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If You’re Not Part of the Solution, You’re Part of the Problem; Or, Will You Read GO SET A WATCHMAN?

TKAM Atticus and Scout
(Image sourced from Google.)

Like many American lawyers, I count Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird as one of my prime inspirations in joining the legal world, and the novel’s hero, Atticus Finch, as one of my great professional heroes (yes, I know he’s fictional, and no, I don’t care).  I first read To Kill a Mockingbird the summer before my freshman year in high school, and I was staggered by it.  I knew about my country’s shameful history of racial injustice, but To Kill a Mockingbird brought it home to me like nothing else.  There are many characters in the novel, and many converging storylines, but it was Atticus and his brave defense of a man on whom the justice system had turned its back that spoke to me most.  I’ve read the book countless times since.  I still have my tattered paperback copy from that summer before starting high school.  It’ll always be one of my favorite books.  And like many readers, I always wished Harper Lee had written more.

Well.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the big literary news.  Harper Lee did write more.  Her first novel, Go Set a Watchman, has just been rediscovered – and for the one or two people who haven’t already read the synopsis, it focuses on Scout as an adult woman, coming home to Maycomb to visit her father in the 1950s, and witnessing events there.  Lee wrote Go Set a Watchman before writing To Kill a Mockingbird.  As the story goes, the book contained some flashbacks to Scout’s childhood that Lee’s editor thought were particularly good, so he encouraged her to turn those into a book.  To Kill a Mockingbird was born, and Go Set a Watchman was forgotten.

Until now, that is.  What we’ve been told is that Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter, found Watchman stapled to the back of a Mockingbird manuscript.  Lee believed Watchman to have been long since lost, and is allegedly “delighted” that it has turned up and is being published.  And published with a vengeance – Harper Collins is apparently planning a first printing of two million copies.  Two million.  On a first printing.  Basically, they’re expecting everyone and their dog to buy this book, and they’ll most likely be proven right.  Which leads me to my question:

Are you going to buy Go Set a Watchman?

Since I heard the news, my feelings on the subject have waffled even more than they usually do.  (And that’s saying something.  I’m a champion waffler.)  At first, I was elated.  NEW HARPER LEE NOVEL!  WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT!  Basically, my head exploded with the rest of the bookish internet.  Is it July yet?

And then.  And then.  I read some of the thoughtful pieces, written by people more deliberative than I, laying out some very real concerns about the story we’re all being fed.  First, Book Riot posted “Uncollected Thoughts on the New Harper Lee Novel,” in which Jeff O’Neal described some of the issues surrounding the release, including:

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being Lee’s full-throated 100% attributable consent and 10 being the shadiest of shady dealings on behalf of the people around her, I give it a…..dammit. I wish I could give a vigorous defense of this or a heartfelt attack. I just don’t know what we are dealing with. Is the story we are being given possible? Absolutely. Is it weird that Alice Lee recently died and that Harper herself has actively avoided public life for 50 years? More than weird. Whatever the truth is, I think it is probably beyond our understanding and that there is much more going on than either a worst case or a best case scenario. If you want to go into reading this book, and reading about this book even, with your eyes open, you are probably going to have to get used to the idea that you don’t know what the truth is.

There’s a lot more there, so go read the full post.  Since Book Riot’s post expressing concerns – concerns which many in the literary world share – new statements have come out purporting to be from Lee herself, affirming her approval of the project and her delight in the rediscovery of a manuscript that hasn’t seen the light of day in more than half a century, and her hurt at having to defend her competency to authorize publication of her first work.  So now, the question is, can we believe that these statements are really coming from Lee herself?  Or are they coming from others around her – namely, attorney Tonja Carter, who is apparently the only person involved in this process with direct access to Lee?  As I knew she would, my friend Amal had plenty to say on the subject:

Is Carter committing elder abuse, which is defined under Alabama law as “the maltreatment of an older person, age 60 or above”? It includes material exploitation: “The unauthorized use of funds or any resources of an elderly individual or the misuse of power of attorney or representative payee status for one’s own advantage or profit. Examples include stealing jewelry or other property and obtaining the elderly person’s signature for transfer of property or for a will through duress or coercion.”  Code of Ala. § 38-9D-2  (2014).

Again, I encourage you to go read Amal’s entire post, and her other posts on Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird.  (Amal is also an attorney and also a big Lee fan.)  Amal’s blog has a collection of some of the best thought-out posts I’ve ever read about Harper Lee and the legal controversies surrounding her in recent years.  And to be honest, as soon as I heard of some of the questions concerning Lee’s true feelings on the publication of Go Set a Watchman, one of my first questions was, I wonder what Amal thinks about this?

Amal has said that she won’t be buying a copy of Go Set a Watchman until she’s comfortably confident that her favorite author is not being taken advantage of.  And she has a point.  The entire situation smells funny.  Is it elder abuse?  I certainly hope not, but as Jeff O’Neal points out in Book Riot’s post, we might never really know.  And Harper Collins certainly doesn’t expect that people will be put off by the uncertainty of the situation – not if they’re ordering a two million copy initial printing.  The publisher is clearly banking on the buzz and the fact that it’s a new novel by Harper Freaking Lee.  This book could be nothing but a list of names and people would buy it.

