"Call It Courage" Baked Coconut & Bananas

We are enjoying the book "Call It Courage" by Armstrong Sperry.  The gist of the book is a young boy, Mafatu, who, because of a storm that claimed his mother's life, is afraid of the sea.  Not real conducive to life if you live on an island and your father is the chief.  To over come his fears, and escape the jeers of other boys on the island, he sets out at night in a canoe to find another island where he can make his place among strangers.  Of course, instead of successfully finding another island, he is caught in a storm and washes up on the shore of what he hopes doesn't belong to the "black eaters-of-men."  This is where we left Mafatu to try a few island culinary delights that he is enjoying his first night in the island wilderness.

 

Baked Coconut

 

 

First thing was to get the milk out of the coconut.  Spark used a screw, a nail would have been easier but a screw was handy, to pierce one of the soft spots on the coconut.

 

 

He drained out all the milk and then ran it though a milk filter to remove all the random chunks of shell.  We each had a sip of this rather oily fluid, Dad was the only one who thought it tasted okay.  To be fair, none of the rest of us like coconut.  Spark then put the whole coconut in the oven in a baking dish for a good hour at 350 degrees.

 

 

After it came out and cooled, we started the arduous task of getting that bad boy open.  We all took turns whacking it with the hammer, sticking a screwdriver into it and a combination of the two of these techniques until finally....

 

 

only one band aid later.....

 

 

we broke it open.  Once it was open it wasn't hard to get the baked coconut off the inside of shell.  We each had a little nibble and deemed it tasteless and fibrous.  I told myself it is the process, not the product, and tossed the whole thing in the garbage.  I would recommend doing this again though as it was fun and adventurous. 

 

Baked Bananas

 

So for as unsucceful the coconut was, the bananas were the opposite.  These are good, good, good!

 

 

4 bananas

2 tablespoons butter

juice from an orange

1/4 cup brown sugar

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Slice the bananas and place them in a baking dish.  Squeeze the orange juice over the top of them to keep them from turning dark, sprinkle the brown sugar over the bananas and dot with the butter.  Bake for 25 minutes, stirring and basting occasionally.  These were good by themselves and would be heavenly stirred in oatmeal or ice cream.

Halloween Monster Corner Book Marks

These are book marks that you slip over the corner of a page in a book.  We made one and then Dancer really took off and made a whole mess of monsters.  This is only a few of the ones she made.  I love all the different teeth she gave them.

To make these, you first need to make a template.  In the corner of a sheet of paper draw a 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch square.  To the top and to the right of it draw two more squares the same size.  To the top cut the left side of the square off and to the right cut the bottom of the square off at an angle right through the middle of it to make a rocket shape. 

Cut out one shape using the template and two smaller triangles in a coordinating color, we didn't have a template for these, just sort of eyed them in the corners of the paper.

Fold the left "rocket tail" over half of the square and then the right half over the left half or vice versa.

Glue the top of the first half to stick the two "rocket tails" together.  Add the two colored triangles and then decorate to make a monster.  Dancer did use an envelope for the eyes and teeth because regular copy paper wasn't heavy enough. These would also be cute as Santas or other holiday characters.

Slip it over the corner of a book to mark your spot.  This one was eventually made into a monster.

This one, to Dancer's disbelief, I left just a plain old ordinary book mark.  It was all she could do not to add at least eyes on it.  I show this one too because I made it with printed scrap booking paper that was only printed on one side so I needed to cut out two pieces of the rocket template and glue them together or else either the top or the bottom was white.  Never folding scrapbook paper before it never dawned on me that it is only printed on one side.   

My Mother, She'd Bake Thee A Bannock

We have been reading "The Door In The Wall" in which John-go-in-the-Wynd keeps telling Robin that if he were to visit his mother she'd bake thee a bannock.  Wondering what all the fuss was about over this bannock we decided to make a loaf. 

Bannock 

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. soda
2 Tbsp. butter at room temperature
1 1/4 cup buttermilk

Combine the dry ingredients and work the butter in until the mixture resembles moist bread crumbs.  Add buttermilk and mix until moist and sticky, this can take a few minutes.  Keep kneading until it is no longer sticky adding flour if needed.  Turn into a 8x8 greased pan.  Cover the pan, use foil if you don't have a cover.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.  Reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake for another 15 minutes.  The bannock is done when wooden toothpick comes out clean and dry.  Remove from oven and cool on cooling rack.  Do not cut the bannock before it is cold.

