7 Quick Takes (Vol. 13), Slowly-Emerging-from-Hiding Edition

Yes, I'm still alive! I've actually gotten some e-mails asking this, so I'm happy to send out the official report. :-)

1. Well, after I mentioned that I would be calling down the wrath of the Scorpion gods by saying that their number was diminishing, I found three more live ones in the house over the next few weeks-- including one just two days later in the laundry room under the laundry basket! Another one ran under one of C's dress-up costumes. I had to run and grab something to smack it with, but it was gone when I got back. I picked up the costume (tulle skirt), shook it hard, and... nothing. My husband surmised that the beast had escaped elsewhere. Can you tell he knows NOTHING about the craftiness of scorpions? I shook the skirt even harder, and out tumbled the DA&% SCORPION. I knew it! I smashed him 1,000 times... because they. just. don't. die. easily.

2. To keep with this topic, I heard a crash on the back porch while I was cooking the other day and the kids were playing outside. C ran in to tattle tell me sweetly that H had knocked over our little basketball goal. As she headed back outside, she casually mentioned, "Oh, and there's a scorpion underneath it." After screaming that she'd BETTER NOT BE KIDDING ABOUT THIS, I ran outside, grabbed a flip-flop as a weapon, and flipped the goal over again. It was a big ol' mama scorpion... and that big ol' mama scorpion was COVERED in babies. See THIS if you want a (terrifying) idea of what it looked like.

She's now a dead mama scorpion with a whole bunch of dead babies.

And I don't feel the slightest bit guilty.

3. C and I are making a Confetti Cake today. How fun is THAT? It was supposed to be a while ago in honor of her namesake-saint's feast day, but life was hectic at that time. Click the photo below for the recipe we're using.

4. When I reminded C that we were going to have a (belated) party for Saint C's feast day, C asked if "she" was going to come to the party. I wasn't sure who she meant, and asked her. "St. C, " my little C said, "Is she going to come to our feast?" After I stopped laughing, I took the chance to tell her again how we're so lucky to have the saints in Heaven to pray for us, and how she's especially lucky to have Saint C looking out for her, and that I'm sure she'd be present with us at the "feast," just like how Jesus is always there with us in our celebrations and our sorrows and all the times in-between.

5. Thanks to Lauren, I started looking into Ron Paul for 2012. I'm loving almost all of what I've been reading! Currently I'm hooked on his easily-digestible latest book, Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues that Affect Our Freedom. You can read the first part (Abortion) on Kindle as a free sample if you want to get an idea of how the book is set-up, which happens to be alphabetically by essential issue. The English teacher in me loves this.

6. #5 leads me to this one, which I've stolen from another blogger. It's a video about how the media, including Fox News (though honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Fox News... despite my political leanings), has almost completely ignored Ron Paul, to the point of ridiculousness. Jon Stewart and I are rarely on the same page, but I do find him amusing sometimes.

7. We took the kids to the circus on Wednesday. I'm so spoiled now-- we were in a SUITE with its own private bathroom, fruit tray, chips and salsa and queso, popcorn, and drinks of all kinds. There was a little balcony to sit in and watch the circus, plus couches and chairs and bar stools. When you're taking two little ones to the circus, having a space to move around, plus eat, plus use a non-public potty, plus have access to water/soda/adult beverages, is just about my definition of Heaven (ok, a little bit off, but possibly not too far). And did I mention that this only cost us $30 TOTAL for the 4 of us-- AND we had free parking in a reserved lot RIGHT NEXT to the Frank Erwin Center?? See... quite close to Heavenly.

Bonus: I'm still annoyed with the fact that my blog updates so late/not-at-all in blog feeds. If you missed my post about Austin Fertility and Miscarriage Support, please read it and spread the word about this awesome ministry.

Kindle vs. Nook vs. iPad

...vs. any other eReaders out there about which I know nothing.

So, I feel it necessary to at least peek into the modern age, while keeping my feet firmly in the stone age.

Yes, I'm chiseling this onto a rough-hewn stone and magically it appears on the computer screen.

My birthday is approaching in the next couple of months, and I'm thinking that it would be a good time to have any family members who want to give a gift help me get something that I actually want/will use.

The problem is, I'm not sure if I really want an eReader. I'm a former high school and college English teacher! I like the smell of books. I like to underline and mark pages and run my hands all over the smooth spine.

Wait... we're still talking about books, right?

Some reservations I have:

- I rarely buy books. I usually get them from the library or someone gives me a book.

- Of the books I have purchased (which have mostly not been out of copyright, and thus would not be free), there are several that I didn't want to keep. I have been able to sell them to a used-book store and ended up reclaiming some of my cost. Not so with eBooks that I don't love.

- I know that many children's books are available in digital form, but when I read a book to C, part of the magic of snuggling and reading together is holding the book and letting her turn the pages. For H, the magic is solely in eating the book or throwing the book.

I'm hoping he wasn't switched at birth. I'm not sure any child of mine would ever eat or throw a book. Fortunately, he's the spitting image of my dad, so I'm going to assume for the time being that the book-throwing gene comes from M's side of the family. He likely had some delinquent Czech great-great-great grandfather who also enjoyed tossing books about the room.

