2019

Here we go!

January, February, March

Death of a Gossip. M.C. Beaton
Death of an Outsider. M.C. Beaton
Death of a Perfect Wife. M.C. Beaton
Death of a Hussy. M.C. Beaton
Death of a Snob. M.C. Beaton
Death of a Prankster. M.C. Beaton
The Skeleton Road. Val McDermid
Out of Bounds. Val McDermid.
Broken Ground. Vale McDermid.

We went into the year exhausted and I didn't realize how long life had been so hectic until the PTO president emailed me and asked me to send her a copy of the minutes and I realized I had not done so.....for the entire fall semester.  Being in the PTO was stressful and there were a lot tense situations at Evelyn's school that didn't make sense until later.  My work was the busiest it had ever been and I worked a lot of weekends and stayed a lot of late nights.  It was hard for us to make plans.  I missed a nephew's birthday party.  

I struggled with trying to keep us in clean clothes, sending in the right amount of money at the right time for school activities, never being able to volunteer, and managing Evelyn's expectations for her birthday because she wanted a big blowout but was born over spring break.  One little girl was able to come.  I struggled with feeling like I couldn't make anything happen for my girl.  It didn't help that she had taken to pointing out how different her life would be if So and So's mom were her mom--like I wasn't already thinking of it every time I saw this person (who is totally nice!  And not my enemy and I like her a lot!).  The child knows my buttons and just held them down for weeks on end.  I almost wrote a birthday post for her at the time and realized I couldn't remember whole months from when she was 7.  

I think we went out for dinner on Cody's birthday, but I couldn't tell you where or if I remembered to buy him a gift.

A nicer thing about that part of the year that I can remember is that Evelyn went on her first sleepover!  She stayed up until 11!  The little girl who invited her over then came to Evelyn's first sleepover/birthday party at our apartment!  Both experiences were Peak Eight-Year-Old, and Cody and I (along with BFF's parents) were tickled with the whole thing.

Also, at some point there was a weekend when I roamed through the woods with Evelyn twice and Dallas once.  I took his senior pictures just like I did with my other siblings.

However, he is the only one I didn't shoot with film.  Which is for the best, since I think he emailed this to the yearbook editor 20 minutes after we uploaded them.

April
Let Me Lie. Clare Mackintosh

I thought I would try something other than my steady diet of mysteries and didn't care for it.  I went part-time in April.  I tried to catch up on so many things, but it never gave me back the time I'd already lost.  It took me a long time to figure that out.  I did love picking up Evelyn from school at the pick-up line on Mondays and Tuesdays.  I would frantically spend my day doing errands and taking care of long-neglected chores, and then sit outside her school at 2:30.  We would leave the parking lot with the windows rolled down and Nickelback playing at full volume.  She felt very cool.  

I knitted Cody a sweater.  My love obviously knows no bounds, and he knows it.

We went to Mississippi for Easter.  There were 2 puppies!  4 kids!  I think we hid eggs 5 times!  The kids had matching outfits and the adults had a lot of food.  No one had any doubt about the rankings, but I'll go ahead and say it: Sara is still the cool aunt.

May
M is for Malice. Sue Grafton.
An Event in Autumn. Henning Mankell, translated by Laurie Thompson. 
Wicked Autumn. G.M. Malliet.

On one of my days off, I went to the library by myself and browsed for a solid hour.  It was amazing.  We found out Evelyn's school was closing and I was a wild woman trying to find another one that I could feel good about when I didn't feel good about much at all.  I loved her teachers and the parents at her school and I miss it still.  The evening we found out, I was out to dinner for co-workers.  I wanted to stay home but it was to celebrate someone's January birthday, so I felt obligated to go while Cody texted me updates about how she was taking the news.  I found out she needed glasses and felt like the world's most negligent mother.  She was excited to receive compliments on her bright pink frames. I painted some mineral tubs to brighten up the balcony and planted zinnias and morning glories.  The less said about the zinnias the better, but the morning glories did pretty well.

Dallas graduated from high school!  My nephew Ellis graduated from preK on the same day!  Laine somehow made it to both ceremonies!  

