Someone Else's Story

I feel extremely embarrassed to admit this, but I haven't finished a book since I went to back to work more than two months ago. Isn't that crazy?!

But this has actually happened to me before. When I first met Peter, I think I was too giddy to read anything substantial for about a month. And then in the weeks leading up to our wedding, I was...I don't know, too wound up? Too excited? Something.

This time my brain has been filled up with all sorts of emotions. And tiredness. I haven't had the mental energy to engage with someone else's story.

This wacky period of naval gazing is happily drawing to a close, though. Since I drive to work now, I picked up The Shoemaker's Wife as an audio book for my commute, and I absolute love listening to it. Instead of feeling like this is wasted time away from my baby (boo hoo), it's turned into time spent doing something I enjoy (I hesitate to bust out the insufferable "me time," but...it kind of feels like that).

I read about Absolute Beauty on Cup of Jo a while back, and it finally came in for me at the library. It's a nutty crunchy view of beauty and health and I am loving it so far. I wish I had known about it years ago when my skin was acting so terrible with allergies.

And the last one has been on my nightstand for a while, but I'm excited to start it very soon. My friend Sarah shared a link on Twitter to an interview with Amy Shearn about her grandmother's novella The Little Bastard, and I ordered it right away. There's something infinitely more satisfying - on a purely superficial level - about finishing a novella as opposed to a short story. Novellas feel like you accomplished something. Short stories feel like you killed time in a waiting room. I think they're due for a comeback.

What are you reading these days? Any good audio books to add my queue? The reader can make or break the book.

Summer Reading

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Here's to lazy summer evenings with lots of light to read by! What's on your summer reading list? Do you have any good recommendations for me?

Loving Lately

I got this book a few weeks ago, and have been slowly reading a few of these quirky, funny stories each day. It's perfect for these fuzzy, jumbled newborn days because each one is short, compact, and satisfying. 

I am usually very brand loyal, but after years of using Laura Mercier's tinted moisturizer, I decided to give this one a go after seeing it mentioned on Whoorl (she is so lovely, and I tend to trust her beauty product recommendations). I was a little nervous about the fruit extracts being too scented for my sensitive skin, but so far, no issues at all, and it smells heavenly. And there's something very satisfying about being able to say your make-up comes from France, right? 

Oooh goodness, we are deeply entrenched in True Detective. The chemistry between Matthew McConaughhey and Woody Harrelson is fantastic, and the whole thing is just so suspenseful and well-done. Highly recommended if you're looking for a new show to become obsessed with :)

And finally, a few good things I've read lately:

• My Early-Life Crisis - "I was born a friendless virgin."
• A Day on Long Island with Alex Lee - James Beard award winning article by Francis Lam
• The Ultimate SoWa Food Truck Guide - excited to get back here soon!
• My Other Mother's Day - from new blog favorite Wee Mountains

Building the Baby's Library

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

In the last few days, the baby and I have quite literally been showered with love and attention. My shower with family and friends over the weekend was an absolutely joy - I had the best time, and we received so many wonderful things. Even though almost all of it is still at my parent's house while we finish out our renovations (next week, hopefully!!!), I feel much more prepared. 

Then yesterday my office very, very sweetly hosted a shower, too. I work in higher ed, and I'm also part of the School's children's literature graduate program, so it fittingly had a book theme. All of my co-workers brought a favorite from their childhood, or one that their own children adore. The baby's library is now overflowing with all the classics, and also so many fantastic, slightly off-beat titles that were new to me. The ones above are just a few of the books that I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own, but I love them already. 

Of course, since the shower, I've been trying to think about what book I would bring as a gift. Such a hard choice! For babies, I'd probably do White on Black and Black on White, but when we get into picturebook territory, there are just too many great ones to pick! What would you chose?

Bits and pieces

Happy Friday, my friends! I hope you've all had a nice week. Our renovations have been chugging right along, though I've been fairly terrible about documenting any of it (hence this random, totally unrelated, but much more visually appealing pic of flowers!). Yesterday we had all of our new cabinets delivered, along with our dishwasher and stove. They were all piled into the kitchen when we left this morning, but I'm hoping that the base cabinets will be installed when I get home.

