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Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (July 2015)

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After last month’s success with reviewing, it’s almost guaranteed that this month I’d be behind on reviews – but not too far. Mostly, I have lots to write about NARNIA.

Fiction read this month:

  • The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
    My in-real-life bookclub selection for the month of July. I’m going to review this someday (maybe) – but, for now, I’ll just say that it’s a powerful fictionalized retelling of the life of Sarah Grimke, a noted abolitionist and early women’s rights activist. It’s definitely worth reading.
  • The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
    I’m in Narnia for the Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge – and was surprised at how little I remember from this book (it’s been, what, five years since I last read it?) I have lots of thoughts but haven’t written any up yet – which means you might be inundated over the next week.
  • 2 picture books author last name BROWN
    I’m moving really slowly through the “Arthur books” because, well, I rather despise them. Thanks to all those who offered some alternatives on that post :-)
  • 13 board books
    I’ll be talking more about these on Read Aloud Thursday – coming up in just a couple of days!

Nonfiction read this month:

Books about Children and Parenting:

  • Before Their Time by Daniel Taylor and Ronald Hoekstra
    A wonderful collection of stories from a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Minneapolis. I reviewed it, and wrote a few more reflections about our own NICU experience, in this post.
  • Your Child at Play: Birth to One Year by Marilyn Segal
    A month-by-month guide to your baby’s development with lots of activities you can do with your child. I loved it, but it’s a bit outdated and modern parents might notice some safety concerns. You can read my full review here.

Books about Essential Oils:

  • Essential Energy by Nikki Goldstein
  • The Essential Oils Book by Colleen K. Dodt
    Everyone and their dog is doing essential oils these days, so I figured I’d try to see what the buzz is about. So far, I see lots of unsubstantiated claims and frankly silly pseudoscience. Does that means there’s nothing to it at all? No, not necessarily – just that there’s a lot of opportunity for research, and that until the research has been done, it’s worth taking the advice of aromatherapists with a grain of salt. I have mini-reviews of these written, just not posted. So…one of these days.

Books about Health:

  • Lean Mommy by Lisa Druxman
    An excellent, balanced approach to establishing a healthy lifestyle after having a baby. Even if you don’t plan on doing Druxman’s “Stroller Strides” exercises, this is still a worthwhile book to have postpartum. I wrote about the book (and about my own postpartum body issues) here.
  • Eat This, Not That! by David Zincezenko and Matt Goulding
    The concept of this book is great as a column, not so great as a book – lists of the “best and worst” foods in more than a dozen categories (and healthier switches you can make.) I reviewed the book in greater detail here

Books about Houses:

  • Atomic Home: A Guided Tour of the American Dream by Whitney Matheson
    Sparse text. Lots of full-color pictures, generally from advertisements, of tract homes (and their furnishings) from the 1950s. Lots of kitsch. Lots of reminiscing (except that it isn’t reminiscing for me ’cause I never experienced the ’50s). Lots of fun.
  • Get Your House Right by Marianne Cusato & Ben Pentreath
    I skimmed rather than read this almost 250 page text aimed at preventing McMansions. It contains a lot of good architectural advice – and a lot of supercilious upturned noses.

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Eat This, Not That! by David Zincezenko and Matt Goulding

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You’re flipping through a magazine at the doctor’s office and a column catches your eye. “Eat This!” it proclaims, pointing at a full-color photo of some restaurant entree. Beside it, another photo declares, “Not That!” A couple call-out boxes give fast and dirty nutrition info, the amount of calories you’ll save by switching from one entree to the other, and some other quick nutrition trivia about one or the other of the items.

Fun, right?

I imagine I’d think so if I saw such a column (although it’s unlikely I would, since it could – maybe still can? – be found in Men’s Health).

Now, put 415 pages of that together into a book about the dimensions of a children’s board book, except, well 415 pages long.

Fun?

Not exactly. Or at least, I didn’t think so.