I was surprised at how brown the bannock got for being bake with a cover on it.

Even more so, I was surprised that the crust was flaky.

Trying to be traditional to the times, we broke the bread with our hands assuming they wouldn't have carried a knife with them if they took this with for their lunch.  The inside has the texture of a dense cake or a muffin. 

We all thought this was absolutely wonderful and Spark enjoyed his with some honey.  I would definitely go over the path beyond the river, across yon field, and through the forest, then fording the stream and up another field, through another wood, and just there this side of the church in the village of Tripheath to a tiny bit of a house on the heath where his mother lives with her cat to have her bake thee a bannock.

Willa Cather's Death

On April 24, 1947, Cather died in her New York apartment from a cerebral hemorrhage.

This was the same day as my mother's 18th birthday.  The year and date of Cather's death will now probably become one of those odd useless facts that I will remember forever.  I will be an old woman not be able to remember where I left my purse I just set down but will be able to tell you the date of her death.  Do you have any of those odd facts floating around in your head?

This came up because Dancer has been reading "My Antonia" and several of her other short stories.  She finished up the author by writing a short paper outlining Cather's life, childhood memories that influenced her writing, themes in her major works and awards she won. 

Lentil Stew

We have been reading the book The Golden Goblet in which Ranofer, the main character, is sometimes lucky enough to enjoy a bit of lentils.  Not ever having lentils ourselves, we decided to give them a try.  I was some what hesitant on how it would go and wondered if I should have a back up dinner planned, I didn't, and everyone liked them, even having seconds.  The kids even offered up that they were so good we should have lentil stew again.  I thought they were good.  I wouldn't have sold my birthright for them like Esau did to Jacob, but they will certainly grace our table again.  Here is the recipe we tried. 

Lentil Stew

1/4 cup butter

1 onion chopped

2 cloves of garlic chopped

1 carrot chopped

2 cups dry lentils

6 cups of water

1 pound of ham, diced

1/4 tsp. thyme

1 can diced tomatoes - I used frozen we had put up from the garden

Rinse the lentils to ensure there are no rocks etc. in them that could break a tooth.  Melt butter in pan.  Add onion, garlic and carrots and saute.  Add lentils, ham and water.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.  Add tomatoes, thyme and salt and pepper to taste.  

Simmer about 45 minutes or until lentils are soft and tender.

Is spelling really an important skill?

I got this in an email today.  Both of my kids could read it quickly without stumbling over any words so now I wonder why I stress so much about spelling.  They are already use to me torturing them with spelling all these years so really, why quit now?  They can learn to spell correctly for the 45 people out of a 100 who can't read it - yeah, that's a good, sound, logical reason I am sure they will buy into! lol


Only great minds can read this


This is weird, but interesting!

If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid too

Can you raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg.. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

A new bible

My bible is falling apart, right in the middle of 2 Corinthians the pages are coming out of the binding.  In it's defense it is over 13 years old and I do open it at least once every day.  Often it gets opened more than once a day because it is the bible we usually use for family reading and studying.  I am not surprised that it broke in the New Testament as that is where I enjoy reading the most. 

I had a hard time giving up using this bible, even though it is now hard to read in bed with the pages sagging below the cover.  For one thing, it was the bible I got new when Dancer was a baby.  I like to write thoughts in the margins, underline passages and stuff it with little clippings, book marks, etc. that inspire me or people have given to me.  I had hoped that it would make it through the 22 years I will be doing hands-on parenting so I could look back through it after the kids were grown and see what encouraged or spoke to me during this season in life.  I also loved that it was purple.  The cover was purple and the book names and chapters were in purple.  In fact, one of the reason I chose the bible was because it was purple.  It also had a few extra details I liked.  It had devotions for moms and list of things to pray for for your children.  I also loved that it was broken in just for me.  It opened right up to Proverbs, my favorite Psalms, and other spots I read most.

The last few weeks I have been bible shopping.  At first I would look at all the bibles and then decide mine would make it a little longer.  Then when I decided, no, I need a new one unless I want to resort to putting a rubber band around mine and having it be loose leafed.  What  I didn't expect was how hard it would be to pick a one out.  First off, I couldn't find a purple one.  The bible I have is still printed but it has a new cover and a new color scheme.   

