A blog about bovine...

My friend has been feeling under the weather lately. Because of this, I have been helping her around the place. Imagine my surprise one morning when I walked out to the chicken yard and found this making a salad bar of the fruit trees in the backyard:

His name is Sammy. He is our neighbor's young long-horn. As it turns out, those horns are great for thrusting into the branches of fruit trees and thrashing branches down.

He had also made an extensive visit to our meager pile of alfalfa hay, making it quite a bit scarcer than it had been the day before. Sammy is no fiend, however, because where ever he went, he left a pie in gratitude for his samplings.

Now, I'm no stranger to farm animals, but I have to admit, my experience has not been in handling meat animals. Horses, dairy animals, chickens, they are all familiar with some sort of working relationship with the person who feeds them. The larger animals learn to be handled, to be led, the smaller ones learn not to be stepped on. I have found that I like this relationship style.

Now, this is where the real problem appeared: getting the large fellow back to his proper pasture.


I decided to try the most obvious approach. I grabbed one of the nearby horse leads, looped it around his head, and cinched it at his neck, and with all the confidence I could feign, I turned and marched towards the pasture...for two feet, where I was stopped by the unbudging steer behind me.

I looked at him. His big moist eyes looked back at me, cast a glance towards the apricot tree, and then slowly returned to me. The meaning was unmistakable, "You're kidding me, right? Leave this dessert bar to return to weeds? Hmm... No."

 

Clearly, this boy had developed a sweet tooth, so the next thing that occurred to me was to take advantage of it. I grabbed a scoop of molasses mash from the horse shed and attempted to coax him back through the gate. After the first nibble he follow a few, painstakingly slow steps. I had made the mistake all the greats make though: Never underestimate your adversary. Apparently, bovine possess the basic mathematical abilities necessary to estimate proportions and understand basic size comparisons. He took a meditative gaze at the two fruit trees, and then a calculating hesitation on my small bowl of mash. 2 trees > 1 handful of grain, and off he went to return to his new found love.

So, I took my own meditative moment and recalled how my friends at the fairgrounds managed their meat animals, and then, remembering multiple techniques, I proceeded to commit consecutive failures. I got behind him (outside of leg length) and made forceful sounding "HetHaHup!" shouts, clapping my hands, stomping my feet and making big, herding motions. He responded with a pitying glance over his shoulder and continued his plans. I slapped his rump. He flicked his tail. I tugged on his ear and tried several different commands. He shook my hand off like a fly that tickled him. I took a hold of his horn and attempted to lead him back to his pen. He sighed, and I could almost swear I caught him rolling his eyes at me.  I made horse noises at him, I called him mean names, I called him nice names, but nothing I did even earned his focused attention. Finally, as I leaned against the fence, exasperated and pondering, my eyes fell on the hose.

And then I tried a little experiment. As it turns out, while Sammy will tolerate a slap on the rump, a tug on the ear, insults to his personal existence as well as to the cow that bore him, Sammy absolutely cannot tolerate cold showers.

There is something guiltily funny in seeing a longhorn skip hastily back to his pasture with all the scurry of a startled rabbit. Especially if said longhorn just spent the last 30 minutes unbudgingly outside of his pen.

And this was one of those random things that happen in my unusually boring life.

I have now learned that grabbing a bull by the horns is not always as effective as ambling after him with a hose full spray ahead.

Thanks for reading.

Eleven things for the Eleventh day of the Eleventh month (of the Eleventh year)

1. Last month, I had the Ten things for the Tenth day of the Tenth month ready...and forgot to publish it. Oops.

2. Happy Veterans day. Seems like a strange phrase to say for this sort of holiday. Thanks to my friends, relatives, and strangers who hjave and are serving to protect my home.

3. I get to go to Magic Mountain with my family tomorrow. No roller coasters for me, but I get to go along and enjoy the fun that is my family at a theme park, and take pictures...and hold bags while they ride. Maybe this time I should bring a stroller.

4. It is really murky outside! It looks like Bakersfield tried to be a snow globe, but then at the last minute, forgot that we don't do snow...so it used dirt instead. Ew. Valley fever, anybody?

5. I am 3 weeks into my first class towards teaching credentials, which, somehow means that I am 2/3 of the way through my textbook. I am a stinking reading machine! The class is linguistics: teaching readings/writing, and ESL students.  It's actually a lot of fun.

6. I finally got my new car last month...but then, you've probably already read that blog, so you know. (I'm only up to six things... urg)

7. My friend gave me an orchid. It's really pretty. I forgot it at her house. Right now, my orchid is really pretty at her house. It will probably stay prettier that way.

8. I got a letter from my sweet Abigail in Ghana this week. She got promoted from P3 to P4(grades) this year, she's so clever! She started P1 at age 8, and here she is, 2 years later, all the way up to P4.

9. Somehow, whenever I get to the day number that matches the month number, I always manage to have a blog I was planning to post that day...so I feel like it has a tendency to double up, even if my blog has lain fallow all that time before that day.

10. I am really enjoying following some other people's blogs right now. First, my current favorite is by JD, the woman who has taken a gift package to my Abigail, and my parent's Emmanuel in Ghana. She is currently in Ghana right now. At this very moment, she is off the grid, because she is working at Lake Volta to free child slaves. How great is that?! So, there are no blogs being posted for a few days, but there will be, and she has quite a few blogs posted up until she had to go off the grid a few days ago that are worth reading., You can read JD's blog here.

The second blog, is actually multiple blogs. It is a Compassion Blogging trip. Compassion takes popular bloggers to a country they serve and lets the bloggers dig through records, see where the children live, see what the families have to deal with, and see what Compassion is doing in their communities. It is really great to read, and it is great to see Compassion International's dedication to integrity. You can follow their current blogging trip in Ecuador, as well as past blogging trips here. So, if you were looking for some easily accessible good reading, I have just provided you with HOURS worth.

11. I can't think of much else to share without making it a life story, so I'm just going to share soemthing else I've been appreciating: Johnny Cash.  Specifically a recent song, which is a cover of Nine Inch Nails song Hurt.

And those, blogfriends, are my 11 things for the 11th day of the 11th month (of the 11th year).  Thanks for reading, even though I disappear for long spurts sometimes!

Feeling blue...

So, this past summer, I took my trusty little '97 escort (known to many as Zander) into the mechanic. The news wasn't good. The repairs tallied over 2000 dollars, while my poor Zander only managed to reach the 500-1000 dollar resale value. I considered that with the repairs, it might be worth investing to keep my little car, but as I reflected over the past several months, I realized that lately, I had often been paying medium to large repair bills to keep it running. To add to that, the interesting new noises and rattles were really starting to make me nervous on my long distance (and often quite mountainous) trips.

