Reading – Page 3 – Peaceful Reader

July Ramblings

I’m taking a BLM class through Iowa Safe Schools-what an amazing organization this is! The class is great, learning a lot, and I’m almost finished. The homework keeps me busy though as I worry about school openings and life surrounding Covid numbers rising all over including Iowa.

I”m still reading Ibram X. Kendi’s book and I realize I have a bad habit of setting nonfiction down in order to pick up fiction. I had a turn to stroll around our public library last week (by appointment only) and picked up the first in a mystery series by one of my favorite authors William Kent Krueger. He wrote Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land. He has 17 books in this mystery series started in 1998 and they feature an Irish/Native detective named Cork O’Connor and are set in northern Minnesota.

My book club this month is reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Murial Barbery. I’m barely half finished and it’s got a lot of big words in it and I’m not really pulled into the story yet. It’s interesting mind you but not like “ooh, I don’t want to stop reading…” I’m also reading a book for school, Lalani of the distant sea by Erin Entrada Kelly. I’m also still reading to a group of students using Google Classroom. I upload videos of my reading in my backyard and they listen at some point in the day. I just finished Kazu Jones and the Denver Dognappers by Shauna Holyoak and I just started Carl Hiaasen’s Squirm, which is on our state award list for this coming year.

When I need a mind break I’ve been catching up on HBO’s Insecure with Issa Rae. It’s one of my favorite shows because I connect with her humor, her awkwardness, and the shit she goes through on a daily basis. I get her and I think of her like a friend. This is the perfect reason for watching shows outside of your regular comfort zone. You can learn things about people.

I’m still pretty much hunkered down at home. I venture out to the grocery store every once in awhile, fully masked up and disappointed in a world of people that can’t seem to do the same. What the heck people?!? Ridiculous-we could lower our numbers if you all would just get on board. I also go to work because I’ve got three boxes of new books to process before school starts (if? Yes, I’m looking at you mask-less people) and I want to get them finished and do a massive clean-up there. I’ve only spent a couple hours total just reading away in my beloved orange hammock~I trust there will be more before the summer is over…

We are a diverse nation…

In simple terms white people came here with guns and took the land away from the already existing Native tribes. We rounded them up and shifted them to crap government lands. We broke treaties, we killed as if they were animals. Native people were not blameless but what would you do if people tried to take over your land? Fight back.

White people also brought shiploads of Africans here to work plantations and we kept them enslaved for over 200 years on land that we stole from others and when that system ended we came up with sharecropping as a means to keep black people poor and in their place. The list is long through our history of how we kept pushing. Some white people still feel like racism doesn’t exist and they still believe that a black person is beneath them. The officer Derek Chauvin feels that way; you can see it in his body language as he keeps his knee bent into George Floyd’s neck. I have trouble watching the video as most people do. If you think first of other police officers or that All Lives Matter you are missing the big picture. Of course every life does matter but it is the inequality caused by skin color that we mean when we say Black Lives Matter.

I am sure there are many exceptional police officers in this country and inherently in their goodness they should not be sticking up for Derek Chauvin or the other three. I don’t want officers to be killed and I also want all police departments to clean house. They should not be sheltering racist, Nazi sympathizers, white nationalists, power-hungry, violent abusive husbands or men with major anger issues. To fit our diverse world that many of us love and respect we need a police force of empathetic public servants ready to help out in our communities. Many already are successful at this but we still have far too many who would kneel on a man’s neck as a way to restrain and never bother to check on that person or to crash into a woman’s apartment in the middle of the night and shoot. We need to really think about what is important here. If you do not like our diverse population than might I suggest you find another place to live, far far away where you are welcome. I want to live in an America where POC do not fear for their lives and we can truly work toward racial equality.

While looking up the Minneapolis Police Chief I stumbled across their motto:

“To protect with courage, to serve with compassion.” I did not see courage or compassion as they shot pepper bullets and tear gas into crowds of people. I do understand about unions yet they are not meant as a shelter for bad people who break laws against humanity. And it just occurred to me it should be used as a teaching moment. If certain officers are interested in keeping their jobs they should be paired with members of the black or brown community to learn and grow. People can change if given the chance but it should not be at the expense of another human’s life.

