January 29, 2016 by Jaclyn

Diverse KidLit: Two Friends (January 2016)

diverse kidlit

Last year I loved having a project to follow all through the year – checking in each month with details of our family hikes was so much fun – and I’ve decided that 2016 calls for another long-term blogging project. Since this is the year that I’m working on expanding my reading horizons and reading more diverse books, I thought it would be a natural fit to talk about some of the diverse books I’m also reading with my kids. I believe that no age is too young to talk about the wonderful differences between all the people that make our world so magnificent. So each month, I plan to feature a different children’s book celebrating diversity in its many forms. I’ll showcase books that talk about racial diversity, religious and cultural differences, feminism and more. I hope that my readers like this feature. Comments and book recommendations are welcome, of course, but – as always! – let’s keep the chat respectful. Now, enough chatter – January’s diverse kidlit title is…

Two Friends, by Dean Robbins

Based on a true story of the friendship between Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, Two Friends imagines these two pioneers of justice sitting down together for tea in Susan’s parlor on a snowy evening in Rochester, New York. The book begins by describing the obstacles that both Anthony and Douglass faced – in Anthony’s case, because of her sex, and in Douglass’s case, because of the color of his skin.

Young Susan grows up wanting to learn everything that boys can learn, but she is not allowed to – because she’s a girl.

Young Frederick, born into slavery, teaches himself to read and begins to question why he should be denied rights that others enjoy.

Frederick and Susan grow up and begin to speak out, exposing the fallacies of a system that suborns people based on their sex or race. While some people liked hearing what Susan and Frederick had to say, as Two Friends (simply and starkly) puts it, “others didn’t.”

Two Friends pictures Susan and Frederick – who really were friends – sitting down together to discuss their plans to change minds and raise awareness of issues of inequality and injustice…

As soon as they finish their tea.

Two Friends is a gorgeous book. The illustrations are eye-catching and beautiful, and the text provides a wonderful introduction to important debates we have had throughout our history – while it does not sugar-coat the issues of injustice, it is simple enough for very young children to understand. Older children will almost certainly have some questions about the text – why couldn’t Susan learn what boys learned? why couldn’t Frederick vote? – and those questions will open the door for parents to begin explaining important issues in ways that children can understand.

What books do you use to introduce your children to difficult concepts?

January 27, 2016 by Jaclyn

Twelve Months Hiking Project: Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park (November 2015)

As promised, continuing with my recaps of the final months of our family commitment to hike in a different spot each month, I have a great one for November: Bear Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park! I’ve been itching to visit Bear Lake ever since I started following RMNP on social media – the pictures the park posts are always stunning. When we decided to visit Colorado over Thanksgiving, one of my first acts was to research Bear Lake to find out if it was a hike that our family could do, with two tiny ones along for the ride. What I learned was that, once you get there, the hike itself is short and mostly flat. Excellent. Sign me up.

Of course, first we had to get there. Bear Lake is deep within RMNP, and we visited on a day of snow-packed roads. The winding drive up from the park entrance to the trailhead would have been harrowing under the best of circumstances. But in winter conditions, in a flimsy-feeling rental car with Arizona plates and no snow tires, it was kind of terrifying.

It was also beautiful.

After a white-knuckled ride up, we arrived at the trail head and suited up in our winter gear (and for half of our group, our baby carriers).

Elevation 9,475 feet! We just kept climbing and climbing on this trip – hard to believe that the air would feel thick in Denver – but it did. Between hiking at Indian Peaks Wilderness, over 10,000 feet in elevation – more on that coming in a few weeks – and Bear Lake, and staying with my brother in his cabin at over 7,000 feet, we were definitely out of our element. I think we all adjusted fairly well, though, and the hiking didn’t pose much of a problem. We did have to take it slower than we would at sea level, and we got out of breath a little more quickly, but overall I think we adapted quickly.

As I said, the Bear Lake hike itself wasn’t too difficult. The lake was only about 250 feet from the trailhead, and it was only a half mile to circumvent it, so that’s what we did. Had the weather been warmer, I’d have loved to explore more of the lakes in the area. We’ll just have to go back, in a warmer season next time.

We started out on a well-groomed path from the trailhead to the lake.

As with many of the hikes we did in Colorado, the trails were hopping! As you know, I love seeing other like-minded folks out and about and enjoying nature, so I was delighted.

The lake itself was spectacular. Hard to believe something this incredible was only a five minute walk from the parking lot. Only in Colorado!

After marveling at the view for a few minutes, we headed off on our hike around the lake. (Well, first we asked a fellow hiker to take a family picture of our entire group, thinking Nana would enjoy seeing all of the kids and grandkids assembled in such a beautiful spot. It was an epic fail and we ended up deleting the picture because it was so bad. The guy cut off all of our legs and squeezed the group into the bottom corner of the picture so you could hardly make us out at all. What are people thinking?)

Ah, well. Into the woods!