To add insult to injury, the escort's air conditioning died the moment our local Spring approached 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Our summers often top out at 112 degrees, and keep a general average of 108 degrees. I literally sweat this dilemma out all summer. The main hold up I had was that I just could not find a vehicle for sale that I liked better than my little stick shift. I have often referred to it as the motorcycle of cars, as it is so small, light weight, so quick and responsive. I was having a difficult time finding comfort in the larger, heavier models of cars that are currently being made. True, these vehicles are all better equipped. They are all prettier. Some of them even have better gas mileage, however each test drive felt like I was driving a new gaudy, metal, leaden fat suit. I found that the Hyundai Elantra was tolerable, but it was just okay. It is a great car. It would do, but I had no love for it, but maybe some day, I could grow to love it. In short: I was so ridiculously tired of car hunting, it wasn't funny. I was on the verge of settling for the Hyundai when on the spur of the moment, I decided to test drive one more vehicle.

Here's where I get really corny: You know in the beginning of the Bible(Genesis 2), when Adam needs a companion, so God brings each animal to him one by one, and Adam names them all, but none of them were it? And then Eve showed up, and Adam cried "At last!" (NLT "Finally!").

I am not saying that this is the same as the start of a romantic relationship, and I am in no way saying that shopping for cars is that same as finding a spouse (and I'm not implying that women are material possessions to be bartered for. Let nobody panic). I do feel that in this moment, however, I gained a partial understanding of Adam's relief, after seeing how very "just okay" every option in the world was to him, to finally be presented with "just the right" solution. From the point of pulling this car off the lot on the test drive, my driving instincts cried out, "At last!" and it was love at first drive. I left that poor Hyundai high and dry, but I'm sure it'll find someone who can love it for its bulky qualities. See, blogfriends, I warned you it was going to get corny, but you just kept on reading, didn't you?

And now you're thinking, enough of this chatter, where are the pictures?!

This blog has been delayed for a long time in waiting for me to come up with pictures of this car. I finally got the pictures, but I have to give a heads up, it's dirty and the pictures were taken on a cloudy day, so the color in the photos seems a little muted to me.

 My friend, Merida, saw the car as she pulled in to the parking lot. "It's just a color that makes you happy!"

  The official name for the color is Blue Raspberry. 

That just happens to be my favorite jolly rancher flavor.

My sister in law says it's "Blue like a tic tac!"
I enjoyed that.
















Another phrase that came to mind was swiped from a book title, "Blue Like Jazz" but in a happy sort of way.

Whatever you can say about the color. It pleases me.  It's a color that makes me smile, attached to a car that I like, attached to a loan that is deepening my credit score to open doors of possibilities in the future.

Additional things that come with my choice of car and color:

-My youngest siblings enjoy the ability to easily pick it out when it's near school, and they are hoping a kind, wonderful older sister will give them a ride home, rather than having to walk home after school.

-I don't have much of an issue finding it in a parking lot.

-People I know are having an easier time tracking my movements around town. ("I saw your car in the Target parking lot Saturday...")

-When I chose this color, I realized that if I ever wanted to sell it, I had narrowed my selection of buyers, because I thought the color was so girly that no self-respecting male would buy a car this color. I think I was wrong in that assumption. Every stranger who has complimented the color in a parking lot, every stranger I have caught lingering over it, or asked what the official name of the color is has been a male. I've never owned a new car, so it has been surprising to me how many people actually comment on it.

-The backseats are oragami! They fold up in all sorts of ways!

It rides smoothly. It's high tech, and gives the ambiance of my own personal space shuttle. I feel like I've stolen a vehicle from a Disneyland Tomorrowland ride, and I don't intend to give it back! A majority of the time, the CD playing is the Pixar's Greatest hits sound track, which includes the music from the credits of The Incredibles (action spy music) as well as the instrumental section from UP, when Carl's house takes flight. It just seems like the correct soundtrack for my car right now.  My car. I'm still adjusting to that idea. It's nicer than anything I've owned before, and honestly, I'm still fighting the expectation that any day now, a rental car company is going to show up and say, "Okay, you've had your fun, time to give it back now."

So, this is it. I have had a few far away friends ask when this blog is going up. My cousin Keira has been aching to see its color. Her mom, (my first cousin) Laura, told me that Keira has been pointing out Fits whenever they pass them on the road, "There's Caitlin's car...but what color is it?" Well, Keira, now you know.

Thanks for letting me share.

-Caitlin

Feeling abandoned?

Well, blogfriends, perhaps you should. To tell the truth, life on this side of the computer has been so busy, that I have not so much as logged into my account in over 2 weeks.

So, I feel as though, while I don't have anything quality to post at this moment, I owe you some signs of life.

For those of you who did, thank you for praying for my interview for school. I was accepted. I am currently in my first quad of school. The first class is a linguistics class focused on teaching reading, and teaching ESL students. I find it very interesting, though there are times where the reading is hefty.

My housemate got sick...really sick a few weeks ago. That has definitely changed our living routine some while she recovers.

I also managed to crawl through the paperwork of finding a car and getting a loan, there will be more on this later...as soon as the daylight is nice, and the camera goes outside to document.

Other than those major things, all of the in between business...I honestly can't tell you where the time went, but believe me, I definitely noticed it while it was going! I've had fun, and I've not had fun...that's generally where time goes.

I will do my best to finish some of these draft blogs I've got stored, as well as catch up on the planned ones, that will make this place less boring!  Until then, know, I'll come back eventually. You have not been entirely abandoned.

Deep breath, here we go...

Today, I am headed to an interview for school. It has been years since I have been to an interview.

With what may appear to be years of failure behind me, I am making a move forward. I used to think they were failures. This may sound cliche, but I am realizing that they were not necessarily failures, but redirections. I am one of those people who can get so focused that God must use a little bit more than gentle words to get me where I am supposed to be. Today, is the culmination of many months of gathering my broken pieces and seeing a mosaic beginning to form. I am beginning to see that maybe my life was meant to be a mosaic, and not a uniformly beautiful vase. The pieces are coming together in a beautiful way, so unlike the objects from which they originated.

I am excited. I am praying that this mosaic is pleasing to God. I am praying that I can remained focused on glorifying God, even when I'm tempted to focus on paper cuts and stubbed toes. I am praying I don't throw up in the interview. I am praying.

Remember that entry I posted a few months ago? The Monsters Behind the Closet Door? This is one of those moments I wrote about, but I'm not going to allow the monster outside the closet to prevent me from opening it, and finding out that the closet is really a doorway.

Deep breath... in... out... in... out... in...and here we go.

Feel free to pray with me.

Oh, yeah... We flew.

The last time my sister had been to Disneyland was seven years ago. Melody really could not remember it well. Recently, Melody has fallen in love with the Peter and the Star Catchers series by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry. Who could blame her? It's a great series. (It is especially good as an audiobook. The narrator is amazing.) This series is a collection of books in response to a question asked by the author's daughter, "But how did Peter become Peter Pan?" 

