• Learning To Read

    10/03/2015 - By 

      My daughter is learning to read and is busy reading EVERYTHING. Packages, sign posts, lost posters, books, brand names…she sees, she reads. Yesterday she asked me what the word ‘bounding’ meant. The snow leopard went bounding through the snow. She wanted to know how to do that too. It makes my brain work in new and wonderful ways to explain words that I know the meaning of and take for granted. I find myself reaching far in my brain to bring out words that she will understand. Sometimes defining one word leads me to defining five more words within…

  • Creating an Independent Human.

    10/11/2014 - By 

    I failed to write a blog post a day *sad face!!* because I didn’t come on yesterday. I had a headache, Izzy was hacking up a lung, and Hunter had to go to the dr yesterday. He had a temp of 104F and we found out he has a double ear infection. Poor little guy was feverish for 4 full days. His fever broke today at his nap-time and I have never felt such relief!! Isabella has the strongest immune system. This cough is the longest she has been sick. She gets a cold here and there but usually a…

  • My Grade One Reading Corner

    18/10/2014 - By 

    Do you remember learning to read? I don’t really! I remember being three and a half and reading little words to my sister from picture books. My mom confirms this, so I am not crazy. To say it out loud sounds too young, but there I was, reading small words. I am sure that is quite common. I distinctly remember my grade one reading corner. Grade one seemed so daunting to me. A whole day around ‘strangers’. The reading nook was so comfortable and such a safe place for me to hang out. I felt at home there. When you…

  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, A Review

    15/10/2014 - By 

      This book is amazing. Some have described it as a “nergasm” and it’s a perfect description.   It’s a post-apocalyptic world and we on Earth have used up our non-renewable resources. Jobs are scarce and the poor get poorer as the rich get richer. Many live in “the stacks”, which is a terrifying mess of trailers in the trailer park stacked one on top of the other to conserve energy and space. Everyone spends all their time in the larger than life game-world of The Oasis, rather than in their depressing real world spaces. When the creator of The…

  • Shirley by Charlotte Bronte: A Book Review

    17/09/2014 - By 

    What an arrogant novel with unlikeable characters. I tried to like this novel, I did.  I didn’t like this novel. (Obviously). This book surprised me. I LOVE Jane Eyre, and was expecting a similar work of genius and insightful entertainment in this novel. Sadly, I recommended reading this book to my Husband for our Two Person Book Club. I was so sure of her talent that I pushed for it and it was my Husband’s first Bronte novel. I regret this deeply. Shirley was the only entertaining and likeable character in this book. Even Shirley couldn’t hold my love though…

  • The Two Person Book Club Continues!

    23/05/2014 - By 

    As I blogged earlier, my Husband and I have a two person book club. We are both avid readers but we found, once we had two little ones running around, we have less and less time to read. My Husband works at a job where he has the drive to a client, the drive between clients during the day and the drive home to listen to music or the radio. He decided one day to use that time to finish a book on tape. I found the same book in our library and started to read while the kids ate…

  • The Two Person Book Club

    05/11/2013 - By 

    My husband and I have started something interesting. I recommend it. It happened almost by accident. My Husband had downloaded a book on tape, Steig Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” for a road trip. I finished my book while he was away and started to read the same book. When he came back it turned out we were in about the same spot in the book, but he was a bit ahead of me. Since I read at lunchtime while the kids eat, and Josh listens to his book on tape while driving to different clients all day,…