2015 reading list

Another year of reading a book a week-

1) Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (very good, meaty book-historical fiction, part of a series and also spawned a TV series, I've not ready any more of the books nor seen the show)
2) Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, VC Andrews
3) Family Storms, VC Andrews
4) Cloudburst, VC Andrews
Note: I loved VC Andrews books as a teen. She passed away many years ago, but the family has hired a ghostwriter to finish several story outlines that she'd made at her death.  I read these 3 books and wasn't impressed, I think my love affair with VC Andrews has come full circle and is over, sigh.
5) My Father's Wives, Mike Greenberg
6) The Magician's Lie, Greer McAlister
7) Have a Little Faith, Mitch Album
8) Look Again, Lisa Scottoline
9) Come Home, Lisa Scottoline
10) Rescue Me, Lisa Scottoline (love this author!)
11) I am Malala, Malala Yousafzai
12) Land of Stories, Chris Colfer (who played Kurt on Glee-a series of really great stories based on fairy tales-We read them with C and all enjoy them very much)
13) Betrayed
14) Tidying Up-Kon Mari
15) At Home in Mitford (I do like the Mitford books having grown up Episcopal, attended United Methodist church as an adult and currently Anglican.  These are light, enjoyable books)
16) The Lord of the City by Bryan Gregory (that would be my brother!)
17) Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple (my good friend recommended this book about a family from Seattle and I LOVED it)
18) The BFG, Ronald Dahl (read with C)
19) You Take it from Here
20) The Angry Optimist: Life & Times of Jon Stewart (a few days later, I answered a Jeopardy question based on this book and the hubs was amazed with my trivia knowledge!)
21) Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
22) The Manticore, Roberson Davies (not my favorite books- a bit dark)
23) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I did enjoy this and the next one is on my bedside table for 2016)
24) Dad is Fat, Joe Gaffigan
25) Girl on the Train
26) Amelia Peabody (Egyptian 1920s era book)
27) Dear Mr. Knightly (I enjoyed this one)
28)A Light in the Window by Jan Karon (Another Mitford book)
29) Why do Men Have Nipples? (bought for me by a friend)
30) The Racketeer-John Grisham (enjoyed in my hammock this summer)
31) Out to Canaan-Jan Karon
32) In the Unlikely Event, Judy Blume (based on a real, historical event from the author's life-I was enthralled by this one)
33) Yes, Please-Amy Poehler
34) The Lowlands
35) The Enchantress Returns- Chris Colfer (2nd book)
36) Wicked- it was ok, I don't know that it lived up to the hype, however
37) Divergent-Roth-Liked it but I've not read the other books in the series or seen the movie-I'm afraid to break the spell of how much I enjoyed this book
38) Love Anthony, Lisa Genova (also wrote Still Alice, a book about Autism)
39) Inside the O'Briens, Lisa Genova (about Huntington's Disease)
40) Things You Won't Say, Sarah Pekkanen
41) Looking for Alaska, John Green (teen book but good, quick read)
42) Friendship, Emily Gould
43) The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende-based in South America in 1920 or 1940s
44) An Abundance of Katherines, John Green
45) Paper Towns, John Green
46) Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess, her first book Let's Pretend this Never Happened is much funnier, but this one is a great mix of funny stories and explaining how depression feels)
47) Is Everyone Hanging out without me? Mindy Kaling (ok)
48) The Last Time We say Goodbye, Cynthia Hard
49) The Mountain Story, Lori Lansens (like Unbroken, I didn't want to like this story of survival, but I really got into the book)
50)  Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng
51) Library of Souls, Ransom Riggs (the 3rd book of Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children-like the others-fast moving, riviting and really need to pay attention due to all the "peculiar" terms)
52) The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I truly, Completely Lost It, Lisa Shanahan
53) A Perfect Match, Jody Picolt-Like her other books well written and keeps you holding on for the ride, but I kind of figured out the main turning point of the story about 1/4 of the way through.  A twist at the end I didn't figure out though.

Fall Routines

Fall for us ramps up slowly.  First, the kids go back to school.  Then they bring home from school the requisite homework for the parents.  About 2 weeks later they start after-school activities, then a few weeks later they start the winter after school activities, then finally, mid-October (our Thanksgiving here in Canada) curling starts.  Since P and I are both at home right now many people wonder what we do all day.  Before curling starts up, we have time to play board games together, run errands together, bake or, more likely, have lunch together. A typical week  right now goes something like this:

Monday-go for a run after I drop off the kids at school, clean up the house after everyone being home on the weekend, P and I both curl in our club’s competitive league this evening so we’re either dropping the kids off at my inlaws after school if we curl at the same time, or flying solo through dinner and switching the kids between us at the curling club on the other side of town so the adult who didn’t prepare dinner can put the kids to bed.

Tuesday-I go to H’s class and listen to his classmates read their family reading books to me in the morning, then I’ve been heading over to my sister-in-law’s house for an abdominal workout,  then in the afternoon have a curling game. After school V has gymnastics the same time C has kickboxing so I spend the evening dropping V off, then C, then picking up V, then C.  I usually have a whole 15 minutes I can pick up something at the grocery store in this back and forth.

Wednesday- another run after I drop off the kids, then there’s a pickup league in the afternoon if we want some extra curling practice, or often I will go over to the US to do some shopping-usually stuff that the kids like that is either expensive (say ink for my printer) or hard to find over here (Ritz in a sleeve instead of thrown all together in a bag).  In the evening C has kickboxing with a friend and we alternate who does the driving.