June

Death of a Nag. M.C. Beaton
N is for Noose. Sue Grafton

Flood, flood, and flood.  Evelyn and I were summery girls.  She took swimming lessons!  

July

A Fatal Winter. G. M. Malliet.
Death of a Scriptwriter. M. C. Beaton.
Dark Domain.Val McDermid.
Nightblind. Ragnar Jonasson.

It was so hot I wanted to throw up every time I went outside.  But we did try to spend time outside--state parks, the river front, my parents' house, and Dallas's pool were all thoroughly enjoyed.  My favorite summer memory was probably when Evelyn and I floated in a pool in some inner tubes that looked like donuts.  We held hands and drifted around.  I was lightheaded from happiness and from blowing up the inner tubes.  She made me watch her jump off the diving board over and over.  I waited with the inner tube, ready to catch her.

August

The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts. Maja Safstrom.
O is for Outlaw. Sue Grafton
Knitting Heaven and Earth: Healing the Heart with Craft. Susan Lydon.
Death of a Travelling Man. M. C. Beaton.

Evelyn started her new school.  She might have settled into things better than I did.  A knitting friend shared some yarn with the rest of our group and I came home with a Rubbermaid tote's worth.  Whoops.  I knit a bunch of hats.

September

Pagan Spring. G. M. Malliet.
P is for Peril. Sue Grafton.
Demon Summer. G. M. Malliet.
Beowulf (graphic novel). Santiago Garcia and David Rubin.

Cody and I celebrated out 13th wedding anniversary.  The weather was a little more manageable, so we had some weekend adventures.  We got a better idea of what our evening routine should be, with homework on some nights because that's a thing now.  Evelyn started doing gymnastics one night a week and has done okay with the delayed bedtime.  If you had told me back in 2015 how much she loves early bedtimes and how promptly she gets herself ready most nights, I would have fainted.  I knitted a bunch more hats.  I volunteered one afternoon a week with the school's running club. It was super fun to yell encouraging things at kids while they ran their laps and watch them brighten up and go a little faster.

October

Haunted Season. G.M. Malliet.

Devil's Breath. G.M. Malliet

Underwater. Casey Barrett

I went back to work full-time in the middle of October.  I spent the last of my free days scouring shops for supplies for Evelyn's costume.  It was another exercise in trying to manage her expectations and feeling like an ill-tempered failure at all things craft- and parenting-related, but I'm glad I had the time for it.  My very last free day was spent chaperoning at the state fair.  Even with the rain and the cold, it was probably one of the best days of the year.  We went back that weekend with Cody, and I ate a Frito chili pie. There were so many fancy chickens, I almost couldn't handle it.

After almost completely abandoning Evelyn's input and spending a few late nights covering the living room with pieces of fabric, I finished her Unbeatable Squirrel Girl costume the day before her first Halloween event.  There were a lot of Halloween events.  She loved wearing her costume and telling people who she was.  I was grateful that my sloppy sewing of fake fur onto her jacket held up.

I donated 18 hats and a bunch of yarn to a group that knits hats for the homeless at our library.  It felt fantastic.

You may not need me to tell you this, but I also went through a big pom pom phase this year.

November

The Girl Who Lived Twice. David Lagercrantz

I don't enjoy any of the Lisbeth Salander novels, but I am apparently going to read all of them.  I started a lot of books in November, but I guess I didn't finish many.  I took off the week of Thanksgiving because Evelyn was out of school.  I had a cold or two.  Evelyn probably got an ear infection.  I took a trip to the National Quilt Museum with my mom and sisters.  We saw a lot of quilts!  I was in no way inspired to sew more, but I definitely want to go back to Paducah some time when it's warmer and we can explore more.  The windchill was, like, 2!  We got matching sweatshirts.  

December

Death of a Dentist. M.C. Beaton.

Death of a Macho Man. M.C. Beaton.

Q is for Quarry. Sue Grafton.

Cocaine Blues: A Phryne Fisher Mystery. Kenny Greenwood.

Night Shift. Charlene Harris.

Leaflets: Poems 1965-1968. Adrienne Rich.

