Our House in the Middle of Our Street

A piece by local artist on display at the Peachland Visitor Center's gallery Surprisingly, for the first month of school, I got quite a few excellent reads in! I was able to finish two out of three book club picks (Sept-Nov.) this month and two that I had wanted to read for awhile. The kids and I read a few really excellent books this month, as well.  After the final book club pick that I still am working through (hoping to be done by the end of this week), I'll have roughly 2.5 months to read my own thing again. I can usually really pick up the speed once those are out of the way, since I have to stop everything and read them when they come in from the library. I'm looking forward to finally reading All the Light We Cannot See t his winter; I've been waiting ages to get through this in the coziest time of year.  * On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior - This book is going to be niche, but if you're a fellow literature lover, you might fall into tha...

August books in the windowsill  August was a bit of a lame reading month. The top picture does show quite a smaller stack than most months, and the (top) bookclub pick didn't even get picked up until September. In fact, I only finished one book this month by myself and one book with the kids as a read aloud! One of these books I read about 10 pages per day (though didn't finish it) and one I completed t oday, on September 1st , so you'll see it next month. In the words of Donald Trump, "SAD!" * The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline - I can't remember where I first saw this book-more than likey at my local library on the teen shelves- but I finally read this YA Indigenous dystopian novel. How's that for a genre? I really enjoyed it. The year is 2049 and the world has gone through an apocalyptic change due to climate change, and everyone has lost the ability to dream...except the Indigenous peoples, who are on the hunt to be harvested for their d...

I literally can't believe I read this many books in July. Now, mind you, I probably finished three the first week that I had been reading for some time, so that feels like cheating a bit, but I found myself very busy, with a lot of restless energy, and very little desire to read especially towards the end of the month. My brain is feeling overloaded from so much. I'm specifically not planning any outings for myself or the kids the last two weeks in August because hoo-boy do I need to actually start planning our homeschool year.  The Wondering Years by Knox McCoy - This is a memoir from a co-host of the popcast , which isn't a podcast I listen to, but a friend of mine does and she loaned me the book because hello! 80s and 90s pop culture references! It was funny and I enjoyed it but the Christianese message at the end of most chapters I found to be a bit corny. Start From the Heart by Kathy Koch - This was a book I got from my mother-in-law at the beginning of the ...

Been waiting a loooong time to read this one! I really had no idea how many books I had actually read in June (I thought it was half of this!) until I started this blog post and realized the four I thought were from May were actually this month. What?! That might be an example why my brain feels so slow these days.  I am fully into the book, but time is passing quickly and I just can't remember when I finished what. Thank goodness for Pinterest, where I keep track of the books I want to read and those I have finished .  * No Walls and the Recurring Dream by Ani DiFranco - My best girl Ani finally wrote a memoir! It only covers her first 30 years (she's close to 50 now), but it was just as good and rife with feminism and weirdness as I expected it to be. I first started listening to Ani Difranco's music in high school and I am so glad I found her, her uncontrollable guitar, and her penchant for fierce political poetical lyrics early in life. Loved this; 100% bia...

science experiment with friends What is your favorite color? Blue--sky or navy Who are some of your friends? the Imoo family, the Hieberts, Zack + Dillion, Cole, Ethan, Daniel, the Goheens, Kellan 3-D puzzle completion! What do you want to do when you grow up? car designer and car company owner, or something to do with cars What is your favorite animal? tigers, dogs, turtles, cats, horses Lukka interviews a family friend in front of his co-op friends What is your favorite thing to do with Anikka?  play chess What is your favorite thing to do with your friends?  play video games, go swimming, play games  Lukka loves covering himself in mud + clay at the Fraser river What do you like to do outside?  bike ride, swim, skiing, frisbee, go to the beach What do you like to do inside?  xbox, watch Family Matters , read, play my piano posing for a pic at Mt. Seymour What is your favorite food?  mac n' cheese, pizza, ...

just a few of this month's reads! This month was sort of a red letter one--I can't believe all that I got to read in just 31 days. Thankfully, a few of these reads were very short (I'm looking at you Juliet and Mary Ventura) , but mostly I just plodded on through one chapter per day with the others (so many holds all at once!) to finish them all in a timely manner. That worked very well, especially as most of these wouldn't be page turners or ones I could sit with for long. It's a long list so let's get to it! * Attachments by Rainbow Rowell - I LOVE Rowell's work and always sneak one of her super fun YA page turners in when I'm downright tired. This was a funny and interesting little love story that I connceted with because I know the place. Rowell is from Omaha and so I can see in my mind's eye exactly where she's talking about even if she isn't 'talking about it' with real names. The bands playing at the Sokol? I've...

slow mornings; a Mast favorite! April was a pretty decent reading month, considering it was a full month. The kids had their Destination Imagination tournament (1st place in both categories!), a few field trips, wrapping up of the kids' co-op with Celebration Day, horse camp each week, planting our garden, Easter Celebrations and the like. Phew! We squeezed in finishing a couple good read-alouds, too. Here's my list: * True You by Michelle DeRusha - This was another book that felt right in line with books I've been reading relating to spirituality and the Christian faith; but really, the breaking down of the false self (see The Gift of Becoming Yourself and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality). I love DeRusha's metaphor of pruning a tree that shows up in section breaks. The author lives in my hometown, and so I felt a bit more context with what she was noticing throughout the seasons (and relating them to the context of a faith journey) becuase I've been to...