A few months ago, I went to Disneyland with my friends. When my sister heard me mention the Peter Pan ride, she gasped, "There's a Peter Pan ride?!" I told her that of course there was, and that she even rode the ride when she was there last time. She was very disappointed to realize she had no recollection of it. This began her dreaming about a trip to Disneyland. Last month-after accidentally ending up with a season pass to Disneyland on a spur of the moment trip with my friend, Morgan- I had an idea.

I called Melody and asked her, "Would it be a lame Christmas present if I offered to pay half your ticket and take you to Disneyland?" 

She quickly responded, "That would not be lame at all!"  And that set the trip in motion: A "sisters only" Disneyland trip to recover lost memories, revisit a fading childhood, enjoy the freedom of adulthood, and make all new memories, most of all: to fly.

Our adventure began very early in the morning. Normally this would be an issue, because both of us consider 10 AM to be the earliest portion of the morning we are willing to tolerate, but we were both pretty excited.  As we drove there we listened on audio to the first book of the new spinoff series of Peter and the Starcatchers, this new book is called The Bridge to Neverland it is by the same authors, in a more modern setting. It seemed fitting for our adventure.  We got to Disneyland just before the gates opened, got Melody's ticket printed off, and then bolted through the front gate, directly to the most important ride of our trip: Peter Pan's Flight. We got there so fast that there was hardly a wait at all.

 I have to say, Peter Pan's Flight happens to be my favorite Fantasyland ride. I have always wanted to fly.

And this is about to become a photo-tastic blog, so brace yourself for experiencing it visually.

This is Captain Hook threatening Melody, the only person in the crowd wearing a Peter Pan hat.

 

So Peter Pan chased him off and gave Melody a high five, and told us "He's just jealous because you guys have two hands!" Which I think must have been Melody's absolute favorite part of the day. I was so happy, because Peter Pan didn't do a meet and greet that day and we were disappointed about. We went to the parade simply to lay eyes on the boy.

Basically, we had a great time. I think Christmas should start early every year. 

Before we left, we had one last Peter Pan ride, because it's always better when you exit the ride and it is still dark outside, so you can pretend it was real and you can still fly.

 

Oh, by the way... I didn't let Melody drive home. I mean, she just doesn't have the driving style I do.

And that, my blog friends, was our awesome trip to Disneyland, my early Christmas present to Melody, and just a plain good time shared by sisters.

Thanks for reading along. I hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as we did.

.

Touched by a Lightning Bolt

In December of 2008, in the dark hours of the early morning, I took the first step onto the no return bridge between lives so starkly different in my mind that sometimes it is hard for me to believe that the Caitlin I was and the Caitlin I am share the same social security number.

The Caitlin I was that night would have expected to see it coming, but she didn't. I didn't.

It snuck up on me.

Back then, I was an emergency medical technician. I was responding to an emergency call for a person who was, for a brief moment, dead. My partner and I worked smoothly and quickly, and in the span of 2 minutes after our arrival, the patient stopped being dead. In fact, by the time we were preparing to transport the patient to the hospital, the patient was holding conversations, however illogical those conversations may have been. I had been on similar calls in the past, and I was so relieved that this time our efforts had been rewarded. The patient would live. The family was pleased with us.

This is where, in the process of doing my job, a pain I can only partially describe as fire burst through my nerves, igniting in the center of my back, and radiating in numerous bottle rockets towards my shoulders and neck, across every rib in my chest, racing downward like fiery fingers through all the nerves in my legs until halted by the ends of my toes.

It was just a fragment of a second. A spinal injury.

It is something that happens so fast that the gasp outlasts the initial white flash of pain. I didn't see it coming. Even after it happened, I still didn't see it coming.

In reality, that very moment was exactly where one life ended and another began, but I didn't know it. I was clinging desperately to the idea of being able to get back to where I had been, even though my second version of life had started without my permission.

It is as if my life has been written as a series of novels, and that was both the end of one book and the beginning of the sequel. I am not the author of those books. I promise you that if I was the author, I would have written quite differently. There would not have been a spinal injury in my book. There would have been unicorns, and fairies, and pirates, and telekinesis, and telepathy, and shape shifting, and the ability to fly, and the ability to breath under water.

But there would not have been a spinal injury.

Needless to say, I have meddled with my fair share of bitterness, and then some. I have replayed that night through my mind so many times, kicking myself for not seeing it coming, for not preventing it, scolding my partner for his part in it. I have darkly referred to it in my mind as "the night my life was ruined" too many times. I have wondered about fate, and if it would have happened no matter what job I had.

Only recently, though, have I been able to see it as what it is: A twist in the plot.

A sudden, unexpected occurrence that drags the main character through mind bending realizations, lesson-learning pain, and brutal instructions in patience and perspective. As any reader knows, I needed to wait and keep reading to see past the plot twist.

For too long, I have spent time bemoaning the circumstances, responding in self pity, focusing on what I lost. I forgot, for a moment, to look to God, my author, and trust that there is a higher purpose in this "book" than my own whimpering. It is a rare thing for a plot twist to be the end of a book, but the main character usually doesn't think about that.

I would love to be able to tell you, blogfriend, that everything makes sense now, but I can't. I have no doubt it will end happily ever after, and then it will all make sense, but at that point, I won't be around to tell you about it. All I can tell you right now is that where ever this story ends up taking me, I am interested in the adventure.

Really, I am not even sure what the purpose of this entry is, except that I felt like writing about it. About the moment when I finished one book, and picked up the sequel. About crossing a bridge. About the night the lightning shot through me.

Maybe, in the near future, I will feel like writing more about it, in which case, this seems to be a good preface.

Until then, thanks for reading.

Almost there! August-Literacy 8

August was a light reading month for the Literacy challenge. I was house sitting a majority of that month, and out of town for a large portion of the time I was not house sitting.  This means that I was not often reading, and when I was, I was reading what was at hand.

I got three read in August (but one I had to leave at the house I was sitting, so it did not get to join the photo op).

