Books the Boys Like - March 2022 {9 & 4}

My boys both have March birthdays which mean we have a newly minted 4 and 9 year old in the house.  Luke is in his last year of single digits and Sam is definitely not a toddler anymore!  How they continue to age faster than me is just baffling.  On the plus side, they generally have pretty long attention spans for books!  We read together for a couple hours a week and it's usually one time of day I can get them to settle on the couch with me.  Even when we do movie night they are often on the floor or in their camp chairs (and I'm often doing a puzzle).  Here's a few books they've each been enjoying lately!

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Luke (9)
1) Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
These are Luke's favorite books to read by himself right now, usually later than he should be (I have a hard time being TOO upset about this, especially when he almost always gets up and around for school just fine.  But it's definitely more ok in the summer when he doesn't need to be awake before 7am).  I personally haven't read them and I'm not sure how I feel about them (I know, then I shouldn't be letting him read them) BUT he is happy to READ and we're going to let it go for now.  (And my teenage niece who I trust really liked them so I figure they are ok?)

2) Cat Kid Comic Club: Perspectives by Dav Pilkey
The Dogman universe is still beloved even if he doesn't solely reach for them anymore.  This is the book we gave Luke for Christmas and we're giving him the next Cat Kid Comic Club for Easter (it's the easiest way to pick a book gift for him.  New Dogman-ish book?  Yes, let's buy that).  I really don't know what these are about but he likes them!

3) Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar
This was a read aloud with him earlier this year.  I definitely read this one, the second in the trilogy, many times as a kid (I'm fairly certain I never read the other 2).  It's definitely waaaaay goofier than I remember BUT Luke loves the goofy so he really liked these.  We'll read the 3rd eventually.

4) The Amazing Spider-Man: An Origin Story by Rich Thomas & Jeff Clark
Luke and I were at the library a few weeks ago and he started describing these to me, a super hero book we had read before with half their face on the cover...it took me a bit to figure out what he meant (thank goodness for Goodreads and being able to search all the books I've read!) but then we got a whole bunch of this series and the boys both like them!  I read them all to them again but Luke has also read them himself.

5) The Smart Cookie by Jory John, illustrated by Pete Oswald
This is the fifth (maybe?) book in a loose series about food items and this one is my favorite.  The Cookie is smart but he's not smart in the same way as the other baked goods in his class.  He feels different until he finds an assignment that he excel at and that changes everything.  It was a wonderful message, told through baked goods.

Sam (4)
1) Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson
This is a return favorite from last spring.  I had to return it due to holds and so immediately put it back on hold on a different card...only to go to the library 6 hours after returning to pick up...the exact copy I had returned.  But now we have at least another 3 weeks!  This is perfect for Sam, interactive AND learning a little bit about a garden!

2) Mix it Up! by Herve Tullet, translated by Christopher Franceschelli
I read this with Luke years ago and picked it up for Sam after he's shown interest in how colors mix (orange is his favorite color but he'll conceed to yellow if orange isn't an option in a game or something, since yellow makes orange).  Sam has gotten way more into this book than Luke ever did and now Sam asks a lot of questions about what different color combinations make.  

3) Butts by Katrine Crow
BOTH of my boys liked this book, probably because they were so surprised that I'd pick out and read them a book called Butts.  A simple board book where they show an animal's behind and you guess what it is.  There are other in the series such as Horns but you just can't beat approved talking about butts to my boys.

4) Mel Fell by Corey R. Tabor
This is a delightful book that is another favorite from last spring and in heavy rotation when I read just to Sam.  Mel is a Kingfisher who all the animals on the tree think is falling, but Mel isn't falling.  She's fishing.  And she can fly.  It's just so well done, maybe in my top 25 picture books we've read.

5) Cavities vs. Toothpaste by Didi Dragon, illustrated by Hannah Robinett
Luke's been going to the dentist for ~7 years.  Sam for ~18 months.  They've both been brushing their own teeth since they were little.  AND YET, they learned more about the importance of brushing from this book than either of them had from anywhere else.  Or at least it sunk in better.  Sam is now a committed flosser (much to our dismay when we are trying to get him to bed) and Luke doesn't fight me on the twice a day brushes as much as he used to (he also sneaks in flossing when he's supposed to be getting to bed).  Highly recommend to all parents of kids young enough to learn about brushing!

Have you read any good picture books lately?  I'd love to hear!

{8} Books That Make Me Wish I was Magically Better in the Kitchen

Food books are always a lot of fun to read.  I am a passable home cook but within limits (we eat food every day but it's rarely AMAZING, lucky to get something both boys will eat that isn't hot dogs or mac n cheese).  I make meals because we need to eat, not because I get any great joy out of it.  It's purely a function of needing food.  I AM much more excited about making desserts or mostly any food that isn't healthy.  In moderation, sure, all of that has it's place but you can't regularly consume only ice cream for supper.  

Since I am seemingly not going to magically acquire better kitchen skills over night, I do at least enjoy reading about people who make me wish I was more competent in the kitchen.  Not wish enough to really try to improve my skills, but just appreciate that there are people who do have those skills, and if I could magically get them that would be great. (This is also greatly hindered by the fact that I am not an adventurous eater of any sort and have a rather long, internal, list of items I will not eat.)

