Reading with Rachel, and a little challenge fail.

this is what the weather channel has on the agenda for today.  

Sam is on antibiotics for an ear infection. I'll just leave it at that. I have to wash diapers and I need them dry quickly, so I am going to have to cheat and use the drier. I was hoping to wash a small load of diapers yesterday to avoid this, but we had an unexpected errand in the afternoon and I just couldn't manage it. Oh well. Our real goal here is to make small changes, slowly, that we can maintain, and we're doing decently with that. 

I did do a big combined load with clothes for everyone yesterday, though, and I think taking that kind of approach is helpful with this challenge. I will say that I am the world's least pickiest laundry-doer (well, other than a college student). I sort by temp only and other than my freaky wash routine for the diapers, I am laid back about what goes with what.

multitasker like mama.

Rachel loves to read, and in the last year or so I have really been enjoying reading old favorites, as well as new books with her. I love reading children's and young adult lit, and have checked out a number of my favorites to "pre-read" to see if Rachel might be ready for them. Sometimes she is; sometimes not. These are some of the books we've enjoyed reading and talking about recently.

A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet)
One of my all time favorite books. I have been trying it with Rachel for about a year now. She was capable of reading it, but just not interested until a few months ago, when one of the librarians at the BPL suggested it for a book club. We haven't tried the next one yet, but maybe this summer. "It was a little scary."

The Cabinet of Wonders: The Kronos Chronicles: Book I (Kronos Chronicles Trilogy)
A gift from Rachel's godmother that we both loved. This is a fascinating story-- now we are on to Book 2. Petra is a strong heroine and I love her tin spider.

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself
Lots of discussion about Hitler after reading this one."There was a lot of drama in this one, with Sally making up stories that she thought were true but turned out not to be. Sally is very good at thinking up games to play with her friends."

Cherry Ames Flight Nurse: Book 5 (Bk. 5)
I loved these books when I was a little girl-- we used to check them out from the library when we were visiting my grandmother. Rachel is admittedly not as interested in these as I am, but she has been reading the ones I picked up at the library booksale, as well as one that used to belong to her great-aunt. Like Nancy Drew only she's a cute nurse who has adventures, solves mysteries, and goes out on tame dates with nice boys. Cruise Nurse was fun too.

The Capture (Guardians of Ga'hoole, Book 1)
Another godmother gift. Excellent owl story. "It's very adventurous, and Soren is very courageous. I love the songs."

CSA midweek, and another Potter-a-thon

1. So far, so good on the CSA share for this week. We've eaten about half the greens (kale chips! they continue to eat them. I actually did take a video....) and will be making the other half into Gillyweed (greens and cheese) Burritos for our unsuspecting company tomorrow night. We have eaten a ton of salad and I have discovered that I actually like the little white turnips, go figure! I have many negative memories of turnips but these taste good, even without salad dressing. We have basically stuck to the menu plan with one exception (listed in #2).
What is helping us use all our CSA share, so far:

• making a menu plan
• not going to the grocery store for staples until after we pick up our farm share
• combining strong flavored greens with milder ones
• sharing.
  Also, I just didn't grow lettuce in our family garden-- I plan to do some as a fall crop, but I didn't do any in the spring. I don't feel nearly as overrun with salad as I have in the past, even though we had to buy it at the farmer's market early in the season.

2. We had pizza one night so we could do a big Harry Potter marathon and finish Book 6. I couldn't believe we were at the end, but I guess the end of school and a highly motivated Rachel contributed to our speed. Plus Book 6 is a bit shorter, and was easier to read aloud than Book 5. So now we are on to Book 7.  This excites me for several reasons, not the least of which is that we will be reading a non-Harry Potter book for bedtimes in the near-ish future. We're thinking it will be The Hobbit.
3. I'm starting the green(ish) challenge Monday, because I managed to get all the laundry "done" before the weekend.

Why I'm not doing laundry today. Picture by Adam (made this fall, I think).

Potter!

Reading Harry Potter has been an obsession with Rachel for about a year now.

 

When she started hearing way too many spoilers from other children, I decided to let her read the whole series (I had previously announced she would have to stop at #4). When she started (inadvertently, really) giving spoilers to Adam, we decided to read the whole series as our bedtime reading, for as long as it took. We started on December 1 with my sister reading the very first pages of Book 1. Since then we have made steady progress (and have watched some of the movies, too), and this week it finally happened: we came to the end of the 800-some page Book 5. 870 pages, to be precise.

Now, I hate to stop reading once Voldemort gets involved. We had about 100 pages left as Harry and the crew were arriving at the Ministry of Magic. I couldn't see a good place to stop coming up. So we decided to try a Potter Pizza Night: with all three family members able to read HP taking turns, a large pizza from Angelo's, and some patience with JK Rowling's extensive descriptions... could we finish the book in one evening?

We had some minor detours (namely, a fussy baby, and Ben getting delayed at a meeting an hour away). But we diligently began reading just after 5:00 pm. With one five minute break (to get a piece of pizza into the first dinner reader).... we finished at 7:58pm.

Now on to Book 6....this weekend or next, we'll have our finishing celebration for Book 5. Which means a special HP themed snack while we watch the movie. For Book 4 we had Gillyweed Burritos (not popular, although I loved them) and chocolate broomsticks (chocolate dipped pretzel rods, extremely popular). What to fix for #5.....