I started this post to discuss these two great books yet I couldn’t begin without speaking about these recent events that are overwhelming my being.

One great thing to help students learn empathy is to put diverse books in their hands. I recently read two excellent books that feature Native characters.

I can make this promise by Christina Day (2019) : Edie has always know her mother is adopted but it isn’t until she discovers a box in their attic with pictures of a woman with her name that Edie wants more answers from her family. Day did a great job of integrating Edie’s history and the mystery behind the other Edith with day-to-day friendship problems. An excellent modern day Native American story.

Quote: “The table falls silent, silent, as the sound-the singing-strengthens and rises. Waves lap against the shore, swelling with an incoming tide. And out there, in the middle of the sea, is a line of-canoes. Paddles plunging into the water in brisk, even swipes. Voices harmonizing and bellowing in a language I’ve never heard before.” (p239)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (2017): Dystopian world showcasing the loss of white culture through their ability to dream (or lack of their ability) and their subsequent search for Native people to steal marrow from which tortures the indigenous people. Schools (assimilation boarding schools) were reinstated to keep groups together for medical experimentation. I hope this book is the first in a series because I would love to know more.

Quote: “We go to the schools and they leach the dreams from where our ancestors hid them, in the honeycombs of slushy marrow buried in our bones. And us? Well, we join our ancestors, hoping we left enough dreams behind for the next generation to stumble across.”

Moving forward to keep sane

Welcome to the new normal. Just about a month ago my Spring Break started with a small gathering of teachers at a local bar. We talked about our conferences, the virus, the book fair, what fun things we were going to do with our free time over Spring Break. One person said “maybe we’ll have a week or two off to keep the virus at bay.” I’d like to take that day back and appreciate that moment just a bit more. I would have hugged everyone at the table as we left that night because the fun things we had planned to do together over our break never materialized. We were asked as a state to not gather and then pretty quickly our restaurants, breweries, and bars closed except for take-out and while we were still “relaxing” we were all worried how far this would go.

That reality was announced yesterday when our governor closed schools for the remainder of the year. Tears, heartbreak, and anger are mixed with the mixed blessing of better safe than sick. I miss my students but I can be happy at home because I like my own time. I can fill it with all kinds of activity. I read, cook and bake, put together lessons for my students, relax with my two dogs, and I can watch the birds and other wild things in my backyard for a good long time. I know my daughter feels robbed though as this IS her senior year. I feel robbed of experiencing that with her. We had talked about prom dress shopping but hadn’t actually started, we have beautiful grad announcements on our table, we have hopes for a final dance recital to culminate her years of dance and a solo to perform one last time. I cried when our governor said the words yet we’ve moved on already. As May approaches we may fall back into grief and by that time we may be starting to get sick of each other.

As it is now we seem to be forging ahead. Being around my husband 27/7 is annoying somedays but we work it out. I love my own quiet time and he is extremely active. He worked long hours at the theatre, often late with rehearsals so I’ve always had lots of space. Lucky for me he is still going for long runs, spending time at the theatre- volunteering his time with the hope that theatre will begin again in June or July, and works outside when he can. He is filled with projects because he isn’t good at sitting still. I start my day with yoga most days and have done a lot of deep cleaning of my house, yet I have no problem stretching out in a chair reading for a few hours or watching Anne w/ and E with Groovy Girl. Eating a fair amount of dark chocolate also helps.

I’ve read 6 books in the time we’ve been sheltering at home. All of them good, some of them amazing reads. I’ve zoomed with students, teachers, and had a few happy hours/dinner hours with friends and family. I’ve watched quite a few shows and movies.