If I can't be a good cook in real life at least I can live vicariously through my reading!

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, links for which are included within this post, at no additional cost to you.  Thanks for helping support this blog!   Of course, utilize the library or shop used or from an independent bookstore, if you prefer!

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell
This is probably the one on this list that I read first, AND the book I was rereading the days where I found out we were picked to be Luke's parents and meeting him (I did not remember that fact, thank you, Goodreads).  This is a memoir of a woman named Julie who decides to cook the entirety of Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking in one calendar year.  There are more than 365 recipes in that book and so she's packing them in to get through them all.  I found this to be an astounding and overwhelming task, one of which I could never do solely for the way she describes hacking into bones.  BUT, if she could do all of this from a tiny NYC kitchen, I should be able to experiment a bit more from my sure to be larger kitchen, right? 

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How  Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn
Another memoir, in which the author describes her time teaching cooking lessons out of her home for 9 true kitchen novices.  I felt pretty good about my cooking skills compared to theirs in the beginning but they greatly overshadowed me by the end!  It made me realize that, if I put the time into learning, I could be more than competent at feeding my family.  This class seemed like a lot of fun but also, useful!  I read this years ago but there were a lot of good tips in here alongside the stories!

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Another about a cooking school but this one fictional, about a woman who is running evening, weekly, cooking classes out of her restaurant.  There are 8 students and each chapter is from one of their points of view.  This is one of the most beautifully written books I've read but that doesn't mean it's boring!  I was captivated with all their stories and how their lives intermingled over the weeks they were in cooking class together.  There's quite a bit of connecting the dots around the stories since you are picking up from a different person each chapter.  I remember staying up too late in bed to finish reading this one!

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl was the food critic at the New York Times and thus, every big restaurant in NYC was on the lookout for her.  She realized that to properly review these restaurants she needed to be in disguise so she would get the service that a non-critic would get.  She describes the lengths she went to disguise herself as well as all the wonderful food she ate.  She was doing this in the 1990s maybe (at one point I believe she eats at the Windows on the World at the original World Trade Center) and so many dated references (I thought the recession she was referring too was 2008 then realized it was much longer ago) but still so much fun to see NYC food through a professional's eyes.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradel
This is a book that I very much remember finishing the weekend immediately after school shut down in March 2020.  I remember finishing it on the window seat in my office while an older cousin came to take Luke to the nearby playground with other cousins and just wondering about how much life would be changing soon.  This has nothing to do with the book but I didn't realize how many of these books I have very clear memories of the reading experience!

First, "The Great Midwest" here mostly means Minnesota, I was really hoping for an Indiana setting (nope).  The story starts with a father and his young daughter, whose wife/mother has just left them.  The father decides to pass on his love of food to his daughter, this daughter who went on to be a famous chef.  Another one where each chapter was a different person and also a different dish.  The characters intertwined with each other so beautifully that made for a delightful reading experience, figuring out all the connections.  Also, pointing out many of the weird things about Midwest food.  

Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself by Amy Thomas
I enjoyed her earlier book, Paris, My Sweet, where she covered many delicious sounding treats in Paris and in New York.  I only regret that I read that after we went to Paris so I wasn't able to do any sampling myself.  In this one she is firmly in New York, living in Brooklyn, and trying to adjust to new life circumstances.  AND, I am much more likely to be back in New York before I am back in Paris and this showcases some of the New York food scene so beautifully.  This doesn't make me wish I was a better chef, more than I had endless time to just eat my way through New York. 

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
There are countless World War II novels but I have also learned so much from so many of them.  This one follows three women in Britain who are competing to be a radio host on a new BBC radio show, teaching other women how to make the most of their rationed food.  I am certainly glad I am not living on rations but the creativity and genius of these women, to make the most of the few supplies they had, is admirable and astounding.  I am much less creative with so much more!  Also, a lot of good female friendship which I always appreciate.

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
If I had to pick, this would be one of my all-time favorites, I think.  It's one of Elin Hilderbrand's earliest books and the format (following one character the whole novel) is so different from her more recent books that bounce around between many characters.  This one follows Adrienne who is escaping a bad boyfriend and no money in the ski scene in Colorado for somewhere to work and earn money fast.  She ends up on Nantucket and kinda falls into a hostess job at a restaurant.  And not just any restaurant, The Blue Bistro, one of the most famous and legendary restaurants on the island.  And also one that is closing at the end of the season and few know why.  I love the fast paced restaurant scenes and the food sounds amazing (I am always sad that it is a fake restaurant, not that I've found myself on Nantucket yet).  The hours of restaurant work sound horrible but so fun to read about on the page.  And those pages just keep flying by as you keep up with the busy summer nights at The Blue Bistro.  

Simplifying Allowances

One of my weekly Saturday chores is paying the boys' their allowances.  It was on my 20 in 2020 list to start paying Luke an allowance, which we did with some regularity but then fell out of the habit, although I was accruing an "allowances payable" for him in my financial software so that we would at least know how many he was missing.   It took until about 6 months ago, well into 2021, that we really got in a good routine for paying allowances and now Sam gets one too!