Eat This, Not That! has 24 chapters, including “The Best (& Worst) Breakfasts in America”, “The Best (& Worst) Supermarket Foods”, and “The Best (& Worst) Foods for Your Blood Pressure”. Each chapter includes a two page “Eat This, Not That” spread like the one I listed above, before providing a countdown of 15-20 of the worst foods (with plenty of pictures). Each “worst food” (example: “saltiest packaged side”) is accompanied by an “eat this instead!” – giving a similar item that’s not as unhealthy. The end of each chapter gives a “Hall of Fame”, with about five items that are good bets.

Overall, the information is pretty good – mostly focused on calories, sodium, fat calories, and trans fats. Callout boxes highlight things to look for or substitutions to make (pesto instead of mayo switches healthy fats for unhealthy and adds antioxidants) and little blurbs here and there discuss how to choose a healthy sandwich, for example, or make a healthy pizza.

But a whole book of it is simply not sustainable. I love food. I love nutrition. But I struggled to make it through this book (that said, most people probably aren’t going to read every word like I did.)

Now, a lot of that might be because I don’t eat a lot of restaurant food or prepackaged meals or snacks. If I do, I’m choosing it as an indulgence. All that “if you switch this for that once a week, you can save x pounds per year” stuff? It doesn’t really apply to me because I don’t drink sweetened drinks, don’t eat packaged snacks, don’t buy frozen meals, don’t go to restaurants frequently. Someone else who finds themselves relying on convenience foods or restaurants for a greater portion of their intake might find this book more useful.

Of course, I wouldn’t be myself unless I had some sort of beef with this book nutritionally speaking. The authors are wary of additives and anything unpronounceable – in a way that ignores what science actually exists about the additives they’re denigrating and fails to recognize that some food additives actually make our food supply more safe! Believe it or not, a long ingredient list doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat something. (In fact, I have quite a few recipes that have 20, 30, 50 ingredients once you count the ingredients that went into the components of the recipe.)

So… should you read this book? Eh, check it out of the library and browse it, especially if you use a lot of convenience foods and/or eat out a lot. But I wouldn’t buy it.

Rating: 2 stars
Category: Nutrition
Synopsis: The authors give lists of the best and worst foods you can buy at restaurants or prepackaged at the grocery store – and substitutions to improve your nutritional choices.
Recommendation: Neat concept for a column, okay to browse, but not great for reading straight through.

Categories Recap

Recap (2015.07.26)

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In my spirit:

  • I finished 2 Thessalonians and am on to Titus – thinking about how sound doctrine enables us to devote ourselves to good works (versus foolish controversies)
  • Learning that “loving my husband and child” doesn’t always mean being touchy-feely. It’s hard work – and can go against the grain.
  • Grieving and rejoicing over the death of a man from church, the father of a friend, who welcomed us warmly into their extended clan when we first started attending at First Free. 62 years is such a short time to live, but Stu lived it for God’s glory – and is now standing beholding God’s glory.

In the living room:

  • Daniel had arranged for us to have lunch with family friends yesterday – so I spent the morning cleaning the house like a crazy woman. Half hour after the arranged time they texted us to ask if we were still on – come to find out they’d never actually specified whose house we were having lunch at and both sides had assumed they’d be hosting. My meal was cold dishes, so I put my stuff in the fridge and we had dinner at their house. But at least my house is clean. (*Looking around… er, at least my house WAS clean :-P)
  • We had some excitement this week when a domestic dispute in the neighborhood turned ugly and police were searching the area for a runaway shooter. Tirzah Mae and I had lots of little talks about what police officers do and about the different units we saw – patrol cars, canine units, CSI.