Books:

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates: excellent look at The Underground Railroad. Coates has an amazing writer voice.
The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald: 800+ pages of excellent writing about a Canadian family living on an Army Base with many twists and turns.
Love Among the Ruins by Robert Clark: True love for two teenagers in 1968. William is afraid of the turns the world will take after Robert Kennedy is killed and the riots during the Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Goodnight, Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson: Story of Malvolio and Nova in London as they navigate friendship and love in the adult world.
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy: Wow! I read this one in two days because I just had to know what happened to the children. My husband and daughter both read it before me so this morning we were able to talk about the characters and Meloy’s airtight writing.

I’m also reading Moving Target by Christina Diaz Gonzalez (great adventure in Rome) and Maximum Ride by James Patterson (group of unusual kids with out-of-this-world skills) to 4th and 6th grade students through videos posted to Google Classroom.

Streaming:

Little Fires Everywhere, Sex Education, Harlan Coban’s The Stranger, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and recently discovered Kim’s Convenience. We also had a list of older movies we wanted Groovy Girl to see and we’ve made it through a few: Pretty Woman, Something about Mary, The Talented Mr. Ripley were all good to watch.

She particularly loved Pretty Woman and we were thrilled by Mr. Ripley. I’d avoided that movie years ago because I thought it was too creepy (as is The Stranger) and it was but it’s easier to take when we’re all there together which really sums up this pandemic. We have to be better together even though we are apart. I’m quite angry with Trump for not taking this serious right away because for me that’s what it means to be president; to see a little into the future and take steps to contain and control. He didn’t do that. I’m happy to have my family around me as we weather this crisis. I’ll miss being physically with my son’ for his 25th birthday, I missed my trip to Guatemala, and many other important moments and I’ll do all this to keep people safe. I’m not going to cry about my freedom or what should have been. I just need to keep moving us forward.

What are you doing to keep sane?

Poetry Thursday, it is Thursday, right?

{Langston}

The weather is all over the place. Today it is sunny and then snowing, and also windy. While we are learning at home I would like it to be Spring warm weather not this all-over-the-radar coldness. It is great to be outside as you work on school work and I’ve video taped reading books outside. It’s lovely. Today not so much but I’m getting into a groovy with school work. Are we in it for the long haul-all the way through May? I don’t know but I am mentally preparing myself. Browsing through a poetry book this morning I found one of my favorite Springtime poems from Langston Hughes.

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head
with silent liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song
on our roof at night-

And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes

I love it because it’s positive and simple. I wish I could hear Langston read it and I did look and I found this clip of him reading his famous “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “I, too” : his voice reverberates with strength.

I’m reading Love among the ruins by Robert Clark
I’m watching Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist on Hulu and we watched Pixar/Disney’s new movie, Onward, with Groovy Girl last night. We had popcorn and everything and the movie was very good. She and her dad built a Rube Goldberg machine for one of her Learning @Home assignments. She is assembling the video they took when they finally got it to work. It was super cool involving one of our dogs, many cardboard pipes, a candle, two rooms of our house, a marble, and a glass of water. There is learning happening here.

Happy April!

April is National Poetry Month and National School Library Month, two important events in the life of a school library. A little strange that all libraries are closed right now. I love sharing poetry with kids especially silly ones like Kenn Nesbitt’s Poetry4kids website. He has several poetry books out and his website offers up many poetry categories for you to click on. Share some this month with your kids while you are at home. Start the day or end the day with a funny poem and then have them create their own. I have magnetic words at school that kids love to rearrange into unique poems. Bring poetry to life and let it be silly and serious.

Today We Had Some Weather

we had some weather

like I’ve never seen before,
so I pulled on my galoshes
and I headed out the door.

It sprinkled, first so lightly,
it could easily be mist.
A tornado then came dancing by,
it swung and did the twist.

The fogbanks opened up their vaults
and let out all their fogs,
and the dog pound took a pounding;
it was raining cats and dogs.

It started raining buckets,
then the rain came down in sheets.
I had never seen so many
sheets and buckets in the streets.

I’d planned to watch the weather
and, though gallantly I tried,
when it started hailing taxis
I gave up and went inside.