Teaching our boys good money habits is one of many things we want to instill in them.  If they don't have money to spend as kids, they'll make more money mistakes when they are older when the stakes are higher.  Plus, I really don't want to them constantly asking me to buy them things at Target or wherever.  Now the answer is simple.  I am not buying that for them besides as, maybe, a future gift, but they can spend their own money, if they have any to spend. (We will pay for things for them in store since they rarely take their wallets on our regular shopping trips, but only if I know they have enough back home to pay me back immediately.  And then I make them pay me back before they get said item.)

A big reason they never got paid on time is that I never had the right bills or coins on me.  So that needed fixed.  Our bank, where us and the boys have accounts, does a pays for A's program where Luke can get $5 if he has an A (or equivalent, when he was on O's and S's until this school year) on his report card.  Now I had a reason to go to the bank every quarter.  And that is the 4 times a year I go to the bank.  When we got the school calendar I wrote the 4 report card dates in my planner and that is when we go.  Any checks I get myself wait until then. (I suppose if we got a large enough check, like when Matt's work has reimbursed us for work trips, I'd go sooner...but we haven't had that in years.)

Before those roughly quarterly bank trips I count out how many weekends there are until we'll be going again.  I multiply that by what I pay out in allowance a week and that is how much I withdraw from our account in $1s.  I also might get a roll of quarters and/or dimes to help make the change I need for their allowance splitting.

We have been pretty consistent over the past 6 months to pay allowances on Saturday afternoons.  I want them to have their church envelopes ready for when we go to Saturday night or Sunday morning Mass.  But as much as I wanted them to have their envelopes I was also usually dragging my feet because I was pulling items from about 4 different spots in the house.  I kept the allowance money in one place, their church envelopes in another, their piggy banks and savings bags in a third, and their wallets in a fourth.  This was crazy and annoying.  

What matters?  

Teaching them good money habits.  

What else matters?  

Making it easy to do weekly.

I had really helped that along with getting the right cash from the bank so I finally realized I could put almost all the allowance items in one place for easy grabbing when it was time to pay.  Here's where I ended up!  We have both of their piggy banks (where they mostly keep change (they, strangely, have almost matching banks.  One being mine from childhood and the other one they got as a baby.)), their wallets (where they mostly keep bills), their shared box of church envelopes, their savings bags, and the money I use to pay.  It gives me a weird sense of joy to have a good system for this now, something that has been annoying me for months!

Right now they each give 10% to church and put 50% into their savings account.  This means they keep a whole 40% of their actual allowance (which is the same system my parents used when I was growing up!) but it still keeps them with a weekly stream of cash.  They each have a labeled bag for savings money and we take those to the bank on our quarterly trips.  They've only deposited the bills so far so we don't have to mess with their little bit of change in the change counter.  Plus, we are constantly using that to make change so it usually amounts to under 50 cents anyways.  

Now on those Saturday afternoons I can just grab the whole box and have them paid out within minutes.  Luke knows how to count and make basic change.  Sam doesn't yet but he's slowly learning a bit more!  

The boys, mainly Luke, can earn more by doing extra chores like mowing (he LOVES mowing) or shoveling (loves that too) but we try not to tie their allowance directly to their normal chores.  Chores are part of living here and we all have to work together to keep the house clean and functioning.  Their allowance is part of learning about money.  I don't know how well they understand that separation but we try!

If you are looking for guidance on this I highly recommend this book, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who are Grounded, Generous, and Smart about Money by Ron Lieber.  Even getting a pretty good financial education from my parents AND being a professional accountant, I still learned a lot about how to teach my kids about money!  

I still remember the pride and joy I felt as a kid when I had finally saved up my hard earned allowance for something I really wanted.  It felt so grown-up to have my own spending money.  And I see that in my kids too, then they are able to make their own purchases.  It's teaching them about savings and choosing carefully and also just the basics of counting money!  And I get less whining at the store for random purchases which, really, might be the real win of it all!

Do you pay your kids allowances?  I'd love to hear what kind of system, I just find others' processes so interesting! 

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Author Love: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Welcome to another month of Author Love, where I highlight an author whose works I've read the vast majority of, all of which I've enjoyed!  Previously I talked about Sara Ackerman and Kristin Harmel.  Might all these authors end up being women?  Highly likely, I probably read 90% women authors and most men I read write non-fiction.  

Today I'm talking about Taylor Jenkins Reid.  She is the rare author who I know exactly how I came across her.  For some reason I entered a giveaway on Goodreads for Maybe In Another Life and won.  It was the first Goodreads giveaway I ever won (and have only won a handful more since) and it was INCREDIBLY exciting to get a free book in the mail.  Already I was inclined it rate it highly (which is probably the whole point of those giveaways).  

That book was enjoyable enough that I added the rest of Taylor Jenkins Reid's released books to my TBR.  At the time her books were all contemporary women's fiction.  Not romance but there was at least a romance in each one.  They were exactly the types of book I was looking for at that time.  Interesting and page turning without violence or anything too controversial.  

