I’m just too much lately – too busy, too stifled, too uninspired – for lengthly, thought-out blog entries. That doesn’t meant I can’t do something here, though.

Here’s what we’ve been up to recently:

Reading I just finished reading “Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner,” by Diana Gabaldon. It’s the fourth Lord John Grey novel, and I liked it fine. I didn’t love it like I have most of her Outlander series books, but it was enough Jamie to hold me over till God only knows when her next Outlander novel is published. The best/most annoying part of the book was the included excerpt from that next book. If you’ve read the most recent Outlander book, “An Echo In The Bone,” you know how frustrating the cliffhanger-of-the-century ending was. I’ve never been driven to hurl a book at a wall, but I came damn close after finished AEITB. ANYHOW. The excerpt did exactly what the end of AEITB didn’t do, and there are still plenty of what-happens-next feelings without the where’s-the-rest-of-the-book anger.

I’ve just started re-reading (re-re-re-re?) “Catching Fire,” by Suzanne Collins (though I’m doing the audiobook this time), and I’m about to dive head-first into “What Happened to Goodbye,” by Sarah Dessen. After that, I’m hoping to start George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Oh, and Divergent and Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. Then, of course, are more books I’m itching to re-read – Tolkien’s Hobbit and LoTR trilogy, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, and, frankly, I’d like to wander through the other Dessen books I own – I love them most during the summer.

As for children’s books, I haven’t been terribly moved by anything we’ve read recently. With our library story time on hiatus through May, we haven’t spent much time at the library – unloading and loading for only 10 minutes of quality library time is a lot more work than doing it all for story time PLUS 10 minutes of library time. But! We’re back on for next week, so I hope to find something new and exciting. Suggestions are welcome!

Eating Feeding three sick and/or teething kids over the last month has been fairly trying. And the opinions. Oh, the toddler opinions. I can’t so much as breathe near the pantry without starting a ruckus over the graham crackers that live there. (And while I found it snortily hilarious that they said “cock” for cracker at first, I’m somewhat relieved to hear it slowly morphing away from that.) In the spirit of healthy living with a side of scary family histories and a dash of small preemies, we try to limit the cock cracker intake to one full cracker per kid per day. I know. I’m so mean. But! We started giving them some popcorn, and I admittedly made the mistake of letting them try an unhealthy kind first. It’s just so good. That wins me a cool mom point, right?

Kettle corn. I’ve made probably four batches in the last two-ish weeks. It’s that good. And that easy. Try it and thank me later for sifting through google and recipes to find a winner that is easy and delicious.

On the healthier side of the spectrum, beets made their debut in my house last week with our weekly CSA box. I haven’t had so much as a glimpse of a beet outside of a store since I was a kid. My parents boil them and soak them in vinegar, and I can still remember how foul I found the taste more than 20 years ago.

But I can’t argue with having it already in my house, so I tried it. And I liked it. Sort of.

I washed, peeled and cubed the beets before tossing them in olive oil and salt and roasting them on a baking sheet for 55 minutes at 425 F. Toby couldn’t get enough. Callista thought they were great. Eleanor wasn’t terribly impressed and chewed/spit out more than she chewed/swallowed. Rob only had a few bites, as he got home a bit late, but he said he wanted more. Me? I wasn’t impressed. They were OK, but I don’t know that I’d ever see one again and think, “Man! That would be TASTY.”

Watching Despite my nerdiness, despite my love of teen entertainment, despite my generation’s duty – I never saw a single episode of Buffy. My reasons varied from loving the movie version and not liking the different Buffys to cringing at the cheesy vampire faces to just being a sour sally about WB/CW shows. I blame the bad opening credits and commercials because I haven’t actually watched a WB/CW show and not like it. The commercials make me hate them all, though.

Hold onto the torches and pitch forks, though, because I’ve finally watched some Buffy (four seasons now!), and I just started watching Angel. I’m not in love, per se, but I am enjoying both series. I mean, David Boreanaz – enough said.

As for the littles, they are downright obsessed with Baby Signing Time. Toby signs and says, “Baby, baby, baby,” with the most pathetic, wanting, needing, pleading voice and expression that I’ve found it difficult to say no, which I usually do to limit TV time. The plus side is they’ve learned a lot of signs, and communicating with toddlers is the bomb diggity. There are plenty of DVDs we don’t own in the series, but budget and frankly need doesn’t warrant adding more to our library right now. (Unless you count my need for more/different songs because ugh with the endless “Can You Feel It? I Can Feel It!” lyrics.)

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6 Responses to Reading, eating, watching

  1. Delora says:

    So I went from reading this post to flipping back to twitter just in time to see a tweet from Rachel Coleman float by about a 2-day $10 Signing Time DVD sale.
    http://www.signingtime.com/
    I own the complete Baby Signing Time bundle, and I have to say, even though I sign with my 2yo (I took ASL in college and at one point was nearly fluent), he learns much more quickly from the DVDs than he does with just my repetition.

  2. Abigail says:

    I never watched Buffy or Angel growing up either. Now that I’ve seen both the series in their entirety (thanks Netflix) I really love Buffy. Angel I only tolerated because of the crossover story lines. Although if I’m honest the real reason I hate Angel was… well it’s a bit of a spoiler. Not a plot spoiler but may affect how you watch it so if you want it to be totally unspoiled don’t read….

    ***Angel ended horribly. Awful. Worst ending ever. So yeah, put a horrible taste in my mouth about the whole show.***

    ….End spoiler

    Now I’m going to have to watch the Buffy musical episode because I literally cannot watch that episode enough. Thanks for bringing it up :)

  3. Aaron turner says:

    Try YouTube, they have some of the signing time songs and clips on there

  4. My daughter adores Baby Signing Time! It was really helpful when she was younger, before she could speak what she wanted. She’s 20 months old now and signs less and less as her sentences ramp up, but they’re in there. When she started stringing signs together to make sentences, I was blown away by how much babies and toddlers can absorb, and was so glad we bought them. If you see any deals on them, we’ve also used the Signing Time DVDs for older kids–she loves those, too, and they were great when she was learning letters/numbers and family members,etc. They still use Leah, Alex, and Hopkins, but move faster and have less animations. Baby Signing Time is more dynamic, but the others add some variety (can you feel it?!)

  5. Brooke says:

    Yay for Baby Signing Time!!! I love it so much I became a certified instructor and I know it’s why my daughter, at 2.5, is as verbal as most 4 year olds. She still signs while she talks – cutest thing ever!
    Also, once you start Game of Thrones you will not want to read anything else ever. It really spoils you for all other books – just fair warning… 😀
    Enjoy Buffy – Season 6 is my fave.

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