— Kenn Nesbitt

This poem reminded me of our weather the other night when we had a tornado touch down. We are still all staying at home. I am finding a good balance of school work, deep cleaning the most cluttered pockets of my house, reading, and meeting friends on Zoom for happy hour. Every day is different, which is a lot like school for me, and yesterday I read for too long on the sofa. I’m almost done with the 800 page The way the crow flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald-I get to a certain point in a book where I am just pulled in and literally can’t stop. Normally during school hours it would take me many afternoons after school to finish this book but as our quarantine life holds I will finish it within a week. Today I woke and new I need to do some yoga (thank you Down Dog app) because my body ached from sitting curled up reading. Also I’m not going to lie; I love, love, love sleeping in. It is glorious. It’s good to find the positive.

What’s keeping you fueled this week?

Writing, trying to stay normal 2

Happy Friday!

We are on day 10 of our Shelter in Place and what I’ve learned so far is it’s important to make a schedule and get dressed each day. And I mean both of these pretty loosely; I try and do yoga every day, I do something for school, and I do get dressed but that could be sweat pants or other activewear. Most days I make food for both of us. Today is the first day our teenage daughter is home with us. She’s been on quarantine with the family she traveled with for Spring Break for the last week. She doesn’t have any symptoms and neither does the family so we deemed it safe for her to come home. We don’t know what’s really safe and what isn’t yet we missed her and felt like it was just time. It’s hard to keep our distance and it’s extremely difficult not to hug/cuddle but we’re doing it because this is the new norm. In another week I’m going to feel comfortable to hug her.

Yesterday we had a teacher/car parade through our school neighborhoods. It was fun to honk and see students and families–I miss them all. It’s a lot more fun to teach class in person than remotely. The teenager here is struggling to understand a new set of rules for school as well. She has one college-level course that needs real assignments. Her teacher posted assignments with no due dates and no real instruction. It’s confusing and not exactly how she wanted the last months of her senior year to go. Everything is off the table; senior skip day, prom, dance recitals and competition. Really it’s the essence of being a senior that’s been cut short. Plus her sibling are all trying to make it through. Kaylee is in Brooklyn trying to shelter in place as she works from home. She takes walks and even then it is too crowded on the streets she says. Tristan is still going to work every day hoping he doesn’t fall ill. Everyone is worried about money and rent, house payments and toilet paper.

It would be real easy to bury your head in your covers and not come out for a few weeks. Obviously I’ve contemplated this more than once but I find it much healthier to get up at a decent time, have breakfast, do some yoga, clean something (even myself), and read. I limit watching shows or movies until the evening. We’ve been great about taking our dogs for walks, getting out breathing the crisp air. We’ve played cards and board games-don’t know how we will do that with the teenager yet but we’ll figure it out. March seems to be going out like a lamb not a lion so I hope spring weather is just around the corner. I would love a walk without the biting cold. I always said my house would be the best place to be stuck indefinitely because I have stacks and stacks of books.

Right now I’m reading The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie McDonald (800 pgs). And I’ve finished Netflix’s Next in Fashion, Virgin River, and still watching Sex Education. I think my goal for next week is to read chapter books using Google Classroom and posting for students to listen in. What are you doing to keep yourself busy?

Writing, trying to stay normal

(Our teacher celebration b4 it got crazy)

I haven’t been inspired lately. It’s been a long winter and I’ve spent most of it sick or just slightly under the weather, as they say. And now the world is sick and we’ve only just begun. We are shielding ourselves and others by staying home; social distancing. Others are just plain greedy sick, grabbing more than their share of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, water, produce, soaps, etc.

Today I stopped into to see two friends working at a small shop downtown and while we chatted, staying a few feet from each other, another woman burst into the store grabbed one solitary candle and told us she had just returned from Florida. The rest of us took a few steps back and the shop owner even said “well please don’t breathe on me”. Now granted I didn’t have to stop in the shop to visit yet my thought was why on earth upon return of travel would you feel the need to stop in a local shop to buy one candle? This is equal to buying extra toilet paper because it shows a lack of empathy about others.