She took a turn to her writing in 2017, going from slightly more lighthearted books to more complex sagas, often spanning longer periods of time and just story lines you could tell took awhile to work through.  She has 3 released books since this shift and all have been very different in form but also have slightly overlapping characters (none of which are so prominent that you'll lose something by reading them out of order).  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is going through a older movie star's life and the 7 husbands she had a long the way.  Evelyn Hugo hand picked a certain young female journalist to tell her stories to and her reason for that is revealed along the way.  It's told through interviews and flashbacks. 

Then there was Daisy Jones and the Six which is an oral history of a fiction rock band from the 1960s or 1970s.  When I first heard of this I didn't bother to add it to my TBR because I had never heard of this band so why would I want to read the oral history?  You all, it's a fictional band by the time you are halfway through the book you'll wonder how the heck aren't they real because their story just jumps off the page.  I cannot imagine the planning it took to create a novel in that format.  It feels so incredibly real (also, I'd like to hear their nonexistent music).

Those two books were HUGE departures from her earlier work and definite page turners that made me think.  They are exactly the right spot of commercial without being annoying fluffy.  On the edge of being literary fiction without being pretentious.  That is a very fine and hard line to follow but TJR (I'm calling her that for the rest of this post), does it so skillfully and perfectly.

The other three books I'm going to talk about are the three I happen to own (one being that first one I got for free!).  Even though, it took me longer to track down one of them within my house than it should have (I reorganized a whole bunch of my books in January and I'm still not sure where they all ate).

First up is Maybe in Another Life which I've heard described as a Sliding Door story although I am not familiar with that movie (??).  A woman on the peak of turning 30 returns to her hometown of LA, fresh on the heels of a bad breakup.  Her BFF takes her out to a bar one night and at that point the story splits into two possible time lines, based on two different choices she could have made that night at the bar regarding her high school boyfriend.  We all know the repercussions that one choice can have, the kind generally of more consequence than what leftovers to have for supper.  Her life goes very differently in the two timelines, even though there are echoes of each in the other.  Some things in her life here just meant to happen.  And which one is the "real" story line???  This one gripped me and was a very pleasant introduction to TJR.

The next one is one I really remember reading, on my front porch, flying through it, in tears at points, because I just HAD to know what happened.  That one is One True Loves.  Emma marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse and they are living a lovely life in Massachusetts.  Then, on their first anniversary, Jesse goes on a work trip (he's some how related to the travel industry).  And he disappears.  His helicopter goes missing over the Pacific Ocean and he's presumed dead after some time.  Well, Emma falls apart a bit, as expected.  She moves back in with her parents, who seem to be lovely people who pre-read every book they give her (I believe they own a bookstore?) to make sure nobody dies in the story.  Many years later, Emma is able to move on with her life with Sam, an old friend.  THEN.  Jesse is found.  What do you do when your love, who was presumed to be dead, reappears???  I have thought about this story line SO MANY TIMES in a few different applications.  How the end of one dear thing can bring about something else.  I could not put this down to see how it ended.

Her most recent book is Malibu Rising which is one of the bit more complicated stories than her earlier work.  This was the book I picked for Matt to give me for my birthday last summer and I very vividly remember reading it on vacation. (FANTASTIC vacation read, by the way).  It follows the family of a famous rock star, his 4 adult kids, in the 1980s, in Malibu, California.  (The rock star was apparently briefly mentioned character in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo but I have no memory of this.)  The kids have all had their lives affected in different ways from their Dad's fame and wealth (he's not a super present character in the book, much more mentioned than seen).  I love a good complicated family drama where the drama isn't from anything too complicated.  It was page turning, fun, and addictive.  Again, a perfect beach or vacation read.  Slight content warning, this is rich people in the 1980s in California so some drug usage.

I've enjoyed every one of Taylor Jenkins Reid's books, I always expect them to be a fun, page turning read and I haven't been let down yet!  Perfect for summer or any time you just want to dive into a good book!  

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The Hardest Working Rooms in Our House

One of the many great things about living in a small house (besides the lower cost to buy, lower cost to furnish, lower cost to heat/cool/light) is that we use every single room of our house nearly every single day that we are home.  There might be the rare Sunday in the summer when nobody enters my office but that is really the only exception I can think of.  Every room needs to be used and most room need to have multiple purposes.  It is the only way we can live in 1200 square feet (which, still, isn't that small of a house.  When our house was built in the 1930s this was a much more typical house size).   

There are some rooms that do more of the heavy lifting in this house.  We have 8 rooms, not including the stairway or basement, and 3 in particular do A LOT for us.  Our bedrooms are primarily for sleeping, storing clothes, and quiet time (Sam on weekdays and myself on weekends).  The bathroom is used solely for bathroom-type purposes (besides the occasional parental hideout) and the kitchen is mostly kitchen purposes although, as most families know, that kitchen table can pull multiple duties (not just eating but homework and crafts too).  