In the kitchen:

  • A gal from church gave us zucchini, so I improvised a one-pot pasta dish with zucchini, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, and sausage seasoned with Italian herbs. It was quite good – I’m glad I wrote down what I put into it as I went along :-)
  • If you’re like me, you grew up eating grilled cheese made with American cheese (and I loved it, so long as it was accompanied by from-scratch tomato soup). These Caprese Grilled Cheese Sandwiches are a grown-up and oh-so-delicious variation on the theme (no soup required!)
  • We have tons of grape juice concentrate left over from past Seders, so I mixed up a can to use for my Jello salad. Have you ever made “homemade” jello with Knox gelatin and fruit juice? You should. All you’ve got to do is sprinkle 1 packet Knox gelatin over 1 cup cold grape juice. Let it sit for a minute to hydrate before adding 1 cup boiling grape juice (I boil it in the microwave in my Pyrex liquid measure). Mix until gelatin is dissolved, then add blueberries, sliced strawberries, and sliced bananas. Refrigerate overnight and you’ve got a delicious treat with lots of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber – and no added sugars.

In the nursery:

  • Tirzah Mae has learned to bang. She loves to stand up against the footstool in our living room and bang on it with her hands. It’s great fun!
  • We spent an hour or so on the front porch in a tub of water one day this week, and Tirzah Mae just adored splashing and watching the wind blow through the leaves on our trees.
  • Sleep has been improving this week overall, thanks to aggressive management
  • Tirzah Mae had her first Sunday in the nursery this week (I had to get her used to it since her mama will be teaching Sunday School soon) – and the workers said she did great. Unfortunately, she’s been ridiculously fussy and clingy all afternoon – and only mama (preferably nursing) will do. I’m hoping the clinginess is due to overtiredness or teething and NOT to some sort of after-the-fact separation anxiety.

In the craft room:

  • I got nothin’

In the library:
aka “Books added to TBR list”

In the garden:

  • We’re eating cucumbers – they’ve been coming one or two at a time until now, but there’s a whole rash of little ones set on now, so I suspect I’ll be ready to make some fresh pickles soon here (instead of just having cucumbers as a part of salads.)

On the land:

  • We applied for our construction loan – and now the waiting game is on (*twiddling thumbs*)

On the web:

  • 8 Things You Can Do With Your Kids That Don’t Suck – I’ve been enjoying PJ media’s parenting column for the past few weeks – and this list of ideas for playing with your kids seems like a great one to me. (I’m not a huge fan of directed play or of parents inserting themselves into kids’ imaginative play – these ideas let kids’ free play stay as free play, while giving parents special things to do with their kids.)
  • He Has to Be Tall – A witty little poem about unreasonable and reasonable items on a single girl’s list of qualifications for a husband.
  • Theological Heroes and Villains – “The problem, I am convinced, is that we expect a kind of consistency that is just not realistic for people so deeply stained by sin. We want our heroes and our villains to be monolithic, to play their roles perfectly. But this world is rarely so clean and neat.” Great thoughts.
  • Waiting to Pick Your Baby’s Name Raises the Risk for Medical Mistakes – This was an interesting article (catching up from last week) – but I wonder if the headline is misleading. Nobody asked us if we’d had a name picked out for our baby before she was born – and we announced it the moment we knew she was a girl. Even so, Tirzah Mae’s chart read “Garcia, Babygirl” for all 26 days of her hospitalization. (And let me tell you, I’m guessing the chances of there being another baby girl with a last name of Garcia are pretty high!)
Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Lean Mommy by Lisa Druxman

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Most women, regardless of their history, experience some degree of dissatisfaction with their bodies after having a baby. I, despite my long history of being comfortable in my own skin, have been no exception.

It wasn’t particularly about the weight for me – although that contributes. Because of how much fluid I’d gained, I lost over 50 pounds in the first three weeks of Tirzah Mae’s life. That might have felt good, except for the overwhelming sense I had that my body had failed me – and Tirzah Mae.

Sometimes people will remark that Tirzah Mae “just wanted to come out” – and I have to bite back an angry remark. Tirzah Mae’s premature birth had nothing to do with Tirzah Mae. It wasn’t her body that stopped regulating its blood pressure. It wasn’t her body that started spilling protein in her urine. It wasn’t her liver that shut down, making the womb inhospitable to life. It was MY body. It was MY womb that was poised to become a living coffin (although not for long – it would have killed me in addition to Tirzah Mae.) My body betrayed us. That’s why Tirzah Mae was born early.