As for me?  I don’t know.  I started out leaping around my house (as much as I can leap around in my third trimester) and chewing hubby’s ear off about how excited I am about this book and now… now I just feel squicky about the whole thing.  (That’s right, squicky.  It’s an industry term.)  I really, really don’t want to support any endeavor that takes advantage of anyone’s age or declining health, maybe least of all that of the woman who wrote the Great American Novel.  (Yep, it’s been written already.)  But… dang.  I have to know what’s in this book.  So now I just don’t know what to do.  Am I going to buy Go Set a Watchman?  If I’m being completely honest, I have to say… I probably am.  I really, really respect Amal’s scruples, and the scruples of anyone else who can resist buying this book until they have a comfort level that Lee really is delighted with the whole thing.  And part of me worries that if I don’t take a stand against the publication (at least until we have some clearly unbiased information about Lee’s approval) I’m part of the problem.  But I don’t know that I’m strong enough to stay away from this book – especially if, as Jeff suggests, we might have to make peace with never knowing for sure.  Gah.  I sure wish these issues were simple.  But as Atticus Finch could attest, they never are.

What about you?  Are you going to buy/read Go Set a Watchman?  How conflicted are you about the whole situation?

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Nursery Rhymes: First Tracks and Setbacks

Well, here we go!  I can’t believe that I’m 34 weeks pregnant and we’re only now getting around to working on the nursery.  I guess second kids really are different.  Between work, pregnancy and chasing a toddler around, I just haven’t had the energy to face the big task of furnishing and decorating another room.  But Nugget is coming… in six weeks or less.  The possibility that it could be less feels very real – at this time in my last pregnancy, Peanut was already three weeks out of the oven.  I hope he stays in until March, but in any event, things are not going to get less crazy around here, so we really needed to get going on this project.

When we bought the house, we already knew to expect an addition to the family, so we thought carefully about which room would become Nugget’s little space.  We chose a bedroom for him and then proceeded to use it as a dumping ground for all kinds of random stuff.  Behold:

Nursery Before

Just keeping it real.  Pretty bad, right?  And that’s actually not a true before – that’s after I’d gone through and thrown a bunch of things away, and started organizing bath products into the green bins along the wall.  Anyway, now you can see why the whole idea was so exhausting to me.

Enter hubby.  He spent a few hours clearing out the mess and this was the result:

Empty Nursery

Ahhhh – much better!  Ready for paint and… furniture?  Yeah, about that.  I’ve shown you the first tracks.  Now, for the setbacks.  Back in December, I ordered nursery furniture for Nugget, from Land of Nod.  Hubby and I decided to go with Land of Nod because we had been so impressed with the quality, service and speed of delivery when we furnished Peanut’s nursery back in 2012.  2015?  Not so much.

After more than a month went by without a call to schedule delivery, I called Land of Nod’s customer service to ask about the status.  I was told that the furniture I’d ordered was not actually available for delivery to the East Coast.  When I asked why I hadn’t been notified that there was a problem with my order, I was just told, “Oh, yes, we see no attempt at contact was made.”  They then told me that they might be able to shift some of the order to a different warehouse and then do a long-distance shipment to my area, but it was going to take a long time – even if the furniture could be found (and there was no guarantee we’d even get that far) it wouldn’t be available for shipment until March.  Guess who else is being shipped in March (if he waits that long)?  Yeah, that’s right.  We checked our credit card statement and learned that we’d actually been charged for this order – before the furniture was delivered – and then credited a partial refund with no explanation or even identification of the piece we were being refunded for.

The next day, hubby got a cryptic voicemail message telling him that one of the pieces of furniture we ordered had been located.  Which one?  We’d have to guess.  I called customer service again and asked which piece was available and when we might expect it and was told in no uncertain terms that none of the furniture we wanted would be delivered, ever.  The customer service representative also seemed pretty annoyed that I wasn’t more sympathetic to the frustration she was feeling.  Well, sorry, lady.  But I’m pregnant, I’ve got a baby coming within the next six weeks, I ordered this furniture over a month ago, you’ve charged me for it with apparently no intention of actually delivering it… but yeah.  I’m sorry this is frustrating for you.  At that point, I requested that she cancel my order and refund any amounts I have been charged and not yet credited back.  I got a bit more attitude delivered my way, and the deed was done.

So, there we were – back to the drawing board.  Nugget has a crib (he’s inheriting Peanut’s, since she’s ready to move on to big girl sleeping arrangements) but nothing else.  Hopefully, that will change soon.  Hubby and I scrambled to put together a furniture order from Pottery Barn Kids, and I placed the order over the phone so I could get multiple assurances that the furniture I wanted was available and would actually be delivered.  I’m told that it is, and it will.  Whew – that was a little exhale.  I’ll breathe even easier when I get those long-awaited calls to schedule delivery.