Our porch is fantastic but only useful about 2/3 of the year, pending weather.  It's mostly used for porch-things (sitting, reading, enjoying the sunshine, great light for picture taking).  It's the remaining three rooms of our house, covering about half our square footage, that pull most of their weight.

My Office
First up is my office.  We designated a room off the front room as my office from the first time we went through our house.  It has closets but no door, thus harder to make into a bedroom.  It's not lost on me the great privilege it is that both Matt & myself have our own separate offices in our small space.  This room not only holds my desk, computer, bookshelf (and a portion of my books), printer, file cabinet, etc. but also a HECK of a lot of storage is packed into the built in cabinets behind me as I type this.

Our coat closet is in here, even though it's almost as far as your can get from our most used door on this floor.  That also means winter boots (when they aren't drying off) and winter gear (hats, gloves, scarves, etc.).  Also in that same cabinet are Sam's church picture books, the main set of crayons, and most of the coloring books.  Coloring usually happens on the coffee table ~10 feet away so this is where they go.

We also store a variety of extra office/school supplies in here (I have a stash going on items that we will probably need on next year's supply list but was sold in too big of a quantity last year), cards waiting to be mailed, cards waiting on a recipient.  Normal office things.  As well as our DSLR, some school books for Sam, all of our out of season picture books (you have no idea the delight I experienced when I realized I could put those in the far back of the cabinet, using our ladder to get to, and just shuffle them out as needed.  It's a glorious system that I am outgrowing too quick.  They are barely noticeable from the ground.).  I even snuck in some extra Christmas decor with all of my big bottle brush trees (truly an obsession) and a few other of my larger fake trees (mirrored and ceramic) stashed up there.  There are few things more exciting than finding things to purge or rearrange thus freeing up new storage spaces.  (And I KNOW I can fit at least a few more bottle brushes up there come November/December).

The other cabinet is slightly less exciting with the vacuum, rarely used iron & ironing board, and swiffer (as well as my color guard rifle & sabre!  The boys are always entertained when I pull those out.).  Up above is my decades in boxes, more office excess, and food trays and cupcake courier at the top since there is no space for them in the kitchen.  

So besides office things we have cleaning supplies, coat room, and seasonal storage happening in here.  This is the laziest of our 3 hard working room.

Front Room
Our front room is the central part of our house.  We've called it the front room for 16 years and have no good reason for that other than it is in the front of our house.  It's never been the living room or the family room because, really, it's so much more than either of those.  It's always "the front room".  

The boys each have a (messy) desk in the back of the room, more for storing their various treasures although Sam does sit at his sometimes.  It's on my spring break project list to clean those up.  There is also the buffet which holds out of season holiday kitchen towels & potholders (and I claim to be something of a minimalist...), decks of cards & card games, and candles.  The bottom is almost entirely extra/out of season decor.  I have a shelf for each non-Christmas season (really: February - May, summer, and September - November) and then extra flower pots and table cloths and all of my bridesmaid bouquets (those might move to our closet soon). 

The dining table is mostly eaten at on the big holidays (Christmas morning, Easter morning) and when we have people over (although we mostly try to do that in the months it's nice enough to eat outside).   I also do puzzles here occasionally and sometimes Luke does homework and it's constantly a staging place for things that need to leave the house (library books get stacked up the night before they are returned, etc.)  

The front half of the front room really earns the room's hard working title.  It's our main tv watching area (we have a second TV in the basement but it's mostly for Matt to watch while working out).  I do my workouts here in the mornings (my weights for working out are under the bookshelf in my office) and we watch 95% of the tv we watch together here.  It's also where I read during quiet time or when everyone else is out of the house, when it's too cold for the porch.  AND it's the boys' primary play area.  We do not have a toy room or play room or anything else of the sort.  I am constantly asking the boys to get their Legos/army guys/whatever else, off the couch so I don't accidentally sit on them.  MOST of Sam's non-stuffed animal toys (or outside toys) are stored in this room and it's where we do most of our playing when Luke's at school.  Hot wheel tracks and Duplo building and so many games of Memory where he destroys me.  It's primary non-Lego, non-stuffed animal, inside toy storage as well as, really, our only inside seating area for when guests are over.  This room probably sees the most waking usage of any room in our house.   Part family room, dining room, play room, tv room, and exercise space. 

Matt's Office 

The room that really takes the cake is Matt's office.  The amount of function and storage we get out of this room is just astounding.  It's Matt's office which means his computer and a bookshelf a whole cabinet dedicated to Lego storage on top and my excess books on bottom (I have books in every room of the house besides the bathroom and kitchen.).  Then there is Luke's Lego Table which is self explanatory (another item on my to-clean-up-over-spring-break list).  Usually Luke builds in here but when he plays Legos he often takes them to the couch.  Then there is my reorganized craft storage.  This huge white cabinet (that Matt built) holds all of my sewing supplies as well as wrapping paper, gift bags & tissue paper, craft supplies for the boys, some home decor (out of season books I covered), and a basket dedicated to items that need to be returned or given to someone else.  I am often reconfiguring the baskets based on what I need storage for although many of them stay the same.  (The picture is old but the organization is nearly the same, other than the addition of the Lego table next to the cart and most of that wrapping paper being used up.)

