Window Thinking
I read good books in 2016. These were my favorite: When Breath Becomes Air Orbiting Jupiter Pax Silver People: Voices From the Panama Canal Just Mercy Behold The Dreamers What Alice Forgot On Living A Few Quick Observations: 3 of my favorites were Middle Grade/YA: Orbiting Jupiter, Pax, Silver People The book that set me …
I finished reading a couple books yesterday. Just in time to mark them on my 2016 Reading List. Just in time to make this NOT MY WORST READING YEAR since I started keeping track. BUT WAIT! I just looked it up and nine years of tracking titles says: Nothing weird about this year! Weird was 2013 …
“It’s not like Alaska isn’t wilderness – it mostly is. But most Alaskans don’t live in the wild. They live on the edge of the wild in towns with schools and cable TV and stores and dentists and roller rinks sometimes. It’s just like anyplace else, only with mountains and moose.”– Tom Bodett David says living …
After 3 weeks of August rain, the sun finally came out! We spent the gift on a hike up Mt. Baldy on Sunday. We’d been there once before as a family – in fact, Baldy was our first Alaska mountain hike. On July 14, 2013 I wrote a Google+ post that went like this: Yesterday we hiked up …
BAM. Facebook served up a fabulous On This Day 2009 picture for me today. Dandelions in the hand of a child. I’ve been thinking about dandelions a lot lately because I’ve just wrapped up a 6 week writing class and for our first assignment we were supposed to “find some small thing and describe it in less than 500 …
I think a lot about “seeing” these days. For one thing, I live in a landscape so rich with crazy-beautiful stuff to see. I walk with a camera and I walk without. Two ways of seeing and they both pay loads of awesome in Alaska. One Sunday afternoon in May, Ethan and I took kayaks …
I simply had no idea what to expect from The Life of Pi. Over the past years several people have told me they liked the book and they thought I would too. I know the story took shape for the big screen several years ago and received positive review. But I guess I never really read …
It seems my reading rhythm requires a writing reflection on January 6. Second annual. Or is this the first annual if it’s the second time I’ve done it? Or is it even a numbered annual if it happened on the same date accidentally? In any case, I counted 86 books last year. Here’s some breakdown: 17 audible 29 …
I did not know this is a thing. But indeed: Today! And so. Of course…..Ginger. Ginger our golden puppy. Ginger our yellow dog. The stories we tell. The love we share. You captured our hearts with your “sorrowful eyes” and instantly became the sun holding our boy in orbit. We are fuller, richer, happier because you are part of our family story. We …
One day, Little Sal went with her mother to Blueberry Hill to pick blueberries….. One day, the Searls boys went with their parents to Arctic Valley to pick blueberries….. We hiked here as a family last September and made plans to return during blueberry season. This is that season! I’ve heard that people hold their favorite berry patches close and don’t share their secrets …
Sitting in my chair by the window this morning, I was thinking about my September calendar and only half attending as I read aloud to the boys. Blue sky + white puffy clouds + sunshine replaced yesterday’s cold rain in my window view as my eyes ran fast across the words on the page in front of me. We’ve been …
Last week I finally updated my 2014 Reading List here. It’s so hard for me to make a favorites list because I read books for a variety of reasons and so I’ve got a lot of different angles to evaluate. This is the first year I’ve noticed that I’ve spent a lot of time reading books that I haven’t bothered to …
With 3.23 inches of rain this past month we made #10 in the list of Anchorage’s top 10 wettest Julys on record. (Average = 1.83 inches) We ate soup for dinner Monday night. It wasn’t our first soup dinner this month. David talked about how cold it was working out in the field as it poured down rain …
The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shapes of things, their colors, lights, and shades; these I saw. Look ye also while life lasts. This. Quoted from an old gravestone in Cumberland, England, and used as the final text in Frank C. Craighead, Jr’s book For Everything There Is A Season: The …
Surgery is surgery is surgery is surgery. That is, the word itself lays bare its associations, its attendant emotions and connotations. It is what it is. Risk. Difficulty. Vulnerability. Attendant Pain. A Body Altered. The only relevant question is whether the surgery heals or merely disfigures the body – Lynne Greenburg, The Body Broken: A Memoir …
This morning I read this article: Half the World Menstruates. Now, Let’s Talk About It and I want to talk about it. A few days ago I opened the bathroom cupboard to grab a new roll of toilet paper and saw this: I flew to Oregon two+ months ago for a complete hysterectomy. Just back home last week, …
After turning in my best reading year ever, it felt like 2014 got off to a really slow start. At the end of the first week I had only completed one book and it was a Little House on the Prairie read aloud I’d started with the boys in December! David enjoyed the lead and …
This NYT article The Art of Presence came through my twitter feed today and the headline stopped me. As I read the article I flooded with memories and resonance. Do be there. Don’t compare, ever. Do bring soup. Do not say “you’ll get over it.” Do be a builder. Don’t say it’s all for the …
2013 was an amazing year of reading for me. I read 121 books; 94 authors. On New Year’s Eve my sisters, who read stacks of books themselves, asked for an infographic of my list and no doubt that would have been easier to read than this rambling and rather random review….. Genre: 18 Memoirs 75 books fiction/historical fiction …
Thanksgiving landed on the calendar quite late this year. Today marked the final day of the Thanksgiving holiday even as it also marked the first Sunday in Advent. I was born the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, nearly a month too early. My lungs were not ready so I spent my first days in an incubator connected …
Gorgeous fall colors, mild temperatures (low 50s) and the promise of clouds opening to sun rather than rain inspired our family out for a hike yesterday. I’ve been frustrated with my seemingly slow recovery from endometriosis surgery, but it’s been a month now and I was ready for this challenge. We could have gone any …
I think I discovered Byrd Baylor’s books when I was teaching a 4th grade geology unit. From Everybody Needs A Rock: Everybody needs a rock. I’m sorry for kids who don’t have a rock for a friend. I’m sorry for kids who only have tricycles bicycles horses elephants goldfish three-room playhouses fire engines wind-up dragons …
Mid June – July is littered with markers for events that have changed my life. On June 19, David and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. This is what I worked on, but unfinished, I never posted: It was an awkward love, Ours. Victims of small-town matchmaking drawn together by a mysterious Love that would not …
So I like to read. A lot. In eager anticipation of her visit to Loussac Library tomorrow I’ve been reading Linda Sue Park’s books to my boys and last week in Keeping Score I read this description: The library at Grand Army Plaza was one of Maggie’s favorite places. mom had taken her there ever …