A little depressed, a little jealous, a little inspired...

 

Okay, I know.  Super weird title to this blog post.  I am losing it a little bit this time of year. Too much work.  Lots of meetings and sporting events.  Very little sleep.  I have had to put the blog on hold due to being a wife, mother, and teacher.  Which has got me a little depressed.  Because I haven't had much time to be creative.  In fact, I have had precious little time to be creative.  I think I have knit one washcloth, knit 1/2 a cowl, knit 1/2 of a chunky cable hat (that is gonna be cute!), and ordered yarn to knit some completely cool fingerless mittens from the Purl Bee.  Oh, and I knit two pair of baby booties that I need to put little buttons on.  They are adorbs.

Here is the cowl I am knitting:

And here is a picture of the fingerless mittens I am going to make:

 I have been doing some good cooking.  But not enough, because I am NEVER home.  I have made several good things from Pinterest lately, including this:

 

I have read some good books.  Including The Dinner (super fast read, read in one sitting on a plane from Chicago to Denver), Broken Harbor (you know I am obsessed with Tana French!), and Gods of Gotham (Loved! Can't wait for her next book to come out).

At last count, I had graded more than 900 essays.  And that was in March.  I am sure I am well over 1,000 now.  Between my senior writing classes, my AP English classes, and my junior World Lit class, that's a lot of writing.  Most of the essays average 3 pages.  So that's a hell of a lot of reading and commenting.  My writing callous is ridiculous. I am the super hero of writing callouses.

I am a little depressed because of some of the above, but I am also proud and happy because I am a happy wife, a happy mom, and a happy teacher.  I am trying to do good in the world every day.  So there's something.

I am also a little jealous and a little inspired because I was on Pinterest (avoiding work...) and I saw a delicious recipe, which led me to a really great blog, which I started reading, and then I just read that the author of the blog is going to write a book, which she describes as a "family/food memoir with recipes," which is EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO DO.  In fact, she says that she was "discovered"on her blog.  WHICH IS WHY I STARTED BLOGGING.  But, she actually did it with some regularity.  And I did not.  Which is why I am only a little jealous.  Because I am also a realist.  And I am pretty sure that she has not graded over 1,000 essays this year, because I think that blogging is her full-time occupation (along with being a mom and a wife).  Sooooooo, I can't be too jealous.  So instead, I am going to be a little inspired...

I can't wait for summer!

Long Time No Blog

Happy Black Friday, all!  (Ha ha - I am sitting at home, about to get dressed to take my doggie to the vet for some shots, nowhere near any Black Friday shopping.)  Anyway, are you a Black Friday shopper?  Tiny Dancer, who is still tiny, but now a sophomore in high school with friends who can drive, headed off to Macy's at midnight with three other girls.  She arrived back at her friend's house at 3:15 am.  (I know this because I asked her to text me when she was home safely.)  I have no idea if they found any deals or not, but I just saw on the morning news that the police had to use pepper spray on people in the mall where she was... yikes!  No thank you.

What is new with all of you?  I continued to do lots of canning at the end of the summer, did some reading, and got ready for school to start.  Since school has started, I haven't done much of anything else.  I am teaching two sections of AP Literature, two sections of an advanced senior writing class, and one section of 11th grade world literature.  The grading of all of the essays is kicking my butt.  I calculated that if I graded 28 essays each day of break (Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sat), with 29 on Sunday, I would be caught up.  NO WAY!  It is Friday morning of break and the essay grading count is at 0.  I think I will try to tackle one set of 28 today.  Maybe.  Later.  Or not.

So, I have been trying to finish things around here.  I just finished a pretty good book.  



It is a mystery/crime novel, the first in a series, by Norwegian crime writer, Kjell Eriksson.  I thought it was decent.  I am also listening to the first in the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo, who is hailed as Norway's best crime novelist.  It seems pretty good so far.




Apparently, I am not alone in my love of European crime novels since reading the Milleneum trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, etc.)  There is even a book published about it called  The Dragon Tattoo and its Long Tail: The New Wave of European Crime Fiction in America.  