There were so many holiday things!  I spent the first part of the month shopping and trying to stay on schedule and manage things and mostly succeeded.  I turned 37, which felt nice.  I took the day off to finish some Christmas errands and have lunch with Evelyn at school.  We were basically famous, AND it was pajama day, so she felt like it was the best day ever.  I have to agree! I've gotten to see my family a lot this month, and I'm very grateful.  Our Christmasses weren't quite what we'd planned, but Evelyn had a good time.  We wrapped up the year (and this decade, holy smokes) with friends at a wedding for some loved ones, which seems like a good way to end a year and begin the next one.  

2019 was very, very, very full.  I liked a lot of it.  The worst of it wasn't unbearable.  The best of it was the very best.  I'm hoping for more of the same in 2020.

(Note: I didn't bother marking library books with an asterisk this time because every single book in this post was a library book. !!!)

Book list September 2019

Pagan Spring. G. M. Malliet.
P is for Peril. Sue Grafton.
Demon Summer. G. M. Malliet.
Beowulf (graphic novel). Santiago Garcia and David Rubin.

Pagan Spring was fine, I guess.  P is for Peril was pretty great.  I can't believe I stayed up past midnight on a weeknight to finish Demon Summer because the last few chapters were kind of dumb (I am still working my way through the series, though).  The graphic novel of Beowulf was pretty much what you'd think it would be, which is fine.

Other September things:

Cody and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.  It was pretty understated, but we were happy. 

Us. It's from this weekend, but we were happy then too.

It was so stinking hot, but Cody and Evelyn went bike riding at least once.

Champions!

We went to some libraries and museums. 

Evelyn and a friend at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children's Library.

Being a ham at the HAM. This exhibit was pretty neat.

Evelyn and I have been braiding each other's hair. 

Her handiwork.

Mine.

She'll occasionally tolerate other hairstyles as well.

She can also wear my old shirts now!  She's super tall.

We're starting to do a few more activities with Evelyn's school.  Cody went to a PTO meeting, we're both signing up for volunteer activities, and Evelyn is in the Little Rockers running club.  She disliked her first run last week, but I think she'll like it if she sticks with it.  So I'm bribing her with rewards for every 5 miles.  2 miles down, just a few more to go!

This past Saturday we got out of town for a quick trip to Blanchard Springs Caverns.  We made a few stops at the Natural Bridge and a nice little bakery/cafe in a town called Leslie.  I was overjoyed to see big rocks and small towns with odd names.  Evelyn got a little tired and cranky by the end, but took a nap on the way home.  Cody said his favorite part was the 10 hot and grouchy minutes we spent at the actual springs, go figure.

The Natural Bridge. I want to stand on this so badly, but it's not allowed.

So many formations!

The Blanchard Springs.

That's it!  Evelyn has big spooky plans for October, and I'm just going to try to keep up.  I go back to work full time at the end of the month, and we're going to try to go camping and spend more time outdoors in the (please Lord) cooler weather.  It looks like it's going to be full and wonderful time. 

Book list for August 2019

All library books:

The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts. Maja Safstrom.
O is for Outlaw. Sue Grafton
Knitting Heaven and Earth: Healing the Heart with Craft. Susan Lydon.
Death of a Travelling Man. M. C. Beaton.

My favorite was probably the animal facts books because it had charming pictures. The mysteries were par for the course and the knitting book was not for me.

Evelyn started a new school year at a new school.  Every single day was blazing hot.  I knitted a bunch of hats. 

July 2019 book list and a summery update.

All library books. All mysteries.  All from series I've been enjoying already.

A Fatal Winter. G. M. Malliet.
Death of a Scriptwriter. M. C. Beaton.
Dark Domain.Val McDermid.
Nightblind. Ragnar Jonasson.

Other things from July:

Being the fireworks aunt when my nephews were in town for VBS.  (My dad is the tractor driver and my mom is the 'snacks and random firestarter' person, so we're all really cool now.)

I feel like I've eaten out a lot and I don't feel bad about it (I normally worry about the cost and nutritional value, or lack thereof).  It's mostly been chicken strips.  It's been convenient and fun. 

I don't know that my yarn stash is very manageable, but it's fairly organized and I have plans for at least half of it.  Which is good, because I bought some more today.  It was thrilling.

