How do I encourage my children to be whores?
13 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Book Whore Tags: book whore, reading
By designating some school days as ‘Reading Day’, that’s how. A proper book whore can’t be made without allowing her to veg out in front of a book for an entire school day. Thankfully our school days are often shorter than the average day for a kid in the system so we’re not totally being lazy.
I’ve always been under the strange impression that everyone loved to read as much as I do. When my eldest learned to read she devoured books quickly and in my mind, that was normal. At twelve, she reads faster than I do (as in, I read 500 wpm* and she’s faster, with great comprehension – *not reading Charles Dickens, nor Chic-lit).
When my next daughter was born, I wrongly assumed that the second she could comprehend books, she’d be snagged in as my eldest and I were. I couldn’t be more wrong, and I think I may have pushed her away from being a book whore early on because of it.
This is her 5 minutes ago.
She was the first to cheer when I told them today was a reading day. We finally figured out that her brain, and truthfully her interests, are less easy to please. She can’t just read any and everything. It must truly interest her.
What a freaking concept. Seriously, as a bonfire whore, I read anything. I’ve read soft-porn, sci-fi, historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, youth fiction & non-fiction, biography, Christian fiction, romance, how-to, history, self-help, other religion, horror, banned and of course knitting books.
We scoured the library book shelves to find books that appealed to her and failed much much more than we succeeded. It was frustrating for me to not be able to share this obsession, ummm, love of books with her. I wanted her to be able to use her incredibly vivid imagination to immerse herself into a story as deep as she does her art.
What I didn’t take into consideration was a couple of things. That, 1)like her father, reading doesn’t come super easy to her, nor very fast. In an effort for me to get her to read more we were heading to the library once a week because my eldest and I would be out of books by then. While we had armfuls of giant tomes, she’d step up with the bare minimum. And b) she’s only 10. What a strange thing for me to forget, but because she’s so tall and quite mature for her age, I mistakenly believed that every kid under the age of 10 reads voraciously. That’s wrong, wrong of me to assume so and wrong of me to push that assumption on my daughter.
What I ended up doing was letting go of the control. It was stupid of me to think I should control what she reads as it just lead to head butting. So I cut her some slack and told her that although I require at least 2 non-fiction books in her load when we go, she does not have to finish every book she takes just because she’s borrowed it from the library. That took some pressure off of her. It also gave her to opportunity to find out herself a little bit more about what she’d be into reading. She’d start by bringing home smaller books, like Arthur, or Two-of-a-Kind (Olsen twins), and Captain Underpants. She’d open each, peruse a few pages and quickly decide if she’d even finish or if it was too boring. She also attempted Harry Potter and put it down. Not out of boredom per se, but because a good number of the words were made up (spells, places, etc), she had trouble comprehending because her brain would be stuck on a term she didn’t know how to say or understand (expelliarmus anyone?). She put down a lot of books in that time, and I could see the frustration on her face. It wasn’t until she found the Archie comics that something clicked. She is a huge visual learner, with a bit of kinetic in there for fun, and to see pictures displaying out the story had her actually devouring books. In my school, comics always count. It’s still reading and no one can tell me different. It was then that I showed her that the youth section of our library has a Graphic Novel section. Graphic novels are slightly different than comics in that they are books in graphic form rather than shorter story lines changing from page to page. The typical comic is about 30 pages, whereas a graphic novel can be from 150 to over 500 pages.
She inhaled those books insanely. I think she went through half the shelves in no time. She did find a few that we’re boring (and no, the Twilight graphic novel wasn’t one of them, she enjoyed that one) but most were read to the point of me telling her to actually put a book down to do something.
So we made it, she developed into a whore without me even noticing and now she’s reading large books she wouldn’t even pick up before. Time was all she needed, and a good writer to keep her occupied. Maybe in fututre I’ll even get her to read the Harry Potter series, or even The Hobbit. But for now, we read for school, and she can turn herself into the whore she’s bound to be when she’s ready to.
I love me a good reading challenge
01 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Blog Fun, Books Tags: 2012 reading challenge, Insatiable Book Sluts
This has been one helluva year. Busy doesn’t even begin to describe it.vi don’t want to be one of those people that continually uses the excuse that they are too busy for thing at are important. So I’m reorganizing things in order to do what’s important to me.
Reading.
Oh I love me a good book. I’m a book lover by nature but a total book whore by choice. So after looking at my pathetic reading list for the year I was appalled to see that a scant 53 new books were read by me. My normal years are upwards of well over 100 books read so to only hit 53 is actually a bit embarrassing for any whore. For me, the proprietor of book whoreness, it’s scandalous.