So, with that, the task list remaining before Nugget takes up residence:

  • Paint the walls and trim, remove the broken mirrored closet door and install a fresh white closet door.  (We’ve actually hired someone for this task, since the closet door replacement has proven to be more complicated than we’d like, and we don’t have spare time to devote to a painting task anyway.  We called back the master painter/renovator who scraped our popcorn ceilings before we moved into this house, because we were so impressed with the speed and quality of his work.  Good to know someone like that!)
  • Receive the furniture delivery (crossing fingers and toes and eyes) and move the crib into the nursery.
  • Frame and hang art piece (I ordered an archival quality print from the same artist who did the print in Peanut’s room).
  • Set up book and toy storage and lighting.
  • Hang wall decal over the crib (I’ve ordered a cute one from the same Etsy artist who did the print) and order and hang Nugget’s wall letters (once he officially has a name, which he doesn’t yet).
  • Set up Nugget’s crib and fill the dresser with his little clothes, diapers, blankies and bibs.

If this isn’t all done by the time Nugget comes home, I’m fine with that.  Babies have survived for hundreds of years without perfectly decorated nurseries filled with Land of Nod  Pottery Barn furniture.  All he really needs is food, shelter, warm clothes and love, and he’s certainly going to have all of that from the moment he takes his first breath.  But I’m hoping that he’ll stay put long enough to let us get more done than Peanut did in her nursery!

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Momentous Occasion Reading

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One of my favorite things about being a reader (even a maybe-slumping one) is looking back on the books I’ve read.  Once you’ve read a book, it becomes part of you – part of your own personal story and experience.  And sometimes, a book you’re reading becomes bound up in the external events of your life and will forever be remembered as “the book I was reading when…”

I’ve been tracking my books on Goodreads (see the sidebar for my most recent entries) since 2007, so while I don’t remember every book I’ve been reading at every momentous occasion in my life, I do have a record going back quite a few years now.  Here are some of my momentous life events, and the books I was reading at the time…

pale fire

April, 2007: Became homeowners for the first time.  When hubby and I closed on our condo in Arlington, Virginia, I was midway through Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov.  I can’t remember the exact date of our closing, but I know it was late April and Pale Fire was the book in my bag.

wuthering heights

September 9, 2008: Landed in England on the vacation of my dreams.  I’d been wanting to visit England for as long as I could remember (what Anglophile reader doesn’t dream of walking the same paths as her literary heroes and heroines?).  When the wheels touched down on the tarmac at Heathrow for my vacation-of-a-lifetime, I was (re-)reading Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte.

paris to the past

February 19, 2012: Found out we were expecting a tiny Peanut!  This was something I’d been wanting for a long time, and even without the help of Goodreads, I could tell you that I was reading Ina Caro’s Paris to the Past: Traveling Through French History by Train (okay, I needed Goodreads to remind me of the author and the subtitle).  I actually finished it that same afternoon and started The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff, so hey! a twofer on the first day that Peanut was officially in our lives!

one hundred years of solitude

August 21, 2012: Peanut’s birthday.  Another one I don’t need Goodreads for – I will never forget that I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, on the day Peanut made her grand entrance into the world.  I’d started it a few days prior, was reading it during my bed rest, and stuffed it in my purse to take to the sonogram appointment that turned into Peanut’s surprise arrival.

wolf hall

October 11, 2012: NICU Homecoming!  We waited a long time (50 days, to be exact) after Peanut was born to get out of the NICU.  I read quite a few books in the meantime, but the last few days of our NICU captivity (okay, I know, but that’s how it felt) were spent with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (which I loved, and not just because I was reading it in the mothers’ lounge when hubby got the news that Peanut was ready to go home).

The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England

August 21, 2013: Peanut turned ONE.  In addition to marveling at the fact that I had a one-year-old and planning birthday celebrations, according to Goodreads, I was reading The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England, by Ian Mortimer.  Guess I was in an educational mood?

the weed that strings the hangman's bag

August 31, 2013: We moved to Buffalo, New York.  The move itself was months in the planning, but it wasn’t until the end of August that we officially pulled up stakes in northern Virginia.  Since I couldn’t take my Fairfax County library books with me (sniff – still miss my old stomping grounds at Sherwood Hall Regional Library) I had to read something off my own shelves.  I wanted a read that wasn’t too difficult or demanding, and that would distract me from the crushing sadness I was feeling at the idea of leaving the DC area, so I chose Flavia – specifically, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, the second novel in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mystery series.

god is an astronaut

July 26, 2014: Whoa, impending Nugget!  We got some very big news in late July of 2014 – another baby on the way!  And after I had confirmed what I already strongly suspected, I sat down with God is an Astronaut, by Alyson Foster.  Just like I did on the day we learned of Peanut’s existence, I actually finished the book and turned to another – this time, it was The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris, which I was already midway through but had put down in favor of books with more urgent library deadlines.

among the janeites

August 13, 2014: Closed on our new house (and celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary on the same day).  I didn’t have much time for reading that day, as I remember it, but I always have a book in my bag, and it happened to be Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom, by Deborah Yaffe.  And then…

the visitors

August 29, 2014: Moving Day!  Hopefully the last for awhile…  Another day I don’t think I actually had time to sit and read my book – I was actually at the office working on an emergency project while hubby handled the move details.  But I was midway through Sally Beauman’s The Visitors, which I really enjoyed once I did get a moment to breathe.