 

We will start with the book that you do not see.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

This is one of those books that I have heard about for a long time, have intended to read, but never managed to get in my hands. I had always figured that because I have siblings 7 and 9 years younger than myself, I would just be able to snag it whenever they brought it home, but either they did not bring it home, or I was away at college at the time(dang, I never considered what a problem college would be).  Diary of a Wimpy kid is a very easy book to read, as it is a graphic novel. It is somewhat entertaining, watching the character deal with the mishaps of life as they happen to a middle schooler.  It is honest, in that sometimes the main character can be a little bit of a jerk, as we all can be, but rarely admit it to our journals. With all of that said, it is a book written specifically for children.  It did not give me the desire to read the next book.  There are some children's books that are written to be read by everybody, books that can snag anyone's interest.  This book is written just for children.  Good for Jeff Kinney, convincing boys to read more, making them look smarter with a book in their hand. Maybe it will encourage boys to branch out to more challenging material, but knowing my brothers, probably not.  If you have an 8-12 year old who needs something to read, this might be a good one for them(though I think that The Magic Tree House series probably has more literacy value to it).  For the adults out there, it's probably not worth your time, though I did not begrudge it my own time.  I enjoyed it for the silly, brainlessness I needed at the time.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

This book is a vacuum book. When you pick it up, it sucks you in.  You can't stop reading it, even if you want to.  It also has some disturbing scenes in it.  In the beginning, a 9th grader gets raped and murdered, and that scene is written in suggestive detail.  The remainder of the book is spent with the dead 9th grader, watching the world's response to losing her and trying to break the barrier between the two worlds to get her murderer caught.  The book is very interesting, and I might have liked it very much, if the author had not chosen to include the main character in a wild hare of a scene near the end of the book that swung the book into the category of "trying too hard to be teenage smut."  That's right, it threw sex into the story where there was no justification, and where honestly, it would probably be considered a stupid move by anyone but a teenager who has been told by countless books and movies how romantic sex is, and that no love story is complete without it.  That part was just plain weird.  That ploy, really, it ruined the book for me. It went from a "halfway decent book that would be a good read to suggest to people" book to a "don't bother" book for me. Had that one chapter had been completely removed from the book, it would still be a great book. It is not even just because there was sex, but the pure stupidity of that scene, which I can't even explain properly to you without spoiling the book for those of you who still intend to read it.  In conclusion, unfortunately, this book gets no reading suggestion from me, though I am glad I finally read it. In the end, it just was not a great book. It was shallow. I would like to add a little warning for certain parents of teenagers and teenagers: This book really has a lot of sex in it, not just the one scene that ruined the book.  It has a lot of disturbing elements, and a lot of scenes using "bad days" as legitimate excuses for really bad decisions, and it has a tendency to normalize casual sex.  Be careful about trusting books for your teenagers just because they come from the "Young Adult" section of the library. There are many untrustworthy books in that section hiding under the guise of literature.


The American Girl Kaya Series by Janet Beeler Shaw

In all technicality, yes, there are six books, and I would have counted them as such when I was 7-12, but as a 25 year old, it just seems wrong.  I would like to toss in an interesting fact about this series before we get into details: This series was written by the same author who wrote the Kirsten series. That may explain why I appreciated Kaya as much as I did. This series is about a Nez Perce girl during the decade before the declaration of independence was signed, which is also before her specific tribe has any visual contact with Europeans, though there are stories and rumors about the white skinned people, and her grandmother, as a girl, survived a small pox epidemic that raced through the different tribes at the first sound of the Europeans arrival. I really enjoyed this story, and I know that had this series been written when I was still in their target ages, it probably would have been one of my favorite American Girl collections, rivaling with Felicity of course.  Really that is an obvious choice, both girls have horses.  Felicity was a redhead, so of course there was an immediate bond there.  Kaya is Native American.  There are two things I have always known for sure about my heritage: Irish and Native American.  Sure, Kaya is Nez Perce, and my heritage claims Chickasaw and Cherokee, but I am pretty sure I would not have held that against Kaya when I was younger.  I like to keep up on the American girls(at least the historic ones), even though I have long outgrown them.  I have gotten behind on a few series, but Kaya is one I have been wanting to read for a long time and this is why: When I was in their target age range, I remember my constant question was, "Why don't they have a Native American girl?"  It seemed wrong to me to have a genre called "American Girl" and not have a collection about one of the first American girls.  Now, on to the series. I really appreciated these books. The stories were catching enough to make me want to pick up the next book.  True to American Girl, the stories were mainly about Kaya learning to be responsible, caring and patient.  Unlike many of the other American Girl characters, Nez Perce girls were expected to take on many family responsibilities at Kaya's age. I like that, while each book has its own climax and conclusion, there is also a larger story running through the series, with its climax and conclusion in the sixth book.  In book one, pardon me for ruining part of it, Kaya does something irresponsible that earns every child in the village a switching, and Kaya winds up with the disgraceful nickname "Magpie." Through the entire series, you see her trying to outgrow both the incident and the nickname, and eventually she learns to appreciate the lessons she learns through the torment of her nickname. In the second book, Kaya and her blind sister and Kaya's horse get kidnapped by a raiding party from another tribe.  Kaya manages to get away in following books, but the escape could not accommodate her sister's blindness, and they agree it is best so that Kaya can get help. Through the series, there is the constant task of trying to find her sister again.  I really enjoyed the educations tidbits that were slipped into the story, as well as the "Peek into the past" history segment found in the back of every American Girl book.  In conclusion of my opinion of this series, I believe it is the only thing I read that month that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I would recommend it to any adult brave enough to read a children's book, and all little girls who can be convinced to read it.  Yes, I do suggest these books.

And the conclusion of this Literacy blog means that for now, I am finally caught up in my literacy blogs!  Small happy dance moment inserted :::here:::

Thanks for reading.

9 things for the 9th day of the 9th month

Yes, I missed this segment a lot in recent months, but why waste time focusing on failures of the past.

1. My parents get to go sailing this weekend...without me.  So I'm just going to spend time with their children, and probably eat all their ice cream.

2. Junior high started up this week, on its new day at its earlier hour. As the blog explained, it was a little intimidating, but turned out alright for a first try.

3. I still need a new vehicle, as my once trusty vehicle feels more and more shaky as time wears on, and I am tried ofputting a hose in the coolant tank once a week.

4. I am so excited Chuck (the NBC TV show) is coming back again, but I am so sad it is waiting until OCTOBER to do it!

5. I got to go to Disneyland with my sister, and it was a lot of fun.

6. I have noticed that as Fall cools off, every year, I feel the need to start making things (such as sewing, knitting, whatnot). I think that's weird.

7. This particular blog is really overloading this week unfairly, compared to the blog count of other weeks. I can't really control when the day number matches the month number, but the unevenness of it sort of bothers me. And it bothers me that it bothers me.  (P.S. 9 is a really big number when it comes to sharing thoughts)

8. I still really want to go to Haiti to visit my friend, Liline. I just can't seem to work out the details just yet, and I am not willing to travel in a recently wrecked, third world country, all by my redheaded, nonintimidating, obvious foreign self.  If you would to come with me and be intimidating, let me know. ;-)

And finally,

9. I, by fortunate association of people, random availability, brief disappointment, and quite a bit of luck and manuevering, somehow landed a SoCal Select season pass to Disneyland, which means, I can go on most weekdays that are not school holidays through May 2012, and 5 days in June 2012. This stroke of luck has benefited me quite well so far(For instance: thing #5). Thanks Morgan!


Whew! I made it to 9.  October 10th, November 11th, and December 12th are going to be so hard!