The entire hike around the lake was beautiful. My only complaint? I wish it had been four times as long! Well, maybe not – by the time we got back to our car, what felt like only a few minutes later, the kids were chilly and were definitely ready to cuddle up in their car seats. But we made the most of our brief time in RMNP. I’m already itching to go back!

After RMNP, we headed to nearby Estes Park for a delicious pub dinner and more exploring, but I’ll tell you all about that when I recap the trip.

The hiking in Colorado was really spectacular. I actually had a hard time deciding which hike to use as our November hike, because we were out exploring on foot almost every day and we did some really incredible walks. But Bear Lake felt right for this project, after I’d dreamed for months of visiting it. The snowy hillsides, craggy mountain peaks, and fresh pines combined to make a truly magical experience. Now I want to see it in summer!

Have you ever hiked at a national park?

January 25, 2016 by Jaclyn

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (January 25, 2016)

Just a quick check-in, folks. Time is in short supply around here, as we’re down to under a week to go until moving day! I made a lot of progress on packing this weekend – and I owe a huge shoutout to my fabulous friend Zan, who spent her entire Saturday kid-wrangling, organizing, and packing with me. Seriously, I don’t know how I would have made it through the weekend without her. By this time next week, we’ll be in our townhouse and hopefully settling in a bit. It’s a temporary move – the townhouse is a stopgap, and hopefully a short-term one, until we find something permanent that works for our family – and I’m trying to make the best of it.

boxers saints

What with everything that I’ve got going on, I didn’t get much reading done this weekend. Last week I predicted a graphic novel-y week, and that’s exactly what this was. I finished the first volume of Saga (I’m currently midway through the second), the fifth volume of Fables, and the complete Boxers & Saints. Enjoyed them all, but I’m definitely deepest in the Fabletown world. I’m trying to keep a lid on the library stack, and I’ve been whittling it down by never checking out more books than I’m returning on any given trip. But I’ve got a pretty big stack of comics out right now, even as I’m religiously adhering to that rule. So expect more comics – specifically, more Saga – this week. As busy as I am, comics are holding my attention at the moment, and they’re short enough that I can rip through a few in a week – key to feeling like I’m still getting some reading done even in moving week.

Up on the blog this week: it might be moving week, but I have some really good content for you – recapping our November hike (it’s a GREAT one!) on Wednesday, and the first post in a new yearlong blog project on Friday. I promise you don’t want to miss either post, so check back.

What are you reading today?

January 22, 2016 by Jaclyn

Hopes and Dreams and a Word for 2016

Well, here we are, almost a month into 2016. How’s everyone’s year been so far? I know there are some people who don’t really care for or about New Year’s – they say that you shouldn’t need a new calendar year to make positive changes in your life, if you want to, and they’re probably right. Still, I am very much a New Year’s person. I love beginnings, and possibilities. I always liked the first day of school, and I love the dawning of a new calendar year for the same reason – there’s something so reassuring about a stretch of unblemished days ahead, just waiting for me to fill them up (hopefully) with love, and laughter, and learning. And for the same reasons, I like making resolutions. To me, resolutions are such a hopeful thing. They’re not an admission of failure from the previous year, or a hopeless gesture – they’re optimism at its best.

There are so many things I’d like to do and accomplish in 2016. Take up birdwatching! Run another half marathon! Make progress on my Classics Club reading list! Lift weights! Grow a garden! Teach Peanut to read! Learn to bake with yeast! Visit my brother again! More hiking! Keep cut veggies in my fridge for snacking! Finally write that novel! Organize my photos! Climb more mountains!

Of course life is full right now, and there’s no way I can do all of those things in a year – not even if I quit my job and devoted myself to keeping resolutions, which would be counterproductive because it would make it much harder to work on my ongoing resolution to have, like, money and stuff for when I retire. Between work, parenting, and figuring out our housing situation, I don’t have much free time. But that’s okay – I can still squeeze in little pockets of fun (alone time fun, fun with Steve, and fun with the kids – all qualify) and I get so much joy out of our family, so even if I don’t end the year feeling accomplished enough to meet Mr. Darcy’s exacting standards, I think I’ll be all right.

That said, it wouldn’t be the dawn of a new year if I didn’t make some resolutions. So here they are (in no particular order, and not sorted into any kind of categories this year):