Wow, looking back, it seems like a lot of big things have happened to me over the last few years… and I’ve read some great books while they’ve been happening.  The next major life event, I’m sure, will be Nugget’s big arrival… wonder what book I’ll be tossing in my hospital bag for that occasion?

Do you remember what you’ve been reading when major life events occur?  

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The Winter List: Update 1

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Well, it’s been a little over a month since I posted my winter list, so I figure I owe you all an update.  I’ve been trying to make winter a fun season for our family, to the best of my ability.  Life gets in the way, though, and it’s tough to do everything that we hope to do even in the best of times.  Hubby and I have both been completely swamped at work, and then there was the unpleasant week when Peanut brought a stomach virus home from preschool and passed it around the household.  But we are trying to make the most of our weekends and of the time we have remaining as a family of three, before Nugget joins us in just a few more weeks (at most).  So here’s what we’ve been up to so far from our winter list:

  • Clean out and decorate Nugget’s nursery!  In progress – very slow progress.  I’ve made some headway on cleaning out the room we’ve designated as the nursery.  I still have a few boxes to root through and either unpack or send to storage, and then we have some work we want to get done in the room before we furnish it.  But I’ve got furniture ordered (and need to call Land of Nod to check on the status of when we might expect a delivery… hopefully before our own delivery).  Really, I just need to buckle down and get this done.
  • Hike at Reinstein Woods – the first of our seasonal hikes for 2015.  Done!  Check out my recap of our hike here.  It was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see what Reinstein Woods looks like in the other seasons.
  • Have friends over for dinner.  I’m not sure if I can count this one as done or not.  We did have Zan and Paul over to bake cookies (for the ladies) and watch football (for the men) but Zan actually brought the dinner in her CrockPot (which was really kind of her).  I did provide nachos for snacking during the baking and football-watching.  So does that count?  Hope so, because as busy as life has been lately I don’t know if we’ll get around to hosting another dinner before Nugget arrives.
  • Build a snowman with Peanut.
  • Eat lots of citrus.  Working on this, not that it’s really work.  I love citrus!  I’ve been enjoying grapefruit in the mornings, oranges for snacks, and I just bought a bag of blood oranges to bake with, so expect to see them around here soon.
  • Knit a baby blanket for Nugget and a pair of cozy socks for me.
  • Cook up a freezer full of meals for the first few sleep-deprived newborn weeks.  Working on this, too.  I’ve got a lasagne, enchiladas, and a few other dishes in the freezer, and earlier this week I did a big double batch of turkey chili.  Hoping to make the time to get a few more entrees socked away, and maybe some muffins for breakfasts, too.
  • Go cross-country skiing, pulling Peanut along on her red sled.
  • Buy, assemble, and organize shelves for Peanut’s playroom.
  • Visit the Botanical Gardens so Peanut can hang with her besties in the koi pond.  Hmmm, I suppose I can call this one in progress, at least.  Hubby brought Peanut to the Botanical Gardens on New Year’s Eve – but I was at the office chipping away at my mountain of work, so I didn’t get to go.  I’m glad they had a daddy-daughter day, but I want to come along on the next Botanical Gardens outing!  I love it there.
  • Bake an olive oil citrus cake.
  • Plan a garden to plant with Peanut this spring.  The garden is in the planning stages.  Last month I read a book on gardening with kids, and while it was a little short on actual ideas we could implement now (most of the suggestions assumed more gardening expertise than I have, and an older child than Peanut) it was certainly inspiring.  I’m thinking of doing a few containers on the back patio this year – enough to give us an activity and a chance to learn, but not so much that we get in over our heads.  Next up is picking out what to grow and deciding whether I’ll order seeds or buy the plants already started.
  • Get my books unpacked, finally.  Working on this one, too.  I’ve found a home for the books in the study, for now at least – although I’m dreaming of installing built-ins in the formal living room.  Hubby set up the shelves and I’ve been unpacking a box here and a box there, and I’ve filled about 3/5 of my shelf space.  I still have a few more boxes to get through and then I need to organize my shelves, but it’s progress.
  • Take a winter hike at Knox Farm in East Aurora.
  • Have a date night with hubby – we’re long overdue for one, and they’re going to be even harder to come by with two kids.  Done!  We actually managed to tear ourselves away from Peanut for an evening when we were visiting my parents over Christmas week, and we went out to dinner and saw the third Hobbit movie.  I didn’t love my dinner (I’m super picky these days), but the movie was great and it was certainly refreshing to be out just the two of us.  We actually got to talk to each other without a munchkin tugging at our shirts or clamoring for attention.  The funniest thing?  I kept cringing during every loud part of the movie, thinking it was going to wake Peanut up, before I’d remember that we were out, in the theater, and she was not actually sleeping upstairs.  Parenting habits die hard, I guess.  It was hard to spend an evening away from our little love, but we decided to take advantage of the free babysitting my parents always offer and I’m glad we did.