Since we opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining room, I knew that those rooms would be painted the same color. They're off of our living room, which is revere pewter, and I brought home silver mist (both Benjamin Moore). After painting the ceilings, I started cutting in with it last weekend, but immediately got nervous that it was too dark and similar in saturation to the revere pewter. This was, embarrassingly, keeping me up at night. Now that the cabinets are in, though, and I know how much white the rooms will have, I'm feeling better about it. AND, it's just paint, so I should really chill out. I definitely had less hemming and hawing about the floors/cabinets/counter tops, ha ha. (But if you'd like to weigh in, please feel free...)

Tomorrow is my baby shower, which I am so very excited for. Peter's staying home to work on laying down our new floors, which is a significantly worse way to spend a Saturday. Bits and pieces of incredibly sweet gifts for the baby from family and friends have trickled in this week, which is almost as fun as coming home to wedding gifts. We received one of those playmat thingies that are all crazy colors and flashy toys dangling from above. It's so easy for me to imagine a baby lying there, looking up at it, but it's still mind blowing to me that my baby will be using it shortly.

In other baby related news, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and they think the baby might be breech. Of course, I've been furiously googling "how to tell breech baby" and "make breech baby flip." I have an ultrasound in two weeks to check, but that feels so very far away. I feel like I can't do much of anything, just in case the baby's in the right place now? (And of course, I know that breech isn't the end of the world by any means, and that the baby still has time to flip on its own, etc., etc.). I should probably go back to worrying about paint.

I thought this post would be a quick bullet list when I started off, but I guess I had a lot of sharing to do! The only other thing I wanted to tell you was that I finally started The Goldfinch, and gosh it's good so far (though I still believe it's fairly audacious to make any book this long).

Hope you all have wonderful springy weekends ahead!

Loving Lately

I recently devoured this sweet little book in one day (it's a middle grade reader, so don't be too alarmed by my speed reading!). I now want to not only rescue a stray a dog, but also acquire a spunky old librarian friend, and host a candy and pickles party (let's not blame pregnancy for that one - those two foods sound good to me always).

I've never been a one-piece bath suit person (I have a long torso, and I always feel like they look a bit strange?) but this summer will fall just after I have the baby, so it might be time to take the plunge! This one from Garnet Hill is pretty and seems flattering. But how do you guys buy bathing suits online?! You have to reject so many before finding one that fits right - it's seems really hard! Related, I also need a cute cover up :)

When we were in California, we played Cards Against Humanity one night. We were all laughing so, so hard and kept putting off making dinner until later and later into the night (even though Sarah, Joel, and Peter had to explain the meaning of some of the cards to me and my parents - ha!). Super fun, but not for the easily offended.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Tomorrow we are taking a day long child birth class at the hospital (eeks!) and on Sunday I'm so thrilled that my mom is coming over to help with big some house projects. Cheers to a false sense of preparedness and projects!

A Little Ice Age

(Wilson Bentley's snowflake photos)

I'm reading Adam Gopnik's Winter in an attempt to overcome my distaste for the season we're smack in the middle of. It's kind of working? It's certainly a beautiful meditation on the many pleasures (and challenges) that winter can bring. This week we experienced a bit of a thaw, and I find myself thinking, I can totally do this! But alas, more snow is on the way; if not this weekend, then surely sometime soon.

The photos above are from Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley's stunning photography collection. He was obsessed with capturing images of snowflakes, but one thing Gopnik notes is that these snowflakes are certainly not the norm. Most aren't symmetrical, or have pretty boring shapes. They may be unique, but that alone doesn't make them noteworthy (sort of like people, no?).

One other interesting tidbit - did you know there was a Little Ice Age between about 1550-1850 where the Northern Hemisphere was significantly colder than it was before and after? I did not! It was during that time period that lots of snowy, grey paintings were created in Europe. This is a stunning little collection you can click through, if you're interested!