Get my confidence back. I’d like to eat less sugar, lose the remainder of the baby weight (there’s still a little bit left, but I’m not too worried – I know that commitment to eating well and getting back into running will take care of it) and feel as strong and capable as I felt before getting pregnant with Nugget.
Be a good memory keeper. This one shouldn’t be terribly difficult, because I relish my role as the family memory keeper (and family fun forcer). It’s mostly going to be a matter of tackling certain projects – some blog housekeeping, making my 2015 family yearbook, catching up on some old family yearbooks that are languishing in a partially-completed state, and figuring out how I’d like to preserve vacation memories from our two big trips of last year. I’d also like to look into archiving video footage and old photographs – but I may not have time for that.
Challenge my bookshelves. I want to really expand my reading horizons. Right now, I’m planning to participate in the 2016 Read Harder challenge, work toward my Classics Club goals, and I’m setting a goal of 33% representation of diverse authors (people of color, LGBTQ, religious minorities or other traditionally marginalized voices) on my reading list for 2016. (Hit me with recommendations, please. I’m already planning deep dives into Octavia Butler and Jackie Woodson, but any other suggestions will be very welcome.)
Embrace slow. Life feels very fast-paced right now. Two small children, a stressful job, and another looming housing hunt often leave me feeling as though my head is spinning. It’s one reason I think I gravitate toward slower-paced, more tactile hobbies: reading, knitting, baking, yoga. I’d like to really tap into those sources of contentment this year, because I think they’re key to my personal calm. And if possible, I’d like to grow my skills – I’d love to knit some more complicated things, learn to bake bread, continue to learn about gardening, and start birdwatching and maybe even canning. Who knows? I just want to relax by using my hands more this year (for things other than typing and turning pages).
Write something off-blog. A few months ago I told a couple of friends that I finally had an idea for a novel – an idea that I thought had legs enough to take me more than 300 pages to tell the story. (I always have lots of ideas, but they usually peter out after five pages or so.) I am still working through the details, and the idea involves some historical research before I can start writing, but this is the year I make an attempt at it, or at least the beginnings of an attempt.

In addition to making a few resolutions (can I even call those resolutions? I’m leaving myself lots of wiggle room this year) I also feel compelled to pick a word for the year. Sometimes I set an intention, sometimes I pick a word, and sometimes I just list goals, but this year, a word feels right and necessary. I told a family friend that I was planning to use the word “forward,” as a way to remind myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but since that conversation a different word has called out to me and I think it’s the word I need to follow through 2016. The word is:

HOME.

We’re preparing to (yet again) move at the end of this month, and as of the writing of this blog post we don’t know where we’re going. (We should probably get on that.) But aside from just the mere shell of a house, we really need to find a home. I haven’t felt at home – really, truly, at home, at peace, at rest – since the moment I pulled out of my driveway in Virginia and turned my car northwards. I don’t know what to do with, or about, that, but it’s the truth. I still feel like a Virginian stranded above the Mason-Dixon line. I’m constantly homesick for Old Dominion. And the fact is – I need to sort out what “home” means to me, and find some way to be at peace no matter where we live. There’s much more thinking and searching than a few paltry sentences at the end of a blog post can do, so expect more on this theme in the coming months. At the moment I’m not planning any sort of regular check-ins, but I’d like “home” to infuse and inform my writing and my living this year.

What are you planning for 2016, my friends?

January 20, 2016 by Jaclyn

2015: Bookish Year In Review, Part I (Pie Charts!)

2015 was quite a year in reading! I started the year off in a reading slump, which I was starting to think might just be my new normal. After slow months in January and February (four books each month) things picked up and I got my mojo back, oddly enough, once Nugget arrived in March. As I type this post up on December 31st, my calculations show that I read 94 books this year, or 28,203 pages, which I think is pretty darn great for a year in which I had a newborn and a toddler, a job, and a house on the market. Reading has always been a source of comfort and contentment for me, and I think that really shows when you consider that with everything I had going on, in my sparse free time, I chose to turn pages. And, for the most part, I enjoyed myself – according to Goodreads, I only rated one book one-star (“didn’t like it”) this year: Go Set a Watchman. By contrast, I gave five stars (“it was amazing”) to fifteen books – so either I’m an easy grader, or I read some great stuff this year. My longest book, at 656 pages, was The Fellowship, and my shortest, at 112 pages, was Best Easy Day Hikes: Buffalo.

Enough chatter! Let’s make charts!

Fiction/Non-Fiction

FicNonfic2015

I’m not at all surprised to see that I favored fiction in 2015. I am a little bit surprised to see that the scales weren’t tipped quite as far in the fictional direction as they usually are. 55 fiction, and 39 non-fiction, is probably as close to evenly split as I’m ever going to get. And as I’ll get into in more detail next week, when I share my top ten reads of the year, some of my favorite books this past year were non-fiction. Either I’m growing as a reader, or there has been a lot of good non-fiction out there recently, or both. I’ll take it.

Source of Book

BookSource2015

Is anyone surprised that out of 94 books read this year, 74 of them came from the library? No? Me, neither. Let’s move on.

(Next year I swear I’m going to #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks.)

Fiction Genres

FicGenre2015

A couple of noteworthy things about my fiction reading this year: for one, I think it’s pretty well spread out over genres. (You’ll notice that sci-fi and fantasy are missing; that was an oversight when I was mining the data, and by the time I caught it, it was too late to go back and re-count everything. So the sci-fi and fantasy novels I read this year – and there were a few – got lumped into other genres, namely literary fiction, general fiction, and YA, depending on where I thought they fit best. Sorry about that!) Next, I need to read more classics if I’m going to make it through the Classics Club challenge. But while I was disappointed in only six classics, I was pleased to see 16 literary fiction titles. The other noteworthy thing? Fourteen comics! (I know, as Kim pointed out in her 2015 wrap-up, comic is really a format, not a genre, but this is how it makes sense in my head so I’m counting it this way. The two non-fiction comics I read, which were both graphic memoirs, were assigned to the memoir genre below, so they’re not counted as “comics” here.)