I am mostly caught up on laundry. We are mostly ready for the new school year.  "Mostly" is perfectly good enough for me.

I love life, but my face still looked like it did when I was harried.  So I changed moisturizers and I feel like that helped.

I may or may not be successfully raising succulents.  It's so hard to know with them.  But so far, my nondead ones look okay. 

Morning glories are still my favorite thing to wake up to.

I think Evelyn and I have done maybe half the things we wanted to do this summer.  That's fairly great, but I'd like to do more and I'd like to do everything more often. 

But I'm off work all this week so today we walked part of a trail at Toltec Mounds, ate not-BBQ things at a BBQ place in Scott, checked out a produce stand and bought another succulent in a fun planter (along with some okra to surprise Cody with!), played at a park where we were the only people at the playground, hit up a yarn store, and had ice cream after we picked up Cody from work.

This is in the kitchen windowsill now!  It's so fun!

I'm realizing 1) that should have been a bullet-point list and 2) I left out the part where I bought Evelyn a grab bag at the Toltec Mounds State Park gift shop and she got a geode that she broke herself AND a flute that she is doing her darnedest to learn to play.

Today I climbed a tree with Evelyn at the park.  Cody can't get over this picture of me from today because it's been so long since he's seen me up a tree.  I felt right at home.

Photo credit to Evelyn.

June 2019 book list

Death of a Nag. M.C. Beaton*
N is for Noose. Sue Grafton*

May 2019 book list and a few small updates

Here are the books I finished up in May:

M is for Malice. Sue Grafton.* Kinsey Milhone is still doing her thing where she solves mysteries in the late 1980s, and I am apparently still doing my thing where I check out these books and read them in order.

An Event in Autumn. Henning Mankell, translated by Laurie Thompson.*  I saw this at the library and did a double take because I thought I had read all the Kurt Wallander mysteries that existed.  But this was translated in 2012 and I missed it somehow.  It was a nice surprise, and very much needed.

Wicked Autumn. G.M. Malliet.*  A standard cozy mystery except!  The mystery-solving priest is a former MI-5 officer with a tragic past! And he became a priest in a rural English village to get away from danger and horror!  Which is ridiculous because everyone knows that the moment a new priest comes to a quaint, rural village the dead bodies just pile up from all the murders.  This is the first in a series and I'm enjoying it enough to keep going even though the pacing is not my favorite.

Other things from May
-Little neighbor boy and baby of the family, Dallas, graduated from high school!  We were proud and happy.  He was tall and only somewhat embarrassed by us.

-We had a little family gathering around Mother's Day!

4 generations of women who just love to have their picture taken.

-Evelyn got glasses!  She's so cute in them and can see all kinds of things she didn't realize she was missing.  Also, she thinks we might look alike now that we have glasses.  Apparently we didn't before this.

-At the beginning of the month, we found out that Evelyn's school was closing down.  It was a whole thing.  It was unexpected and sad and now we're going to send her somewhere that costs significantly more, which we didn't budget for because we thought she was going to her little school for a few more years.  I hate everything about this, but I'm trying to remember to be grateful for the time she had there and all the things she learned in a wonderful environment.

-Not unrelated to the last thing, we're on a bit of a no-spend at the moment!  It's going okay.  I still signed Evelyn up for swimming lessons and she had her first lesson today.  After she ate her little sack lunch we went to the library and read for over an hour and a half.  This is mostly what I checked out.

-I went part-time about 6 weeks ago.  It's a temporary thing that will last until the fall, but I'm really happy that I get to do this (even with the smaller paychecks at an inconvenient time).  I spend the first few days off frantically rushing around to take care of tasks I'd neglected for months before it was time to pick up Evelyn from school.  By the time I was ready to relax, I wound up spending the time touring schools.  But last week I took Evelyn to my parents house and got to play with my nephews for a bit before all the cousins spent the next 3 days together.  And yesterday Evelyn and I did nothing.  And today we barely did more than nothing.  I can't wait to do more of it.

April 2019 book list

As far as I know, I finished one book last month.  It was Let Me Lie, by Clare Mackintosh.  It looked haunting when I saw it on the library shelf.  It had too many twists and the ending made me mad.