Thursday-I have a curling game in the morning, the afternoon is usually spent running around grocery shopping or running or, there is an adult ice skating time at our local arena (I’ve taken advantage in the past, but so far not this year) or taking care of any other errands that I want to get done without kids in tow. After school H has gymnastics and either C takes another kickboxing class (he can take as many as he’s qualified for of kickboxing and Jiu Jitsu for one monthly price) or P or I will substitute in the curling league on Thursday nights.

Friday-Usually a run after dropping off the kids, taking care of anything that needs to be taken care of before the weekend and then the little kids have ice skating lessons in the evening. They both seem to enjoy it-V is starting to slide instead of walk on the ice and H races around like a speed demon.  He’ll probably skate better than I can by the spring.

Weekends we either have free time, in which case I am thankful I can usually rally the troops to do a 60-90 minute full on house mid-Saturday morning pick up if the house needs it.  There may be a birthday party or P may have a bonspiel with his team that he hopes to play down for US Nationals with again this year.  Sunday we try to make it to church in the morning, curling for the boys in the afternoon (C’s finally getting his stride and is playing short games this year- he’s also talked his friend into joining him) and then many times we have dinner with my inlaws before heading home to get ready to do it all again.

Some videos from Ice skating: H's got the black coat with lightning bolts on his helmet-V has a pink hood and snowflakes on her helmet.

In this one V falls and when she realizes H has helped her up she hugs him.

H wiggling backwards skating

 

 

V is really starting to get it

 

 

H is becoming a little bit of a show-off!

 

The boys participated in the kids' holiday curling bonspeil. C's team won first place and he was the skip-he's really starting to come along in his game!  H's team won 2nd and his skip didn't want to give a speech, so H very excitedly took the microphone and exclaimed, "this was a really great bonspeil and they have really great prizes!"  Santa then showed up and asked H if he'd been good. He explained, "well, not all the time, but I really try to be good, but sometimes it's hard.  I don't try to be bad, though."

Halloween

The kids were pretty solid in their choices of Halloween costumes and activities this year.  V wanted to be Elsa from Frozen (perfect-have the costume, her cousin was Elsa last year so we have a wig available)  H wanted to be a stickman (doable due to his still fitting in his skeleton pajamas from last year or the year before and the fact that I have the rest of a 100 pack of glow sticks from V wanting them as a handout for her classmates for her birthday last spring).  C wanted to be the Headless Horseman.  I have no idea what inspired this, but we have the cape my mom made my nephew several years ago that he’s used for a few costumes I just needed to figure out the head.  After thinking about the pinterest posts that have popped up about making ghosts using cheesecloth (available at our Bulk Barn & dollar stores) and liquid starch (this was a little trickier, I tracked some down at Walmart.com and had it mailed to a friend in the US) over a balloon (dollar store).  My first attempt did work, but painting it orange was taking all my paint and time.  So I used the other ½ of the package of cheese cloth and found orange paint at the dollar store and smashed the cloth into the paint until it was saturated, squeezed out the excess, put it over the first attempt then sprayed the starch over it and voila!  Pumpkin head!  Added some black paint for the face, cut out with scissors and added some fabric leaves I had in my scrapbook stash and we were in business.

The school was having a “work to rule” strike meaning the teachers are only working to their job descriptions, no extras until their negotiations for their contracts were secure.  Among other things, this meant no field trips, including no field trips to the Pumpkin patch.  On the last Saturday before Halloween I told the kids that if we were going to do pumpkins, this was our last chance.  They all looked up from playing and unanimously decided to skip the carving this year.  Yes, it was a little sad, but we really didn’t miss the mess and time, etc.  our small front entry way is  where most of our Halloween decorations go and it was full and festive even without them.  Incidentally, shortly after Halloween, the teachers quit doing after school activities and 2 days later the contract was hammered out and the partial strike over.

Before Halloween we had a very lovely Thanksgiving over at my in-laws with plenty of food and cheer.  While having Thanksgiving and Halloween in the same month seems a little rushed, I enjoy having almost a full 2 months between Halloween and Christmas.  Remembrance Day (Canadian version of Veteran’s Day) is given it’s solemnity in November, but the only preparation is for assemblies and to make sure to get your poppy pin.

Now that we have gotten into our fall routine it’s time for me to take a girl’s weekend away for scrapbooking convention in Seattle.  I was also able to have a weekend away shortly after school started in NY for scrapbooking where I was able to catch up through the late spring with the kids’ and our family photo books. I have summer and fall pictures to scrapbook, but this weekend is mostly classes and enjoying being myself with friends.  Honestly, I just didn’t get around to packing up what it would take to actually work on my current pictures and I made my Christmas cards between the kids going back to school and curling starting up. I know I’ll be bringing plenty of luggage back between the latest scrapbook supplies from the vendor fair, my class projects, Christmas goodies for the kids from my parents and all our U.S. Mail that has arrived since our summer trip.  With a busy household, it takes a legion of post-its, an understanding husband (I hold down the fort while he’s curling long weekends and he holds down the fort when I need to have a weekend away) and in-laws on call for this to happen.  It’s worth the prep though to remind myself who I am outside of my daily life and my family gets back a happy, refreshed Mom.

 Halloween pictures & video of Henri's glow in the dark stick man.

 

 

We also went to the free first day at the local pumpkin farm

 

They also got haircuts. V wanted hers cut even shorter but I told her if she still wants it cut shorter in Spring I'll let her do it...