Even when thankfulness for Tirzah Mae’s safe delivery overcame the sense of my body’s betrayal, I still felt dissatisfaction towards my body. My weight came down, my blood pressure started coming down – but I spent a month seeing in shades of gray except for occasional bright floaters. My weight came down and started rising again, stabilizing about 25 pounds higher than my pre-pregnancy weight. For the first time in my life, I was overweight.

But the weight wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was how weak I was. I exercised regularly during my pregnancy – my second trimester before I started retaining water was probably the fittest I’ve ever been. But after nearly a month of some form of bedrest, 8 days of it hospitalized, I couldn’t do anything. I was weak, I got winded, I felt every muscle in my body after formerly routine movements. My body betrayed me again.

The weakness (and a desire to be ready for VBAC next time around) is what motivated me to get exercising after Tirzah Mae was born – and I’ve been taking the opportunity to also read the books my library has available to help postpartum moms get fit.

Lisa Druxman’s Lean Mommy is the best book I’ve read so far.

Reasons I love Lean Mommy:

  • It’s not all about the weight – it’s [honestly] about making healthy lifestyle changes
  • It uses the [science-based] Cognitive-Behavior Therapy to help moms change self-defeating thoughts and actions
  • It gives a straightforward program for physical fitness and healthy eating habit formation – with different regimens depending on your starting fitness level
  • Apart from an overemphasis on choosing organic and avoiding additives, the nutrition advice was actually not terrible (which is saying a LOT!)

I was already working out regularly when I started reading this book – and what I was doing was working for me – so, apart from trying the workouts once, I didn’t follow this program. But I would have no qualms about doing this program straight through.

The author is the founder of “Stroller Strides” – a playdate slash exercise group that walks with their kids in strollers – and the workouts come from this program. Which means having a stroller definitely makes it easier to do this program (I didn’t when I first borrowed the book from the library). So does having exercise bands (I didn’t and still don’t – I used free weights.) That said, even if you don’t choose to do the three different workouts detailed in this book, the book still has plenty to offer in helping you set up an individualized program for getting fit after having a baby.

I recommend it.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Postpartum fitness
Synopsis: The author helps mothers establish healthy exercise and eating habits after having a baby – all while enjoying their babies and modeling healthy attitudes towards their bodies, exercise, and eating.
Recommendation: An excellent resource for moms – even if they don’t intend to use the “Stroller Strides” workouts found within

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Healthy Habits

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Thankful Thursday banner

Tirzah Mae’s development has been occurring in leaps and bounds – meaning lots of changes for mom. By God’s grace, most of those changes have been for the better!

This week I’m thankful…

…for intentional eating
Tirzah Mae’s self feeding, which forces me to be very intentional about my meal plans – coming up with foods that she can finger feed herself that will help her establish healthy eating patterns. This means I’m taking the extra time to cut up fruit (which otherwise might have gone bad in my fridge because I’m super lazy about doing things like washing and stemming grapes or berries when I’m doing it for myself.) It means I’m including a cooked vegetable in addition to a raw one at meals (because Tirzah Mae still has a hard time with most raw veggies). It means Daniel and I are eating better than ever.

…for taking time
Once upon a time, I lamented how much time breastfeeding took. Now, I realize that’s nothing compared to spoon feeding a voracious infant. Meals with Tirzah Mae can take a LONG time – and spoon feeding her (which I still do for most meats and anything gooey or mashed) means I have to put down my own fork or spoon multiple times throughout a meal. I don’t overeat as much because the extra time gives my body a chance to tell me I’m full before I overeat.

…for a cup of tea
We generally do finger foods for snacks – and these too take a long time. Problem is, they don’t necessarily take ME a long time (I just cut up a piece of fruit or chunk up a piece of homemade zucchini bread). So I can be tempted to sit at the table and eat way too much. Until I realized that I could nurse a hot cup of tea while Tirzah Mae does her thing. I eat a small snack while my tea is brewing, and then sip my tea until Tirzah Mae is done. I get a relaxing break from daily activities – and I don’t get the extra (unneeded) calories from continued snacking.

