peacefulreader

Summer Joy

A few nights ago on the tail end of our 10 hour drive from Winnipeg I spotted swarms of fireflies in the fields of Iowa. I was entranced by their sparkly lights. After a quick internet search it seems like populations are still declining yet I saw many swooping around and it was thrilling. I hope we never see these beautiful little creatures disappear. They look like little fairies fluttering over the fields and ditches. I feel terrible that I captured them in jars when I was a child. Luckily we did always release them but we probably caused irreparable damage to the MN firefly population.

Another summer love is rhubarb. My grandmother had a big patch of it that we would pull from every summer. She’d make pies, jam, cobblers, and a variety of other rhubarb desserts throughout the summer and she’d freeze more to have in the winter. I recently made a rhubarb/strawberry galette and vegan rhubarb bread and both were so amazing. I bought a box of peaches this week so I’m making a cobbler tomorrow.

The beach, boating and being at the lake are also high on my list in the summer. Last weekend I ventured to my brother’s house for that exact reason. I knew he and his wife had a busy weekend but they reserved Sunday for boating on Lake Minnetonka. I love crashing over the waves, feeling the sun on my face, listening for loons, and diving into the cool waters. We boated as kids and those are definitely some of my happiest memories.

Each time a make a post with JOY in it I can’t help but reflect on all that is terrible in the world as well. I can’t help it. I feel all the pain from Gaza and the Palestinian people, the Ukrainian population still fighting this war against the behemoth Russia. I’m an empath so I think about this everyday but I also am appreciating my summer, time with my kids, reading, writing, and enjoying the sun. Terrible things are part of life but what we are experiencing with children starving and bombs crashing down as people reach for food is a new kind of horror and we can find ways to help. I donate as much as I can to a variety of causes and make phone calls to our blind/deaf representatives. So while we go about our daily life, remember how many people are experiencing horrific acts and force yourself to make phone calls, donate, and talk about your fears and thoughts with others.

What I’m reading: The Anxious Generation, Kindred by Octavia Butler, El Niño by Pamela Munoz Ryan. All excellent.

Hot, Hot, Hot

We are in the middle of a June heatwave from Colorado throughout the Midwest and probably across the US. So it’s hot outside and the Trump administration (if you can even call it that) is trying to make us hotter. The “Big Beautiful Bill” H.R. 1 is ridiculous and frightening. First of all who names a bill that?

And then if you look at what’s in the bill it seems like even many Republicans would take issue with raising the debt ceiling. And cutting Medicaid and Medicare, adding more money for ICE thugs, more money to the Pentagon, canceling green energy initiatives, and renewing fossil fuel subsidies. All this is bad enough but adding in the sale of public lands as Trump’s idea of solving the housing crisis is absolutely absurd. Horrible, despicable, and completely unhinged. When will Congressional Republicans begin to care about their constituents and saying NO to Trump. 71% of Americans disagree with the sale of public lands.

I had a relaxing morning reading at home before heading off to my local farmers market and yoga class. All lovely, peaceful and privileged. When I came home I started making phone calls though using the 5 Calls app. If you’ve not used this yet please consider downloading and using it every day. I’ll be calling all week long to complain about this bill.

Now I want to focus attention to the book I finished this morning. Where Wolves Don’t Die by Anton Treuer is an excellent coming-of-age Native tale of Ezra Cloud of the Wolf Clan. Ezra has a run-in with a neighborhood bully at school and chooses to punch a locker instead of the bully which sets in motion a chain of events that opens up Ezra’s life in a new way. Treuer’s writing is poetic and I loved the characters so much. I wanted to be at the community feast to celebrate Ezra’s first kill. I wanted to sit at the kitchen table and eat Grandma Emma’s wild rice dish.

A friend purchased this book at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis and shared it with me. The book brought out a lot of emotions for me, thinking of my own ancestors who I hold dear. I highly recommend this charming yet real tale of Ezra and his family. Treuer has a long list of nonfiction books but I hope this story is the start of more fiction from him.

Make some calls, stand up and complain, all while staying cool.

May Books

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (#0) by Suzanne Collins – I’ve had this on one of my many TBR shelves and when a friend handed me the new one I knew I should read this one first. I liked understanding more about Coriolanus Snow. I was intrigued by Lucy Gray Baird’s character, a whimsical love interest for the Snow.

Still Me (Me Before You series, #3) by Jojo Moyes- I just loved Louisa Clark’s characters and her struggles with a long distance relationship and the agony of working for people who are friendly but definitely not your friends. I’m sad to say good-bye to these characters.

Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar (elementary fiction)-I read this to 5th graders this year. I thought it had an interesting story line and had a lot to say about friendship but more importantly how we are tending to our environment. The fuzzy mud in the book is toxic and made by a chemical company attempting to make a fuel alternative.

Sunrise on the Reaping (#0.5) by Suzanne Collins – I loved this one! I read it quickly, Haymitch was one of my favorite characters so I enjoyed hearing his story, including the addition of Maysilee, a connection to Lucy Gray. Collins’ created such an amazing cast of characters throughout the Hunger Games series.

We Solve Murders (#1) by Richard Osman: Steve and Amy Wheeler are a entertaining duo. Steve, a retired officer, is Amy’s father-in-law and Amy is a private security bodyguard in charge of a celebrity author who has had death threats. As the three of them cross the globe to solve a mystery we are both scared and entertained.

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller: This story was such an interesting twist on relationships. Elle and her best friend Jonas spent summers together in a group of cabins near Cape Cod. Elle has an unusual and tragic childhood as her mom shuttles them between various unhealthy relationships. Eventually she leaves for London, meets her husband, and returns home only to be constantly pulled back to one tragic summer. Sometimes a first love is not meant to be left behind.

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey: I was able to get my hands on a secondhand hardcover copy of this book awhile ago. And while I enjoyed looking at the pictures and the style of the book ultimately I ended up listening to this on audio; I mean, come on, listening to Matthew’s voice as I did errands was alright, alright, alright. I loved his stories even though the first part featuring their did shock me a bit. The book made me curious about all his work and I watched Dazed and Confused to get a look at his first movie role.

I started this post at the beginning of June and literally got distracted by summer things like sleeping in, sunshine, and the lake. I went to the protest on Saturday and keep wondering what we can do to keep that momentum going. How do we impeach him and get him and Vance out of office…? Honestly we need a do-over.

What I’m reading now: reread of Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt for book club, The Night Librarian by Christopher Lincoln (graphic novel for school), and The Anxious Generation by Jonathon Haidt.

I’m not great about finishing nonfiction but I heard a tip on Annie’s podcast, What Should I Read Next? She suggests reading nonfiction in the morning; giving it a separate time helps. I’m going to try this over the summer. I can sip my morning tea and read.

Keep the faith, keep reading, and enjoy the sunshine.

Yoga + Random Thoughts

Yoga saved me these last few years. Heart surgery is far memory now and yoga has helped me regain muscle and physical confidence. It started with Adriene but then, Sam, a young friend of mine opened a studio in the neighborhood and I’m hooked. Teaching is a lot more emotional these days and a good round of yoga after school helps with that energy.

Some weeks I’ve managed to make classes Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Some weeks I only make a 2-3 classes but either way I’m thankful I have a place to go that feels like home. Many studios across the country focus on hot yoga or fast exercise yoga. I know I’ll offend someone with this statement but I like real yoga that means something, that goes a certain pace, that builds up and slows down into a well-intentioned savasana. I’m there to be in tune with my body, to flow for sure yet I don’t want to move at breakneck speed. There are different kinds of yoga for a wide variety of people. I just like what I like and I’m glad that many of Sam’s classes are perfect for me.

Random Thoughts:

I’m reading three great books right now and they are all about hard topics:

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller-family trauma mixed with old love but lots of trauma

The Huntress by Kate Quinn-WWII women and Nazis

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey-I’m listening to this and it’s interesting but I do not like the abusive father-son relationships.

End of the school year is coming up fast. I don’t feel ready and yet I’ve also packed my summer (possibly) too full.

Saw Japhy over Memorial Day weekend and it’s just never enough time. I’d take them all back home again for a spell. Go back in time.

Deep dive

My reading has doubled starting in January. My nose is in a book, trying to block out all the ruckus around me. For strength and calm I’m doing yoga 3-4 times a week at Cota Studios. Life is contingent on all the small things while bigger, terrible announcements continue to come from our “leaders”. I’m worried now about judges and journalist. And our environment and the mockery, the judgement.

I want to read the new Suzanne Collins prequel but I need to catch up by first reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which I bought and let sit. Now is the time to catch up. I’m reading the 2nd book in the JoJo Moyes series Me before You and I watched the movie through my tear-dripped face. I love love stories and even though I knew what was coming it was heartbreaking. And Emilia Clarke is lovely to watch. What are you doing to keep yourself occupied? Are you writing letters, making phone calls, drinking, or traveling away? I’m listening to a lot of music on both Apple and Spotify and taking walks with my dogs.