Books read, first quarter 2019

Death of a Gossip. M.C. Beaton
Death of an Outsider.
Death of a Perfect Wife.
Death of a Hussy.
Death of a Snob.
Death of a Prankster.
The Skeleton Road. Val McDermid
Out of Bounds.
Broken Ground.

These were all library books.  I might have one or two others, but I didn't write it down anywhere.  I read the McDermid books out of order, but am still enjoying myself working my way backwards through the Karen Pirie novels.  I'm not sure if I'm enjoying the Beaton mysteries, but I still have two of them beside my bed to read for a couple of pages before I pass out each night.

Book list for 2018

The stack of books beside my bed.

Here's what I read in 2018! I'm setting them out in the order in which they were read. Library books are marked, as always, with an asterisk.

January
The Checklist Manifesto. Atul Gawande.*
The One Full Year Challenge. Brad Hardin.
The Store. James Patterson and Richard DeLallo.*
A Homemade Year. Jerusalem Jackson Greer.*
A Bed of Scorpions. Judith Flanders. *

February
The Same Sweet Girls' Guide to Life. Cassandra King. *
Stitches. Anne Lamont.*
Her Fearful Symmetry. Audrey Niffenegger.*
The Western Star. Craig Johnson. *
The Child in the Family. Maria Montessori.*

March
What Happened. Hillary Rodham Clinton.*
The Four Things that Matter Most. Ira Byock.*
The Lost Hero. Rick Riordan.*
The Rooster Bar. John Grisham.*
Surprise Me. Sophie Kinsella.*
A is for Alibi. Sue Grafton.*
Death of a Cad. M.C. Beaton.*

April
Death of a Witch. M.C. Beaton.*
B is for Burglar. Sue Grafton.*
C is for Corpse. Sue Grafton.*
D is Deadbeat. Sue Grafton.*

May
E is for Evidence. Sue Grafton.*
Essentialism. Gary McKeown.*
F is for Fugitive. Sue Grafton.*
Teach Like Finland. Timothy D. Walker.*

June
Cræft. Alexander Langlands.*
G is for Gumshoe. Sue Grafton.*
Snowblind. Ragnar Jonasson.*

July
I is for Innocent. Sue Grafton.*
Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995. Adrienne Rich.*
Lumberjanes: Out of Time.*

August
J is for Justice. Sue Grafton.*
Lumberjanes: Band Together.*
The Breakdown. B.A. Paris.
Lumberjanes: Sink or Swim.*

September
Home to Harmony. Philip Gulley.*
Cave of Bones. Anne Hillerman.*

October
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye. David Lagercrantz.*
Two Kinds of Truth. Michael Connelly.
L is for Lawless. Sue Grafton.
Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World. Clara Parkes.*

November
The Witch Elm. Tana French.*
Death of a Ghost. M.C. Beaton.*

December
Death of a Nurse. M.C. Beaton.*
At Home in this Life. Jerusalem Jackson Greer.*
Depth of Winter.  Craig Johnson.*
Transcription. Kate Atkinson.*

Book list for January 2017

Hunting Badger. Tony Hillerman.
An Obvious Fact. Craig Johnson.*
Living Well, Spending Less. Ruth Soukup
Garden of Lies. Amanda Quick.*

More Hillerman, of course. 

The Longmire book just jumped out at me from the library shelf and I was surprised they had it.  It was fun, I guess. 

I borrowed Living Well, Spending Less from Laine and I liked a lot of it.  The rest of it, I didn't but whatever.  It was one of those things I liked well enough while I was reading it and then kept thinking about all the parts of it that bothered me in the days after I finished it. I got some good things out of it, but can't remember what those are now that I'm typing about it. I'm glad I read it.

I saw Garden of Lies on a display at the library and Evelyn and I had a lot of fun talking about what a garden of lies would entail.  It wasn't that great of a read.  I was distracted by the anachronistic language in this attempt at a Victorian detective novel, the weird attempts at romantic banter, and just about everything about this seemed .... off.  But it did keep me up a few nights because I liked the dumb diversion. 