From here my search got more complicated as I realized  how many bibles there are available.  There are bibles for every kind of devotion you might want intermingled in it's pages.  There are bibles that have a schedule in them to get them read in 90 days, or a year, or what ever time frame you want to read it in.  Famous t.v. religious personalities have put out bibles with their names on them.  There are Catholic bibles, student bibles, teen bibles, kids bibles, recovery bibles, and so on.  I even found a bible for sportsmen that was waterproof.  That was a heavy bible, I would never had been able to hold it up to read it in bed.  I guess if I were a sportsman I would be stronger?  Maybe sportsmen only read sitting up?

A new consideration I have this time looking for a bible, that I didn't have last time, is that I have over 40 year old eyes.  Any bible with little print goes right back on the shelf.  Thin pages you can see through, right back on the shelf.  A font that has thin letters, right back on the shelf.  I need big bold letters with pages you can't see through or else I need bifocal glasses, I am trying to put off getting the bifocal glasses.  I know there are large print bibles but I also want to put that off until bifocal glasses are no longer the answer.

I ended up choosing a plain brown bible with all black print in the same font and non see through pages as my beloved purple bible.  It even has the same footnotes.  I have noticed though, after using it for one night, that the passages are not in the same spots.  I didn't realize I even knew what sides of the pages verses were on or how many words were each of the lines, but I guess I do.

I am sure in time this one will start to feel familiar in my hands.  If not, I can always go get those bifocals.   

Girl in a Cage book club questions

Book club was at our house today. Dancer chose "Girl in a Cage" by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris. We had read it last year but it is so good that she pulled it out again to share with friends. Here are the questions we discussed.

1. This book flip flops between her past and her present time. Do you like that style of writing? Pros? Cons? Why might the authors have chosen that style for this book?

2. Isabel comes to crown Robert Bruce because that would have been the job of her family? She is married to a n enemy of Scotland. Should she have been true? She was married off for some land, is she obligated to be loyal to her husband's family?

3. Do you remember any reference to other people being in cages in the book?

- safe in the cage of her father's arms

-Isabel in a cage of marriage

-Longshanks in a cage of his own rotting flesh

-Longshanks - a cage of asking and having to fight not being able to die peacefully in his own bed

-Robert Bruce - Scotland was, according to Longshanks, not his kingdom but a cage. Scotland is surrounded by water on three sides and Longshanks on the 4th.

4. What cages do we live in? Do they protect us or restrict us?

5. Compare Longshanks to Robert Bruce. Who was worse? Better?

6. Compare Elizabeth and Isabel.

7. Marjorie thought Isabel was fabulous. Was she? How was Isabel dangerous? Was Isabel dangerous?

8. Why do you think Longshanks comes to see Marjorie so often? Does she fight back against him? Is it effective?

9. Day 3. When she is waiting for the peasants to come and see her she says "Well, let them come. I shall ignore them. They are low, common and English, not worthy of my attention. Dear Lord let me ignore them. Or let one of them speak to me."

-It can't be both ways. What are the costs of both? Which would you want?

10. Page 134. Acts of Charity - there were 7. One was feeding the poor and one to give drink to the thirsty. At day 15 Longshanks decides to starve her. On day 20 the monks come to feed her and give her drink. Was this too long for action? If it had not rained or snowed during this time she would have died before they came.

11. Marjorie said once to a monk, "Can someone order you to break God's commands?" "Can even King Edward order you to go against God's will?" At what point should we step in to help someone?

12. Who are the heros in this book? Brother Quintus, Elizabeth, The Abbot, The kids from town - Enid and her brothers?

13. Marjorie says she will die serving Scotland but Longshanks will die serving only himself. Is there any difference between their deaths?

14. Was Robert Bruce serving Scotland or himself? What price was he willing to pay for the throne?

15. Three girls come by to see if she is really a princess. She sings the song

Come pretty girl, tell me true

Am I as thin and dirty as you?

Am I.

She says "Put a princess in a cage, I think, and in mere days she is like a peasant: dirty, hungry, horrible. Put a peasant on a throne....but my mind will not go there.

What was she realizing in this passage and song?