I’m a reader of Insatiable Book Sluts, a hilarious book club of sorts. They review books, they do challenges and provide a shit bucket full of humor. I admit that I do read other book critic sites, but none so hilarious (another fave is Nat over at Book Line and Sinker)
At the end of last year (I freaking LOVE saying that every blasted new year’s day when it was only yesterday that it was posted) a challenge was posted that I knew I’d want to sink my teeth into. Of course it can’t truly interfere with my knitting obsession or, I guess, homeschooling too, but it’s a great challenge for me to get me back into the groove of whore reading. No, no, not reading whores, as that could be fraught with too many icky substances, but reading like a book whore again.
The challenge is a little more than just reading though, and that’s good as there is actually a shiny prize at the end. It requires the reading of course, but then a review of said books somewhere and they have to be new books. Meaning no Harry Potters, no Clan of the Cave Bears, nor Lord of the Rings this year. My fail safes can’t be read this year and that’s a good thing. I’ve become too comfortable reading those books year after year and it’s taken over. Had I not reread some of my favourite books that total number for the year could’ve been higher. My favorites that I read year after year span over 21 books, so this year I want to find new authors, read new books and kick my own ass out of the old book funk.
Insatiable Book Sluts, I gladly accept your challenge. I will make a new page on this blog and post my books read with a blurb of each. I hope to kick ass on your contest but I also hope to kick my own into gear. Maybe I’ll learn something new this year too.
House building update, just for my aunt
21 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Home Sweet Home, House building, Thought Vomit Tags: building, house building
I haven’t intentionally neglected this blog, but this little thing called house building and, oh yeah, Christmas, has caused me to be too busy. But, after being prodded by my Aunt to get some pictures on crap FB I thought I’d quickly slap some pictures up for her. Oh, and to my sister-in-laws who may read this? Pretend you didn’t see this and ooo and ahh at the right places when Ken shows you the same pictures. M’kay? Thanks.
First there was this:
My lovely daughter standing on the site where our house is to be built.
Then there was this:
Dig Mr. Hiho, DIG!!
Then there was this:
And then this happened:
Walls? They be solid baby!
M’kay.
Then this:
Neat huh.
Okay, what’s next. Oh yes, this:
And this:
Then of course that got blown away and became this:
But we start again and accomplished this:
Awesome huh. That deck? It ain’t going anywhere as I bolted it myself.
So this is what we’ve done the last 2 weekends:
And I heard trusses went up on Monday, but I don’t have pictures of that yet.
So there ya are Kathy, since you asked.
The wind had other ideas
28 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in House building, Thought Vomit Tags: house building, Southern Alberta wind storm, wind storm 2011
We’ve been trucking along on this whole building thing when Sunday’s wind warning took effect. When I left on Saturday, this is what my house looked like:
That is our walkout basement, and they were putting the deck up. When I left they had the entire rear deck on. Windows are boarded up to keep the heat in for the concrete dudes.
This was the picture I took this morning.
I took this right before I had a small cry. The wind in southern Alberta had some nasty affects. My mom lost the tin roof off of a shed, her arbor is gone, part of some plexiglass on her deck was torn off and my poor dear husband lost all of his hunting equipment in the field (2 blinds and his game camera).
But my deck was gone. It was so shocking to walk around my house to find our framers picking up the pieces. I literally gasped out loud and swore. It tore from the foundation and was shredded to pieces. The joist hangers were bent like every politician on this Earth and nails were protruding from beams as if they had been freshly pounded rather than torn from the rim joist.
Oh, and how is this for weird. My deck, a huge behemoth of a thing was blown away yet the cement head’s plastic shovel remained where it was. That is messed up.
My life has taken a turn lately into crazy busy and I don’t care for it much because when shit like this happens it tends to throw me off me game and into a slow spiral into funkiness.
Thankfully a short 4 days after that wind storm and we’re back in business. Two days ago the cement heads finally got the foam laid out. Yesterday our hydronics guy (in-floor heat) installed all the tubing himself in the midst of a small snow storm. Today the basement and garage floors were poured, our meter was hooked up (meaning we’ll have power for my air drill to bolt the effing deck on), framer put side decks on, and our windows and doors all came.
Tomorrow dh and I will head out to take more pictures (oh wait, that’s just me), probably turn on the power and possibly get more deck parts bolted on as I am not losing another part of my deck again.
Perhaps this will teach framers that nails suck & bolts and screws rule?
Nah.
