Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel adapted by Mariah Marsden and illustrated by Brenna Thummler

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“They” say that a picture is worth a thousand words. And maybe “they” are right – for most people.

For me?

"Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel"

The written word is my heart language. Pictures are generally lost on me. So much so that the only way I can dream of understanding a movie (even if I’m paying it my full attention) is if I’ve got subtitles on.

Perhaps it’s needless to say that graphic novels aren’t really my thing.

But when the time came around for Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge, I searched the library for something I hadn’t read – and found this little (229 pages) graphic novel.

I read it in about three sittings (give or take) and adored it.

Marsden does an excellent job of shortening Anne’s speech while keeping its “Anne-ness” intact. Thummler does a great job of depicting the setting, actions, and emotions of the various scenes. It’s all well done.

Anne smashing the slate over Gilbert's head

I’m fairly certain, though, that my enjoyment of this adaptation has everything to do with it being an adaptation of a familiar story. Would I have understood what was going on if this was my first exposure to Anne? I doubt so. Would someone else? Possibly. But even as much as I enjoyed this adaptation, I wouldn’t recommend it as a first exposure to Anne. Montgomery herself should be allowed to introduce her own character.

L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Graphic Novel adaptation
Synopsis: Anne of Green Gables in graphic novel format. Done well.
Recommendation: Fun for fans of Anne, possibly also a nice option for a struggling-ish reader who has already heard Anne read aloud (Maybe?) Not a suitable substitute for actually reading L.M. Montgomery.

Categories Faith, Parenting

The Prayer I Keep Coming Back To

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Last year, in an effort to strengthen my prayer life, I searched for lists of “things to pray for your children.”

I dutifully recorded the lists in my prayer app (PrayerMate) and began praying for each of my children in each of the suggested categories.

The app would tell me to pray for Tirzah Mae’s future – and so I would. “Oh Lord, grant that my daughter would have a future among those who fear you. May she know your salvation and cling to you as her only hope.”

The app would tell me to pray for Louis’s purity – and so I would. “Oh Lord, would you grant that my son would be pure in heart – that he would have the purity of heart that can only come by being washed in the blood of Christ.”

The app would tell me to pray for Beth-Ellen’s health – and so I would. “Lord, would you bring my dead daughter to life by your Spirit.”

And on and on.

Character. “Lord, would you draw my children to yourself. Bring them to life through the work of your Spirit and cause them to grow in Christ-likeness.”

Holy Desires. “Above all, would you awaken their affection for you, that they might desire your salvation and recognize their own inability to save themselves. Grant that they might fall upon the mercy of Christ.”

Salvation.

It’s the prayer I keep coming back to. May my children desire relationship with God. May they see their sinfulness. May they see the worthlessness of their own striving. May they fall upon the mercy of Christ. May they grow in the grace of the gospel.

Save my children, O Lord, I pray.

Categories Everyday Life

The Problem with Projects

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We got home from grocery pickup today just in time for me to put away the groceries and heat up some leftovers for lunch.

But as I turned the lazy susan to put away the dried beans, I was suddenly done. I couldn’t take it any more. Those lazy susans were driving me mad. I didn’t want them in the first place, but I forgot to specify that I wanted an ordinary corner cabinet, so I got them by default. They’ve been my kitchen’s Achilles heel from day one.

Cupboard 1

And now I was done. I couldn’t handle my food falling off into the unusable wasteland beyond the turntable. I couldn’t handle the horrid scraping that indicated that the weight of the food had (yet again) caused the tables to slide down their center pole.

Then the idea hit me and I was off.

Cupboard 2

I would move my less frequently used baking pans down to the lazy susans and keep all of my foodstuffs up above.

I began to reorganize my kitchen.

The Cupboard above the stove

The children got fussy because I wasn’t feeding them.

I put food on the table and returned to my project.

The kids finished eating. I continued projecting.

Cupboard 3

I projected until an hour after naptime, when it became obvious that I really, REALLY needed to put the little ones to bed. When I did, Beth-Ellen slept poorly because she was overtired.

And then I had to clean up the detritus that had landed on my (previously clean) countertops. And then I spent the rest of the day trying to frantically catch up on all the normal daily tasks that weren’t getting done while I was doing my spur of the moment project.

Cupboard 4

That, my friends, is the problem with projects.

But…my kitchen cupboards look nice :-)

An aside: Also, the problem with spur-of-the-moment projects is that you don’t get “before” pictures. And the problem of desperately-catching-up-on-everyday-tasks-you-ignored-to-do-projects means I forgot to take any pictures of those dastardly lazy susans that now hold my food processor, colanders, salad spinner, cake pans and pie tins, patty pans, and the like. The new contents are used less frequently, are bigger (and therefore less likely to fall off the tray) and are lighter (and therefore less likely to mess up the “spinny” mechanism).