Same words, different tune...

This year I am volunteering with the Junior High youth group again. This is starting my 5th year there. Some of it feels very much the same, the kids, the games, the format. This year, however is so very different because I'm co-leading it this year. Holy cow! How did that happen?

I'm lucky, because I get a new co-leader I already know and enjoy. I think that we are going to have a really great time this year. Wednesday night was our first night of the year.  It felt so weird, first: it was on Wednesday. Previously, it had been on Tuesday, a night when very few people are there. Wednesday night, wow... so many different people: all of AWANAs, choir, high school. All of a sudden, we had to share the property. That was strange. Also, being in a different room, with a different recreational area really messed with the habitual portion of my mind. The absolute weirdest part was calling the shots... all of them. My co-leader and I are calling all of the shots, all night, every night. I feel like I have come full circle, from being the hyper junior higher, to being the energetic youth volunteer, and now, much like the woman who was in charge when both my co-leader were in junior high, we're running it. Cool. I think we can do this. Like writing with my left hand, this year's first night felt both familiar and clumsy all at once.

The pleasant surprise, and pay off for changing nights, is that we had twice as many students as we expected, which means: 4! Don't laugh. Four students rather than two makes playing games, and having discussions so much less work, and so much more fun. I feel like the games we tried backfired amazingly, but the kids were good sports, and so that went decently well.  Next week we'll have a better idea of where to go with that. We did introductions, the leaders shared testimonies, and the kids seemed opened to just talking with us and each other. This seems like a good start. We knew it would be a small group this year, and we were hoping to get them started on a closer group more like a Bible study group rather than the more distant spread out youth group, which only works with lots of kids who will make their own small groups. The way the discussion went was encouraging to me. Next week, we are going to have to get the lessons in motion, and see if we can keep that small group discussion style rolling. Please, feel free to pray for me, my fellow leader, the kids, and the group as a whole. We've got a whole new adventure ahead of us.

In conclusion, I'm tired, excited, hungry, and glad to be getting back to my Tuesda--er... Wednesday night schedule.

July-Literacy Challenge 7

Time to catch up again!

These are the books I finished in July.  This time, all 3 books were new to me.  I don't begrudge this self imposed literacy challenge, but sometimes, much like homework, it is difficult to get around to writing the report.  Here we go!

Madness by Jossy Chako

This book is written by a missionary to India. He also is Indian. I came by his book because I had an amazing opportunity to hear him speak at a missions conference. It was an amazing presentation. In the book he tells about how he moved away to Australia as a young man, and ended up marrying an Australian. She persuaded him totake her to India for their honeymoon.  Jossy grew up in an area that was mainly Christian, and he was well provided for. The India he saw on his honeymoon was completely different, and though he never saw himself being the "missionary type" he realized his heart was aching for the people in his country.  Jossy also realized that there were many Indian pastors already reaching out to India on their own, with no training or support, and he saw his opportunity.  This story tells about his childhood, as well about what it took for him to start an organization. What impacted me the most in this book is the amount of faith of the different people in his life. Their faith and fervor for the Lord can easily put me to shame.  Also, I was struck by the oppressing darkness so many people live in.  They live in a world where demons possession is an obvious problem. That is a scary thought to me, to see the devil so blatantly at work, but then maybe I see the devil blatantly at work often, and explain it away so I can comfortably ignore him. The thing about having such an oppressing darkness, having the devil running so rampant is that these missionaries see amazing works of God. It takes a lot of faith to stand up in the midst of such intimidating darkness, and God meets them where and how they need Him.  It was an interesting book. I would not say that it is a must read. It is informative for anyone who wants to know about missionaries, and about India, as well as about starting a non-profit organization.  I definitely would not stop anyone from reading it.  It is not the best book I have ever read, but I also really appreciated it, and I don't think it was meant to be a best seller.  An added perk, is that it is a thin book, so it does not require a lot of commitment to finish it.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

This is a typical English literature novel. Depending on my mood, I like those.  It was sometimes hard for me to get through, but in the end I did.  I go back an forth on whether I liked it.  It is about a young woman who marries an older widower.  When she moves onto his estate, she struggles in living under her husband's late wife's (Rebecca) shadow, and there is something strange going on with the staff and the mansion. Many times the main character feels as though she is being haunted, and there just seems to be a sinister, unwelcome spirit about the place, and especially the house manger.  Much of the book is about watching this young woman transition from a silly school girl with a silly inferiority complex very gradually become assertive, desperate woman.  I found it frustrating to sit inside the main character's head, when I just wanted to give her a good shake, tell her to be a big girl and start handling her problems, as they obviously weren't going away.  Part of this frustration, however is what kept me reading.  It's a little on the mystery side, as it slowly reveals hints about the darkness of the estate.  When it ended, and even still, I range between "That was a stupid book" and "I really liked thinking through that book."   You should know that, when it comes to English literature, I dislike it more often than I like it. The fact that it intrigued me at all is a compliment. My roommate enjoys this book thoroughly.  So, if you are the sort who thoroughly enjoys Victorian era English literature, with all of its rambling details, then by all means, you will enjoy it.  If not, then I probably would not recommend this book to you.

Loser by Jerry Spinelli.

This book was written at about a 5th-7th grade level. It is about the child who was doomed from the start to never fit in: uncoordinated, weird name, off-kilter interests, a strange tic, with passion for weird sounding words and a desire to shout them.  He is earnest and goodhearted, but somehow always manages to be misunderstood by even the adults in his life. He never seems to figure it out.  As I read the book, I truly enjoyed each scene and chapter as a well written narrative. It starts with "the loser" at the beginning of kindergarten, before he or any of the other children realize he is a loser, but really, it was only a matter of time.  As he and the children grow up, they slowly start to realize what he is: an outcast. Most of the time, our main character is so oblivious, he doesn't even notice that it should bother him to be an outcast.  The book is almost like peeking into the daily lives of children from kindergarten through seventh grade. The anecdotes are quite enjoyable.  The plot, on the other hand, I have turmoil over. The upfront plot is abnormal. It is linear, with little climax and no story arch. It it's like climbing a mountain half way, and stopping. At the end of all the anecdotes, you feel like you have learned nothing.  This book is tricky, though. It feels as though it has two plots, the story telling one, with all the anecdotes that don't add up to much, and the underlying plot that sneakily interweaves a slow paradigm shift in both "The Loser" and the kids who make up his community, caused by the sheer unyielding, unphased weirdness of the main character, and the fact that he, though weird, friendless, and an outcast, never understands that he should dislike who he is and his social position within the class.  Because of the sneaky, second plot line, I will have to conclude that, yes, I liked  The Loser.

And those, my friends, are the three books that filled July.  Coming soon, the books of August!

I'll be there...