Non-Fiction Genres

NonFicGenre2015

The one thing I have to point out here is that my “other” category really got out of control. Books I shelved as “other” mostly belonged to one of two genres: time management, or social science (or, in the case of Overwhelmed, which was one of my favorite reads of the year, both) and I really should have broken it out further. But, as with sci-fi/fantasy in the fiction chart, by the time I realized that there was a better way to mine the data, I was too far into it to want to go back and start over. Anyway, I read some great non-fiction this year. I really enjoyed the history and memoir books I read, as I usually do, and probably at least a couple will find their way onto my top ten list for the year. Less enjoyable was the parenting book bender I went on for awhile last spring before I cut myself off (I was starting to feel like the world’s worst mother, which I know is not remotely the case, and I decided I’d stay saner if I took a break). But 2015 really was a great year in non-fiction – with new Erik Larson and new Sarah Vowell, what more can you ask for?

That’s all the data I collected this year, unfortunately. I’m not great about tracking my books through the year, so while I’d love to see more information about my reading trends (for example, male/female breakdowns, author race, setting of books, etc.) I don’t have the time or inclination, this year, to wade through all of my old book review posts and try to figure that out. In 2016 I’m planning to track my books on a spreadsheet and I’m hoping that, if I keep up with that, I’ll have more information at my fingertips next December. I’m also hoping for more representation by authors of color, more classic literature, and more settings outside the United States and England – so we’ll see how I do with those goals!

January 18, 2016 by Jaclyn

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (January 18, 2016)

Happy Martin Luther King Day to my American friends! I hope you’re all having a great holiday weekend. Mine has been… well… not very holiday-ish. Nothing bad, but just mostly work and not much play. Saturday morning was fun – the kids and I hit up a birthday party at Tifft Nature Preserve! Peanut’s BFF was turning FOUR! and we celebrated in grand style with pizza, crafts and puddle-stomping in our glitter shoes. (Well, that last one was just Peanut.) Party animals! I had a good time chatting with the birthday girl’s mom and – a first for me – met a blog reader! (Hi, Jen!) But other than Saturday morning birthday fun, my weekend was pretty much nothing but work, work, work. I’m currently staggering under the weight of several crushing deadlines at work, which had me running around like a crazy person all last week, and the rest of January is looking like a doozy. I have several BIG, STRESSFUL filings and a hearing between now and the end of the month, I’ve had some personal business pop up unexpectedly which is going to call me out of town for a day or so in early February and I’ve got to prepare for that, and oh, yeah – we’re moving at the end of the month. (Looks like we may have found a place. Cross fingers that it works out.)

So between working all weekend, packing for our move, and regular chores and stuff, I didn’t get much reading done – bummer. But I still have a few books to report. Last Monday I finished up my second collection of Marilynne Robinson’s essays, When I Was a Child I Read Books. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I found this one a bit easier to follow, which I’m hoping means that I’m getting smarter! From there I did pretty much a complete 180 and picked up the fourth volume of Fables. The story is getting more and more intriguing and I’m really enjoying it. (I think I know who the Adversary is.) Then I turned to the first installment in Terry Pratchett’s long-running Discworld series: The Color of Magic. I liked it, but not as much as I was expecting to. I found the world-building a bit difficult to follow, and while I enjoyed the funny bits, it just didn’t ring my bells the way I’d hoped it would. But it was short, so I pushed through to the end and finished it up on Sunday night after a hard afternoon of working and packing.

Up next, it’s looking like a big graphic novel-y week. I’ve got the first volume of Saga and the complete Boxers & Saints out from the library, as well as March: Book One, and I’m excited to dig into those. Once they go back, I’ll be left with just one more book checked out from the library – a historical fiction novel, We That Are Left. It’ll be weird to not have a teetering library stack, especially right before most of my books are about to go into storage for at least a few months. I guess I’ll be leaning on the library even more than usual.

Coming up on the blog: Part I of my bookish 2015-in-review on Wednesday, and my goals and one word for 2016 on Friday. Check back!

Have a great week, my friends! What are you reading?

January 15, 2016 by Jaclyn

Reading Round-Up: December 2015

Reading Round-Up Header

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for December, 2015…

Fables, Volume 3: Storybook Love, by Bill Willingham – I am getting more and more interested in the Fables series as I continue to read through the comics – especially the budding romance between Snow White and Bigby Wolf. In this volume, an assassination plot throws Snow and Bigby together in the wilderness with surprising results. I love new twists on familiar stories, so I’m enjoying this.

Gotham Academy, Volume 1: Welcome to Gotham Academy, by Becky Cloonan – My first foray into DC Comics! The Gotham Academy comic follows Olive Silverlock, student at a prestigious boarding school in Gotham, through roommate and boyfriend troubles – but there’s more. Something happened over the summer – something involving Olive’s mother – that left Olive shaken and with a new fear of bats. And now Gotham Academy might be haunted! I found the story a bit difficult to follow, but the art was fun and the characters – especially adorable Maps! – were engaging.

Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell – I tried to describe Carry On to my husband, and what I came up with was “Fanfiction about fanfiction about a fictional book about gay wizards.” Is it any wonder he was confused? Let me try to explain: in Rowell’s popular YA novel Fangirl, main character Cath writes “fic” about a Harry Potter-esque series of novels called the “Simon Snow” series. Carry On is Rowell’s take on Simon’s story. It’s not meant to represent Cath’s “fic,” nor is it meant to be an actual Simon Snow novel by “Gemma T. Leslie” on which Cath’s fanfiction was based. It’s basically Rowell’s fanfiction about fictional characters she herself created. Still confused? It’s okay. Me too. So, I moderately enjoyed Carry On, but I didn’t think it really lived up to its potential. There was a lot of back story that was not presented (and I’ve read Fangirl – not all of the back story was in there, either) and I had the sense that the characters had a very vivid history that would have informed and deepened the story had I known what it was. (Constant references to “that time Simon…” or “that time Baz…”) It made for a frustrating reading experience. All told, it was too bad, because (meta as it was) Carry On could have been really terrific, but instead left me a little flat.

Batgirl, Volume 1: The Batgirl of Burnside, by Cameron Stewart – My next trip into Gotham was easier to understand. Barbara – moonlighting as Batgirl – has moved to Burnside (basically, Brooklyn to Gotham’s Manhattan) to get away from a turbulent past. (Not all of the back story was presented, but I gather that Batgirl ended the last series of her comic recuperating after being shot by the Joker?) She’s picked up some troublemaking new friends, her college project is in dire straits, and she’s got one heck of a social media addiction – can Batgirl keep it all together? I really liked this! I thought the art and the characters were a lot of fun, and the story was modern and exciting.

Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living With Books, by Michael Dirda – Big disappointment here. Normally, Browsings is a book that would ring ALL of my bells. A book of personal essays ABOUT BOOKS! Written by a Washington Post columnist! With frequent references to DC and liberal politics! But… gahhhhh. Dirda came across as pedantic, pretentious, and deadly dull. He seems to be a borderline hoarder who has never grown out of a childish predilection for classifying books as “girl books” and “boy books” (he actually refers to “boy books” with approval, more than once) and refusing to read books for the “wrong” sex. And he kept ramming ponderous, self-consciously witty sentences with far too many clauses down the reader’s throat, while at the same time assuring the reader that his writing style is pared-down to the point of being austere. (Sorry, Mr. Dirda. Hemingway, you are not.) I plugged doggedly away at this book far past the point when I should have given up. And I was occasionally rewarded – “Aurora,” Dirda’s moving call to action on gun control, was a really breathtaking piece of writing. But the gems were buried in way too much rock.

Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, by Linda Hirshmann – As a female lawyer, I owe a lot to O’Connor and Ginsburg, and I really enjoyed reading this fascinating history of their careers. Their rises to the top of the legal profession were similar in many ways, and yet in many other ways, could not have been more different. The book focused a great deal on Ginsburg’s employment discrimination cases from her time as an ACLU litigator, which were of particular interest to me, as I am a labor lawyer. Sisters provided great information and lots of food for thought about feminism (and helped me crystallize my thinking about how we got to the point where we find ourselves today – with a very long way to go).

Black Widow Volume 1: The Finely Woven Thread, by Nathan Edmondson – I’d been itching to find out more about Black Widow before her movie comes out (not for awhile, but I had a suspicion that I might like the character, and I was right). Natasha Romanoff is trying to make amends for her past as a KGB assassin, taking on dangerous – and often seemingly hopeless – assignments for little pay in order to support her “web” (which I took to be made up of individuals and families she harmed during her time as an assassin). I liked getting a glimpse at Natasha’s world and Black Widow’s adventures, and I will definitely be following her. I found Black Widow much easier to understand than Captain Marvel. And enjoyed it that much more.

The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #1), by Rick Riordan – New Rick Riordan! New Rick Riordan! Let’s all just take a second and do a happy dance for NEW! RICK! RIORDAN! (I just love Rick Riordan.) So, The Sword of Summer isn’t brand new, but it’s the most recent Riordan and it’s also the start of a new trilogy focusing on the Norse gods, with a new leading character – Magnus Chase, homeless Bostonian cousin of bad@$$ daughter of Athena, Annabeth Chase (HAPPY DANCE FOR ANNABETH!). Magnus has been living on the streets for two years after his mother was killed by terrifying monster wolves (wut) when one day, his Uncle Randolph – whom Magnus’s mother warned him never to trust – tracks him down and starts mumbling about ancient weapons, birthrights, all kids of weird mumbo jumbo. Then a fire giant attacks Boston and Magnus dies. The end. Okay, not the end! There’s lots more to come from Magnus’s adventures – he finds himself in Valhalla and then out of it again, searching for a legendary sword alongside a dwarf, an elf, and a Valkyrie – and racing against time to stop Ragnarok. As Percy Jackson does with the Greek gods, Magnus encounters Norse deities including Thor and Odin, and it’s clear that while Rick Riordan has a very modern sensibility and a ripping sense of humor, he also totally knows his stuff. Riordan’s books are surprisingly smart for being such entertaining reads, and now I can’t wait for the next Magnus adventure. (I loved the character of Magnus – even more than I loved Percy Jackson; a warning, though – this book was more violent than any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians novels.) Only complaint: not enough Annabeth! Always need more Annabeth!