When we refinished our hardwood floors almost 5 years ago, Matt also redid all the storage in the closet, adding the beautiful shelves around our chimney.  These shelves hold the content for MANY closets worth.  There are nearly all our games (just cards go elsewhere), puzzles, extra toiletries & medicine (some are stored in the bathroom but excess is here), extra bath towels (since there is absolutely no space for those in the bathroom), paper for crafts, kraft paper for wrapping, and our gift stashes.  This is a game closet/linen closet/gift closet all in one.  (Matt gets next to none of the storage in his office, although he does use the towels and plays the games.)  Ideally, all of this wouldn't be stored in Matt's office (I DREAM of having storage in the bathroom for the extra towels and TP (which is in the basement)).  BUT, rooms in our house rarely get to be just one thing (unless you are the bathroom).  

If we bought this house now and moved in with 2 kids, the way everything is arranged and organized now isn't necessarily the way we'd organize it all if we were starting from scratch but after 16 years of putting things where they fit, this is where we've ended up!  Even just writing out this list gave me some ideas of things to maybe organize a bit differently!  We definitely appreciate that while this house isn't big on space (and we'd LOVE another bathroom), we've still made it work for this long.  There are countless benefits to small spaces and being able to say no to things "because we just don't have the room!" is one of them.  We're forced to get a little creative and keep our possessions lower (although, to be clear, we still have A LOT of stuff) to make this house work for our family of 4.  

Do you keep items in unusual spaces?  Anyone else have towels co-mingling with puzzles co-mingling with a gift stash (really, that closet...blue ribbon).  I'd to hear about unusual storage solutions that work for you!

Reading Recap - February 2022

February was a bit of a rough reading month.  I got bogged down by a few books and just didn't get through as many books as I had hoped I would.  Still, a dozen, but not as many as I'd like.  Optimistic March will bring books that work better for me!

 I am on Goodreads here, Instagram here, and linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy (eventually)!

A few other book posts in the past month:

 {12} STEM(ish) Picture Book Series

 

 Author Love: Kristin Harmel

 {12} Picture Books to Start Spring

 

Now for everything else I've been reading!

 

Happily for Now by Kelly Jones
I read this book because someone said it would be one for Enneagram 2s, which I think I am.  And the first couple chapters I was nodding along like, "yes!  I can relate to this middle schooler so much" but then it didn't hold my interest and I have a hard time quitting books and so I powered through but it was definitely not for me.  Also, middle-grade, which can work for me but in this case...not so much. 2.75 Stars

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
This was a delight to reread because 1) I hadn't read it in ~5 years.  2) I was reading it "with" two of my sisters.  Really, reading it about the same time and we kinda texted about it but it was just so delightful to coordinate something like that together.  And the story was as compelling as I remembered it being!  I remembered the main story beats but forgot many details so it was fun to rediscover them all.  Then Matt & I watched the movie together.  In March I'll read Catching Fire with my sisters and then, hopefully, watch with Matt! 4.5 Stars

The Maid by Nita Prose
This was also a great reading experience, probably largely due to just getting a big block on time on a Sunday to read which usually makes for a good reading experience.  A neurologically different (I have no idea what the correct terms are anymore) woman is a maid at a hotel and finds a dead guy in his room.  The police and hotel management need a suspect and the maid ends up taking the fall.  A bit twisty but uplifting in the end, except for the dead guy, he was still dead.  4 stars

100 Things We've Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul
I expected this to be a mostly humorous book about all the things we've lost to the internet like paper maps and such.  But it was really just a more depressing look at how life has changed since the internet.  And some things just didn't seem lost to me.  My son is learning cursive at school and he still has a school library, where he checks out actual paper books.  I could relate to parts of it but it still made me sad reading it. 2.5 Stars

Alex and Eliza by Melissa de la Cruz
Basically fan fiction for Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Eliza, but it mostly covered their dislike of each other which all of a sudden turned to love.  There are more in the series but I won't be picking them up.  Not for me.  Although I did learn about vaccinations in Revolutionary War time!  2.75 Stars

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
The romance reread I picked to read around Valentine's Day.  I wrote a whole post about this back when I first read and loved it and I've picked it up a few times since.  The romance in this book, even between teenagers (although, rather mature ones who have gone through some things) sucks me in EVERY TIME.  4.5 Stars

Making Numbers Count: How to Translate Data into Stories that Stick by Chip Heath & Karla Starr
I am a numbers person and so this seemed like a great non-fiction read for me.  It showed how to give better examples for various numbers in various situations.  I get it, all of their examples were great and mostly memorable, however, I'm not sure I can do what they did.  I don't know if it wasn't explained well enough or if I just wasn't that interested in figuring it all out.  I did really like their examples though, I picked up so many random facts I have been sharing with Matt.  3 Stars

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon
From the author of The Ex-Talk which I enjoyed last year.  However, this was much more open door than I remember that book being.  I did appreciate the behind the scenes at a local tv station and kinda how a news broadcast comes together and the romance was fine.  3 Stars