16. What are some lessons Marjorie learned from her stepmother?

These questions took us about an hour and a half to go through. Then we had pecan pie and blackberry cobbler for a snack. I had hoped to make baked oatmeal to represent the gruel she was given in the cage but didn't have enough butter so that was nixed. Dancer and I decided that the pie and cobbler would tie into the story with the last huge meal they were served at a castle they stayed at before their capture.

Watch your tone with me

Dancer had a crossword puzzle which she was suppose to use her vocabulary words from several previous chapters for the answers. She has some hard vocabulary words so I was going over them with her to refresh them in her memory and make the crossword less frustrating. We got to the word inflection. To explain to her what the word meant I told her that Nikki, our dog, was very good at understanding inflection. "Here watch" I said. In my sweetest little voice I said "Here Nikki, little cutie, come here Nikki". Nikki jumped up, started her tail wagging and came running over. She got about half way to us and in a low angry voice I said "Nikki, come here." She stopped and flattened right out on the floor with her tail down. I showed Dancer what inflection meant but I felt terrible for confusing the dog and making her sink into the carpet like that. Nikki got lots of hugs and an extra dog treat. I should probably go pet her again right now.

Shatter-pated

Shatter-pated means disordered or wandering in intellect.

We were watching The Monkey's Uncle last week and heard the word and then the show was on again tonight and Dancer listened carefully for the word so we could get it correct. A man called someone shatter-pated. We looked it up and found the meaning. They also could have said shatter-brained. We knew what it meant from the context of the show but we should have heard the word and had the actual definition click. We have been reading Robin Hood in Old English and they are always hitting someone, or getting hit, on their pate aka top of their head. I always find it so interesting that when you read something new then it seems like it pops up everywhere after that. It is kind of like a new friend. You meet someone and then when you are out shopping, or wherever, you run into them. I always think, 'how many times did we see you before and not know who you were?'

Proverbs and a Psalm

For the last few months we have been reading a chapter in the book of Proverbs everyday. Since there are 31 chapters we read the one that goes with the corresponding date, so today we read Proverbs 16. If we miss a day we just skip it and go on to the date that it is on the calendar. These readings, however, have become a very special time of the day for us and we don't miss very often. Our usual time to read them, although not always, is right before the kids go to bed.



This has really been a blessing for us as it has opened the way for us to talk with the kids about things that we want to talk to them about but don't often come up in conversation. For example, many proverbs deal with things they haven't come up against yet and we have the luxury of discussing them before it is a "what were you thinking when you did that" conversation and they are on the defense instead of openly listening with nothing hanging over our heads.



Some of the chapters are hard to talk about with them at the ages they are. Proverbs 5 and 6 are about adultery, a difficult topic to talk about with a nine year old. We muddle through it the best we can on his level of understanding.



As we read the kids will say "oh, I remember that one" or even to my pleasant surprise "that verse is just like the verse about ________." and they will be able to pull a verse out of another chapter and apply it to the one we are reading with great accuracy. After we finish reading the chapter we will pick out a verse or two we want to touch on, be it one we think important or something that has been happening the last month, either in our home, community or the news, and we want to bring it to their attention. We also ask what verse they liked and why. Again, I am often pleasantly surprised by their insight and understanding of the verses.



There has also been a huge shift in behavior since we started this, in both the kids and myself. It is so easy to forget the lessons of Proverbs when we don't read them daily. One time when Dancer was with a friend, the friend corrected Dancer about something but the friend was wrong. Dancer said to me later that she let it go and didn't argue with her because it was just something petty and we shouldn't argue with others just to show ourselves right. Another time, when we were at an event, two of her friends were going to go out to sit in a car and listen to music. She wouldn't go with them because following them could be the wrong path. The other girls didn't get to go out anyway when their mother heard what they had in mind.



Do I now expect that the kids will always be wise and make the right choices? No, I know that they have free will and there is always temptation lurking around every corner. I do hope that from the back of their minds they will able to bring these lessons forward and apply them so they can avoid a lot of the hardships in life that come from making poor choices and it protects them a little from those things. I also hope the same for myself. It has become glaringly clear that I have lots of areas that need improvement in my life and my actions. I share this with the kids as well, that learning to follow God is a life long journey and that everyone has areas that they struggle with over and over and over with. I also share with them the areas in which I don't want to change but know that I need to to be pleasing to God.



New this month we added reading a Psalm every day. The kids take turns picking a number and then we read the Psalm that is the number they choose. Today they choose the last Psalm and it was so happy I will share it here.