2016's book list

These are the books I read in 2016.  Library books are marked with an asterisk and I'm not going to bother putting them in any kind of order.  I just copied and pasted them from the posts where I wrote about them throughout the year (under the book list tag) and threw in one or two of the novels I read in December. 

It was a big year for Hillerman and how-tos.  I'm not sure what this year's reading list might look like.  I'm looking forward to finding out, though.


The Kingdom of Little Wounds. Susann Cokal*
Diving into the Wreck: Selected Poems 1971-1972. Adrienne Rich.
Gray Mountain. John Grisham*
The Leftovers. Tom Perrotta*
Magpies, Homebodies, and Nomads: A Modern Knitter's Guide to Discovering and Exploring Style. Cirlia Rose.*

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Roz Chast.*

The Dark Wind.  Tony Hillerman.

Knitting Pearls: Writers Writing About Knitting. Ann Hood, ed.*
People of Darkness. Tony Hillerman.
Sacred Clowns. Tony Hillerman.

The Blessingway. Tony Hillerman.
Talking God. Tony Hillerman.
Step Aside, Pops. Kate Beaton.*
Prepper's Survival Hacks: 50 DIY Projects for Lifesaving Gear, Gadgets, and Kits. Jim Cobb.*

Things I Learned from Knitting...Whether I Wanted to or Not. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.*
Listening Woman. Tony Hillerman.
People of Darkness. Tony Hillerman.
My Grandmother's Knitting: Family Stories and Inspired Knits from Top Designers. Larissa Brown, ed.*  

Dry Bones. Craig Johnson.*
The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go so Their Children Can Succeed. Jessica Lahey*
Coyote. Tony Hillerman.*
Blessing Way. Tony Hillerman.*
Dance Hall of the Dead. Tony Hillerman*
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Marie Kondo.*
Pieces: A Year in Poems and Quilts. Anna Grossnickle Hines.*
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up. Marie Kondo.*
The Little Spark: 30 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity. Carrie Bloomstein.*
The Girl in the Spider's Web. David Lagercrantz.* 

Little Victories: Perfect Victories for Imperfect Living. Jason Gay.*
Skinwalkers. Tony Hillerman.*
Thief of Time. Tony Hillerman.*
Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories. Craig Johnson.*

Faithful. Alice Hoffman*

October's book list

"Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" Roz Chast.*

Man, this was sad.

"The Dark Wind " Tony Hillerman.

I may need a small break from the Hillerman books. Just a small one, though.

August reading list

The Blessingway. Tony Hillerman.
Talking God. Tony Hillerman.
Step Aside, Pops. Kate Beaton.*
Prepper's Survival Hacks: 50 DIY Projects for Lifesaving Gear, Gadgets, and Kits. Jim Cobb.*

The Tony Hillerman books are kind of running together now, but that's okay.

Kate Beaton is hilarious and comics with history jokes are probably the best kind of comics.

The prepper book was light on talks about something knocking out power and heavy on the 'hey, this is a fun project that can come in handy'....which is a tone that was less pleasant on the author's website.  Still, this was an okay book about being resourceful for when the power goes out, you wind up having to stay overnight at work, or you wander off the trail while hiking.  I'm definitely going to try the candles and little cooking flames.

Also, it turns out I read that "Grandmother's Knitting" book this month and not last month.  It was fine, I guess.  It was mostly the editor recapping people's memories of their grandmothers (or grandpas or aunts or whatever), rather than their own words.  The patterns were...fine, I guess.  I cast on for one of the hat patterns and then returned the book to the library without thinking about it.  I'll figure something out.

July's book list

Things I Learned from Knitting...Whether I Wanted to or Not. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.*
Listening Woman. Tony Hillerman.
People of Darkness. Tony Hillerman.
My Grandmother's Knitting: Family Stories and Inspired Knits from Top Designers. Larissa Brown, ed.*

A post for April and May's books

Here they are, in no real particular order and without a lot of commentary.  Asterisks mark the library books.  My Tony Hillerman streak continues, happily.