- To prove I truly am living in the Stone Age, or at least the Dark Ages, I start to get all Fahrenheit 451 and fear that if everyone begins to purchase eReaders, and every new book is "printed" in digital format with only a few hard copies, then if some major catastrophe happens and the world loses power, we'll be left in a world without books.

My 3rd greatest fear in the world would be realized.

So, help me out. What are your pros and cons of eReaders? Which do you own, and would you buy it again? Price aside, would you use an iPad in place of a smaller eReader? Before purchasing an eReader, where/how did you get the majority of your books? Do you buy any books in hard copy now?
How likely do you think it is that my son was switched at birth? (Just kidding on that last one...)?

On my bookshelf, part deux

Note: Tomorrow is my day for homeschooling thoughts. I'm a bit behind because of the sick baby situation, but hope to be caught up by the morning.

I figured that while I was on a roll with the library books (I didn't drop a single one in spaghetti sauce, returned them basically on-time, and managed to shield them from both baby spit-up and other excretions), I should check out a few more. The verdict?

One I loved.

And the other? 

Let's just say that if it weren't a library book, I would have repurposed it to clean H's backside.

To start on a cheerful note, I thoroughly enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I hadn't expected to like it to the degree that I did, primarily because of the cutesy title. The book is written in letter form, and I was pleased with how richly developed many of the characters are. Yes, this is still a "beach read," but I really savored it-- the letter style meant that I could easily read it in small snippets of time as I nursed, folded laundry during quiet time, and lay in bed at night.

Unfortunately, the other book did NOT live up to whatever expectations I might have had going into it. I should have known this would be the case when I heard that Oprah liked it. I simply cannot find it in myself to like anything she likes, just because she likes it.

Eat, Pray, Love was the most narcissistic excuse for a book I've read in a long time, if ever. Setting aside the Christian-bashing (Catholic-bashing in particular), I still found Elizabeth Gilbert impossible to respect. If, at even one point in the book, she had said, "You know, I really did a terrible thing to my husband. I wish we had tried counseling together. I wish we had visited Italy together. Or gone to India. Together. Or Indonesia, or any other I-country. Or done any of the ridiculous things I did to 'discover myself' together before I chucked him to the curb and then made ridiculous excuses for my guilt. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe not. But at least I would have tried," then I could have at least respected her a bit. 

Instead, Gilbert spends a good portion of the book explaining how terribly miserable she was with her husband, even though she can't name a single fault of his. Then she falls in lust with a person who doesn't really want her, and who makes this rather clear to her, and then she tries to convince us this is love. Umm, right. 

I'll skip complaining about Italy, mainly because it just makes me hungry to think about the mass quantities of gelato and pizza she consumed. However, India drove me right up the wall, between the celebrity hotspot of an ashram and the former Catholic nun (!) who tells her that "Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you've made moral progress."

Really???

Please raise your hand if the FORMER part of "former Catholic nun" comes as a surprise.

Anyone?

Finally, Gilbert ends up in Indonesia with someone JUST. LIKE. HERSELF. Someone who, having been married before, will settle for someone who doesn't give 100% to the relationship and who convinces himself that's enough. Ridiculous.

I have to stop here. I'm feeling annoyed that I've spent this much time thinking about someone who has spent way too much time thinking about herself. 

On my bookshelf

I am a self-confessed bibliophile (this is not something you need to report me for to Child Protective Services... it just means I LOVE books!). My former roommate, Lauren, tells this story about me:

(Using Lauren's words here...)

"Lisa would walk into the living room in the morning and ask me what I was reading. I'd tell her and we'd talk about it for a minute and then she'd go on with her day. Around lunchtime she'd come through again and ask what I was reading. I'd tell her the same thing I'd said a few hours prior.

Oh, she'd say, You're still reading the same book?"

Now, I don't know if that exact conversation really ever took place, but she always tells it just about like that. The thing is, I DO love to read (heck, English was one of my majors and I taught high school English for several years, and even taught a University English class!), but I rarely get to do it anymore. For the past few years, especially since having children, my reading has been limited primarily to parenting/children's health books (Hello, Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, 5th Edition: Birth to Age 5, I'm talking about YOU, my love!), marriage books, spiritual reading, and The Economist (ahhhh... I love me some Economist! And their punctuation... sigh. I can't get enough.). Granted, when I was nursing C every two hours right after we moved, I read all of M's Hardy Boys books from his childhood and all of my Jane Austen (and Janet Evanovich!) books, but besides those and a smattering of other books here and there, I've been rather book-free for a while.

However, the last month has brought some wonderful books into my life, books that made me think and laugh and think some more. Books that I wished weren't just library books, so I could make notes in their margins, and pick them up again on rainy days when the kids were napping.

1) Same Kind of Different as Me- It's set in Fort Worth (hometown shout-out!) and opened my eyes to a new world in what I'd always considered a very familiar world. Plus, one of the doctor's mentioned in the book was at my wedding, and another doctor in the book was my gastroenterologist! It's such a moving story and I'm still trying to process what I read and figure out how to incorporate the lessons I learned into my own life.

2) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle- LOVED this book. I read just a chapter a night, so it took me forever (forever for me means about 2 weeks). I'm thinking I may need to buy my own copy so I can reread and ponder and reread and do something about my ponderings. The book is nonfiction (like Same Kind of Different as Me) and chronicles a year in the life of Barbara Kingsolver's (Bean Trees, The Poisonwood Bible) family as they tried to eat locally by growing their own veggies and fruits, raising chickens and turkeys, and buying (almost) solely local-grown foods. This idea had already been tumbling around in my brain for quite a while, given that we have access to lots of fresh, local veggies and fruits (and olive oil and wine and eggs and cheese! I live in a great part of the country!). The biggest sacrifice for me personally would be...

Can you guess?

Bananas. 

Oh, how my entire family adores you, you gorgeous golden-skinned fruit!

The book really has made me think a lot about the cost of my food, not really in terms of what I'm paying with cash, but what I'm forcing the world to pay: water/gasoline/harmful pesticides used to grow and/or transport. Kingsolver has a great example about the calories (energy) used to transport some food vs the calories (energy) I am getting from the food. In some cases it's just ridiculous in its lopsidedness. Kingsolver makes very valid points about eating seasonally, and points out that we accept the fact that bathing suits are not for the middle of winter, but we still want to eat strawberries (or other such summer fruits and veggies) out of season. I know I'm going on and on about this book (it should have gotten its own post!) but one more thing: Kingsolver comments on how various locales around the world have stopped growing things that grow best there and growing a variety of things (different types of grains or potatoes, etc) in favor of growing what the "rich countries" want, which is damaging on all fronts and is a poor use of resources. Ok, I'll get off this topic now. Read the book and report back. I'll be looking online for heirloom tomatoes now...

3) Reed of God- I've mentioned this before, but Lauren is leading a discussion of this book about Mary. I'm sticking carefully to the reading schedule (one section a week), so I'm getting to read each section about five times a week! It's an easy-to-read book and despite being written on the eve of WWII, it is completely relevant to today's world. We're only on the second section, and discuss it starting on Thursdays, so there is plenty of time to jump on in! For the record, this is NOT a library book, which is good because my fines for writing all over the book would be astronomical.

I also read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, but found myself skipping pages at times because I could already figure out where the book was going, and I wanted to get to the "good stuff." 

Ooh... hummingbird outside. Gotta get out with C and bird-watch now!

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 2)

1. I am a proud iPhone owner! M has one, too, but he's incredibly jealous (seriously!) of my cool case. It's pink and black and cute all over! I didn't really see the need for me to own one of these at first, but wow... it's already worth it's weight in gold now (which I suppose is actually not a lot, since it's pretty light). C is tech-savvy and can already operate it-- flicking through pages and pics like a pro. It's ridiculous. I'm still trying to get used to the keypad, and she figured out how to turn the silly thing on and off.

2. I can't wait to get this stamp on August 26th:

Reading this blog post by Patrick Madrid is also well-worth your time-- it talks about the furor over this particular stamp being issued by the Postal Service.

3. Following that last note, stamps make me happy! Maybe it's because I'm the daughter of a postal employee, but I've always loved cute stamps. Mom and Dad occasionally still send me some stamps, which just makes my entire week. I recently bought some Simpsons stamps and some kelp forest stamps. They even make my bills look cuter. I buy the boring Forever stamps, too, but seriously-- it's not like I'm going to stock up on those because I'm pretty sure my money is making WAY more in the bank or savings account than in my letter drawer. I heard from the local postmaster that someone bought $1,000+ of forever stamps because he wanted to beat the system. Methinks that guy needs to rethink his own system...

4. "Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody."

Farewell to J.D. Salinger, whose Catcher in the Rye I somehow managed not to read until last year. How did I miss this book?? It's part of pop culture just as much as it is fine literature! Annie Hall, Jerry Maguire, The Good Girl, Billy Joel, the Jonas Brothers, Rick Springfield, and Spandau Ballet (among many, many others) all reference that work.

I'm linking a video that reminds me of why I love teaching-- I love to get students invested in the stories of the authors and the times that books were written, like Craig Ferguson does here.

5. Bring on the Olympics! I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that my hubby loves the Winter Olympics, especially (wait for it...) ICE SKATING! C skates around the living room and does little jumps and spins, so this will be fun. Yay for our TV! Yay for the Olympics!

6. Again about TV... loving the fact that we can watch Netflix movies/TV via the PS3 on our TV. M and I finished Season 3 of Dexter and now we've started back at Season 1 to see everything we missed. C likes to watch Thomas and Friends and I've found other cute shows (The Muppets, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, etc) that I can turn on no matter what time it is, TV show-wise. Since we don't have cable, it's been nice to expose her to more learning shows besides the morning PBS ones (she often is still asleep for Sesame Street!).

7. M makes the best White Russian drinks ever. That's all I have on that. Mmmm.