Psalm 150



Praise the Lord.



Praise God in his sanctuary;

vv praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

vv praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

vv praise him with the harp and lyre.

praise him with tambourine and dancing,

vv praise him with the strings and flute,

praise him with the clash of cymbals,

vvpraise him with resounding cymbals.



Let everything that has breath praise

the Lord.



Praise the Lord.

Don't know what it is, can't live without it

This is the story of Dancer and the kindle. The other day on t.v. there was an ad for a kindle. Nonchalantly I said, "Oh, there is one of those kindles, they look pretty cool." Dancer had never heard of one so she was off to the computer to do a little consumer research on it. An hour later and she was convinced that her life is not going to be complete until she has one in her hot little hands. Much to her disappointment we are not getting one. We could afford the kindle, it is her voracious reading habit I don't think we could afford with the downloads.

Complete Randomness

• We were fortunate enough to have three grandparents here for Thanksgiving.
• I love to see my mom even if by the time they get the car out on the road she doesn't remember she was here. I will remember.
• We have prime rib and steak for Thanksgiving dinner. No one here gets excited about turkey so why wrestle with the big frozen fowl for a special occasion when no one finds it special.
• We only have prime rib at Thanksgiving. It is way out of our budget any other time of the year.
• It was odd to be eating it for leftovers today. Seemed pretty extravagant for Friday lunch.
• The dog, Nikki, loves prime rib tidbits.
• Pinning is so very important to sewing a quilt.
• If you need a seam ripped out you should try to do it yourself.
• But I am your mom so I will sit and do it for you because I am just so happy that you like to sew.
• It takes five dollars to get Spark to help clean out a goat pen.
• It is so worth five dollars.
• Dad had to go to work tonight.
• He has been home for a whole week. He was sick, but he was home.
• We were sad to see him go tonight.
• He leaves for work in the dark now. It makes the night long.
• I hate to do chores in the dark.
• Getting new rubber bands on braces hurts.
• The best cure for the pain is soft food and time.
• Who ever thought that El Dorado needed it's own sound track? It doesn't.
• I like the Shrek CD from the original movie. Or motion picture as it's called.
• Would we really be confused if it wasn't called a motion picture instead of just picture show?
• Beetlejuice is only funny the first three times you watch it.
• Once everyone can recite the lines along with the movie it looses something.
• But I will watch it again because my kids like it.
• I have, although, reached my limit for the scene where they sing Day-O, even if you freeze frame the characters to see how funny of a face you can make them have.
• Did Disney read the book Summer of the Monkeys before they made the movie? If you have read the book don't waste 101 minutes of your time watching the movie - you will be highly disappointed.
• And one last one for Spark - a complete Thanksgiving dinner, a piece of pie that you are too full to eat but ate anyway, AND a full bottle of carbonated soda pop doesn't fit in your stomach. Not for very long anyway.

Summer of the Monkeys Book Club

For this months book club we made a game like Jeopardy to go along with the book Summer of the Monkeys. There were two rounds, just like the television show, where the girls played for bananas. I went through the book and made questions to fit under different headings. The first round had questions about names, numbers, monkeys, Rowdy, Daisy and Nurse Daisy. These questions were just general questions from the whole book. The second round, when the banana points were doubled, was questions more specific to a part of the book. These topics were drinking in the bottoms, going to town, spending the money, catching the monkeys attempt 1, catching the monkeys attempt 2, and catching the monkeys. Since these questions were worth more bananas, I made them a little bit harder, especially the ones that were for 10 banana points.

For the game board we used the dry erase board. I found at the craft store some little monkey and banana cut outs that teachers would use on a bulletin board. These we used for the top of the board and along the sides for the banana points to jazz it up a bit. As the girls picked the topics and banana amounts, Spark erased the banana number off the board. For the second round we quickly erased the whole board and wrote the numbers and new headings on.

Spark and Dancerer made these boxes for each player to stand behind. The girls wrote their names on a banana and stuck it on the little name plate on the front of the box. For the buzzers, Dancer cut some sticks and taped a monkey on the top of it. When they knew the answer they raised their monkey stick. Two moms judged who raised their stick first and one mom kept score. If they got the questions right she add on the bananas and if it was wrong she subtracted the bananas. This ended up being much more fun that I ever thought it would have been, there was so much laughter! The winner of the game won her very own real banana. With no corporate sponsors we had to do things a little lower key than the actual Jeopardy game.