I swear I didn’t have kids just for this
23 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Thought Vomit Tags: House cleaning
As a parent I often joke about having kids in order to have slave labour. I swear it isn’t true, just a nice benefit.
Lately I’ve been taking time to reconnect with a friend by going for coffee. Instead of giving the kids cool stuff to do while ideas gone, I asked them to tidy up. Not spit shine, mop floor, dust type of stuff, but to pick up the stuff lying around.
Imagine my surprise to arrive home to this:
That counter often becomes a dumping zone for everything from art work to hair clips to homework.
I am just in awe. Seriously, my kids are not neat freaks and they learned from their dad and I that tidiness is overrated. But to come and find that they’ve done exactly what I’ve asked and then some.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that my time should be spent cleaning. There isn’t food laying about and my kids aren’t in dirty clothes all the time, but I refuse to clean all day.
With that mantra though, I’ve had to let go of the idea of even remote tidiness with things put away.
Until today it seems. This wasn’t the entire reason I had kids, but man is it a huge bonus.
The elusive Runner’s High
11 Nov 2011 3 Comments
in Thought Vomit, Weight obsession Tags: exercise, food energy, runner's high, Running
Image by Pierre Mallien via Flickr - not me running
I’ve run 2.5 times this week. Once on Sunday, then Tuesday and started to on Thursday and stopped early. Sunday was the best run so far, Tuesday’s was okay and Thursday’s sucked.
It’s the elusive runner’s high that keeps me running. Seriously, I don’t like exercise much, it makes me sweaty and gross, my hair flops and I really don’t feel great doing it. It’s a strange sensation really. I call it elusive because it’s not a rush of energy or some point that I can feel endorphins coursing through my veins. It doesn’t even make running easier per se, nor do I enjoy it more. The only reason I know it’s happened is I ran for 10 minutes without stopping at a decent pace for me and didn’t hurl after. Not that I usually hurl after running, but on most days I have to push to make it to 8 minutes, but when I capture that runner’s high, I don’t have to push as hard because it feels like all of a sudden, 8 minutes has flown by and I’m pushing it to 10.
For runners of the world, 10 minutes may not seem like much, but for me it’s awesome. I’ve been running now for about a month consistently and have worked my way up from 4 minutes to 10. I’m good with that.
I have ideas as to why some days are so much better than others. I know water is a huge culprit, or I guess the lack of it is more like it. The day before I run, if my water consumption is not up to par then my next day’s run isn’t near what it should be and I’ll often miss out on that high. Even bringing water with me doesn’t seem to help much, sipping it while panting and checking the clock every 10 seconds.
Then there’s junk. Junk food still gets me every once in a while where I go on a bender of sorts buying junk and eating it. Much less often than it used to be, but it still happens. Like this past Wednesday night we got into the garbage while watching a movie. The dreaded mindless munch occurred and didn’t cease to cause me indigestion all the way into the wee hours of the morning. In fact I rose from bed at 5:45 still burping.
Aren’t you glad for my thought vomit? *ahem*
I attempted to drink water to try to help flush the garbage I’d consumed the night before, but nothing would work. I got on my treadmill and walked a short bit before trying to run. I got 2 minutes into it and had to stop. I thought I was going to puke. I even had to slow it down more and walk carefully and lasted about 20 minutes before my energy was completely tapped out.
It amazes me that we are so stupid about what we put in our bodies and then still expect the same output as normal. Of course I could use the junk example above and you’d agree with me. But it’s even more than that. I’ve been in a food funk for a while now. It’s possibly because of this:
My mom’s probably freaking that I have that kind of mess in my house and posted for the world to see. This has become a bit of a problem lately. As the kids age, the school we do tends to be bigger and we don’t have a specific space to do our work in so it gets put on the kitchen table. Sometimes we just don’t want to clean it off as we’d be starting on the same project again in the morning so we eat elsewhere. A terrible habit for sure to get into, but an easy trap. And school isn’t all it either, in the background on my china cabinet is binders and paper and plans for our house that we’re building. That is taking up a huge amount of time that I used to have for planning good food.
Or it could be this too:
Of course it’s not specifically this deer’s fault. I just mean it’s hunting season and that poor little Bambi would be quite delicious in my freezer. Dh thinks so as well and so he’s been spending an inordinate amount of time out of the house hunting down these elusive creatures with little luck.
So I’ve been winging together meals in between house-building stuff, house stuff and hunting. All of which has added up to some piss poor meals missing proper energy boosters and good old-fashioned fibre.
Are you worried about me mentioning fibre on my thought vomitous page?