…for exercise in expert mode
I’ve been switching up my exercise routine, trying things with greater intensity and greater resistance. Tirzah Mae’s been switching it up too – crawling beneath me while I’m doing planks or over me while I’m doing pushups, grabbing ahold of my raised legs to pull herself to standing while I’m doing reverse curls (true stories, all). My brother calls trying to do anything with a toddler “expert mode” – hearkening to video game modes that put the player in control of absolutely everything (meaning that the player is going crazy trying to control way too much). I begin to understand the concept.

…for better sleep
We’ve been trying some new stuff with Tirzah Mae this week – and it seems to be paying off. She’s sleeping a little better, and I’m sleeping much better. The last couple of nights, we’ve gotten up for a while during her middle of the night period of wakefulness (which coincides with Daniel’s morning waking – CRAZY!) and have played a while before she goes back to sleep. Then I can eat breakfast with Daniel and we can chat a bit before he goes to work – at which point I go back to sleep for another couple of hours as well. It’s been working well – making me feel more rested AND giving me some additional alone time with Daniel, which is just terrific.

…for payoff
It’s too early to say that these changes are making a certain difference in those externals with which we measure health – but sometimes the little gains (even if they’re flukes) are encouraging. Increasing my workout and still being able to breathe. Feeling the pleasant soreness of muscle use the next day after a workout. Seeing the lowest number on the scale since my weight rose to its present point six weeks or so after Tirzah Mae was born. Having consistently normal blood pressures on the first reading every day (even if I was nursing or Tirzah Mae was climbing over me – yes, this is how I take my blood pressure!)

These are small things. Things of this mortal body. Things corruptible.

Yet I am thankful that Christianity is not Gnosticism, that God does not denigrate the body.

Instead, He created our bodies, he calls us to worship Him with our bodies – and He promises that one day He will transform our bodies.

Today, I am thankful for the body He’s given me – and for the grace He’s given this week to glorify Him with it.

“‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything. ‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. ”
~1 Corinthians 6:12-14 (ESV)

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Before Their Time by Daniel Taylor and Ronald Hoekstra

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Viability. Such a cold term for such a sad reality – that there is a point in a baby’s development before which he cannot survive outside the womb.

Medical advances have pushed the age of viability back further than ever imagined – but it still exists. Babies of a certain age can’t live outside their mothers.

The difficulty is, age of Viability isn’t a magic number. It’s a spectrum. Two babies born at just under 22 weeks have survived (according to Wikipedia) – but 0 out of a hundred babies born under 22 weeks will survive. At 23 weeks, about a quarter of the babies will survive – but most of these survivors will experience some level of disability due to their prematurity. Not until 24 weeks is the chance of living greater than the chance of dying.

For this reason, debate goes back and forth as to how much work to do, how much machinery to use , how much money to spend to try to save a child whose likelihood of living is miniscule.

Daniel Taylor and Ronald Hoekstra’s Before Their Time doesn’t try to debate age of viability or to argue for a standardized approach to caring for a preemie – but it does tell the story of six preemies born within the tenuous period of questionable viability. Four of the six were born at 23 weeks, while two – twins – were born at 25 weeks. In addition to being born with low viability, each of these children was cared for by Dr. Hoekstra, a neonatalogist, at Minneapolis’s Children’s Hospital and Clinic.

When I first started reading Before Their Time, I was impressed to learn that Dr. Hoekstra was a believer. I know what a comfort it is to have a believing doctor in a time of crisis.

When I was on bedrest, preparing to deliver a premature baby (although nowhere near as premature as the babies in this book), I asked to have a neonatalogist visit me in my hospital room to discuss what would happen after I delivered. One of the neonatalogists came by to answer my questions – many of which were about what to expect if my baby were born at a particular point in my pregnancy or another. The doctor explained the many variables that influence outcomes in a preemie, and then, nodding to the Bible sitting on my bedside table, said, “I see that you are a person of the Book. Pray. God is the one who ultimately determines what will happen.”