The girls made the bread while we were waiting for all the guests to arrive, one had a time conflict, so that we could eat it hot out of the oven after the game.

Summer of the Monkeys Bread Recipe

This month the girls in the book club chose the book Summer of the Monkeys. For snack they are going be making Monkey bread and then we will have it hot out of the oven. We did trial run of the recipe because it has been years since I made it last and I want to be sure we leave enough time for the dough to raise.

Monkey Bread

1 pound loaf of frozen bread dough - or make your own dough
1 stick butter
3/4 c. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Set the bread dough out to thaw and rise, about four to six hours.

Cut the dough into 24 pieces. Melt the butter in a bowl. Mix sugar and cinnamon in another bowl. Gently shape pieces into balls. Do this gently so the dough doesn't have to raise again.

Dip the pieces into the butter

and then roll in the sugar mixture.

Stack in a buttered pan. Sprinkle the leftover sugar mixture over the pieces. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Immediately after baking, turn out out on a plate.

Oh my gosh are these good!!!

Running to the library is a lot like the grocery store

You know how you run into the grocery store quick because you need one item and then, some how, when you are in there it turns into two bags full? Well, that seems to be what happens to us when we go to the library.

Today we went into town early, before homeschool gym at the YMCA, to pick up ONE book at the library. Spark is doing a 4-H project about Fox Terriers, because that is what our little Nikki is, and there was a book he wanted at the downtown library.

We brought some books back so we had the library bag with, otherwise, I would have even said to leave it in the car, we were only getting one book. Our book basket at home is already overflowing and we have plenty of books checked out to read.

We get in the library, put the returning books on the conveyor belt and march right upstairs straight to the animal books. We find the book he wants no more that four minutes after entering the building, we can see the library catalog online at home so we had the number and everything before hand. But did we take that book and head promptly to the check out as planned? Goodness no. There was another Fox Terrier book that probably would have some good information in it, and then just a few shelves lower was a cat book and Dancer is doing a cat project so we get that one too.

Now we are on the way to the door. Down a couple of rows is as far as we get and Spark sees a Christmas cookbook. 'You should get this Mom" he says "it looks good." Right next to it was another enticing Christmas book so that one got plucked off the shelf as well.

Since we were close to the knitting books I should really see what they had on the shelves this week. So that Spark would let me look for a few minutes I directed him to the comic book section. I quickly found five knitting books to put in the library bag. I stopped myself from getting any more so I did show some self control.

While waiting for me, Dancer found a doll making book which went in the bag. The craft books in the adult section are so much better than in the children's area.

Dancer and I headed back to get Spark from his row and he had found a book called The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. I can't really say no to a book that has the name Smithsonian in it even if it does weight about nine pounds. We are homeschoolers after all.

We have now picked out more books than will fit into the library bag. Our library bag is a backpack with wheels and one of my hard and fast rules is that we don't get more books in a trip than will fit in the backpack. Spark's book is too big to fit in the bag so it really shouldn't count and I am sure that after we check the books out I will be able to finagle them to all fit, beside a lot of them are mine and I probably meant the rule to only pertain to the kid's books.

We start heading towards the stairs and as we were passing the Christian book section, Dancer eyes a book that one of her friends has at their house. Oh, we should check that out, it is by C. S. Lewis so for sure it is good and worth bring home. And this one looks good too, as I spy another one I might want to read. We already broke the library bag rule so we might as well go all the way.

The kids and I get to the top of the long granite staircase and gaze downward. I realize, that to get the library bag down the stairs, I am going to have to clunk it down each and every one of those steps because it is too heavy to carry when mine, and the kids, arms are full of books. We quietly opted to take the elevator.

After Dancer checked them all out, I managed to get all but two, and the huge book of Spark's which wasn't going to count anyway, into the bag. One of the books was a paperback that I needed to curve around the side of the bag, but I was patting myself on the back none the less.

Now we just had to go across town to the other library and pick the two books I had on hold there. So much for our overflowing book basket.

Trader Joe's has Puttanesca Sauce!