(Quick warning: In order to find photos for this post, I had to dig through my old honest-to-goodness-real-film photos from my childhood point and shoot cameras.. there is only so much quality one can expect from an 8-16 year old with a 35mm and a questionable quality of scanner!)

I really won on the day they were handing out grannies.

 My Granny has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was the kind of grandmother who could halt a displeasing behavior with a few curt words, but still manage to make a grandchild feel extremely, securely loved and like a uniquely special individual. She played our silly games(even though she disliked most of them), watched our age-level movies, and read our grade level books, and generally valued our personhood at whatever age we were, which allowed us a level of closeness that other people might not achieve with grandparents.


The same curiosity and independence that were the bane of her cooking abilities formed the random escapades she invited us along that formed of our now cherished memories. I say all this just to preface what an important and special role Granny has held in my life. She died in July of 2008, and while occasionally I regret that I could not steal more time with her, I also feel privileged- as the daughter of her fifth and youngest child- to have been able to know Granny for as long as I did. I am grateful for the time I got, and as she knows Jesus, I am glad she is finally with him.

I am at peace about Granny going to be with Jesus. Some days though, I miss her more than others. There are some situations that spike an automatic desire to go visit Granny: 

Coming across a bag of Lays sour cream and onion flavored potato chips tucked away in a corner. Sitting down to a pile of of books, or perusing a used bookstore. Driving to the coast. Taking a stroll on a lovely day through a park or particularly forested area. Settling down to a cup of tea, or soup. Finding an excitingly strange foreign film, or watching a great book-based movie.

It is during these moments that I catch myself mentally loading up the car to go to Arroyo Grande and looking forward to a lunch at the Back Door Deli.

I remember several years ago, when my two youngest siblings were in those years of annoying car trips. We often drove to the coast as a family, spending the weekend with Granny and Grandad. While Melody and James were between the ages of 4 and 10, the ever present question was "Are we there yet? How much longer?"

They asked this so many times that Mom came up with an auto-response that soon became so traditional that even after they outgrew that stage, someone would always ask the annoying question just to hear the response before we got there.

"We'll be there when we see Granny waiting for us on the front porch waving."

Granny often did that. When she knew we were getting close, she would go stand on the front porch and wait for us to arrive. It became a joke those times when she wasn't there on the porch that even after we were there, we weren't really there until we saw Granny.

Sometimes, I drive past her old home, and there is a quiet pang of loss, knowing that she wouldn't be waiting for me there, if I stopped by. Granny's house was always a sanctuary: leave all bullies, worries, and stresses on the freeway, they couldn't come through Granny's door. Recently, during one of those pangs, I reminded myself what a relief it is that she is in heaven, fully well, unrestricted and rejoicing with Jesus.

I love Jesus, too. There is a certain amount of comfort I take in knowing that not only will I be able to bask in the presence of my savior, I'll get to see Granny again. Somehow, knowing that my once tangible Granny is there in Heaven makes my Jesus, who I have never physically hugged, feel even more tangible in those times when I really need a hug. 

Even during the difficult times, I can keep moving forward, because eventually, I'll get to go to my real sanctuary. It is striking to me how similar life is to the drive I so frequently used to make to Arroyo Grande: long, steep, and twisting, sometimes exhausting, other times it isn't all that bad, occasionally fun, occasionally boring, filled with glimpses of breathtaking beauty and unexpected dangers, some days it goes by quickly, others it drags on forever, but in the end, it is well worth the trip. There are phases in my life when the trip is so long, so foggy and dark, so scary, and exhausting that I hear my soul wearily nagging God with that annoying question. 


But I already know.

I'll be there when I can see Granny waiting for me on the front porch waving.
 And this time, Jesus will be standing right next to her.

Until then, I'll keep traveling, and usually, I'll enjoy that traveling.

However, when I do finally get there, I want a hug from both.

Blocked.

Blocked.

Block.  Like legos, and wood, and childrens toys.  Blocked like a doorway. Like road construction.

Blocked forcefully into a wall. Hockey players call it checked. Check. Cheque. Czech...123 testing, testing.

Blocked. B Locked. Be locked.  Ideas will be locked up when you want them most.

Blocked. Locked. Hocked. Walked. Knocked. Rocked. Talked. Clocked. Mocked.

Inspiration mocks, sauntering around me in a steady walk, while gazing at the clock...something something hocked, knocked... blahblahblah.blocked.

Rhyming doesn't make it art. Fart. Smart. Tart. Cart. Chart. Heart.

Four chambers.

Two, if you're a fish.

They're friends, not food. Draw one in the sand, stick it on your bumper and you're a Christian. Put legs on it and you're a macroevolutionist. Symbols. They represent something big, and can reduce us to something as small as they are. Classified.

Organized.  Put into a box. Fox. Socks. Rocks. Locks.

Locked box.  Box locked. It all comes back to blocked.

Writer's block.  It happens sometimes. If you were hoping to get something out of this post, too bad...it's blocked.

My wild nerd happy weekends

You may ask yourself, in your spare thoughts, what exactly does a jobless 20-something do on a weekend?  Well, usually, very little. In fact, my weekends look an awful lot like weekdays, and occasionally this causes me to be puzzled as to why the post office is closed for no apparent reason.  Not this month, though!  Thanks to family and friends, and I had quite an adventurous month of weekends.

Two weekends ago I went with my friend Laura (I left the synonym cousin in Hawaii...just to keep things from getting confused) to hang out with one of my brothers.  We went to the aquarium, which I truly enjoy, every time.  The deep sea exhibit was open again, and they had sea turtles and sun fish! And they were huge!  There is something about an aquarium that brings at the dancing, hopping, squealing 5 year old out of me.  In one of the larger tanks, there were murres ( a bird that looks similar to a penguin, but can fly, and is NOT a penguin...but try explaining that to every person who walks by a tank without reading the conveniently placed placards) diving in and darting around the water like they were flying, teasing the fish and nibbling for scraps after feeding time.  They left little silver trails of bubbles in their wake.  Watching all those trails of bubbles is probably what kept me standing there overly long.  

We also explored the nearby shops and considered attempting a laser room.  The laser room is set up like in the spy movies, and for a few dollars you can attempt to stealth your way past the lasers up to 3 times. Instead, we went home, and played cards late into the night.  The next day, my cousin dropped by for a visit, so of course, we had to teach her the game from the night before, because some of us (mainly, me) had lost the night before, in a way that could have been referred to as a massacre(my tallied points from the 3rd round still couldn't beat their tallied points from the second round).  My cousin played on my team, and helped me win some dignity back before it was time to hit the road.

Then the most recent weekend, I drove up and met my friend, Rachel, who was in San Francisco for a weekend. This is where you might be getting your hopes up that the theme of my trips might change, but you might also be rather disappointed in that.