Categories Book Notes, Everyday Life

An Apt Description

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Thomas More, in Utopia:

“I am out practically all day dealing with others, and the rest of my time is devoted to my family, and so I leave nothing for myself, that is for writing.

When I get home, I have to talk with my wife, chat with my children, confer with the servants. All this I count as part of my obligations, since it needs to be done…. As I am doing such things, as I said, a day, a month, a year slips by.

When do I write then? And as yet I have said nothing about sleep and nothing at all about eating, and for many that takes up no less time than sleep itself, which consumes almost half our lives. The only time I get for myself is what I steal from sleep and eating.”

An apt description of why I blog so much less frequently than I would prefer.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: French Twist by Catherine Crawford

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Catherine Crawford was raising her children to be spoiled brats until she discovered, almost entirely by chance, that there was another way.

She had invited another family over for dinner and was shocked to find that this family’s kids were polite, helpful, and actually pleasant to be around.

This family happened to be French, which tickled the Francophile Crawford’s fancy, and next thing you know Crawford was trying a radical(ish) experiment in French parenting.

It’s just the sort of thing I usually like. A parenting memoir-slash-project memoir. Except I couldn’t make myself like Crawford, her children, or the French.

Now, I realize that Brooklyn parenting is a whole lot different than Middle-American parenting – but I find it hard to believe Crawford really needed to go French to learn that she is the boss (not her kids.) Just about anyone who works with children could tell her that structure works wonders for children. And the importance of family meals? Seriously? You didn’t know that?

Surely Crawford’s Catholic parents, having raised nine of their own children, could have told her that you don’t raise pleasant children by bargaining with them and rewarding them with toys every time they do something that most people would consider common courtesy. But no, Crawford must go French.

And then there’s how the French apparently actually parent. They drink alcohol while pregnant. They don’t breastfeed (at least, not for longer than three months). They shame their kids. Schoolteachers rank their students on a daily basis and announce those rankings to the class. Parents aren’t welcome at school. Their job is to make sure kids get homework done, period.

Eh, I’ll pass.

Rating: 2 stars
Category: Parenting Memoir
Synopsis: The author attempts to turn around her parenting by applying “French” advice.
Recommendation: I didn’t hate reading this, but I clearly didn’t like it either. Skip it.
Categories Books, Uncategorized

Reading Lucy Maud

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It’s that most wonderful time of the year – time to read Lucy Maud Montgomery with Carrie at Reading to Know.

Carrie has been hosting the Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge for the past 10 years – and I’ve had the pleasure of participating for at least 4 years (how is it possible it’s only that many?)

L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge

As usual, the rule is to read as much Maud as possible during the month of January and to let the world know we’re participating (with a link to Carrie’s site).

Carrie includes a list of items that do NOT count toward the challenge (namely, the book Before Green Gables and the movies/shows Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story and Anne with an E. )

I’m going to push the limits of the challenge by reading a graphic novel version of Anne of Green Gables by Mariah Marsden, watching Tales from Avonlea, reading a couple of board books based on the Anne books (all from my library) – and reading one other of the Anne books (in original form). I haven’t decided which Anne book to read because I hate to start in the middle, but I think I’ve read Anne of Green Gables without reading the rest three or four times in a row now :-)

I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading!

Categories Everyday Life

A Rather Pathetic Story

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I made grand plans for 2019. I’ve already told you that. I started making them far in advance, as I always do.

But, as I usually do, I spent plenty of time putting finishing touches on said plans (and the accompanying documents) in the final couple of weeks and days of the year.

Which meant I arrived home from our Holiday trip to Lincoln (a whopping 12 days away from home!) with all sorts of things that needed printing.

Now, we have our printers hooked up to a wireless print server located in a closet away from our main computer. So when I started printing, I didn’t have any immediate feedback to tell me that my print jobs weren’t going through.

In fact, I didn’t realize until I got to the very last document (out of about a dozen) that the printer was not working at all.

See, the print server was set up using our old internet provider – and we’d had new internet installed the day before we left town. I needed to set up the server again on the new router.

Except we’d changed the default password on the print server and not saved it in either of our respective password managers (Daniel’s or mine). And my attempts at forcing a factory reset resulted in little more than numb fingers from holding down a little button for five minutes at a time (multiple times in a row), waiting for little lights to blink (which they never did.)

After a morning nearly wasted, I gave up and lugged the printer into the living room – and, lo and behold, the print server shows up on my computer dashboard having mysteriously undergone a factory reset.

So the print server works now, and my stuff has been printed and maybe tomorrow I’ll be perfect as planned. (If only pesky REAL LIFE doesn’t get in the way!)

Categories Reflections

Seasonal Planning

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve made elaborate plans for each new year.