Panama City

I just got back from Panama and it was pretty amazing! I like beaches and forest and I didn’t think Panama had either so it wasn’t my ideal travel destination but I needed to use some unused tickets from Copa Airlines and their homebase is, yes, Panama City. My son, Tristan and I traveled last Sunday and made it to our super cool two bedroom apartment in the Casco Viejo (the old section) which is the also the tourist section with lots of restaurants and shops around the two nearby squares.

We built up a holiday routine; sleep late, a little fresh fruit and bread for breakfast at home, and then off to explore and find a place for lunch. As a foodie family we always look forward to finding delicious food and we are always on the lookout for amazing vegetarian and vegan food. We had amazing luck finding delicious vegan food in Mexico and I hoped we’d have luck here as well. We didn’t the first night but the rest of the time, after we’d had a chance to look around, we found a treasure trove of excellent choices.

I love that I can go on vacation outside the U.S. and find menus that have at least 4-5 vegan choices and several full vegan restaurants in the area. Amazing. I can’t find vegan or even good vegetarian choices in most of Iowa. Another side note is all the to-go containers are eco-friendly unlike Styrofoam boxes here.

We did make it to a beach 30 minutes away from PC and spent a lovely day and we took a tour bus to see the Canal and a biodiversity museum. We took two hours to tour and read all the information at the Museo Canal in town. We had a lovely trip and it was fabulous to spend 5 days with my son.

I have so many thoughts and feeling about what’s happening and with that narcissist running our country. It is a major shit show with people getting kidnapped by the ICE gang, secrets being shared with no accountability, libraries and artistic centers taking a hit, USAID which is major help for our 3rd World countries who need our help. We’ve entered into a zone with no empathy. It’s too much to think about and makes me so crazy.

Recent Reads

I’ve finished these four excellent books in the last few weeks of February:

Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon-a beautifully written historical fiction about a midwife’s journey as she takes care of her family and her community during a crisis. I didn’t want to put this book down at the end of the day.

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis-Ashlyn Greer owns a used/rare bookstore and as she holds certain books she can catch a feeling of what the previous owner was experiencing. When she gets a hold of a pair of unique books she sets out to find more about the author.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty-I listened to this one which is difficult for me but the narrator, Caroline Lee, is fantastic which makes it worth it. The Delaney family is experiencing a bit of a crisis when a young girl ends up on their doorstep with a tale of woe and puts the family at odds with each other. I very much identified with the mother, Joy.

The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand-On my continued quest to read all things Elin on my e-reader this one was available and brought me to tears. Dabney Kimball has always lived on Nantucket. She’s a skilled matchmaker and is able to see either a green or pink glow around certain couples. This one has all sorts of twists and turns, old and new loves, a daughter who needs the comfort of home for just one summer with heartache at the end.

And I’m reading the Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune, the sequel to The House in the Cereleun Sea; both so good I don’t want the story to end and both have much to say about LGBTQ/transgender folx that are under fire right now in our crazy world. But that is a tale for another day…

New address, new look

Google/Blogger and I had a bit of a falling out recently. I got some messages from a company called eNom that I kind of thought was spam because I didn’t recognize the name so I ignored it. At the same time I received an email from Google that I’d been auto-renewed for another month which again made me disregard the eNom message. A mistake though or maybe not…

Within a few days eNom shut my beloved peacefulreader.com down. If you look it up there’s nothing really there. I thought I’d have at least 30 days to work it out. The good thing was in a last ditch effort I was able to download my entire content and upload it to WordPress. I’m hoping it works out. I was already disgusted with Google from DT’s inauguration. So I guess it’s a good break-up. It took me awhile to find away around to save all my words and I was very relieved when I accomplished it. I’ve had this blog for years, my children have grown up, and I’ve written a lot of family moments as well as emotional pieces about my life. I didn’t want it all to just go away.

I’m so disgusted with our beautiful country right now. I have no words to express my feeling and then some days all I have are too many words for the shit show we are in.

What I’m reading: The Frozen River by Ariel Hawhon (excellent)

What I’m watching: Sweet Tooth on Netflix (interesting dystopian world)

More Best Book 2024 edition

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano: I loved the complex sister relationships as they came together and support each other as well as fell apart. This brought up a lot of emotions as the sisters deal with William as he struggles with his mental health, wonderfully displaying the effects of trauma.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield: This book was pure joy and focuses on the a SNL-type late night comedy show. Sally’s given up on love, happy in her career as a writer on the show until a handsome musician guests on the show. Sparks fly but it takes awhile for it all to come together. I laughed so much.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang: This is a thriller set in the publishing world with an emphasis on diverse writers and stolen stories. It reminded me a little of The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz and was a very unique story.