The Givenness of Things: Essays, by Marilynne Robinson – Robinson’s newest collection of essays combines theology, political science, history, comparative literature study, and more disciplines – all mixed together and spun into breathtaking arguments by her remarkable mind. I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand more than about five percent of what Robinson was talking about, but WOW, was this a wonderful book. It’s hard for me to know what to say, because there was just so much to this slim volume and I’m still processing it – but I think it’s well worth reading for anyone who has to live in this crazy messed up America, which is many of us.

A good December, and a good 2015 in books! Next week I will wrap up my year in reading, somewhat belatedly, but I’m happy with where I’m ending up. December was a great mix of fun (Magnus Chase! comics!) and thought-provoking (Supreme Court! Marilynne Robinson!) and I ended the year on a high note with Givennness. It was a bit of a challenge to fit much reading into December, what with the holidays, work stuff, and some sick days for the kids (pinkeye for Nugget, croup for Peanut) but I squeezed it in wherever I could and, as always, turning pages made me feel more grounded and comforted. January is looking to be another busy month as we prepare to move, but I’m sure I will keep reading through it all.

January 13, 2016 by Jaclyn

Nugget: Ten Months

WAHHHHHHHHH. WAHHHHHHHHH. WAHHHHHHHHHH. Excuse me – sorry – I’m just going to wail a bit more for a minute here. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. How is my tiny prince a gigantic ten-month-old? I mean, wasn’t it just five minutes ago that he looked like this?

That was five minutes ago, wasn’t it? I’m not crazy. Anyway, no matter how I feel about the speed with which this first year is going by (TOO FAST) it is what it is and another month is in the books, and we’re in double digits, which is insane. I wish it had been slower, but this has been a really fun month, the biggest event of which was…

Nugget’s first Christmas! In contrast to Peanut, who was only four months old (two adjusted) when she celebrated her first Christmas, Nugget was old enough to really get into the fun of the holiday. He had no clue what was going on, of course, but he had a ball. Wrapping paper! New toys! Different faces! Music! It was an exciting couple of days for him and it was clear that he was really enjoying himself.

And yes, I did dress him up like Santa Claus. Don’t hate, appreciate.

He is just such a happy little guy. Seriously, what an easygoing baby. He’s always got a smile on his face and he is just so full of joy. I love watching as he charms – and is charmed by – the world. 2015 was a pretty dark year in the world, but Nugget was a ray of light for our family. It’s hard not to hope for the future with his sweet giggles ringing out.

Nugget at 10 Months

Weight: 17 lbs 5 oz

Height: 27.25 inches cooperative? I don’t know, you guys. He’s not very cooperative.

Clothing Size: Still in nine months, although between Santa and a trip to Carters, I’ve got his twelve month wardrobe. It’s not washed and ready yet, but I have it.

Sleep: The biggest news on the sleep front is this: we dropped the crib mattress after I had a major scare on New Year’s Day. I went into Nugget’s room to feed him shortly before 4:00 a.m. and found him sitting up in the corner of the crib, holding the railings and grinning broadly at me. I’d been thinking of lowering the mattress but didn’t think it was urgent, since I’d never seen him push himself up to sitting – well, I guess he can do that after all. Y’all… I don’t think I’ve ever crossed a room that quickly in my entire life. And of course once he was safely in my arms there was no way I was putting him back in the crib until the mattress was lowered – which Steve did, half asleep, at 6:30 in the morning after I’d stayed up holding him for the previous (almost) three hours. I finally tumbled back into bed at 7:00 in the morning, exhausted, but relieved that the crib was safe again. Of course I’m now scarred for life.

Likes: Food! He’s a great eater, and still gobbles up all the purees I put in front of him. Also likes hard plastic and wooden toys, sneak watching TV, laughing at his sister, and CHRISTMAS!

Dislikes: Having his toys stolen. So basic.

Favorite Toys: As noted above, he loves anything hard. Trucks and cars! Rattles! Mega Bloks! He’s really been enjoying playing with a Green Toys school bus that Peanut handed down to him (her interest in it was never more than casual, but Nugget and the bus immediately developed a deep loving bond) so Santa brought him a Green Toys fire truck and biplane to add to his fleet. He also loves his KidO Go Car (and he’s got a truck and plane from KidO as well) – the fleet is growing, growing. He’s also a big fan of Mega Bloks, which is great because he’s got TONS of them. Santa brought a big bag to our house and my aunt and uncle sent a set, too. I’m going to build a gigantic tower, if I can ever pry them out of his hands.

