Summer Reading

I bought the boys some workbooks for the summer, to keep them up on what they learned this past year. It is so easy to forget things over 3 months & then have to relearn them. I don't have it in me to home school full time but I've always planned to supplemental school & I'm starting this summer.

Both books had summer reading lists and since I am dealing with K4 and kindergarten, many of the books are identical.  I also found a reading list at the Daniel Boone Regional Library (my library didn't have one online) that is divided by age & grade.  Again, some overlap, but not a lot.  I now have a fairly decent sized list of books to work with when the kids don't seem interested in choosing their own.

I've got The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease and The Well Trained Mind by Bauer & Wise on hold at the library. They are both due back June 3rd. I often find educational books for the kids on hold and I always wonder who has them. Is it the same person? Am I following along behind someone, finding the books or developing the interest just a week later than they do? Is it many people? Are they people I would like to meet & talk to? Why are they reading the books? What did they take away from them? How could I get in touch with them? I haven't searched the online database for the kiddy books, there are a lot of them & I know from experience that their presence or lack thereof in the database only partially reflects the reality of their presence in the library.  The toddler, preschool & early reader books are not well logged.

I found The Wind in the Willows. Many Moons and a couple Captain Underpants on Bookmooch yesterday and requested those.  I discovered a number of books on the reading lists were part of Amazon's buy 3 get the 4th free deal. The books in that rotate so I am keeping an eye on them.  I ended up getting Harold & the Purple Crayon (50th Anniversary Edition), The Toll Bridge Troll, A Pizza the Size of the Sun (not in the deal), How My Parents Learned to Eat and Sheep in a Jeep.

DH & I have decided to work our way through many of the books in The Well Educated Mind. We're starting with Don Quixote, which the library does not seem to have..... but is interlibrary loaning for us.  Shouldn't a library have Don Quixote in it?

Book Review - On a Hoof and a Prayer

On a Hoof and a Prayer is the fourth book by Polly Evans.  This time she travels to Argentina to learn to ride a horse and to experience the country.  I love her books. I find her stories compelling and fascinating. She is very descriptive about the places she visits and the things she experiences.  Each of her previous books feature her exploring a country using different methods.  It's Not About the Tapas, her first book, is the story of her travels around Spain by bike. She was a novice bike rider at the beginning and you could feel your muscles aching in sympathy with hers in the early part of her journey.  She toured China by train and bus in Fried Eggs with Chopsticks and with her weeks old motorcycle license, rented a motorcycle and cycled all over New Zealand in Kiwis Might Fly. This time around, despite the title, her mode of transportation was more often than not, something other than a horse. There were horses early in the book and occasionally in the middle of the book but they were overshadowed by more mundane airline reservation issues. I don't think she intended to ride all over Argentina on a horse, but given her other books, I assumed there would be more riding than there actually was.  It was a very good book, as well written and engrossing as her others, but I was expecting more riding.  Her bike was as much a character in It's Not About the Tapas as she was, so was her motorcycle in Kiwi's Might Fly. Much of what I love about her books is reading about her struggles with transportation, the pain of biking up mountains, the crowded buses in China, the fear of opening the throttle in New Zealand.  I had hoped there would be more about horseback riding, so I was a bit disappointed in this book.  Her next one is about sled dogs in Canada & I'm hoping she spends more time with them than she did with the horses in Argentina. But both countries are very large and you can no more tour Canada by dogsled than you can Argentina by horse.

Childhood crushes

My biggest crush, started when I was 10, was on Han Solo.

Seriously. How can you not be in love with Han Solo? He's funny, he's dashing, he's rebellious, he's sexy, he's just disdainful enough, he's good with a blaster & is an incredible pilot. He made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs! How can you not love a guy like that?

In the years between Star Wars movies I had a passing crush on most of the guys in Duran Duran at one time or another

They wore make up than I did but that never mattered.

Then the Indiana Jones movies came out.

Indiana Freakin' Jones!!!  I was 14 when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out & let me tell you it sparked my imagination in all sorts of ways that Han Solo had not been able to when I was 10.

I've had a 30 year crush on Harrison Ford.  I just love that man!

I've been scrapping!

I am a guest CT member for Bree Clarkson at the Sweet Shoppe this month!  I've already done 3 layouts so far and am in the middle of a fourth.  I love Bree's templates!  I did this with one from her Popsicle Paradise set

i did this with one from her Inspired by Karen set

and I used the Popsicle Paradise kit for this one

You can see complete credits in my gallery at Sweet Shoppe, link at the right.

I'm currently working on an amigurumi dinosaur. I don't have a pattern & am trying to figure it out as I go. I'm working on a stegasaurus & I've unraveled twice so I have no photo. The boys have been really into dinosaurs lately.

In book news I read 21 books last month, which accounts for what did instead of scrapping or crocheting. 5 books were rereads, 16 were new. 5 were non fiction and 16 were fiction. 3 were actually audiobooks. So far this month I have read 5 books, 3 of which were light paperback mysteries & each took me about 4 hours from start to finish. Which is why I no longer buy light paperback mysteries.  The cost to enjoyment ratio is just too low.

my latte

What Your Latte Says About You

You are easygoing and pretty simple to please. You don't put up a fuss... ever. You can be quite silly at times, but you know when to buckle down and be serious. You have a good deal of energy, but you pace yourself. You never burn out too fast. You're totally addicted to caffeine... but you like to pretend like you aren't! You are responsible, mature, and truly an adult. You're occasionally playful, but you find it hard to be carefree. You are deep and thoughtful, but you are never withdrawn.

What Does Your Latte Say About You?