This is where we are at. I worry every time I cough or sneeze. We are trying to hold together some form of normalcy in the midst of a pandemic with no leadership from the top in our country. The two school districts in our county will not go back to school until April 13th. The trickle down for this will be far-reaching as well; graduation, dance recitals, dance competition all will come to an end. The world as we know it has changed ~ R.E.M. (on replay in my brain constantly).

So what have I been up to to occupy time over Spring Break when I normally would be about town, hanging out with friends. We’ve met several times with friends over FaceTime which felt so good to reach out and connect with friends in town and out of town. We had a virtual meeting with cocktails with our theatre group~ so much fun to arrange about 7-8 people on FT messenger video chat. We’ve had happy hour with my husband’s family via FaceTime. And tonight we are eating dinner with friends over Zoom. Next week I have a few school meetings over Zoom to figure how best to take care of our students and families. I’m trying to keep on a schedule of activities otherwise you can just spend the day flying the sofa…

My list:

I’m reading Ta’Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer.
I’m watching Unbelievable, Contagion, Next in Fashion, and Virgin River on Netflix, all great but I highly recommend Unbelievable based on a true story and frustrating as hell until the end.
I’ve played around with video taping myself reading stories for students.
I’m deep cleaning parts of my house.
Today I made bread for friends and they are picking it up from my front door.
Connecting with friends.
Praying.
Waiting for my daughter to make it home.

What are you doing with your extra time?

Black History Month Lesson

I love this animated short that won an Oscar this year. We’ve shown in to 3rd-6th grade students and it’s created an atmosphere for good discussion about hair, cancer, and families. I worked hard to create an interesting history project for 5th and 6th grade students. It’s a Google Slideshow if you are interesting in checking it out or using it.

My students have been very engaged in research and creating their slideshows. I love their excited conversations as they find out facts. One group announced that John Lewis’ birthday was on February 20th and he was turning 80. They’ve discovered a few Iowans like Anna Mae Weems and were excited to know she is from Waterloo and that she is still alive! Lonnie G. Johnson invented the Super Soaker. Wow! I look forward to seeing their projects and knowing each of them learning a little something new which is what we all need to broaden our horizons.

I recently finished Maybe he just likes you by Barbara Dee which chronicles Mila as she navigates 7th grade with a group of unique friends and a group of harassing young men. These boys play a game centered around touching or talking about Mila’s body and she has a hard time fending them off. One of her friends keeps telling her she is taking it too seriously because maybe they like her or they are just joking. The boys continue the game even after Mila has asked them to stop. This is a wonderful book for middle or high school students to read although I personally didn’t think the boys were truly understand how their behavior was wrong. It certainly will create good conversations for students. Last weekend I read The War that saved my life which was a huge hit two years ago in the library but has been gathering dust this year. I took it home, read it and loved it so of course book talked the heck out of it with 5th-6th grade students and now it’s circulating again as is the sequel The War I finally won.

I’m still working on Mary Pipher’s book Women Rowing North. Aging is tough and this book is an excellent navigational resource. I want to highlight the heck out of this book except that it isn’t mine.

Best Books (so far) 2019

It was a beautiful day today-the sun was shining and it felt warm even though the wind was a bit brisk. I can feel summer winding down and even though I Fall weather is lovely and I love a good sweater I always miss summer. I’m a t-shirt and sandal kind of person and love being outside.

Fall weather does bring it’s own joy with it as well. Sweaters, boots, beautiful leaves falling, and warm beverages-ohhh, and backyard fires. Good times!