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How about that?  Looking back over the list, it actually looks like some solid progress has been made!  There’s a lot more I want to do in February and early March, provided Nugget stays put long enough for me to get some more of these things done.  But we’re doing our best, and it’s actually pretty darn good!

Did you make a winter list?  How’s it going?

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Reading Round-Up: January 2015

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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 January, 2015…

Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots: Gardening Together with Children, by Sharon Lovejoy – This was a Christmas gift from hubby, who knows that I am looking forward to starting a garden with Peanut this spring.  I was hoping that it would include things like art activities and learning games to play no matter what type of garden we choose to grow.  There was a little of that, but mainly the book was organized into different gardens that were all planned for you.  I did like the idea of the “pizza garden” and I expect that Peanut and I may try that one a few years down the road, when we’ve got our feet under us, but at the moment most of the suggested activities in here were beyond us.  It was still great for inspiration and encouragement, though, and I loved the beautiful illustrations, so I enjoyed it nonetheless.

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7), by Alan Bradley – I know there have been mixed opinions about the seventh volume in the Flavia de Luce mystery series, but I loved it.  I missed the Buckshaw and Bishop’s Lacey environment, certainly, but seeing Flavia adapt to a new place and new personalities was great.  And the continuing storyline about Flavia’s mother’s legacy really has me excited.  I can see this series going on for quite some time and just continuing to get better and better.  My only complaint: now I’m all caught up again, and who knows how long I’ll have to wait before the next installment?

The French House: An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village that Restored them All, by Don Wallace – The French-house-restoration-memoir genre is one of my “kryptonite” genres (meaning, I just can’t say no to one of these books) but this one didn’t really do much for me, I’m sorry to say.  I pushed through because I kept waiting for the book to get funny and heartwarming, but I just couldn’t really see where it ever did.  The villagers seemed unwelcoming, the American couple naive, and the French professor who arm-twisted them into buying a ruin and then fixing it to her specifications (their budget and desires apparently didn’t matter) struck me as manipulative and inconsiderate.  I’d heard such wonderful things about this memoir, but in the end I was mildly disappointed.

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra, by Helen Rappaport – I’ve long been interested in late Imperial Russian history, and I love a good Romanov biography, and this one is an excellent addition to the library of Romanov knowledge.  The Romanov Sisters focuses on, as the title no doubt gives away, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia.  So many other Romanov histories focus on Nicholas, Alexandra, and Alexei, and there might have been some other kids too but they’re not really important, that I knew very little about the Grand Duchesses.  Even the four Grand Duchesses referred to themselves as a unit, “OTMA,” but in truth they had four very distinct (but all lovely) personalities.  Rappaport’s biography focuses on the sisters and their home life, only mentioning things like politics or Rasputin where they touched the sisters’ lives.  It was a refreshing and novel perspective and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know “OTMA” better.  And as one Goodreads review I read said, you know what the end was going to be but you were still hoping for a different result.  (Alas, it’s not to be.  But there is one thing – as I tweeted while reading the book, there’s nothing like a Romanov bio when you’re having a lousy day.  At least you know their problems were bigger than yours.)

Not a bad January, I suppose.  It’s not as many books as I’d like to have to share with you, but The Romanov Sisters was quite the chunkster.  In terms of enjoyment, it was a mixed bag.  I liked flipping through Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots, and I reeeeeeeally enjoyed As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust and The Romanov Sisters, but The French House fell flat for me.  I’ve got a busy February ahead, so I don’t expect much more in terms of a book total, but I am trying.  I’ve just started the newest Marilynne Robinson, and then I’m looking forward to digging into some mysteries next month – hope to have some good reads to report for you in a few weeks.

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Reinstein Woods: Winter 2015 (and 12 Months Hiking Project for January)

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Woohoo – first hike of 2015 is in the books!  If you were reading here last year, you may remember that hubby, Peanut and I took on a project of hiking at Tifft Nature Preserve in south Buffalo at least once each season.  (If you missed them I recapped all of our Tifft seasonal hikes: winter, spring, summer and fall).  We had so much fun hiking Tifft in each season (and by the fall hike we even knew our way around, winning) that we decided to carry the seasonal hiking project forward for 2015 and find a new place to explore.  After scouting around a bit, I decided that we should conduct our seasonal explorations at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve in Depew.  We’d never been there and I’d heard such great things about the scenery and the wildlife that I was itching to check it out.

I also made a resolution this year that we would take a family hike in a different place each month.  The hikes didn’t have to be in places we’d never been (so I’m sure you will see Tifft again, as well as Knox Farm) but we couldn’t repeat.  That also meant that we could use Reinstein Woods toward that goal one time, and one time only.  I was hoping that we’d make it out for another hike this January, but circumstances (weekend work for both hubby and me most of the month, plus a week of illness when Peanut brought a bad stomach virus home from daycare) have prevented us getting out more than once.  Oh, well, c’est la vie – we’ll be counting this January walk in Reinstein Woods toward our 12 months hiking project too.