I had only minimal interactions with that doctor – another doctor cared for Tirzah Mae and we mostly got updates through one of the neonatal nurse practitioners. But just knowing that one of the doctors in the practice was a believer was a great encouragement.

As I read further, reading story after story of people of faith (some more in line with my own theological bent, some less), I realized that this was a Christian book. I finally got around to reading the back cover of the book (Yes, I selected it to read based solely on the title and the reality that it was a book my library owned about preemies) and discovered that the book was published by InterVarsity Press. That made so much sense.

Yet this isn’t a theological treatise, it isn’t even a book of “testimonies”. It’s stories. Honest stories about moms and dads making tough decisions. Doubting. Believing. Fearing. Rejoicing. Grieving. It’s about how tiny babies, with dozens of difficulties, affected their families, their communities. It’s about how families and communities affected tiny babies.

It’s beautiful.

I am so very glad that I read it.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Stories of premature babies
Synopsis: The stories of six children born on the edge of viability – and the stories of their families, caregivers, and communities.
Recommendation: If the subject matter interests you at all, it’s definitely worth reading.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Your Child at Play: Birth to One Year by Marilyn Segal

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Your Child at Play gives the basics of what to expect from your child developmentally as well as a variety of activites you can do with your child for each month of the first year. It includes hundreds of photos of babies and parents engaging in the suggested activities. It’s simply packed with ideas.

Published in 1998, it’s also super-outdated. The author recommends not a few activities and toys that are no longer recommended because of safety concerns.

I thought it was great. I collected dozens of activities from among the hundreds included and have used them with Tirzah Mae.

That said, I’m not sure whether other moms would find this helpful. My observation has been that many moms feel insecure in their ability to wade through the waters of “developmental appropriateness” and “child safety” and choose one of two ways of dealing with that. Either they choose an expert that they trust implicitly and follow everything that expert says to the T (Babywise or Dr. Sears devotees, anyone?) or they are just simply terrified of everything and parent by taboos (I can’t let my child out of my sight, my child should never encounter a string or ribbon, I can’t let my baby roll onto her tummy in her sleep, etc.)

This book would not be helpful to either type of parents. The terrified-of-everything parents will become terrified quickly and have nightmares of all the terrible things that could happen to parents who try stuff from this book. And the expert-trusting parents will have to endure the censure of terrified parents – and may put their child at risk if they leave him unsupervised to play with the toys made on the books recommendation (or to engage in the activities the book suggests.) On the other hand, it’s highly unlikely that a child could be hurt while engaging in these activities under supervision.

So, should you read this book?

Judge for yourself. Are you looking for ideas for activities to do with your infant? Do you have the time and energy to be discerning about which activities to try? Do you have easy access to this book via a library or can you find it cheaply at a used store? Then go for it.

If not, may I recommend Retro Baby by Anne Zachry? It’s got a lot of similar activity ideas, but is more up-to-date as far as safety recommendations go.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Infant Play activities
Synopsis: A month-by-month listing of activities you can do with your baby in his first year of life
Recommendation: Lots of nice suggestions, but safety recommendations have changed since this is written, so parents will have to be discerning.

Categories Recap

Recap (2015/07/19)

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There’s no rule that a recap post has to be on a weekend, right? This was written on Saturday, but I hadn’t “finished” it so I didn’t post it. I still haven’t finished it (there are a few more books and some articles that caught my eye this week that won’t get shared) – but I figured that what’s here is still worth posting.

In my spirit:

  • Working on confessing sin and “plowing my heart” rather than just “moving past” situations I’ve become (or am becoming) bitter about
  • Nearing the end of my time in 2 Thessalonians and still no closer to having figured out what the “man of lawlessness” refers to – thank God that His word accomplishes His purposes without me having to understand it all!