Over the last few months I’ve read quite a few books from April-August and some of them you should definitely add to your reading lists. I have two different lists; one with adult reads and one with children’s literature. They are all worth reading though whether you are young or older…

Adult Fiction:

Daisy Jones and the Six (2019) by Taylor Jenkins Reid – This was the book that made me jump head first into Book-of-the-month club! This read like it was real, so much so that I googled it to see how I’d missed this band. Billy Dunne, Daisy Jones and the rest of the cast all make for memorable characters that stayed with me. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, baby! She’s an author I want to read more of soon.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (2006) by Zora Neale Hurston – We picked this one as our “classic” for book club and I was so satisfied reading this excellent novel. It felt like I was back struggling with the Joad (Grapes of Wrath) family in college. Janie’s life is a rough and joyous journey as she tries to stay independent and enjoy life along the way.

Normal People (2018) by Sally Rooney – This second novel was a very interesting tale of friendship and love between Marianne and Connell while in high school and at Trinity College in Dublin. the characters are very memorable and the story was so intriguing. I also read Rooney’s first book, Conversations with friends, and liked it as well.

The Kiss Quotient (2018) and The Bride Test (2019) by Helen Hoang – These two little books are w-a-y too sexy for most but oh, so good. They rate like 12 stars from me. Stella Lane and Khai Diep both resonated with me as characters on the spectrum struggling with their emotions. Sexy and fantastic; Hoang is writing a 3rd and I can’t wait! Also I did find both at my local library!

The story of Arthur Truluv (2017) by Elizabeth Berg – What a beautiful story of Arthur as he works through the death of his wife and learns to form a new family of sorts with a young and lost teenage girl and his bothersome and moody next door neighbor Lucille. Family is truly what we make of it when we need it and Arthur opens up his heart to help those around him even though he still feels devastated. Thank you to Jen and Chris for passing this on to me this summer. I’m waiting for the second one to arrive.

Memoirs:

Educated (2018) by Tara Westover – Amazing read! I was so intrigued by her family struggles and Tara’s desire to rise above. I was appalled at some of the problems she had to overcome from her own family but her own independence was even more breath-taking because of it.

The shortest way home; one mayor’s challenge and a model for America’s future (2019) by Pete Buttiegieg – Also an Amazing read!! Mayor Pete is a wonderful writer and his story flowed from his family life, his public life, and his road to love. I was already part of the #PeteWave but after this I feel like I know him personally. I’m totally rooting for him.

I am a fiction reader for the most part so the fact that I have not one but two excellent memoirs on my list is pretty amazing. Honorable mention would be The Saboteur (2017) by Paul Kix which tells the story of Robert de La Rochefoucald who was part of the French Resistance during WWII. We read this for book club and I found out Kix has a podcast, Now that’s a great story, and it is quite good! Not that I need another podcast b/c I can’t keep up with what I have downloaded so far.

Young Adult and Children’s lit:

On the come up (2019) by Angie Thomas – Her second novel focuses on 16-yo Bri as she strives to make it the rapper world; a world that her father was king of before his death. I have to admit Bri was a bit brazen for me yet I understood where her anger boiled and spilled over from as she deals with life in her neighborhood. I look forward to what ever Angie brings forth in her 3rd novel.

The Novice (2015) by Taran Matharu – High fantasy and a fun escape book that a student recommended to me. Fletcher and the other cast of characters in this magical world of summoners was easy to get lost in and I quickly read the second one as well, The Inquisition. My friend Wyatt did give me the 3rd one a few weeks ago and it is still sitting on my desk. I have a stack to finish here before I’ll be ready to bring it home.

Gracefully, Grayson (2014) by Ami Polonsky – Grayson’s story is an amazing journey of acceptance as she learns to accept who she is and share her true identity with her adopted family. Grayson’s parents died years ago and she is being raised by his uncle. As Grayson reads some old family letters she begins to understand that this is who she has always been. This is wonderfully written debut novel about friendship and acceptance.

Amal Unbound (2018) by Aisha Saeed – Amal desires to be a teacher one day until an event in her small Pakistani village takes her dream away. When she gets angry at the local landowner for his rude behavior he teaches her about power as he forces her parents to send her to him as a servant. Amal’s fierce independence never lets her accept her fate as she fights for a way to break free. I loved this story and hope to find more of her stories to come.