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Enough with the preamble!  Let’s get boots on the trail!

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Peanut was somewhat less than thrilled to find herself back in the backpack.  We’d actually tried to go for a walk the weekend before, at Como Lake Park in Lancaster, without the backpack, and all she wanted to do was play.  So she’s back in the carrier until she’s a little more malleable.  We do make sure to let her out at the end of each hike and give her plenty of time to stretch her legs and explore, though.

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I spent a little time checking out the information sign and getting a preview for what we can expect to see come spring, summer and fall.  I can’t wait to check out the birds!

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And we were off on our hike.  Hubby brought along his snowshoes but decided to leave them in the car.  In retrospect, he wished he’d worn them, because the snow on the trails was deep enough that it was tough going with just our boots.  We definitely got a workout!  There were a number of other families out enjoying the beautiful afternoon and most of them had on either snowshoes or cross-country skis.  We were one of the few groups that hit the trails in just our boots and we were feeling it almost immediately.

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We headed down one of the broad paths to start.  Having never been to Reinstein Woods before, we had no plan in mind – just followed the paths wherever they took us.

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After one or two turns we found ourselves approaching a large pond.  The sun was starting to go down (we had decided on a post-nap hike for warmth purposes) and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset view.

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There was a fork in the trail allowing us to choose to either walk around the pond or head deeper into the nature preserve.  As we stood debating what to do, both kids made their preferences known.  Peanut announced “All done riding in my chariot!” (yes, she really said that) and Nugget put in his vote with some mild cramping (or maybe Braxton Hicks contractions? I got them a few times during my last pregnancy and these were much less intense, so I’m not sure) so we decided to loop around the pond and back toward the car.

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We had one more stop to make before we left the preserve, though:

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I’d noted this little “nature play area” on our way into the preserve and thought it would be a great place for Peanut to play this spring and summer.  But it also worked out well as a spot for her to stretch her legs after this relatively brief ramble.  We headed into the play area and released her from her “chariot.”  She immediately fell on her face in the snow and rolled around like a dog.  Whatever works for ya, kid.

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She also did some sweeping, of course.

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And started to dismantle the “shelter” in an attempt to find the perfect stick for waving around.

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I think it’s safe to say that our little snow bunny is a BIG fan of winter!

Gear:

Hubby – I have no idea what his winter boots are, he’s had them since before we started dating; Black Diamond men’s hiking poles; Deuter KidComfort III child carrier backpack.
Me – Oboz Bridgewater BDry hiking boots (thanks, Santa!); Black Diamond women’s hiking poles.

Thanks for a great walk, Reinstein Woods!  See you again soon!

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A Mystery Reader’s Day of Reckoning

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I knew this day would come eventually.

As you probably know if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a hot minute, I love mystery novels.  Mystery might be my favorite genre (maybe – I’m not committing here) and I’m always working my way through one series or another.  And as you may know – since I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before – I have a bit of a quirk when it comes to reading mysteries.

I don’t like to read more than one mystery series at a time.

Not that being in the middle of two mystery series should really interfere with anyone’s enjoyment, of course.  And not that I’m not smart enough to keep track of the differences between two series.  I’m certainly not going to mix up detectives, get confused, and say something like, “Wait, isn’t it Maisie Dobbs who runs a detective agency in Botswana?  And I thought Sherlock Holmes was an Egyptologist?”  But for some reason, I just have preferred to immerse myself in one series, one world, before moving on to another.

So I worked my way through The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series before getting started on Maisie Dobbs.  I finished with Maisie before starting in on The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and getting to know Flavia de Luce.

Of course, it couldn’t last forever.  When you read a series by a prolific contemporary writer, it’s bound to happen that they’ll release a new book and you won’t stay caught up forever.  And there will be a day when you have to pause the series you’re on and check in with an old favorite.

For me, that day is here… and here with a vengeance.  Technically, I’m currently reading through the Amelia Peabody mysteries.  Technically, the old favorites are supposed to stay filed away.  But they just wouldn’t.  First, I excitedly checked out of the library a book to which I’d been looking forward for months: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, the latest Flavia mystery.  (Loved it.)  Then I learned that a new Maisie Dobbs novel is due to be released soon – not soon enough to get on the holds list at the library (they haven’t ordered it yet) but it’s on the radar.  Then I discovered that there have been not one, but two new No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency mysteries released since I read The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection – oops – and a new Her Royal Spyness, with another one due in August.  All I need now is for someone to uncover a long-lost Agatha Christie manuscript.

So I’ve had to throw out my rule of only reading one mystery series at a time – because over the next few months I’ll have to catch up with, in addition to Flavia: Maisie, Precious, and Georgie.  It’s time to set aside my “quirk” and deal.  And yes, I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big problem.  But it’s the mystery reader’s day of reckoning… and it’s here.

Do you have any bookish quirks?  Have you ever had to buck up and deal with them?

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31w4d

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(Please excuse the messy playroom.)