In the living room:

  • I did the leg workout as I described last week (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off for three sets, separated by 5 minutes marching in place) – and I both kept my balance and could still breathe when I was done. Score! Next week, I think I’ll try 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off
  • I watched a television show BY MYSELF this week – The first episode of “Call the Midwife”. It was fun, but I’m not certain I’ll be repeating it – if I’m going to be doing nothing, I’d rather read a book.

In the kitchen:

  • Daniel couldn’t stop raving about this Thai curry (I used wax potatoes instead of sweet potatoes, upped the amount of snow peas, and skipped the Bok Choy. It was mild enough that I felt no qualms serving it to Tirzah Mae.)
  • We don’t cook for man’s applause – but this Herbed Ricotta Gnocchi will get you it nonetheless. I tried something different this time – made a double batch and froze half. We’ll see how the frozen gnocchi turns out.
  • Made this chicken cacciatore and wasn’t tremendously impressed – it was pretty watery and I wasn’t too fond of the texture of the chicken (which was probably my fault, since I didn’t completely thaw AND DRAIN the chicken before searing it.) Daniel did say that the mushrooms weren’t bad (high praise from someone who’s been telling me since we got married that mushrooms taste like dirt to him. He gave me permission to use them though, and after this he said something to the effect that I’d “trained him well” – they’re still daunting in large pieces like this recipe includes, but he doesn’t really mind the flavor anymore.)
  • I made both cornbread and zucchini bread with my sourdough starter this week – and both recipes turned out well. Hurray!

In the nursery:

  • Days are great, nights are terrible. Tirzah Mae is developing in leaps and bounds, with fun new experiences every day – but she’s back to waking every 1.5-2 hours at night. Her night waking’s are particularly difficult because I either have to walk her to exhaustion (hers – I’m already there) or take her back to bed with me (where she’ll nurse until I decide that I need some sleep and get up to walk her to exhaustion so she’ll sleep another hour and a half in her crib.)
  • We’ve been feeding her 6-8 oz of expressed breastmilk (with her Vitamin D in it) each evening – and she’s now drinking milk from her 22nd day of life. I pretty much stopped pumping and freezing after she came home, so we have only another two weeks or so worth of milk – then I’ll have to start nursing her before bed! (Now that the freezer is emptying, it’s ready for the hog that went to butcher this week!)

In the craft room:

  • I cut out a pom-pom maker, intending to make some multicolored yarn pom-poms for Tirzah Mae to play with in an old egg carton, but I haven’t yet gotten around to actually making the pom-poms

In the library:
aka “Books added to TBR list”

In the garden:

  • I’m LOVING doing cucumbers on a trellis, it’s so much easier to pick (and takes up so much less room.) My tomatoes (the semi-determinate Celebrities)? I think I’ll be trying cages (maybe like these ones) for them next year.
  • Starting to think a lot about what I’ll do the same and what I’ll do differently next year – and wondering how much get-up-and-go I’ll actually have to garden next year when I’ll be settling from a move.

On the land:

  • We signed a contract with our builder – so now we’re in the process of getting our construction loan (where, among other things, they determine how much they think the home we plan to build will be worth on the market vs. how much we’ll be paying to build it.)
  • The removal of the trailer left behind some miscellaneous rubble – cinder blocks, broken cinder blocks, metal sheeting, and bits of lumber. We spent Saturday afternoon cleaning it up and figuring out what we’ll be doing with it (I’ve already called dibs on the cinder blocks for my next raised bed, and on the broken cinder blocks to prevent erosion in the wee ditch/stream that flows through the back corner of our lot.)
Categories Reading My Library

Arthur’s Mean [Fill-in-the-blank]

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“Oh, I love the Arthur books,” the new check-out girl at the library raved. “They’re such fun!”

I smiled politely and remained silent as she checked out my monthly half-dozen children’s picture books.

I am at that point in my read-every-book challenge where I’m yet again reading a massive children’s picture book series that I don’t particularly like.

This time, it’s Marc Brown’s Arthur.