Call them what you will – resolutions, goals, plans – they’re always far-reaching, ambitious, and set down long in advance of the new year.

I’ve always figured that this was normal, at least inasmuch as I can be normal. I’ve certainly never gotten meta enough to analyze why I plan like this, why I am so drawn to elaborate year-long plans.

But then our foster son left our home in July and I threw myself (unseasonably) into planning for the preschool year. Every spare moment – which, admittedly, is not many in a home that was still inhabited by three children under the age of three – but every spare moment was spent researching preschool activities, synthesizing my previous notes on the topic, and developing our customized Prairie Elms Preschool plan.

It was then that I began to realize the role that planning plays in helping me to cope when daily life seems out of my control.

I could have gone through my days as normal, feeling the hole that his departure left in the day to day. I could have attempted to deaden our loss with any number of things – but what I chose was planning. Particularly, planning for the children we had left – the children I knew would still be in our house.

Then we opened our home again. We started Prairie Elms Preschool and I was busy doing all the “new baby in the house” things. I had no time for extensive planning – and no desire for it either. Now was time to work the plan.

Until winter set in.

The nights grew long and the days grew dark and I no longer had energy to work the plan that had been working so well.

The house was cleaner than it had been in past years – but it was not kept to my summertime standards. I still put meals on the table. I still got the children clothed and changed. I kept up on washing the laundry, but one basket of clean-but-unfolded laundry quickly turned into four. I felt out of control.

And my mind started drafting plans for 2019. Plans for how I’d restart all those things that had been working so well for me until the days got gray. Plans for how I’d begin new things, build on what had been working. Plans for how I’d try ambitious new things.

That’s when I realized that my New Year’s plans were more than simply an escapist coping technique. They’re also an act of faith.

When November hits and I barely feel like I can get out of bed, much less accomplish something, making plans is a way I say to myself, “It won’t always be this way.”

I don’t have energy now, but I will have energy again.

I’m not accomplishing much right now, but I will accomplish something again some day.

The days are getting shorter now, but the solstice will come and the days will lengthen again.

January will dawn and I’ll start again as planned.

Categories Recap

Recap (2018.10.21)

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I wrote up a nearly complete Recap last weekend – and then failed to complete it and post it last Sunday. Then, I’ve been so glum this week that I’ve failed to note anything, meaning that this week’s recollections are fuzzy.

In my spirit

  • It’s that time of the year when everything stirs up memories of my first pregnancy, heading downhill – and of my third, hanging on. Gratitude fills my heart as I reflect on God’s grace in giving me two very difficult pregnancies and deliveries – and one unexpectedly easy one.
  • I mentioned a couple weeks ago how the great darkness is settling in. I’ve noticed it more and more and continue to struggle to take my thoughts captive. It is so easy to turn my eyes from Christ to my feelings.

Tirzah Mae's new bangs

In our family

  • Tirzah Mae has been peering out at the world through horribly unkempt bangs for what seems like forever while her mother procrastinated cutting them. But no longer. I’ve cut her bangs and she can see again.
  • That was last week. This week, she cut her own hair – to the point that I have no idea how to fix it. Great handfuls of Tirzah Mae hair all over the green room. I nearly cried. Alas.

    • Looking at the flamingos

  • Louis’s favorite question (behind “Why?”) is “What I doin’?” I almost always mishear him to say “What are YOU doing?” and answer with my own activity. He is patient with me, correcting me with only a barely frustrated, “No. What I doin’?” The proper answer, in case you were wondering, is “I don’t know, are you…working?” Louis is always working.

    • Tirzah Mae at the dentist

  • The two older children had dentist appointments a couple Thursdays ago – and since we were on the other side of town, we stopped by the zoo to eat our lunch and roam around. I’ve learned that it’s best to plan to sit and soak up a single animal when we visit the zoo (instead of trying to race around and see everything). This time, we spent about a half hour with the giraffes before we went to the playground and then finished the zoo-loop.

    • Giraffes

  • And then the littlest one had a doctor’s appointment on the zoo-side of town this Thursday. We’d enjoyed the zoo so much last week, and the weather was so delightful this week that we did a repeat trip. This time, we explored the tropics (which were underwhelming for my little ones) and then watched the elephants. Tirzah Mae and Louis held hands as they walked from exhibit to exhibit. So sweet!

    • Tirzah Mae and Louis hold hands at the Zoo

  • We picked up some pumpkins yesterday at Meadowlark Farm, our favorite local you-pick place (that just happens to be owned by family friends!) The kids and I are going to try painting the pumpkins this next week (if I can muster the energy.)