I just started reading a book by a newer author, Harry Dolan.  I LOVED his first book, Bad Things Happen, and his second (also a series crime novel) just came out in paperback, Very Bad Men.  I am so excited to read it.  He is from Ann Arbor, and his books are set in Ann Arbor, so it is fun to read about streets, places, and landmarks I am familiar with.  There was a scene in his first novel that still makes me nervous when we park in the parking structure in downtown Ann Arbor near Main Street!  



I am almost finished with a project that I am embarrassed to say I started LAST WINTER and was supposed to be a "quick" project.  Haha.  It will be done today and I will post a picture.  So excited to wear it.

I hope you are all enjoying this lovely, wintry, blustery, day after Thanksgiving.  I think I need to go nibble some more leftover creamed spinach.  Yum.

What Should I Read Next?

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's amazing novel, The Poisonwood Bible.  It has been on my shelf to read for years, and I am so glad I finally read it!  Last year, several of my students read it as part of their Independent Reading projects for my AP Literature class and suggested that I add it to the choices for summer AP reading.  I took their advice (they are really smart kids, after all!) and then because I added it to the summer reading list, I needed to read it too.  The novel is the story of the Price family and their mission trip to the Congo in the 1960s.  Nathan Price is a Baptist minister on a mission to bring Christianity to the Congo.  He and his wife and four daughters move to Africa for a one year mission trip.  But, as Brother Fowles once said, "there are Christians, and there are Christians" (435).  The story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Orleanna Price (the mother) and the four Price daughters: Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May, and follows the family for more than thirty years.  The novel provides a poignant and intelligent look at the complicated effects of colonialism and imperial rule on modern day Africa.  Ironically, Rachel, the most shallow of the characters sums it up best when she says, "You can't just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style, without expecting the jungle to change you right back" (515).



This is only the second book I have read about Africa.  The other, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is a book that I have taught for years to 10th and 11th grade students, and is one of my favorites.  Barbara Kingsolver said that she used Achebe's book as a source for writing The Poisonwood Bible.  I would like to read more books about Africa.  Any suggestions?

Now that I have finished a kind of "heavy" book, I need to jump back into my favorite genre: mystery!  I have three books sitting next to me, and I can't decide which one to start. 

The first choice is Faithful Place, by Tana French.  I posted about Tana French's first two books back in June.  I love her books!  The back cover of this one says it is her best book yet.  The teaser on the back of the book says: "Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was a nineteen-year-old kid with a dream of escaping his family's cramped flat on Faithful Place and running away to London with his girl, Rosie Daly.  But on the night they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show... Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank, now a detective in the Dublin Undercover squad, is going home whether he likes it or not."


The second choice is a book called Still Life, by Louise Penny, and is the "First Chief Inspector Gamache Novel."  I LOVE series mysteries, so this one holds expectation and promise.  The description on the back of this book says: "Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team of investigators are called to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal and yet a world away.  Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, has been found dead in the woods on Thanksgiving morning.  The locals are certain it's a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul this holiday season..."



Wow, I just went to Louise Penny's website to get a picture of the book (mine has a different cover, and I could not find a picture of it!) and man is she popular.  Her books all get amazing reviews.  There are six books in the Chief Inspector Gamache series.  The latest just came out in paperback, Bury Your Dead, and is getting rave reviews.  Very tempting!

The third book is another mystery called The September Society, by Charles Finch.  The Library Journal said: "Even the most astute reader will be guessing to the end.  Another triumph."  This book's description reads: "In the small hours of the morning one fall day in 1866, a frantic widow visits detective Charles Lenox.  Lady Annabelle's problem is simple: her beloved son, George, has vanished from his room at Oxford.  When Lenox visits his alma mater to investigate he discovers a series of bizarre clues, including a murdered cat and a card cryptically referring to "The September Society."  Then, just as Lenox realizes that the case may be deeper than it appears, a student dies, the victim of foul play..."


Okay, I just may have eliminated The September Society, which is kind of too bad because I was leaning toward it as it is now September and so it sounded seasonal.  When I was looking for a picture of the cover, I realized that this is the second book in the Charles Lenox detective series.  The first is called A Beautiful Blue Death, and it was nominated for an Agatha Award.  For those of you who read detective mystery series, you know that you don't have to read them in order, but that the character development is better if you start at the beginning.  So, I will have to get a copy of A Beautiful Blue Death and start there.