Apart from the fact that it’s a massive series and that it’s repetitive and that the stories aren’t particularly interesting, what bugs me about Marc Brown’s Arthur series is how many meanies there are.

Almost every book includes some form of sibling rivalry, classroom taunting, or other mild bullying (although I fear to use that word, given the current anti-bullying craze.)

I understand the point. Teasing happens. Bullying happens. Brown wants to portray child life as it is, give children something to identify with. Furthermore, he probably wants kids to develop empathy with Arthur (frequently the recipient of the teasing) and hopefully to learn that it isn’t nice to bully and taunt. All understandable and noble goals.

But, while I can’t remember exactly where I read it (maybe Nurture Shock?), I remember reading that such attempts generally backfire. Rather than producing empathy and encouraging children to avoid taunting, hearing stories about children being teased only adds to a child’s arsenal of ways to pick on other children. Children don’t come up with “four-eyes” on their own – they hear it on a television show or read about it in Arthur’s Eyes. And when they hear about it, they don’t file it away as “something I wouldn’t like to be called” – they file it away as “something to throw at my glasses-wearing-classmate next time I feel like being superior.”

So what kind of stories would I prefer?

I’d prefer stories that focus on kids banding together to overcome obstacles and fight real bad guys – bad guys so scary they’d never want to be them. I prefer the fairy tale version of life, where children must be smart and slay dragons instead of each other.

What do you think of Arthur? Do you have any favorite children’s picture book series?

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Gardens

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I’ve been gardening for a few years now, with nominal success. I’ve started slow, trying to learn to be faithful in little – and, by God’s grace, the garden has gotten better and better each year. This year is the best yet. Today, I am so thankful for my garden and for others’ gardens, for the grace of God in worked soil and fruitful plants.

This week I’m thankful…

…for a chance to reflect
I’ve never been a super intentional gardener, but I took some time after weeding this week to make some notes on what worked and what hasn’t worked with the garden this year (to help me with planning future gardens). I’m glad to be slowly growing as a gardener.

…for broccoli still going strong
Did I mention that my broccoli is still going? My mom always got rid of her plants before now (even farther north.) I’m not sure if that’s because they wouldn’t produce or just because it was too much work to keep up with harvesting, but I’m delighting in fresh broccoli in July! We had some in our stir fry this last week.

…for zucchini and potatoes
A friend from church had received some produce from another churchgoer’s garden when the friend was hosting ministry partners in her home – when the ministry partners left, she had an excess of zucchini and new potatoes, so she passed them on to me. We enjoyed the potatoes in a curry a couple nights ago and had fresh zucchini last night! (I didn’t plant zucchini this year because my plants died off right after their first fruit the last couple of years – I figure my soil must have something icky in it or else I’ve got bugs. I’ll try again next year when we’ve moved.)

…for another try with the beans
When I took the dehumidifier water out to water the garden yesterday, I noted that the beans are flowering again – I’m hopeful that this time they’ll actually produce.

…for a new garden bed
Now that building is about to commence (and we’ll be moved before the next garden season), I’ve been thinking about my garden out on the land. I know I want to move my current raised bed out there (It’s very useful to me and I doubt anyone who buys our house will be particularly interested in a 4′ x 8′ concrete block raised bed!) But I also want to expand to two beds next year. The only problem is that it does cost some to assemble, and I really want to avoid excess spending while we’re in the building process. I was thrilled, when I went out to the land to assess what was left behind after the trailer was moved, to discover 49 cinder blocks that the trailer had been sitting on – 9 more than I need for a second raised bed!

…for a reminder to break up my fallow ground
Barbara reposted an a blog post she’d written about fallow hearts yesterday – and it was just what I needed. As I read, I realized that I’d been letting bitterness harden my heart – and had been focusing on “getting past it” instead of on confessing it and rooting it out. God used Barbara’s post to spur me to finally start to deal with my heart – so that God’s word can grow and bear fruit in my life.

Even as I improve as a gardener in earthly soil, may my heart’s soil become ever more receptive to the planting of the Lord.