Milestones: First Christmas and New Year’s! And on the developmental front, I’ve already told you that he can apparently push up to sitting. He’s also gotten very good at scooting around like a starfish, as Steve says (you know how you never see a starfish move? that’s Nugget – you don’t actually see him move, but you’ll put him down in one spot and when you blink he’s halfway across the room, playing with a toy you had no idea he could reach) and he’s desperate to crawl. Steve has been encouraging him to crawl, but I haven’t been… yet. For one thing, I like that he (mostly) stays in the vicinity in which I put him, and for another, my baaaaaaaaaaaby is growing up too faaaaaaaaaaaaast! But I hate seeing the little ones frustrated, so I’ll get to the point of teaching him to crawl eventually. Don’t rush me.

Quirks: Not so much a quirk, but a fun observation – the more he grows, the more he looks like Dad. I’ve always thought he resembled Steve, but the world is finally agreeing with me. Just the other day, Steve reported that another dad, who had just met Nugget briefly while visiting his classroom at school, saw Steve in the hallway (for the first time ever – they had never met) and immediately remarked, “You must be N’s dad.” The resemblance, it is strong.

Happy TEN months to my big boy! Sweet puppy, you will always be my tiniest prince.

January 11, 2016 by Jaclyn

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (January 11, 2016)

Please pardon the above wishful thinking. I am writing this post as snow drives down outside the window – looks like we’re getting our first big lake effect storm of the year. I suppose it was only a matter of time. For some reason, I keep getting surprised by snow up here. I think it’s the Virginian in me – back home, we were always getting these dire snow predictions (massive blizzard headed to the DC area! shield your children and your elderly!) and we’d all run out to the store and buy all the toilet paper we could find, and then nothing would happen. But up here, when they predict snow they’re invariably right – yet I still find myself thinking “well, maybe it won’t materialize” – and then I’m wrong. So you’ll all forgive me, I’m sure, for the Pamlico Sound pic. I’m just trying to remember what it was like to be warm.

You’d think I would be warm, because I’ve been busy-busy-busy all weekend. On Saturday we saw a potential rental house, hit Wegmans, and then I spent the afternoon juggling cleaning and baby care. I was exhausted, because Nugget decided that 5:30 was a good time to get up for the day – and that’s after two night wakeups. (Ten month sleep regression! Yay!) Sunday was a little less exhausting, because Nugget slept until 9:00 – what?! – and took a cuddly nap around noon. I guess he was catching up on his rest. I spent the day, again, juggling cleaning (trying to dig through the mountain of Christmas toys and take down the tree – it’s a process) and baby care. We’re moving in less than three weeks, we still don’t know where to, and I haven’t packed a thing. I can’t believe I’m not more stressed out about this, but for some reason I’m just not that worried. It’ll all work out.

the hundred year house when i was a child

As for reading, I finished my first book of 2016 – The Hundred-Year House, by Rebecca Makkai – this week. I’m not sure why it took me as long to read as it did. I enjoyed it, although not quite as much as I’d expected to, and one plot line was annoyingly unfinished at the end. But the format – sort of a reverse ghost story, where mysteries from the past were unraveled as the reader traveled deeper into the house’s history, leaving the “future” characters still in the dark – was intriguing, and the writing was good. After The Hundred-Year House I turned to something a little more intellectual: another collection of Marilynne Robinson’s essays. When I Was a Child I Read Books is outstanding! I think I actually like it better than I liked The Givenness of Things, which I read last month; either the essays in here are a bit clearer, or I’m just getting accustomed to Robinson. I actually hope it’s the latter, because if it is, then these books are making me smarter! Hurray for getting smarter! And – a bonus – When I Was a Child I Read Books will count as my first book towards the Book Riot 2016 Read Harder Challenge – more on that in a couple of weeks. It’s due back to the library today, so hopefully I’ll be able to polish it off (I’m almost done) and get it in on time.

Next up, I’m not sure what I’ll read. I have the first Discworld novel (I’ve been wanting to read some Terry Pratchett) checked out from the library, as well as We That Are Left, a new historical fiction release, and a stack of comics, and I have another book on the library holds shelf, too. So likely one of those options – whatever looks good when I close the Robinson essays for the last time.

What are you reading this week?

January 8, 2016 by Jaclyn

2015 Goals: Final Recap

Happy New Year! It’s been some year, hasn’t it? I think we can all agree that 2015 brought more than the usual number of ups and downs – for the world at large, and for many of us (me included) personally. I’ve got a whole slew of end-of-year posts planned, including my usual three-part bookish recap, a monthly roundup of all of our family adventures, and a post about my hopes for 2016. But for now, a look back at 2015 goals, the good, the bad, and the totally half-@$$ed.

Big Goals

~~Have a baby.~~ Done! This one was sort of out of my control, as you can imagine. But I love the result rather a lot! Nugget joined us on March 11, 2015, and I already can’t imagine life without him.