Tirzah Mae as a pumpkin
Louis as a tomato
The kids and their pumpkins, sort of

In our home

  • We are the happy new owners of some reusable straws. The children chewed up the plastic ones that came with the silicone tops that I use to make car-safe smoothie cups – and Daniel and I were not pleased to be using single-use ones every time we had smoothies. So now we have a set of stainless steel and a set of silicone straws (along with some heavy-duty straw brushes to keep them clean.) Hooray!
  • A friend has been loaning us clothes for Tirzah Mae – and she brought us a new bag for fall/winter. So I’ve been busy switching out clothes and trying to keep track of what we have that Louis will be able to use for next year and what I should keep my eyes open for when stuff goes on clearance in the spring.

    • My Plants

  • I was messing around with some old tights and decided to spruce up my houseplants, which have been hanging out in cottage cheese containers. They’re still far from fancy, but they are a bit nicer now. (Also I’ve tried rotating this picture about 3,000 times now and I just can’t get it upright. Grr.)

    • My Plants After

On the homestead

  • The kids dumped a couple inches of rainwater out of the ice cream bucket on the patio table when they played Monday morning a couple weeks ago – but by Tuesday afternoon, it was full to within a few inches of the top.

    • A little over 24 hours worth of rain

  • We have quite a few garden spiders around outside, but I’ve also seen quite a few of these black hairy spiders with red markings. They’re not widows, and the best anyone can come up with is jumping spiders – but I wish I had positive ID on them. They’re pretty interesting (I’ve only ever seen them crawling, not in a web.) Do you know anything about spiders? Have any clue what this might be? His web seems pretty dense and he’s stockpiling flies (there’s a whole pile of them under his web and I’ve seen him carrying one across the living room. How odd!)

    • Any ID on this spider?

  • The kids and I went out to play in the back-back yard while Daniel ran around the track he’d cut in our prairie – and after we were all done, Daniel and the kids started climbing the gravel pile that’s waiting to be put to use.

    • Lion King Pose with Beth-Ellen
    Climbing the Gravel Pile

  • Daniel’s been clearing off our orchard site so we can plant first thing next spring – and he unfortunately tweaked something in his back or hip this weekend. He’s in rather a lot of pain. We’re praying he heals quickly (and that we can figure out how to stop this from happening – this back stuff happens several times a year.)

In the library (currently reading)

  • For Growing: Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot
    I’ve made progress, but too little, on this book. Elliot’s observations are good, but there hasn’t been anything world-altering so far.
  • For Seeing: Emma by Jane Austen
    Because Austen is binge-worthy and the darkness-induced blahs make me want little more than to curl up with a good book.
  • For Enjoying: These High Green Hills by Jan Karon
    I finished this one in less than a week – which was a good thing since I’d had it out from the library forever without cracking it open and it’s due at last this Thursday.
  • More and more and more picture books :-)

We made a ball pit!

Categories Homemaking

What I Spent This Week (2018.10.19)

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Before I married Daniel, I barely drank coffee. I barely liked coffee.

And then he started serving me coffee from Wichita’s Spice Merchant. It was wonderful. I took it with sugar and sipped it all day long at work – until I realized the hypocrisy of telling parents to avoid letting their child walk around with (even just a splash of) juice in their sippy cup. I asked Daniel to wean me off the sugar and he did, putting less and less in my morning coffee over the course of a week or so.

I don’t miss the sugar one bit – unless I start drinking something other than Spice Merchant coffee. Then I need all the additives.

So really, the huge amount of money we spend at the Spice Merchant each month is for my health, right?

Saturday, October 13

We always go to the Spice Merchant on the second Saturday of the month, where our “Second Saturday” bag gets us an extra 15% off our purchase. We got our normal coffee – and then I went a little crazy with the teas. And they had red curry paste, which they’ve been out of for what seems like forever, so I had to get a couple of jars (’cause when you want a red curry, no other curry will do!)

Spice Merchant 2018/10/13

It’s a good thing I went under as much as I did last week. I have $199.85 to work with this week – or at least, I did, until I spent all of $93.08 at the Spice Merchant!

Sunday, October 14

I made an expensive mistake. I forgot to pack Tirzah Mae and Louis a snack for church. And since the snack is about the only thing that keeps them from talking the whole service long… I had Daniel run to a nearby grocery store to get some snack mix while I was setting up my Sunday School classroom.

$11.59 for snack mix and dried cranberries. The kids ate almost half. (My homemade mostly Cheerios snack mix is tons less expensive!)

Tuesday, October 16

Walmart 2018/10/16

I still have lots in the freezer for this menu cycle, so my grocery pickup (once I subtract the training pants and the vitamin D for the kids) is a very
reasonable $22.38.

More Walmart 2018/10/16

I’ve still got $72.80 left for ALDI on Thursday. (Hooray for eating out of the freezer!)

Thursday, October 18

$28.25

ALDI 2018/10/18

Folks, This feels nice.