Dry Bones. Craig Johnson.*
The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go so Their Children Can Succeed. Jessica Lahey*
Coyote. Tony Hillerman.*
Blessing Way. Tony Hillerman.*
Dance Hall of the Dead. Tony Hillerman*
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Marie Kondo.*
Pieces: A Year in Poems and Quilts. Anna Grossnickle Hines.*
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up. Marie Kondo.*
The Little Spark: 30 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity. Carrie Bloomstein.*
The Girl in the Spider's Web. David Lagercrantz.* 

Summary: I love the library, how-to's, pop psychology, and stoic men solving crimes.  I'm not quite ready to follow Marie Kondo's teachings and I don't know why because I love her.  Tony Hillerman makes me want to drive out West more so than usual.  I don't know why I keep reading Lisbeth Salander novels because I don't love them.  I would like to give out The Gift of Failure at baby showers, but feel like that's weird.

March's book list

Little Victories: Perfect Victories for Imperfect Living. Jason Gay.*
Skinwalkers. Tony Hillerman.*
Thief of Time. Tony Hillerman.*
Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories. Craig Johnson.*

Little Victories was pretty fun.  It was a humorous reminder to calm down, love your family, enjoy some misadventures, be kind, etc.  I liked it.

Skinwalkers was my first Hillerman novel.  I checked out a book that had all three Leaphorn and Chee novels in it.  Who are Leaphorn and Chee?  Very famous Hillerman characters, apparently?  One is young and spiritual, and one is old and not.  Sometimes I forget which is which, but I enjoyed reading both of those books.  I'm still on the third one, and I'm enjoying that as well.  I think the Leaphorn novels and Chee novels might be my new favorite detective series.  I do like to work my way through detective series.  It's nice to find a new one.

There's a new Longmire novel out (or maybe two) that I haven't read, but Cody found the collection of short stories at the library.  Most of them are centered around holidays.  It was some nice bedtime reading.

Book list for January and February

Evelyn made a library in her room.

I read one book in January, and forgot to say anything about it.  So here's what I read these past two months!

January:

The Kingdom of Little Wounds. Susann Cokal*

I checked this out because the cover was pretty and the name was intriguing.  I like medieval history in small doses, but this....started out weird and ended even weirder.  This was a young adult novel, but I'm not sure what age I'd be okay with Future Evelyn reading this.  Basically, I think I hated this. Don't read it.  It's thematically uneven, and the historical accuracy is so strong that I didn't so much want a shower after this as I did an Old Testament-style purification ritual.  (So much syphilis.  Just...so much.)

February:

Diving into the Wreck: Selected Poems 1971-1972. Adrienne Rich. 

I love this, and I love Adrienne Rich.  I bought this for $2 off a sale table at Hastings when I was a teenager, and then I didn't read much more of her until some time in college.  Then I went on a big tear and read nearly all of her poetry a few years ago.  I like her.  I always mean to read more of her essays, but then I come back to the poems instead and that feels fine.  I reread this every few years.  I wanted to read more in February, so I started with something small and familiar to get me started. It worked.

Gray Mountain. John Grisham*

Our library did a 'blind date' with a book thing last month.  They had a display of books wrapped up with some indicators about what was inside, and you checked out your book before you pulled back the paper.  I saw notes like 'big city lawyer in a small town' and knew I'd found my match.  It's been a while since I'd read any John Grisham because his dialogue makes me want to scream.  But I read the book in 3 days anyway, and hope there's another story featuring Samantha Kofer some time soon.

The Leftovers. Tom Perrotta*

I've never seen the show, but I checked out the book. I think I liked it?  There are a couple of boys who are usually in the library when we're there, and Evelyn always tries to help them read.  Their mom saw me checking out the book and told me it was weird.  She didn't say it like it was a bad thing, or an exciting thing, just that it was weird.  I get it.  I feel like I should have more to say, but I don't. It was weird. If a sequel ever came out, I would definitely want to read it.

Magpies, Homebodies, and Nomads: A Modern Knitter's Guide to Discovering and Exploring Style. Cirlia Rose.*

Nice patterns, and interesting ideas, but not for me.  I had a whole rant typed out, but I was pretty sad and angry when I read through this and wound up feeling unstylish and ugly because I was having a bad day. On a regular day, I'd probably shrug my shoulders at the book and recommend it to knitters who dress more in a more feminine style and enjoy more whimsy.  So that's what I'm doing now.   