We had a great time of it.  The first day we went to the California academy of sciences. (And this would be where your hopes for a less nerdy report might plummet)  There was sooooooo much there to absorb.  I just feel the need to state this: they have rolling, grassy hills for their roof.  Yep, it's true. Where a roof should be, instead there is what appears, at first, to be a nice little dog park. Minus dogs.  It is all in the effort to lower energy use, as well as lower pollution caused by roofing materials in rain water.  Personally, I just thought it was cool, until I read that the job that required the most man hours for keeping it in good order is weeding. Count me out!  Unless I can have a weedy roof, there will be no garden on my roof.  Then inside the building there was a ginormous bio-dome filled with a rain forest.  I'm serious: humidity, plants, trees, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, butterflies, and less pleasant bugs.  Thankfully, the unpleasant ones were kept on their side of the glass. I got to see piranhas and electric eels .on.the.same.day! Who is jealous now?

The next day we went to the Exploratorium.  Wow!  They only charge $15 an adult, and I think the reason it is so cheap is that they think it is a children's museum.  They are so very mistaken, which is probably why they kept letting in all these little kids who kept cutting me in line while I waited for my turn to play with the never-ending slinky conveyor belt.  All of those weird science experiments Mom rarely let us do(mainly because we lacked such wonderful resources), Bill Nye style, are stored in this very building.  I got to play with dry ice, and make water float, and vibrate cornstarch, and beat a drum to make the platform underneath me vibrate, and make smoke signals, and drink from a musical drinking fountain, and then from a toilet, and sit in a giant chair, and see my reflection in a giant bubble, and play with lasers, and switch my ears, and run out of time and leave before I finished.  Ah, well, it just gives me a reason to nerd out another weekend I guess.  I just want to say, if you're nerdy like me, you're in San Francisco and you see an ad for the exploratorium, and it looks too childish... do it anyway!  I would tell you to bring a child along so you don't look out of place, but then you'd have to take turns with the kid.  Besides, I saw plenty of other childless adults impatiently waiting for their turns, too.  Take it from me, don't let the people with offspring have all the fun.  And in between, Rachel and I enjoyed some shopping, some Indian food, some TLC shows, and the fact that we could get so excited about nerdy things without the person we came with pretending they didn't know us.

So maybe my weekends are more nerd-happy than they are wild, but hey, I did say I drank out a toilet, didn't I?

It tasted better than Rosedale water, that's for sure!

Thanks for reading.

Another short listed month! June, Literacy 6

In true form of catching up, I had to do a little cramming to get this blog done.  In fact, I had to go to my pocket calendar to sort out which books I had read in May and which I had read in June. (Whenever I finish a book, I write the title in the side margins of the month in the calender I keep in my purse, so that I don't leave any books out when I finally write the corresponding blog.  According to my calendar, I read Roald Dahl's Danny, The Champion of the World at the beginning of the month, and Falling Leaves (by Adeline Yen Mah) at the end of the month (in fact, I finished it in Hawaii).


Danny, The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl is one of my mom's favorite books.  I honestly can remember how many times she read it out loud to us when we were younger, but I can tell you that it is one of the few chapter books that got read more than once.  Reading it last month was enjoyable for me, because while I vaguely remembered it had something to do with partridges, a boy, his father, and raisins, I really could not remember the full storyline, so as I read it, it was like it was new, and then seconds later my memory would catch up and whisper, "You knew that." but it had been so long since reading this book, that my memory only ruined the surprises for me a few times, and none of them were the big surprises.  Danny lives with his father in a gypsy wagon behind his father's gas station and mechanic's shop, and Danny's father truly loves Danny.  It is wonderful to bask in his father's devotion with Danny.  Danny's father also has a secret pleasure, which Danny discovers one night, and soon joins in the family tradition.  The story is a good one, just realistic enough to make you want to believe it is real, and fantastic enough to keep you from finding it too close to your own life to be interesting.  If you haven't read it, you should. Pick it up sometime when you just want a book to tell you a good story that takes you on a short vacation adventure, and leave you with a satisfied skip in the step.  As this book was read aloud to me, I can vouch for it, it was a great read aloud book. It even kept my brother interested, who was 7 at the oldest possible age I can guess him to have been.  (This is also the book where the BFG makes his first, brief appearance.)  Read worthy? Yes.


Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah was another Costco find.  There is something so very irresistible about the book table there!  This is an autobiography of a daughter growing up in a large, wealthy Chinese family spanning through many of China's great political changes.  The turmoil caused by politics, however, is very rarely the cause of the main drama in this book, however, because the family drama is often so very mind blowing.  Adeline is the 5th child born to her mother and father, and the last child born to her mother.  Her mother died shortly after Adeline's birth.  Because of this, Adeline is occasionally regarded as bad luck by her own family.  The situation gets much worse, however, when her father takes a vindictive 19 year old bride.  The title of the book is take from a Chinese saying, "Falling leaves always return to their roots"  which is portrayed to mean, in the end, we all return to our ancestry, to what out family is.  What it seemed to mean to me was that our past, upbringing, our family's past, will ultimately define who we are.  The book spans from a brief history of the author's grandparents all the way up to her middle aged adulthood.  I will admit that my favorite part of the story was told during the author's childhood.  The child Adeline was so passionate, and so instantly affected by the happenings in her life it was difficult not to feel with her.  The things that each family member is willing to do, especially her siblings, who grew up under similar abuses, are stunning, and also worth pondering.  The story is not always riveting. There are times where it gets very slow, but it still managed to keep me turning pages.  It is subtly told, in almost a casual way, where it starts off that you are reading about somebody else's family, and somewhere along the way, you feel you have been observing for so long, and are so well informed, that you somehow mysteriously became apart of this tragic family.  I was never really sure which family member I might have slipped in as, but I definitely felt I had been allowed into the intimacy of the family.  There are things in this book that will make you gasp, things that you will have to find someone to tell, and it feels like gossip, after being drawn into it.  Really, in the entirety of this story, it is about Adeline's life long desire to find unity and acceptance in a family of shambles, and the amazing people who guided her through life.  Like I said earlier, it is not a "devouring" book. I didn't feel riveted, but it made me think. In the end, I was glad to have read it, and I really appreciated the small scraps of Chinese perspective on world history, too.  If you have time, Yes, it would be worth a read, but you don't have to rush out and buy it, and put it at the top of your list. It will wait calmly for you.


And that is all for June!  I have officially made it half way through the year keeping up with my personal challenge.

I can give you a brief preview of July, Literacy 7, as we are already midway through it.  You can look forward to a report on Madness by Jossy Chacko, and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and probably Loser by Jerry Spinelli (I am halfway through it...but I accidentally left it at a friend's house. We'll see if I can track it down in time for this month).


I hope you have enjoyed my hopefully-just-detailed-enough-to-give-insight-on-a-book-but-vague-enough-not-to-blow-the-story reports!  Coming soon (I hope)  July's installment of reports!