Last week I hit an exciting milestone – the day I’ve been thinking of as my “pregnancy PDR.”  For my non-running friends, “PDR” stands for “personal distance record.”  It’s the furthest you’ve ever run.  And the cool thing about it is, once you take a step past your old PDR, every step is a new PDR.

As many of my friends know, Peanut was a surprise early arrival at 31 weeks, 3 days pregnant.  (That’s roughly seven and a half months.)  She needed to come out, certainly, but she wasn’t ready… nor were we.  So I suppose it’s unsurprising that, ever since we found out that we were expecting Nugget, “31w4d” has been bumping around in my head.  Would I get to 31w4d?  Would I get further?

I got there on Tuesday.  It wasn’t the big celebration I had in mind, because I was miserably sick with a stomach virus that Peanut had brought home from daycare and passed around our house.  (Hence my disappearance last week – sorry about that; between all three of us floored by the virus at one point or another, and then desperately trying to catch up at work the rest of the week, it was all I could do to keep my head above water.  Thank goodness for grandparents.)  On Tuesday, I was taking a sick day and subsisting on saltine crackers and Gatorade.  But I managed to struggle out of my PJs long enough to take a commemorative bump photo.  And I’m just now beginning to appreciate that I’m here at this point in pregnancy.

I’m now almost a week past my old pregnancy PDR.  It feels good.  Every day feels a little bit safer – but I’m very aware that it’s not time to have this baby yet, and I’m still crossing fingers and toes and eyes that he stays in until March.  So far, we’re hanging in there (stomach bugs notwithstanding).  In the meantime, I’m just happy to have a new pregnancy PDR… and now I’m working on padding my stats.

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Is it Slumping, or Just Living?

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Recently, I was talking to my mom on the phone, and she told me she didn’t think I was in a reading slump.  “You’re still reading a lot,” she said, “you’re just reading children’s books instead.  And you’re enjoying your baby.”  Mom told me that she thinks it’s just the stage of life I’m in at the moment – there’s less time for reading, and when I do have free time I want to spend it playing with Peanut (and soon Nugget) and watching them grow and learn and explore.

All true statements.  There is definitely less time for reading.  I’ve been swamped at work since before Thanksgiving, and when I’m not at work or ferrying Peanut back and forth from school, I’m making dinner, trying to stay on top of an increasingly chaotic housekeeping situation, and doing the bath-stories-bedtime routine (which can stretch on for two hours or more if Peanut is feeling frisky).  When, exactly, am I supposed to sit down with a book?

And even on the weekends, it just hasn’t been a priority.  I’d rather play with Peanut, as my mom pointed out, and that’s a normal thing right now.  We’re spending our time on family hikes, or snuggled up reading stories, or destroying the playroom.  I’ll have my whole life to stick my nose in a book.  What I want to do right now is snuggle my baby while she’s still a baby.

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But I do think I’m in a reading slump.  Maybe it’s no big deal, and it’s just where I am right now, but the fact remains that even when I have those rare pockets of free time – when I’m not working, cleaning, caring for Peanut or enjoying family time – I just haven’t had much of an attention span lately.  It’s embarrassing to admit, because I’m trying to be a book blogger here.  But I just don’t seem to have the head space or patience for many books lately.  Once I’ve staggered downstairs in the evening, after sitting in Peanut’s (increasingly uncomfortable) rocker for an hour or more, I don’t want to switch on the table lamp and take out a book.  I’d rather snuggle up under a blanket with hubby and watch TV.  (We’re working our way through Ken Burn’s The National Parks on Blu-Ray.)  Or scroll through my phone, catching up on social media.  Or stare blankly at the wall.  Sometimes I can’t even make myself crack the spine of a book – and that’s why I still think I’m in a slump.

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Maybe it’s just not as bad of a slump as I thought.  I mean, I just whipped through As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, the latest Flavia de Luce mystery, in about three days.  That’s not bad.  Once upon a time, I could have torn through a Flavia mystery in a day or less, but I don’t have that kind of spare time at the moment.  So just wanting to read was refreshing.  And now I’ve started The Romanov Sisters, which – okay – is a hefty non-fiction chunker, but I’m actually excited to read it.  Excited… I haven’t felt excited to read a particular book in months (until Flavia, that is).

So yes, I do think I’m still in a reading slump.  But I also think that my mom has a point and that it’s mainly just life, right now.  Really, it seems to be a combination of lack of time, other priorities, and a slumping attention span.  I’m sure that it’s a season that will eventually pass.  Until then, I’ll give myself a little bit of credit for the fact that I read Star Wars ABC eleventy-seven times yesterday.

Do you notice that your reading ebbs and flows with different stages of life?