~~Focus on immediate family.~~ This is something we worked hard on, especially in the second half of the year. At the end of last year, I felt that too much of our identity was wrapped up in relationships outside of our four walls – important relationships, of course, but we needed to take some time to focus on each other. I think we did decently well at this – whether it meant committing to hike together every month, eating together as a family most nights, or sneaking away during extended family vacations to do some activities as a foursome. We still have a ways to go, though.

Keep growing in our new region. This one slipped through the cracks, especially after Nugget’s arrival, and I think we suffered for it. I definitely don’t feel as if we’ve put roots down here. We’ve tried – maybe not as hard as we could have, but we’ve been hibernating with a baby. Still, I can’t declare this goal accomplished.

Small(er) Goals

~~Plant a garden with Peanut.~~ Can I declare this done if I subsequently killed 90% of it? Only the rosemary and the parsley survived my negligent stewardship; even the hardy mint eventually succumbed. I did bring the parsley and rosemary inside (after they miraculously soldiered through the first snowfall of the season, I thought they deserved to warm up) and I’m committed to keeping them alive all winter. Of course, you know what that means: my attention will kill them, where my ignoring them didn’t. Well, one thing’s for sure – Peanut and I both learned some stuff this year. Hoping for a more successful garden next spring.

Marathon or bust! Bust. I realized early in my training that a marathon was just not happening this year. I still want to run one someday, when the kids are a bit older. (Maybe when Nugget is 3, I’ll have another go at it.) But I did run three 5Ks and a 4-mile obstacle race, so at least I can say I’m back out there. I have my eye on a few fun races for next year – including another half marathon, if I can make the training work with my currently very tight schedule.

Start juicing. I’m really mad at myself, because I haven’t done this. And I got the juicer for Christmas last year! Sorry, Santa. In January, I mean to do this. I really do.

Use my dSLR more. So I learned something: babywearing is really fun, and I love it, but the combination of Nugget in the front carrier and a big camera around my neck is just not workable. I’ve relied on the iPhone and luckily it takes decent pictures. Once Nugget either moves to my back or is spending more time in the stroller, I’ll dust off the dSLR.

~~Do at least one home project every month.~~ I sort of stopped keeping track of this, but I think it must have averaged out to at least one project a month as we worked on updating some cosmetic things to get our house ready to sell. So I’m saying – yep, did this.

Get back into yoga, and try out barre classes. Other than one yoga class on vacation in the Outer Banks, I haven’t done a thing – and I’m feeling it. (I always feel so much looser and more comfortable when I’m doing yoga regularly. Why don’t I do it more? Oh, right, two kids and no time.) And as for barre – haven’t done a minute of it, and still really want to.

Get organized. I haven’t made nearly as much progress organizing as I’d like to, but an upcoming move should present a golden opportunity to work on this.

Lose the baby weight. Not quite yet. I’ve lost some, but not all. With Peanut, it took a little over a year, and Nugget is only nine months, so I’m not panicking just yet. With two kids and, again, no time, I’m not expecting it to be a super fast process. I’m planning to do a month of no sugar in the new year, and hoping that will jump start the next phase of getting back into shape post-baby.

~~Hike in a different place each month.~~ Did this – wow! Twelve months of hiking in a different park each month! Our hikes took us all around WNY, down to North Carolina, and out to Colorado. I still have to recap November and December for you, and then I will post a big roundup of all of the hikes we did for this project – look for that coming in January. I’m really, really proud that we stuck to this goal for the entire year and made a commitment to hitting the trails as a family all year long.

~~Take a family vacation – or two!~~ How about TWO?! After a stretch of almost four years without a vacation (other than the occasional weekend getaway) it felt so great, and so long overdue, to get away on not one but TWO big trips. We joined my parents, brother and sister-in-law for a big family trip to Hatteras Island, North Carolina, in July (recapped on the blog over several weeks thereafter) and spent a week and a half visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Colorado over Thanksgiving (recaps to come). Two trips, two beautiful places, two opportunities to spend lots of quality time together and with Dan and Danielle – too lucky.

~~Date nights, for realsies.~~ I’m proud to say that we’re actually making an effort to get out together as a couple again! It only took three years, ha. What finally clicked was when we realized that with the kids both hitting the sack in their respective rooms at 7:30, we could put them to bed and then slip out in the evenings. It’s an easy night for a babysitter, who ideally can just sit on the couch with a book and hopefully not hear a peep from upstairs. And it’s a guilt-free evening out for us, because the kids would be sleeping in their rooms whether we are downstairs in the family room or out on a date, so we don’t feel that we’re missing out on any time with them. That was a revelation, and we’ve taken advantage of it twice now – once to see The Martian, and once to see Star Wars. Hope to keep that rolling in 2016!

Well, in looking back at my goals, things are really better than I thought. I set some ambitious goals for the year and I always knew I wouldn’t have a perfect record – especially not with a new baby in the house. But it’s been a fun journey and I’m looking forward to seeing where life takes our family in 2016.

covered in flour

the adventures of a wandering reader…

Month: January 2016