It's been a while since I've enjoyed reading books, so this has been a pretty great month!  A couple of Saturdays ago I had a kid-in-a-candy-store moment in our library's fiction section and I've really been enjoying what I gathered up.  It's a really good feeling.

Book list for 2015

Wow, I didn't read a lot of books in 2015.  Well, I didn't finish a lot of books.  Here's what I finished this year:

Little House Living: The Make-Your-Own Guide to a Frugal, Simple, and Self-Sufficient Life. Merissa Alink*
Hark! A Vagrant. Kate Beaton.*
The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. Jill Conner Browne
Throw Out 50 Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life. Gail Blanke*
Ready Player One. Ernest Cline
Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehasi Coates* 
Beowulf. Seamus Heaney, translator.
Death of a Naturalist. Seamus Heaney*
Fieldwork. Seamus Heaney*
Teach Your Children Well. Madeline Levine.*
Drift. Rachel Maddow*
Tiny Beautiful Things. Cheryl Strayed.*
A Room of One's Own. Virginia Woolf.

I read plenty of books to Evelyn.  I also started several books and stopped when I didn't want to read them anymore.  There was a book about happiness that went on for way too long, so I guess I'll just have to wing it.  There was a poetry volume of Heaney's that was just...way too smart for me.  I tried to read "The Millionaire Next Door" but it's just a book about how some people got rich several decades ago and I really don't think I'd want any of them to be my neighbor.  There were others, but I guess they didn't make enough of an impression on me for me to remember why I quit reading them. 

A few of these books were re-reads, and I already want to go back to Beowulf and A Room of One's Own.  I'm hoping to read more DIY books, maybe more poetry, and I'd like to reread some of my favorites.  I think I'm going to start with Harriet the Spy.

Book list for October 2015

Drift. Rachel Maddow*
Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehasi Coates* 
Death of a Naturalist. Seamus Heaney*
Fieldwork. Seamus Heaney*

Two thoughtful pieces about very different aspects of America, and a couple of small poetry volumes by Heaney.  It was a good month for reading.  Library books marked with asterisks. 

I guess it was a good book for library books, too.

Book list for September 2015

Hark! A Vagrant. Kate Beaton.* I saw this on the shelf and snatched it up before anyone else could. I've enjoyed the comics online and was so convinced that everyone in the world would want to check this out from the library as soon as they saw it.  What's not to love about comics that are history jokes!?

The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. Jill Conner Browne. I hadn't read this in years, and noticed it after it somehow wound up in a spot on the self with our Bibles. Evelyn liked the colors.  It was just like a fun chat with a total stranger you relate to.  And it's funny.  It's just good silly fun, and I liked it a lot. 

Teach Your Children Well. Madeline Levine.* I checked this out during Evelyn's first week of school.  I knew she would be fine and so did every other adult in her life, but it was hard to know how the transition would go--especially when she kept insisting she didn't like school (but only when we were trying to get her to go to bed earlier or stop playing so she could put on her shoes to leave for school).  Her fantastic coloring skills went downhill, her handwriting became nearly illegible, and if I didn't know better I think she completely forgot how to count.  I knew it was normal since her mind was so full of learning all the new routines and rules at school, but it freaked me out a little.  Evelyn does everything in her own time and she doubles down if she thinks you're going to try to rush her or slow her down.  I wanted a reminder about focusing on the important parts of parenting and this seemed like a good book for it.

And it was.  Levine talks a lot about realistic expectations, understanding your kid's personality and learning style, emphasizing values like a love of learning and kindness.  And calming down (that part's for the parents).  A lot of it is stuff that people already somewhat know, but it's hard to remind yourself when other people are talking about their kids' accomplishments and asking you about yours.  It's always well-intentioned, and genuine, but I'm quick to feel defensive because well, raising her is a big deal and I always worry that we're not doing as great a job as she deserves. But Evelyn's loved and supported, which is really the best foundation we can give her, educationally or otherwise.

And: I read some bound volumes of some comics. They were okay.  I don't even remember the titles, but they were about Batwoman and Captain Marvel.  Every now and then I read comics and then I remember that I don't want to read comics for another couple of months or years.