After writing about all three, I have decided to read Faithful Place.  I think I will leave the Chief Inspector Gamache one for closer to Thanksgiving, since it takes place at that time, and I will hold off on the Charles Lenox one until I read the first in the series.

What books are you reading right now?  Anything good?

Snow Day!

Actually, more like "icy rain/snow mix day" - but hey, who's complaining?  And even luckier - the school district where I teach and the school districts where my kids attend school were ALL cancelled so we all get an unexpected day off.  So welcome this time of year!  I am hoping to finish the book I am reading, grade a bunch of essays, knit a bit, and make some soup and bread.  Items one, three, and four sound much more appealing than item number two.  I must be disciplined!

I am just finishing Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes.  I have read a couple of her other books - Sushi for Beginners, and Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married.  Funny and serious at the same time, and usually with some kind of an unexpected twist.  Okay... if I grade one essay, then I can keep reading. Deal.

Hello!

Hello! I have been wanting to start a blog for over a year now but kept putting it off for one reason or another.  I planned to start it January 1st of 2010 - something about starting a new blog on the first day of a new year appealed to me. I even took pictures of what I was doing that day to chronicle the event.  But then I didn't do it... and knowing how way leads on to way... I found myself at the beginning of another new year and still no blog.  I thought about doing it again on January 1st of 2011, but again - something got in the way. (Probably college football, knitting, and my intense desire to stay on the couch all day under a blanket, doing very little, and not thinking about going back to work on Monday.)  So now it is the weekend AFTER the first of the new year.  I have been back to work for a week, have a terrible cold, tons of papers to grade (I am a high school English teacher) and suddenly decided that I would not put off the blog creation any longer.  So, here I am.  My hopes for this blog are the following:
* it will inspire me to write more
* it will be a place to showcase the things I love to do in the very little free time I have: knitting, sewing, reading, and cooking
* it will be a place where I can record the funny things that happen around me that at the time I think I will never forget, but I most certainly have forgotten by now

I need to be realistic about my blogging.  It will probably happen only on the weekends during the school year.  I think my fear of not posting regularly enough was one of the things that kept me from starting. But now that I have noticed that many of my favorite bloggers have gaps and take breaks once in awhile, I am over that fear. So here goes... I am excited, a little nervous, and looking forward to a new project in a new year.

Here is what I was working on last year on New Year's Day 2010.  This is one of the last strips of knitting that was rolled into a flower, felted, and then sewn onto a purse that had also been felted.  This project took a lot longer than I anticipated.  For one, when you knit something to be felted it has to be MUCH bigger than the finished project turns out to be.  And second, these roses (24 in all) were more knitting than I thought.  Overall, I was happy with the way the purse turned out.  I felted it, sewed on all of the roses, attached some cute plastic handles, and lined it with fabric from Anna Maria Horner.  I would post a picture, but after I started using it this holiday season, some of the roses started to pull off the purse and so it needs a little first aid before I can show it to the world.

This is what I was reading last New Year's Day 2010.  I read the first four of the Harry Potter series out loud to my son beginning when he was five years old. (He is 16 now!)  After that, he could read himself and I stopped reading the series.  A year ago, I decided to finish and I read the fifth and sixth books. This Christmas break from school I read the seventh in the series at my daughter's urging. (She is now 13 years old.)  I was a little nervous to read it, because I didn't know how the series was going to end and I was afraid I would be disappointed.  J.K. Rowling did not disappoint and I loved it.  Someday I will have to read the whole series over again - perhaps when I am retired and sailing around the Caribbean.  Sigh.

Besides having a terrible cold, it is a beautiful winter day.  It snowed all night last night, and we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow and the sun just hitting the tops of the trees to the west.  Here is the view out my kitchen window of my backyard.  I am obsessed with the birds, and I have been extrememly disappointed that there have been so few over the past few weeks. (The snow melted over New Year's, and I guess they could find food elsewhere.)  Today, with its fresh blanket of snow, cold temperatures (it was 8 degrees when I got up, and is now up to only 16 at nearly noon and with bright sunlight) they are back! These little things make me so happy.

The view out my kitchen window.

The birds are back!

Well, I think that is enough for my first post.  I am so excited to finally be blogging, I don't want to stop!  I hope you enjoy a lovely Saturday.  Maybe later I will be feeling well enough to go out cross-country skiing.  Fingers crossed.