Small Mercies by Denise Lehane: I loved the 1970s Boston setting, strong characters, and the twists and turns of the mystery during a volatile time in history. Denise Lehane is masterful in his writing.

Huda F Are You; A Graphic Novel by Huda Fahmy: This graphic novel was hilarious and poignant. This should be required reading to raise awareness much like the New Kid series by Jerry Craft.

A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat: This memoir graphic novel shares Santat’s middle school years and a trip to Europe with classmates as he navigates first love and coming into his own as a young person. Hilarious and took me back to my own middle school years.

Honorable Mention and new Canadian author:

Carley Fortune! I read all three of these on my Kindle phone app often in the middle of the night with my illusive sleep patterns. This Summer Will Be Different was my favorite but all three are light, funny, and sexy with positive relationships and great yet not perfect men. I notice on her website she has a new book out as well. My sleep has been better which means I’ll be forced to read this new one during the day.

Write now I’m reading The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

I’m going to ignore all news stations tomorrow and pray that the next few days are low key. I’m concerned about deportations as the first order of business. There is much that makes me nervous and I hope my checklist does not become reality. Peace be with us all as we navigate this next term.

My Best Books-2024 edition

I far exceeded my reading goal this year which originally was 65 books and I think the reason I went beyond is because I’m reading more books digitally. I’m often reading under the covers in the early morning hours on my phone because of my sleep issues. My daughter nicely bought me a kindle for Christmas because I don’t like to sleep with my phone so I will be able to continue to read more digitally in 2025. I’ll have to do more reading to keep my spirits up once DT takes office. I don’t recommend insomnia to help with your reading goal but for me it’s better than doom scrolling.

There is a certain type of yummy book that works well for reading digitally. I’m not good with lots of characters or time changes. It is no surprise then that this is the year I discovered the fun of Elin Hilderbrand and I’ve quickly devoured several of her books. The Five-Star Weekend hit my 5-star mark. Here are 13 more books I loved this year…

I loved Waubgeshig Rice’s post-apocalyptic series Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves both very good post-apocalyptic stories featuring a world devoid of technology. The lights have gone out and the members of an Anishinaabe tribe on a reservation figure out how to live without and eventually send members of their Canadian community south to see how the rest of the world is faring. I also read this on kindle just so you know I can read more than just light-hearted beach reads.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt: This is an amazing story and probably my top but it’s really hard to choose. Tova takes a job at the local aquarium after her husband dies and she discovers a giant Pacific octopus roaming the halls at night. Filled with dynamic connections.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett: this was so good made better by the fact that I listened to Meryl Streep read the story to me. It took the book to a new level. This is a story about mothers and daughters and all that they know about each other.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan: A friend lent this to me with the words “I think you’ll like this!” and I did. Picoult and Boylan weave together a satisfying story about two unusual families who’ve tried to start over and are forever changed.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter: favorite historical fiction this year because it’s based on the author’s family history. It has lots of characters and switching timelines so I have the hard copy.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: Other librarian friends talked about this fantasy story for awhile and I couldn’t resist any longer. It’s magical and filled with promise and delightful characters. They were right. Now I need to find time to read the second in the series.

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker: A teacher friend handed this to me in a book trade and I loved it. Short chapters, interesting characters, and lots of little mysteries to solve made it read fast enough

Leaving by Roxanna Robinson: My friend Tina told me this was worth it and she was right. I think I read it in just a few days. I loved Sarah and Warren and their love story both in the past and the present. Very beautifully done (but also frustrating).

The Electric Kingdom and Mosquitoland by David Arnold: My brother-in-law sent me Electric Kingdom for my birthday and I loved it so much I followed it up with another Arnold book. Both were very unique and yet so different from each other. Both stories had charming characters.

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré: My friend Sarah handed me this book in another book trade and now I’ve passed it around to other friends. While this Nigerian tale has a crushing sadness to it it is also filled with hope that things might change.

The Trees by Percival Everett: I heard a review about Everett’s book James and wanted to read it but there was such a long wait at the library so I picked up this other title and was blown away by the amazing way he told such a heavy story with humor and wit. I have yet to read James even though I did get it from Libby but it was not the right book for reading digitally. It really makes a difference to me.

Oh so many good reads! I hope you find one on this list you might be inspired to read. I have another list coming soon. Happy New Year, happy new reading goals!