Merci Suarez changes gears (2018) by Meg Medina – This is a feisty school story with Merci and her family struggling to make it through middle school as a scholarship student and as a sunshine buddy to the cute new boy, all while watching her beloved grandfather begin to suffer from bouts of confusion.

Amina’s Voice (2017) by Hena Khan – Amina is struggling with middle school as her best friend, Soojin begins to hang out with one of the popular (and unkind) girls. It is so hard to figure out how to stay true to yourself but also fit in with the friend you love. Amina worries about her friendship and her strict uncle coming to stay with them which is already enough to handle when the mosque her family attends is vandalized. When the community comes together for them Amina learns to understand how to be herself.

Aru Shah and the end of time (2018) by Roshani Choksi – Aru totally stretches the truth to her classmates (and to herself, really) as she deals with her absent and busy mom and their life living in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art. When three classmates stop by to accuse her of more lies she breaks a vow to her mother and she lights an ancient lamp to placate her classmates. When time is literally stopped she must unlock the mystery of her family’s history in order to put life back in motion. I must make time to read the second book in this series.

Walking with Miss Millie (2017) by Tamara Bundy – Alice is not happy that her mom has moved the family to the exact small town where her mother grew up just so they can take care of her aging grandmother. She misses her dad and her old life. When she is forced to spend time with her grandmother’s aging nieghbor Alice learns that life in a small town can be filled with all kinds of interesting characters. I liked the slower pace to this as Alice learns to navigate some life lessons.

Ohhh. That’s a lot of books. I hope you find something interesting to read from my list.

Hello April

We are happy you are here! I love all the seasons for a variety of different reasons and Spring has special qualities as the earth wakes back up sending green shoots out everywhere. It’s about coming back to life after the long winter deep sleep. And yet even though it feels like Spring today with birds chirping, warm weather mixed with a little rain ~ Groovy Girl doing homework outside at the patio table ~ we have to be ready for anything as last year we had a heavy snow fall right in the middle of April. I’ll wait until May 1st to take off my snow tires.

In my last two posts I’ve put my thoughts out there about garbage bags and the need to find one that composts everything inside of it. I want to take this idea one step farther and propose that all new plastic items be made out of plastic that already exists. I am a huge recycler of everything the recycling center says that I can recycle. My family and research shows that our recycling program is a bit broken. Landfills are overflowing and people all around the globe produce way too much trash. Too many single use items everywhere. So my proposal means that all single use items like those stupid crinkly plastic bottles should be universally created from existing plastic already out there. This would give purpose to recycling again.

People could get paid for bringing in pounds of plastic collected instead of it ending up in our waterways and eventually the ocean. This reuse idea would use far less petroleum and while factories would need to restructure to be able to reuse the plastic instead of creating new ~ it would be worth it because there would be a constant influx of old going to make new. And I still think some plastic items just need to go like plastic grocery bags. Kudos to cities that have already banned them and stores that encourage you to use what you have or what they offer like boxes. Perfect. I would decree this if I were to be elected president or Queen.

Oh, it just started to pour outside and I love that sound. That is a sound of Spring ~ hopefully not enough to cause any floods. Groovy Girl and I are on just a major rush of trying to find healthy ways to live our life without being earth destroyers. She’s interested in finding sustainable and recycled clothes. It’s just good to think about ways we can all be more earth-friendly.

I spent the weekend out of town in the major metropolis of Davenport, part of what is known as the Quad Cities. Groovy Girl had a dance competition event on Saturday. We found a good Asian place to eat and had a lot of good mama/daughter time. I had fun watching all the dancing but it also gives me a good chance to read. I am almost finished with Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Wow. This was my Book of the Month Club selection for March and if this is a sign of what’s to come I am very happy. This novel is so good and fun to read. I have about 3 friends in mind to pass it on to after my husband finishes it. It’s a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll so it isn’t for everyone but for me, it took me places I hadn’t thought about for years. So beautiful.

Happy peaceful week everyone!