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.

2016

Evelyn and I made hot chocolate yesterday afternoon.  I'd gotten a kit for my birthday where you dip some chocolate-covered spoons into hot milk and enjoy some oversized marshmallows.  We even had some leftover Christmas cookies to go with our sweet drinks.   And I decided: 2016 is going to be the year we enjoy ourselves.  I want to actively look for ways we can have fun. 

It's a simple enough thing to do, but not something I'm naturally inclined toward.  But I think this will be a good year for it.  I feel like we've decluttered enough that there won't be any big, overhaul-style cleanings (unless we're going through Evelyn's clothes.  It can't be helped. She grows like an actual weed.  Stacks of leggings become obsolete from week to week!).  We have space to play and grow.  I've got nearly all of my yarn in one space.  This is most of it, by the way:

I'll try to do most of my gift knitting from my stash, and I'm going to work on projects I really like rather than getting concerned about using up the most yardage I can. 

I'm going to try to meet up with friends more often, and when I do I'm going to stop apologizing for Evelyn being super talkative because they don't seem to mind (she's their friend, too! She's everyone's friend! Why do I keep her away from friends?!).  I'm also going to try to stop being so negative, so that when I worry that everyone hates meeting up with me because I'm so negative I can remind myself that I was funny and asked questions about people's interests before possibly falling into a rant about the sorry state of national infrastructure or whatever else it is that sometimes literally keeps me up at night. 

I hope we eat more cake.  I love cake and it's not a big deal to make it. There are worse snacks (maybe).

The moment I stop enjoying something I'm reading, I'm going to stop reading it.  If someone's terrible on Facebook, I can hide them.  Or unfriend them altogether.

I hope I post more here without worrying about keeping up with everything in chronological order. 

I would write more now, but I want to get back to working on a sock I'm trying to knit. I'm not super invested in it, but I like that.  I'm going to knit socks, but I'm not going to be grimly determined or try to knit any tighter because I'm a loose knitter, and a generally relaxed one at that, except for when socks are involved.  But I'd like to try them a little bit more.  And so far I'm enjoying it.  Which is all I need for now.

I have other goals for the year.  I want to contribute to a food pantry every month.  I want to spend more time outdoors.  I want to cook more because I love my own cooking.  I'm hoping we have a nice tiny kitchen garden on our balcony.  And I'm going to enjoy those things too.

2015

I hiked Pinnacle Mountain a lot in the first part of the year.

I mostly quit drinking Mtn. Dew.

We looked at schools for Evelyn.

Cody got permanent work.

We read that book on the love languages and I rolled my eyes at a lot of it, and I don't think either one of us finished it.  But we did get enough of it to realize we'd been throwing our 'I love yous' right past each other.  Whoops.  If Cody cleans the kitchen a bit better and gets the coffee maker ready for the next day every night and I say nice things about him (especially in front of Evelyn), we're a much happier dynamic duo.

I went to therapy for a while.  We mostly talked about work and parenting.  The parenting stuff, I can adapt to.  The work stuff will probably always be hard for me.  I'm still trying to figure out how to enjoy the good parts, and to really get the most out of the weeks/months when I'm not completely physically and emotionally drained so that I can enjoy life outside the office.

We found a school for Evelyn.  The roughest part of transition, in my opinion, was brought on by the fact that Evelyn really got into baby dolls a month or two before school started.  And you can't take your baby to school.  It was a contentious time for all of us.  That being said, Cody and I went to the first PTO meeting of the year (less than a month after school started) and Evelyn wanted to bring her beloved baby.  I can't tell you how many people--from teachers to parent volunteers--said "This must be Hildegard!" because she told them all about her baby, and they listened.  We really, really like Evelyn's school.

Now would be a good time to say that we love our library as well.  I love all libraries, really, but our little local library has been an important factor in helping Evelyn love learning.  The lovely people there are also a big part of why she's so at ease with asking questions of people in charge and why she feels so confident that they'll answer her seriously. 

She asks a lot of questions, and this year I started pointing her in the direction of people who could answer them even if we weren't in a library.  Park interpreters, the nice guy at the Capitol visitors desk, or anyone else got an earful.  Often.

We went to a few museums, and the Historic Arkansas Museum was probably my favorite.  We went there a lot.

Evelyn also really likes my work.  I get a lot of stress from it.  But I also work with some very lovely people, and many of them hold Evelyn in high regard.  She feels welcome there, and she is.  I'm incredibly glad.

Evelyn can kind of read a bit.

We went to the beach this summer.  We sunburned horribly and ate too much and the house was way too full of people who were way too loud and on conflicting sleep schedules.  It was fantastic.  The three of us swam in the ocean together a few times and it was all I wanted out of life maybe.  Evelyn got to enjoy a lot of swimming and I get irrationally excited about driving places in the middle of the day.

We did not go to the state fair, a pumpkin patch, or to look at Christmas lights.  We did meet Santa 3 times and go to a classmate's birthday party.

There was a lot of time to play with cousins.  And there were plenty of grandparent sleepovers.

There was also a trip or two to my old allergist. Evelyn is on maintenance medication, and it's working awfully well.  She likes her inhaler, and I like that we can treat the cough that pops up every time she gets a stuffy nose or an ear infection or the temperature shifts twenty degrees in a day.  Glorious!

Cody's getting into meal planning.  I keep making the same knitting patterns over and over because it's what makes me happy.

We didn't do as much as I'd hoped or planned in 2015, but we had a lot of fun.  I'm not really sure what we have going on in 2016.  I'm hoping we get to see friends and family more.  I keep swearing up and down that we'll go camping some day.  It could happen.  Whatever we do, I think we'll have a good time.

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.