Last year we were reading book 1 of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket. After Violet, Klaus and Sunny Bauldelaire were deposited into Count Olaf's care, they were instructed to make dinner for him and his extremely odd troupe. The kids found a recipe for Puttanesca Sauce at Justice Strauss' library and made it for the lot of actors. This prompted us to try our hand at making Puttanesca.

The recipe we used was:

3 cloves of garlic
1 tin of anchovy fillets cut up really, really small almost to the point of being smashed
2-3 Tbsp. capers, drained and washed
1 can stewed tomatoes, sliced

Saute garlic with anchovies. Add capers and tomatoes. Simmer to warm through.
Serve over a pile of pasta.

The Puttanesca Sauce was very good but also quite expensive, they don't exactly give anchovies and capers away. Because of the cost we haven't made it again.

The other week though we were going through Trader Joe's and there on an end cap was canned Puttanesca Sauce for a mere $2.99. We snapped up a jar, eager to give it a try.

We had it for lunch and it was very, very good. Not as good as homemade, but then most things made from scratch are better than their premade counter parts. We will definitely buy this again as a pantry staple.

The book club girls

The book this month was The Borrowers. It is about tiny people who live in the walls and floors of the house and borrow things from the owners. The girls put on a play from one of the scenes of the book, thought up questions to ask the moms and had us pick out little things to borrow and tell them why we choose those things. I really liked how the girls had to lead the whole study, they were given an hour to get it all together and they did a wonderful job. These four girls work very well together. For snack they served mint tea with cream and sugar in tea cups, crumbs (super delicious scones) and a cookie (an extremely large chocolate chipper).

Happiness is......

the kids finishing some of their school books!

Dancer finished one of her language arts studies. The first one she did was Julie and the Wolves and used the study guide from Total Language Plus. She, and I, both enjoyed this study. There were a lot of good discussion questions, things that we probably wouldn't have talked about if not for the questions coming up in the study. The vocabulary words were words that could be added to our everyday speech. Often times vocabulary studies have words that are not usable in everyday conversation. We have also perked up our ears when listening to or reading other books. One of the words I didn't notice so often was carrion, which is rotting flesh, and now it seems I am hearing that word everywhere. Another word was Quonset hut and now it seems there is a Quonset hut around every turn in the road. The other part that was good about the study were the dictation exercises. This is something that Dancer has never done before and she really excelled at it. By the end of this first study she had much improvement. This is will be good practice for her if she goes to college and has to take notes in a lecture. I would have never thought to have her work on this skill if it hadn't been introduced in this study.

Spark is also moving right along. He finished his book about dictionary skills. He so didn't like this book when he started it but by the end he looked forward to working in it. It covered alphabetizing, nouns, adjectives and verbs, and of course, looking up words.

He is also coming right along on his inferencing book. This book is just plain fun. The stories and activities are short, and often funny, so it makes a nice transition activity from one of his other subjects to another.

Death by Guinea Pig

This afternoon was our mother/daughter book club. The family that hosted this month have two guinea pigs, Gilligan and Skipper. They are cute little fellows and I just had to hold Skipper. I held him, gave him a few quick pets and handed him back to his owner.

Then I started sneezing. Then my nose started running. Then my eyes started itching. Then my face started to itch. Then my eyes started to swell. Then my throat started to swell shut. Then I started having trouble talking. I have never ever had anything happen like this before. I have no reaction to any of our animals. I asked for an allergy tablet, which they had thankfully, and I still kept getting worse. Another mom there says where do you go to the clinic if we need to rush you there or should we just go straight to the hospital? Let's give the tablets 20 minutes and see how I am. I am sure if I go in they will just give an allergy pill and charge me an arm and leg.

So I am sitting there thinking what if my throat completely closes and I die at book club while discussing Jane Eyre? What would they put on my death certificate, Death by Guinea Pig? Would it take about a 100 years until no one in the family would remember that Grandma or Great Grandma died from touching a guinea pig? Not the legacy I was hoping to leave.

My throat stopped swelling and actually got a little better but my eye just kept getting bigger. By the time we left, my face had swollen around it, I had a huge bag under my eye and the white on my eye ball looked like a water balloon with a dark spot sunken in the middle. Both of my eyes were what Spark would call Devil Red.

It is now been nine hours , six allergy tablets and an ice pack since I touched Skipper and my eye is still swollen and very painful but I think the danger has passed.

I am swearing off guinea pigs forever.