What's going on here?

Admittedly, I have been rather absent lately. I am trying to get back on track though.  I thought maybe, to make it up to you, I would do a sort of blog I don't usually do, an update on life.  Often I do blogs on ponderings, and blogs on places I've been, but I usually leave my day to day out of it, mainly because my day to day bores me, but just for you, blogfriends, I will compile my recent day to day into a summary.

This summer I did another week of teaching the memory verse station at VBS.  I enjoyed doing that again. I have been teaching the 1st-3rd grade station these 2 years, so it was really sweet when a sweet 3rd grader came to me on the last day of VBS and told me that next I "should move up to the 4th-6th grade station" so I could still teach her. It was very nice of her, and I will cherish it...but if I do it again, I think I shall stick with 1st-3rd grade... as I have already taught most of the 4th-6th graders in the past, and will likely teach them again soon in Jr. High.  I need to give them a small break from me if they're still going to think I'm cool by the time they get to junior high youth group.

During that week, I discovered that my car needs more repairs than it is worth. I have been working on fixing the cheaper, bare minimum stuff to keep it running, while looking around for a new car.  I'm thinking hyundai, at the moment, but I have yet to test drive anything at the moment.  Part of me cringes at the price of another car.  The other part of me says, "But wouldn't it be nice to drive something with a CD player, cruise control, and power locks?"  In the meantime, I am thankful that Bakersfield has been mostly merciful, in not having it's normal, daily record breaking heatwaves as I am, yet again, driving around another summer without air conditioning. This is the 3rd summer in a row, for various reasons each summer.

As many of you know, I went on a quick trip to Hawaii with a friend, and we visited my cousins and played tourists for a while. That was very enjoyable. Oh, how I miss Opal's Thai truck... And my cousins, of course! ;-)  I am now trying get myself back into the swing of things here in California.  It is hard to come back to a life where I have no schedule, and very little to do on a daily basis, after being in Hawaii, with something to do every day, and a lax, but interesting schedule. Also, the rental car had air conditioning and a CD player. And then there is the fact that Hawaii is 3 hours behind California. So while in Hawaii I had managed to adjust to getting up at 7 am, and going to bed at 11 pm, I am having a more difficult time adjusting back, which often means I'm getting up at 10 am, and going to bed at 2 am...  That probably should be fixed.

I am scrambling together the last bits of required application stuff for graduate school, and hoping to be in this fall.  Which is good, but means that while Compassion is hosting a sponsor tour in Haiti, I will be doing homework instead.  This is sort of a win win situation, though, because if I am not going to Haiti, it is because I got into graduate school, but if I don't get into graduate school, it means I get the chance to go to Haiti!

I am enjoying going to my church, the few times I have been in town on the weekend this summer.  There aren't many people there my age, but everyone is warm to me anyway.

And I have enjoyed the down time I have been able to have with my friends this summer.  And this weekend, I get to go hangout in Marina with my brother, and Laura, maybe go to the aquarium, maybe hangout with a cousin, but in general, I get to go play again.  Don't tell my cat...  She's still mad about the Hawaii thing.

And that, blogfriends, is my summary of my summer life so far!

Somebody's running REALLY late...(Literacy, 5 )

For those of you who have been paying attention, you may have noticed that I have failed to write up my Literacy Challenge book reports for May and June, and that the end of July is rushing up.  I read the minimum required books (Just barely...squeaking by!), I just did not have the time to write about them.  Because I am running so late, this blog probably will never get any photos, sorry.

So here it goes.

May: Literacy Challenge- Update 5

I am ashamed to admit that one of the two books I am claiming for this month is Amelia Bedelia (by Peggy Parish) ... not that I am ashamed to read from that series, because they were some of my favorites when I was learning to read, and my most recent reading of them probably had me giggling more than when I read them at the age appropriate level. I am simply ashamed to admit, that I didn't end up reading more in May when it comes to the page tally. In my defense, however, it was a 3 book set.  The set included the first book, Amelia Bedelia, the second book, Come Back, Amelia Bedelia, and also Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia!   I actually had not realized until I ready it in May that I hadn't read Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia.  Amelia Bedelia is a maid. She is a very earnest worker, unfortunately, she is a very literal person.  Being a very literal person, she has a tendency to be considered a problem.  She is told to dust the furniture, so she spreads dusting powder all over the furniture, all the while saying, "This is very strange, at my home, we un-dust the furniture." but she does what she is told, and does it well.  There is a whole list of things she does, exactly as she is told, which in the end means that her employers are very frustrated with her, and nearly fire her every time, unfortunately for them, Amelia Bedelia has mad baking skills, and just as they are about to fire her, her employed happen to sink their teeth into the pie she made, and they decide to keep her, and adjust to telling Amelia Bedelia to "un-dust the furniture."  I enjoyed it thoroughly as a kid  for all the mix-ups I understood then. The play on words in these books is delightful. As an adult, I truly appreciated how sometimes, we very eagerly try to do a good job, try so hard to impress, and in the end get it all wrong.    I know the feeling all too well. I have been told I can make a mean pie crust... maybe I should attempt putting my own baking skills to "safety-net" uses. The best way to handle such utter failure is with a hint of humor, when all is said and done, and I appreciate Amelia Bedelia for both her workmanship and the sheer, rueful comedy of failure.

The second book of May was I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced  by Nujood Ali, Delphine Menoui, translated by Linda Coverdale.  This book has been looking at me for months, or, I should say, Nujood has been looking at me for months, as the cover of the book is a head shot of the little girl who relates the story.  Nujood Ali, as the title hints, was forced into marriage some time near the age of 10.  I found this book to be haunting, simply because of the tone in which the story was told.  It has a childish, simple, innocent feel to it, because the story is told like a 10 year old girl.  She was not a child raised to be a small adult, trained in the ways of womanhood before being turned over to a husband (not that such a situation is more justified). She was a child skipping happily through childhood in the most flippant way that any ten year old does when she was suddenly handed a head covering, and sent to live with her husband's family, far away from any of her own family.  She had never been warned about the details of adulthood.  The tone reflects this.  It is haunting read about the things she lived through when Nujood relates them in the simplistic, immature, bluntly honest way any of our own protected 10 year old girls might use when talking about the events of school yesterday.  The only difference is underlying, matter of fact numbness that threads through words she strings together. Nujood makes some very courageous choices, and did something that no child bride had managed to do up to that point. It was well worth the read.  The story, though disturbing, is discreet, never overusing details simply to shock a reader.  It is short, and well formed, and somewhat heartbreaking.  Would I suggest it to a friend? Yes, but probably with the warning that while the reading is not at all strenuous, the material is no light read.  The truly heartbreaking thing about this story is that it is not unique, it is just one of the very few to actually be printed.

And that sums up the books that I read in May.

Thanks for reading. Check back soon, if you are interested in the June update!