, homeschooling, and her new book The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome.
~Robin Lee Hatcher is giving away copies of The Nativity on DVD.
~Chronicle Books is having another giveaway - this time an autographed copy of A Seed is Sleepy and An Egg is Quiet (Cybils award winner) by Dianna Hutts Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long.
Well, that’s it for this week! Have any plans for the weekend?
Heroes
Anyone else out there LOVE the NBC series Heroes? And are you as frustrated as I am that we have to wait until April 20-something for it to come back?
Well, you can spend some of the down-time submitting your theories to the Heroes web site. Answer any of the following questions via video for a chance to have your submission air on NBC:
1. Who would be the best dad for Claire? Mr. Bennet or Nathan?
2. Who ultimately wins control? Niki or Jessica?
3. What do you think our characters will be doing 5 years in the future?
4. What do you like most about “Heroes”?
5. Do you know someone with an extraordinary ability?
6. If you had extraordinary abilities, how would you use them?
7. Which of our Heroes will die next?
8. Do you think Sylar can be stopped and who do you think will stop him?
9. How do you think this season will end?
10. If your picture was on Suresh’s map, which hero would you be connected to, and why?
11. Not everyone is psychic. Do you have anything else to say that we didn’t ask?
I’d love to hear any of your theories, too. Favorite characters or storylines? Who should die? Who seems bad but is really good - or vice versa?
Marriage Meme
Saw this at Lisa’s place and decided to play along.
1. Where/How did you meet? At a singles’ group at church.
2. How long have you known each other? We met in the spring of ‘94 - so 13 years.
3. How long after you met did you start dating? A few months - our first date was on October 1st. I asked him out! (But only after being assured by a friend that he liked me. ~wink~)
4. How long did you date before you were engaged? Three months. We knew after a few weeks that we would get married, but I guess we officially got engaged and started planning the wedding around Christmas.
5. How long was your engagement? Three months. We were married March 31, 1995.
6. How long have you been married? We will be celebrating twelve years a week from Saturday.
7. What is your anniversary? Oops - already answered this one. 3/31/95
8. How many people came to your wedding reception? I am so bad at estimating numbers! Maybe 100? Kevin can correct me if I’m way off.
9. What kind of cake did you serve? I remember what it looked like - but not the flavors! Isn’t that terrible. I’m sure there was some chocolate in there. It was three tiers and had white icing with real purple irises as decor.
10. Where was your wedding? At my grandparent’s house - they had just had it built and it was beautiful!
11. What did you serve for your meal? We did not have a meal. Our wedding was in the evening for family and close friends only, with everyone else invited for the reception after. So we had cake, punch, mints, nuts, etc.
12. How many people were in your wedding party? Two. My best friend from high school, Fran, was the maid of honor, and Kevin’s friend, Glen, was his best man.
13. Are you still friends with them all? No. Fran and I lost touch several years ago, as did Kevin and Glen.
14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony? He might’ve teared up a little.
15. Most special moment of your wedding day? The prayer. Our friend Joseph, from South Africa, prayed a wonderful prayer of blessing over Kevin and I just before we were pronounced husband and wife.
16. Any funny moments? We opened presents at the reception, and the pastor who had married us had given us a book titled The Gift of Sex. Real fun opening THAT in front of parents, grandparents, little sisters, etc.
17. Any big disasters? Nope.
18. Where did you go on your honeymoon? The Oregon Coast.
19. How long were you gone? We had a whole week off of work, but we only stayed for two nights at the bed and breakfast. Couldn’t afford to stay longer!
20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? Not a thing.
21. What side of the bed do you sleep on? The right.
22. What size is your bed? Queen
23. Greatest strength as a couple? We talk to each other. And we both forgive easily.
24. Greatest challenge as a couple? Being good parents!
25. Who literally pays the bills? Kevin brings home the paycheck, and he tells me which bills need paid, but I write them out and put them in the mail. It’s a joint effort!
26. What is your song? Go There With You by Steven Curtis Chapman
27. What did you dance your first dance to? We didn’t have a dance.
28. Describe your wedding dress: My sister made it and it was perfect! Ivory lace, long sleeves, fitted bodice with sweetheart neckline, handkerchief skirt.
29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding? Iris - the small, dark purple kind (I think those are Dutch, right?), delphinium, baby’s breath, bachelor buttons, lots of greens. They were gorgeous!
30. Are your wedding bands engraved? No.
31. How old were you when you got married? I was 22 and Kevin was 29.
Let me know if you decide to play along!
I Capture the Castle
I’ve had I Capture the Castle in the back of my mind as something I should read for a while now, ever since I saw it mentioned on a couple of blogs. (Sorry, I don’t remember which ones.) And then a couple months ago my sister, Marni, said, “You have to read this book! It’s like living inside a 1940s comedy!” I put a hold on the audiobook that week and waited for my name to come up on the list.
I finished listening to it tonight, and the first thing I did was Google to see if there was a sequel. Alas, Dodie Smith never continued the story of Cassandra and the rest of the Mortmain clan. I feel like I know Cassandra and Rose, Thomas, Stephen, Topaz, and the mysterious Mr. Mortmain - as if I’ve been living with them for the past two weeks. I know that I prefer Simon Cotton over his brother, Neal, although they are both lovely gentlemen. I can see the Castle, and Godsend Village, and the Gatehouse.
I feel like the last two weeks have involved much book serendipity - first An Irish Country Doctor and now this delightful story. I only wish I could read more of the Mortmain family’s adventures.
5 out of 5 stars