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2014 Book Superlatives

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One more post to go in my week of bookish 2014 wrap-ups, and then we’ll really be done and on our way to 2015 reading!  Coming up with book superlatives is always one of my favorite yearly wrap-up posts.  Anyone else’s high school yearbook do “senior superlatives?”  I actually won one – “shortest” – sigh.  But even though my superlative was a bit of a disappointment (I was going for “Teacher’s Pet”) I still love doling out the awards to the books I read each year.  So here we go, the bookish class of 2014…

the monuments men Brainiest – This year’s Valedictorian is The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, for shedding light on an aspect of World War II history of which I was completely unaware.  I was hooked from the first page, and I learned a lot.

letters from father christmas Best Looking – With the whimsical illustrations and the gorgeous reprints of letters handwritten by J.R.R. Tolkein himself, Letters from Father Christmas is a shoo-in for this one.  Tolkien’s children were lucky indeed, to get these beautiful missives every Christmas.

anne of the island Best Friends – I wish I could have lived at Patty’s Place with Anne, Priscilla, Stella and Phil during their years at Redmond College.  Whenever I need a dose of cozy girlfriend chatter, I know I can find it between the pages of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Island.

the honest toddler Class Clown – This would have to be The Honest Toddler: A Child’s Guide to Parenting, written under the supervision of Bunmi Laditan.  I’m a huge fan of HT (as anyone who follows me on Twitter will be sure to know – sorry for all the retweets, but I can’t help myself!) and here my second-favorite toddler has written a parenting guide full of LOLs.  I was rolling on the floor as I read it.

train like a mother Biggest Jock – Train Like a Mother: How to Get Across Any Finish Line – And Not Lose Your Family, Job, or Sanity, by Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea, is my pick for biggest jock.  I can always count on SBS and Dimity for a dose of motherly encouragement in running, parenting and life.  I bought their second Another Mother Runner book in hopes that they’d get me across the finish line of my first marathon.  Pregnancy intervened, but I’ll be looking to my favorite #motherrunner duo for plenty of inspiration in 2015.

these happy golden years Teacher’s Pet – Hmmmm, this was a tough category to award this year.  I usually have quite a few books in school settings, but not for 2014.  So, the superlative goes to Laura Ingalls Wilder, circa These Happy Golden Years, in which Laura tries her hand at teaching to help support her family and save money for her sister Mary to go away to a college for the blind.  Teaching is not Laura’s passion, to say the least, but she does her best, and for that she’s Teacher’s Pet this year.

my life in middlemarch Biggest Nerd – This year’s award goes to a book nerd – a lady after my own heart!  Rebecca Mead’s My Life in Middlemarch will speak to any bookworm who has read her way through the same favorite classic, to the point where it becomes part of her life story.  (That’d be Jane Eyre for me, but I certainly know what Mead is talking about.)

the golem and the jinni Most Creative – I read a lot of creative books this year, but The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker, takes the prize.  Wecker merges two cultural traditions, and two mythical beings, into a rich tapestry of a story in which 1890s New York City is another living, breathing character.  I hung on every word and didn’t want the book to end, ever.

god is an astronaut Most Opinionated – God is an Astronaut, by Alyson Foster, might seem like an odd choice for this superlative, but stick with me here.  Reading between the lines of the story, which describes the crumbling marriage of a botany professor and her husband, an executive in a private space travel company weathering a major catastrophe, there’s a lot here about science and ethics.

The Girl With All The Gifts Most Likely to End Up in Hollywood – Let me preface this by saying that if this book does end up in Hollywood, I won’t be going to see the movie.  I’m not a horror fan in general, and while I did frantically turn pages to see what would happen in M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts, and while I think it would make an incredibly gripping movie… it’s just way too scary for me!

the dead in their vaulted arches Biggest Rebel – Is there a rebel more rebellious than Flavia de Luce?  I read four of her adventures this year – A Red Herring Without Mustard, I am Half Sick of Shadows, Speaking from Among the Bones, and The Dead in their Vaulted Arches – and loved every moment of watching my favorite diabolical chemist break all the rules, solve murders and torment her two obnoxious older sisters.

amy falls down Biggest Loner – Amy Gallup, from Jincy Willet’s The Writing Class and Amy Falls Down, wins this category, hands-down.  All Amy wants is to hole up in her house with her resentful Basset hound, Alphonse, and write her blog “GO AWAY.”  But the outside world keeps intruding on Amy – first in the form of a murderous writing student, and then later in the form of unexpected career success.  What’s a washed-up recluse to do?  (Read these books, please.  They’re terrific!)

these happy golden years Cutest Couple – I read so many books with fantastic romantic plots this year, but the 2014 superlative just has to go to Laura and Almanzo Wilder, from the Little House books.  I mean, Almanzo sensing Laura’s homesickness and arriving every Friday on his sleigh to bring her home from her teaching job?  And still showing up even after she told him she was basically just using him for the ride?  Swoon.

yes chef Most Likely to Succeed – Marcus Samuelsson is a true success story, as his memoir Yes, Chef perfectly illustrates.  Born into poverty in Ethiopia and adopted, along with his sister, by a Swedish family, Marcus cultivates a love for cooking and follows his passion all the way to the top rung of the foodie career ladder – winning “Top Chef,” cooking for President Obama, and opening his own restaurant in Harlem.  He doesn’t gloss over his mistakes and failures, but you’ll cheer for him all the way.

And that wraps up my look back at bookish (or not-so-bookish) 2014!  How was your year in reading?  What book was your valedictorian, and who was your prom queen?