I’m hoping to move out this food funk and into meals more healthily made and planned. I can start today of course, I just hope I have the energy to do it.
I’m highly creeped out
08 Nov 2011 5 Comments
in Rant-ness Tags: blog, blog censoring, blog privacy, blogging kids pictures, Search Engines, WordPress
Has nothing to do with the topic, I just wanted something pretty to soothe my mind
When a person blogs, places like WordPress are set up to keep track of what people who come here are looking for. It doesn’t tell me exactly who you are and what the point is, but I can usually get the gist. You see if you Google, or other search engine, stuff and then come to my site, WordPress gives me those search terms you used to get here. Neat huh?
So when I got up this morning and saw that some effing pig came here with the search terms ‘preteen girl with blue eyes’ I was completely creeped out. He, and I’m assuming ‘he’ as it’s almost always a ‘he’, clicked on a good number of pictures of my daughters. I was creeped out, now I’m pissed off. I feel like I can’t share my family life here because some one-handed-typing idiot came here with nasty intentions.
I can assume all I want about him, he has pictures of my daughters. They are just face pictures of course, but that may be all for this creep. Wordpress doesn’t have the feature to disable the ‘right-click’ ‘Save As’ feature so some ass juice of a person could have pictures of my daughters right next to his kiddie *p&rn.
Sick bastard.
I’ve tried my best to remain anonymous and to keep my children safe. I get that it’s my own fault for posting it in the first place but we have to stop that idea that the onus is upon me to make sure some pig doesn’t get a hold of my kids’ pictures. The blame, to me, remains solely on the pedophile who is looking at them. Some may not equate child-p&rn with pedophilia as I do. It is one small step in between, and I do mean small. Almost all rapist and pedophiles started out with p&rn. And internet p&rn is almost always kiddie p&rn as there is an enormous number of girls that pigs like this are looking at that are not over the age of 18. Guys who search out internet p&rn may not think of themselves as kid-p&rn enthusiasts but when you’re eye balling the gals online, they’ll be kids. They may have boobs and hair, but they are still kids.
This won’t stop me from blogging, but I’m less likely to put up kid pictures anymore. I’ve removed the page I had to introduce my family and I’m likely to change the way I post any future pictures of my kids. My poor Gramma, who reads this to keep up with our lives (hey Grams!!), will have to wait until I visit her again to get to see new pictures.
*You’ll note I never spelled the word p_o_r_n out completely and that’s because of pigs who search may come to this blog. And pigs like this may not distinguish between my daughters or my 4 year old son. It’s all about the one-handed-surfing.
I heart myself some knitting
03 Nov 2011 3 Comments
in Yarn works Tags: craft, Crochet, Knitting, Knitting and Crochet, Sock
Oh man I heart me some knitting. I hate to repeat my title again, but it goes without saying that when I have a special purse to carry my knitting with me almost every where I go that knitting is an important pastime for me.
I went to an Epicure party last night and any time I attend shindigs like this I bring along my bright pink purse.
You’ll note that this pretty thing has a string protruding from its edge. That is my current project of knitting socks for the family. Yes, socks, why do you ask?
So I bring this pretty purse and set it down where it is immediately spotted by a sweet faced little boy of 14 months, whose shocked face registered immediate guilt from me when I snatched that puppy right out of his squishy little grip. I got so territorial, it was ridiculous. I put my projects in bags such as this to protect it from this very thing, so why I thought to terrorize the little shnookums with my best mommy look is beyond me.
I let him have it. No, no, I don’t mean I smacked him around a bit, I let him tote that sucker around and shake it. Don’t worry, nothing was damaged. Nothing could be damaged because said shnookums can’t open zippers yet so my precious was safe from his obvious desire to rip it out.
My precious.
It’s a sickness I tell you. This year I’m not trying to pull one over on my kids like last year. Last year I knit sweaters in front of their curious eyes with occasional questions. When they opened up said sweaters on Christmas morning it was fun to see their shocked faces knowing they had watched me make them. I knew I’d not fool them again so I’m just being obvious about it.
But I’m still panicky if someone gets near them with beverages, food, or children. I don’t even know why as these aren’t really super difficult to do, but I get so wrapped up in the project that I couldn’t bear it if someone’s water spilled over it. Water, people, water, on acrylic is nothing but the start of the next wash, but I still panic.
When my kids do school work on their own, I knit. When I’m sitting having coffee with the family, I knit. Any home party happens, I knit. Baby shower? Knit. Get together? Knit. Knit, knit, knit, knit, knit. Oh, and crochet, did I mention I crochet too?
I’m nuts.