Do you have fun plans for the weekend? We've been giving our upstairs bathroom a bit of a makeover in the last few weeks, and I hope we'll be able to buy a new vanity this weekend! Aaand hopefully we won't be too tired for some kind of date tonight (I want to see Frozen, Her, and Wolf of Wall Street - anybody have any recs?).

Happy Friday to all!

P.S. The essays in Winter were originally broadcast on the CBC - you can listen to part 1 here. 

Something important

"I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world."

- Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I devoured this beautiful little book, and wanted to recommend it in case anyone is looking for a lovely new addition to their reading list! Over vacation, I also read (and adored) Beautiful Ruins, Call the Midwife, and The Night Guest.

Non-Scary Pregnancy and Parenting Books

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

As a person generally curious about biology and the human body, I've found myself to be surprisingly disinterested in nuts and bolts-style pregnancy books (except this good one that a girlfriend recommended). Most seem to present things in a such a dire way, making it too easy to imagine everything that can go wrong. Likewise for parenting books (i.e., there are infinite ways for you to irreversibly screw things up!).

So far, I've read 2, 3, 5, and 6 on this list, and the other two have been reserved at the library. Are there any others I should add to my cue? My first-born researcher tendencies are showing, aren't they?!

Feast for a Reader

This is perhaps one of the stranger things I've revealed on the blog, but I am really into betting. Not in a dangerous way - don't worry, you won't find me sneaking off to Mohegan Sun at 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday to spend away our mortgage payment. But I love little, frequent bets - who can guess what time we'll arrive, or who will show up last at the party. These almost never involve actual dollars changing hands; that would stress me out. The prizes are more like, I'll make you a fun dinner if you're right!

Last fall, I was in Connecticut visiting my family, and a frequently repeated conversation came up again. This is going to sound mean, but we regularly made fun of my dad for not being much of a reader. He reads newspapers - I think at one point, there were three delivered to their house. But books - not so much. He'd do maybe one a year, and he'd read it over the course of the entire year, but just on vacations. We'd jokingly refer to his "book of 2011" or "the San Diego-Italy" book.

Somehow, on this particular day, the conversation morphed into betting territory. An official, signed agreement was drawn up betting that he couldn't read ten new books in the next year. If he won, I'd have to cook him a five-course dinner (and - I'm about to reveal something else weird about myself - I would have to switch my toilet paper from over to under for an entire year. I am PASSIONATE about toilet paper that comes down over the roll, and he is equally passionate that it should be under. If he had lost, he would have had to do it the right way my way for a year, womp womp.)

Well, guys, he blew the bet out of the water. I think he finished his tenth book sometime over the summer, and he has truly, officially, become a person who loves to read books! I sent him a few options for his five-course feast, and we held it at my parents house a few weeks ago. The dinner was an absolutely joy to make, and it was wonderful to celebrate his new-found love of books. The toilet paper, on the other hand, will continue to plague me for many months...

Feast for a Reader Menu

1st course: Figs on Parmesan Toasts

2nd course: Kale Salad with Apples and Hazelnuts

3rd course: Roasted Fennel and White Beans

4th course: Chard and Mushroom Stuffed Breast of Veal

5th course: Crack Pie

If you're curious about his book selections, they were a very eclectic mix! He read the Hunger Games series (loved), a Harlin Coben novel or two (loved), The Paris Wife (we told him he wouldn't like, and he didn't!), Outcasts United (loved), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (loved), and a handful of others. And now - post bet - he's reading a WWII book about fighter pilots.

More Children's Lit Favorites

  

  

  

  

I may complain a bit about the workload in my class, but I am LOVING the books we've read so far. This list tends toward the dark and serious - even brave - end of the children's literature spectrum (with the exception of Building Our House, which is pure sweetness and delight).

I hadn't read any of these as a child, so I came at them with only my adult perspective, of course, but to me it seems that these titles require a lot of trust in child readers to handle the "big" stuff of life - poverty, racism, abuse, violence, death, heartache (I'm probably not doing a great job convincing any of you to pick these up!). But these intense topics are handled with such sensitivity and grace, and leave room for so much discussion and dialogue. Tricky issues without answers in many ways, making them brave books for readers of every age.