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano
I just read the first in this series last fall and it was nice to not have to wait too long for the second!  Pretty much exactly what I expected.  A woman is kinda contracted to be a hit woman and "take care of" a man.  This book is more of the same.  I couldn't quite keep all the "bad guys" straight and you have to suspend some belief but as fun as a book about murder can be.  3.5 Stars

Messy Minimalism by Rachelle Crawford
I really enjoyed this one, I've read a lot of books about minimalism and it's a nice topic to revisit a few times a year to reenergize myself.  I found her very relatable (although I wouldn't say I'm so messy) and appreciated her less than perfect outloook on minimalizing.  It got me thinking of more things to get rid of and spaces to clean out! 4 Stars

Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly
This was a book recommendation from my Mom which was surprising.  It's the final book in the Lilac Girls trilogy, a book I haven't read.  But they start with WWII (I think) and work backwards through America's most famous wars (that's a depressing phrase to write) and so I don't think I missed much by starting with #3.  This takes place during the Civil War, following a enslaved woman in the south, her woman owner (a nasty piece of work), and a woman from the North working as a nurse on some battlefields.  All their paths cross and overlap and it was heartbreaking and devastating reading about the slavery portions and I appreciated learning more about a war that I am, obviously, as an American, familiar with but not one I've nearly as much about as the 20th Century wars.  500 pages so it took awhile to get through but it was good.  3.5 Stars

Read with Luke
Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar
This is the one book in this series I know I read as a kid but it had been 25 years at least.  He loved all these goofy stories, which were much weirder than I remembered them being!  I'm sure we'll pickup number 3 too.  3 Stars

What have YOU been reading lately?

Looking Back at February 2022

Happy March!  My tolerance for the month has gone way up since I stopped having to do taxes, since I had a kid (and then another) with a March birthday, AND since I decided March 1st is the start of spring.  Highly recommend them all, although the kid with March birthdays might be out of your control.

We had a good February with a lot of snow, 4 (I think) e-learning days, and zero city recycle pick-ups (that's a whole issue).  The shortest month of the year still managed to feel pretty long but in a good way!  I appreciate when life doesn't just seem to be speeding by!

Looking back:
1 year ago: How I Became a Planner Person
2 years ago: When I Make Time to Read (shifted a tiny bit but still largely true)
3 years ago: Organizing Makes My Heart Sing (still true)
4 years ago: Job Splitting (a VERY recent conversation in our house because I just learned at least 2 of my sisters fold their husband's laundry, a job which I don't take on because he is an adult and perfectly capable of doing it himself.  Matt's also never asked me to do so.  He claims in the early days of our marriage that he folded my laundry...but I don't remember this.)
5 years ago: Homemade Goo Gone (Sam & I were just using this yesterday and I was thinking I needed to look up the ratio to make more!)
6 years ago: Photography Part 3: Back That Up
7 years ago: Adding 165 Instagrams to a Photobook, Without Crashing the Software (I still use this exact process every year!)
8 years ago: "Before We Had Kids..."
9 years ago: Adoption FAQ: Saying the Right Thing
10 years ago: Intake (Thank you, blog, for reminding me that we started the adoption process 10 years ago!)

1) Reading on the porch on February 1st!  A brief warm spell before we got 10 inches of snow!
2) 11:30pm and it was still this bright outside thanks to all the snow.  I love this about a good snowfall.
3) Snow on our bushes when out shoveling to escape the house after a rough day of e-learning.
4) I like almost everything about the snow besides e-learning.  It sure is pretty!
5) For days we had these HUGE drifts off the roof of the garage. They lasted way longer than I expected.
6) I put on snow pants on day 3 of snow and did snow angels with the boys.  It was fun and refreshing after sweating while shoveling.
7) Of course I also spent some snow day time doing puzzles.
8) Babka!  Delicious!
9) A cute and charming (and delicious) date spot for our February date!
10) Sam thinking he needed 2 snuggies (I did not buy either) to stay warm.  More useful for running into furniture.
11) Valentine crafting while watching the Superbowl (commercials)!
12) Lots of icicles when the snow started melting!
13) Hard to tell but it's snowing beautiful snow in this picture.  I love living in a snow globe!
14) Getting through fabric to start a sewing project.  These have been few and far between lately!
15) First bike ride of the year.  Matt advised me to still wear my winter coat.  It was a good call. 
16) Kings Cake for family dinner right before Mardi Gras!  The first one I've made since high school French class!

Books finished: 12
Puzzles finished: 5
Miles ran: 0.00, but weather is looking favorable to start up again soon!
Currently watching: I'm cramming in some final Ted Lasso before our free trial is up soon.  I'm also only TWO episodes behind of Grey's current season and maybe 5-6 episodes behind The Office Ladies.  Together, Matt & I are mostly watching the Marvel Phase 4 still (there is a lot of content in that!).
Most read post this month: Stripping: Laundry Style, then {6} Things Saving My Winter.
Luke's current favorite song: He was talking about "Barracuda" the other night so we're going with that. 
Sam's current favorite song: frequently "We Will Rock You", he requests the "mud on your face" song.

March brings 2 birthdays, Lent, and, hopefully, consistent SPRING weather!

{12} Picture Books to Start Spring

Happy first day of spring!  I do not care what the calendar says or what the moon cycle dictates or that we will very likely have snow again before the flowers bloom.  Today is the first day of spring and nobody can tell me differently.  Again, it will snow again but today is the day I switch over the inside of our house from winter to spring.  Inside my house I no longer tolerate any pictures of snow or snowmen or winter scents even though I accept that outside my house I will likely still be wearing my winter coat for awhile.  The weather contains multitudes.  In a single week.  

 Last year I did a post about all the switches I made around our house on or about March 1st and I'll be doing as many of those as I can fit into today!  Always one of the first things I switch out is our seasonal book basket.  I have all my seasonal and holiday books (50% of those are Christmas) in one location in my office (although we are swiftly outgrowing that...) and this is one of the easiest switches to make!  I do not own nearly all of these but I will pull out the ones we have and pack away the winter ones for another 10 months!  Seasonal picture books have become such a constant in our lives the past few years and it's wonderful to have a good rotation of those that we read annually, both that we own and (mostly) from the library!  

Here are 12 great picture books to get you started thinking about spring!

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, links for which are included within this post, at no additional cost to you.  Thanks for helping support this blog!   Of course, utilize the library or shop used or from an independent bookstore, if you prefer!

And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead
This is one of my favorites, a boy and his dog have had enough of winter (I can relate) and are not so patiently waiting on spring so they can plant their garden.  They wait.  And they wait.  And there is snow and cold.  They keep waiting.  And THEN, all of a sudden, it's spring.  Perfectly encapsulates that long way through March and into April for the weather to consistently feel like spring!

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring by Kenard Pak
There are 3 books in this seasonal transition series (just not spring-summer which is probably the easiest of all the season transitions) and they are all gorgeous and perfect.  Another young boy and his dog say goodbye to all the parts of winter as they welcome spring!

Mel Fell by Corey Tabor
There is NOTHING about this book that says "spring!" but it feels spring to me and it was one of my favorites last year because I just thought it was so clever and charming.  A young kingfisher seems to be falling out of her nest and many animals below her on the tree try to help save her.  But she wasn't falling, she knew what she was doing the whole time.  This is on my Thriftbooks list to buy when I can find it used!

Rain by Sam Usher
This is part of another series about each of the seasons and, appropriately, the spring one is about rain.  Because spring has a lot of rain, at least here.  A young boy with an imagination and his Grandpa that imagines with him.  Minimal words but it gets the story across and the pictures are great.

When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek
There is one of these for many of the seasons and I just love them all, celebrating a new season and putting away the previous one!  Very simple text but illustrates what is beautiful about spring!

Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson
This was  HUGE favorite of Sam's last spring, perfect for a new 3 year old who loved interacting with books (and still does but we haven't gotten it yet this year).  There is a seed to plant, then you have to water it and wish for sun and then deadhead the flowers.  It was great practice for what we needed to do when we actually had a garden, even if it maybe taught him to be a little too scissor happy with my flowers.

Little Blue Truck's Springtime by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Sam's birthday is at the beginning of March and we gave this one to him for maybe his 1st birthday and then it's gotten A LOT of reading every spring since.  None of the Little Blue Truck books measure up to the first two but I do appreciate these seasonal ones for celebrating special times of year, even if they don't have quite the wonderful lessons as those first too.  When we start reading this at the beginning of March all the colors seem too good to be true but then they all DO show up eventually!

Hello, Rain! by Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Chris Turnham
Spring brings rain and so part of enjoying spring is being able to tolerate the rain!  The rain helps our flowers bloom and my kids LOVE pulling out their umbrellas and rain boots (rain boots get worn nearly year-round here).  Helps me appreciate the good about a spring rain instead of just focusing on the mud!

The Forever Garden by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Samantha Cotterill
This isn't particularly spring but I consider many garden books to be spring books which is how this one sneaks in!  Honey takes great care of her garden with the help of her young neighbor, Laurel.  Laurel learns about weeding and planting and picking and gathering eggs.  Then Honey moves away and Laurel wonders what is going to happen to this magical garden!

The Song of Spring by Hendrik Jonas
Charming pictures about a young bird who forgets what sound to make in the spring.  He tries out other animals sounds but none of them are quite right for the bird!  How will the bird find a bird friend if he can't make the right sound?!?

William Wakes Up by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Chuck Groenink
William and his animal friends have been sleeping all winter (doesn't sound like a horrible idea) but now they have a lot to do to get ready for their special guest!  Cleaning and decorating and baking as they wait for those first warm days of spring!

Flowers are Calling by Rita Gray, illustrated by Kenard Pak
The flowers are calling to the animals in the forest but it's the bees and bugs that are coming to eat their nectar!  Gorgeous pictures and showing the cooperation of many living things to be in harmony together!

If you have any spring favorite we'd love to hear them!  Happy ALMOST spring!