Loving Lately

There's kind of a sub-genre of historical fiction geared toward women that starts with "the" at the moment (Exhibit A and B). Strange, no? The latest I've read in this category is The Chaperone. In the summer of 1922, a soon-to-be starlet and her middle-aged chaperone trapeze around New York. I developed great affection for the heroine (and a mixed bag of emotions for the complicated Louise Brooks). This is a good book to ease you into more serious reading for fall :)

I seriously can't believe I haven't shared my love of Fringe here before, because it's been going strong for months. We are currently wrapping up the fourth season, and I'm eagerly awaiting the fifth on Netflix. If you liked Lost and X Files, I think you'll enjoy this one, too. Plus, PACEY WITTER!!!

I've never purchased address labels before because my apartments always felt so temporary (even though I lived in some for years!). Now that we're more settled with the house, I want one of these brilliant self-inking stamps. (I always strategically put something in here that I want you all to encourage me to buy. I totally need this, right?!?)

A few other things I'm excited about:

• Do you all follow New Yorker writer David Grann on twitter? He posts the very best stuff. 
• As soon as my front steps are no longer in the midst of a construction zone, I want mums and polka dot pumpkins. 
• Next weekend, I want attempt these button-up window shades for the back porch. Right on schedule, I'm ready to sew again!

Loving Lately

Great cover art, no? And the rest of this slim little book is just as lovely.

I'm sort of a kill-joy when it comes to raunchy cartoons geared at adults. Bob's Burgers, though, is hilarious and touching. Indeed, Bob and Linda were recently named TV parents of the year by Vulture :) First two seasons are on netflix instant!

I consider myself to be a bit of a snack food afficionado. Chocolate covered chips, milk toffee popcorn, aged gouda, flax seed gluten free crackers, hummus of all types, olives stuffed with blue cheese - I could go on and on about snacks I know and love. These cheddar & horseradish chips from Trader Joes are my latest, greatest discover. They were SO POPULAR that my Trader Joes sold out of them last week (I was buying at least two bags a week to let TJ's know that they were a much loved new product, so I apologize for contributing to the shortage!). Have no fear, management assured me they will be restocked asap.  

I wanted some sturdy, cute new sandals, and these thongs from Saltwater fit the bill. (Why are sturdy, cute sandals so hard to find?!)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!! We're meeting my family in Connecticut tonight to celebrate my sister's birthday, and then going to see GARRISON tomorrow night at Tanglewood; be still my NPR loving heart.



Summer Reading List

Children's Literature Favorites, Part Two

As promised, here are a few final children's literature favorites. With the exception of The Giver and Part-Time Indian, these were all new to me. And I loved them so! Even Coraline, which I thought I would hate :)

And now I have a few blissful weeks of grown-up reading ahead. I'm going to read this and maybe this. Have you read anything good lately?! Please share!

A dark cloud

(Outside the Gardner, where we went to temporarily escape our funk)

A dark cloud is hanging over us. In the last month, we've lost two bids on houses - the second one just yesterday. It was a darling house, cuter than cute. We would have loved to live in it. Inventory is incredibly low in the Boston suburbs these days, and it's easy to find yourself wanting to bid way too much for a darling but small house that needs a lot in the way of updating. It can start to feel like your playing with Monopoly money.

Everyone who has a house always says these things happen for a reason - that the right house for you comes along at the right time. But it's so hard to be patient, and then have to swing into action incredibly quickly.

Enough about that, though. Tonight we're going to improv night at Peter's school (I love getting to spy on his students!), and this weekend we have a 30th birthday party to attend, and maybe some golf balls to hit. I also need to wrap up a paper on historical fiction, which I've come to be very critical of indeed! Remember when you're older brother came home from his first semester at college after he received a B- in Psych 101? And he was totally into explaining how psychologically flawed your whole family was? I'm at that annoying place, too - I've got just enough children's lit knowledge to be dangerous :) Ha!

Hope it is sufficiently April-like in your locale! (I was going to complain about our abyssmal weather here, but I stopped myself. You're welcome!!!)