Guessing Game

(c) 2012 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Over time, I've been reading the girls the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder as part of our pre-bedtime routine.  We alternate with selections by Mr. Kluges like Charlotte's Web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and 50 Favorite Fairy Tales.  We're currently up to Little Town on the Prairie. 

Tonight, Penguin and I were talking about the books, and how I'd read and reread the only one of the Little House ones I owned, Little House in the Big Woods. We got to talking about Laura and how excited she'd been to get a rag doll for Christmas.

"Oh," said Penguin, "and in the next book or maybe a different one, remember when they got that... thing for Christmas?!"

"What kind of thing? What did it look like?"

"I forgot the name, but it was round, and they each got one... and the back looks like a radiator!"

"Is this something you play with like a toy? Or maybe something to eat?"

"No, you don't eat it! It's round, and kind of brownish."

Let's see if YOU can guess the mystery Christmas present! Lucky for me, like a bolt out of the blue the answer popped into my head, and then her description made perfect sense. :)       

WW - 1 Fish, 2 Fish... for Dr. Seuss Day

(c) 2010 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Book Binge Completed!

Oh! I totally had this long, thorough, linked-up entry with reviews of the books I'd read and everything and BLOGGER ATE IT! ARGH!

So, now to see if I can recreate it. Stupid Blogger!

• Lake Woebegon Days by Garrison Keillor - done. I'd picked this one up at Goodwill because I was feeling a bit MN homesick. If you know anything about the author, or his monologues on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion (which I've seen live, thank you very much), you won't be surprised to hear it is neither fast-paced nor brief. I did enjoy the slow descriptions of life in a small town though. This one took a much larger portion of my month than my fiction books usually take.
  

• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (reread) - done. Excellent. Probably best if you've been to London and/or enjoy the confluence of reality with (a bit dark) fantasy. I do wish the tube map at the front of the book would've been in color though.
  

• I'll Be Watching You by Samuel M. Key (horror pen name of Charles de Lint) - done. Overall good. I didn't like his pacing sometimes though. I didn't like the balance between the different sections of her life; it felt like we were rushed through some parts. If you liked the movie Sleeping with the Enemy, this has a similar subject matter/style.
  

• Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay - done. While I ADORE some of his work (Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, A Song for Arbonne), this one reminded me more of his Fionavar Tapestry (a trilogy), which just isn't strong. While this book did have some aspects of "this story comes after those," it's still a stand-alone. I just don't like him being "modern;" he tries too hard and seems too conscious about having his characters use terms like jpeg, downloading, etc.
  

• The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston (nonfiction, on Kittenpie's recommendation) - done. Fascinating! I'm going to have to read his book The Hot Zone soon. I never knew so much about smallpox or Ebola or how they're worked with in the lab or how smallpox was defeated. Also, now I know that vaccination is related linguistically to "vaca" (Spanish for "cow" with the Latin being "vacca") since Edward Jenner used cowpox to successfully inoculate a small boy after noticing that milkmaids rarely got smallpox.
  

• Granuaile: Ireland's Pirate Queen c. 1530-1603 by Anne Chambers (nonfiction) - still in progress. This one won't be done by month's end. I picked it up after realizing that this reading nonfiction books thing, begun as a resolution, has grown on me. I can see often having a nonfiction in progress any more. This one's a bit dense with Irish names and place names, but I get a kick out of recognizing (and having visited) some of them.
  

• Lost Notes by David Murphy (short stories; reread) - done. After starting Granuaile, I realized that I don't like to only have a nonfiction on my bedside table. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for something lighter, or fluffier, or less content rich. While Lost Notes certainly isn't light, being a collection of short stories, it was easy to pick up and put down. Very very rich stories that stick in my mind.

So there you have it! Thanks, Mary P., for hosting the Book Binge!

Book Binge!

(c) 2008 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Mary P. over at It's Not All Mary Poppins is hosting a book binge this month, in case any of you want to play along. I'm signed up, and I hope to read a few more than last year, when it was in April, right after we'd moved & before I had a library card or many books on hand.

So head on over and sign up and read, read, read!

2 nonfic down, 2 to go

(c) 2008 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

I'm now officially half-way through one of my 2008 Resolutions! I'd decided to try to read at least 4 non-fiction books throughout the year because I have a tendency to just read fiction as escapism/relaxation.

I'd started The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan in December at Mr. Kluges's recommendation and found it fascinating. It's a slow read, vocabulary-dense and content-rich, but I enjoyed it and found it thought-provoking. It's certainly caused me to consider eating more local and sustainably when possible, as well as marvel at the plant/industry/ingredient that is corn. The first part is a lot about corn, then different approaches/styles to organic-type eating (including a fascinating farm where the self-described "grass farmer" really thinks about the chicken-ness and pig-ness, etc. of his animals), and finally Polland cooks, hunts, and gathers his own meal.

Here's a quote from his website to give you an overview...

...one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating.

While The Omnivore's Dilemma took me several weeks of reading (due in part to having to return it to the library since someone else had a hold on it, and then waiting to recheck it out), I just buzzed through my second non-fiction book in only a few days. I went shopping all by myself on Friday after Mr. Kluges returned from his business trip. Hitting the local Goodwill, I was impressed with their huge book selection and came home with a bunch of kid books, but also with one for me: Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I'd heard of this one before and since I've now got two kids, I figured it'd be worth a read, and if good, to be stuck on the bookshelf for future reference as well! A lot of what they covered fit well with the skills that I learned and honed at the wonderful school where I used to teach - recognizing children as unique individuals, noticing actions, respecting feelings, "equal" does not mean "the same," establishing boundaries, and most importantly, helping kids learn and practice the skills they need to be able to handle things themselves. While I didn't have any "aha!" moments with it, it was a good reminder/refresher and one I know I'll be finding a spot for on the bookshelf!

Amazon links for The Omnivore's Dilemma and for Siblings Without Rivalry.

P.S. Thanks to those who left nonfiction recommendations for me on the earlier post. I'll have to check them out... and if anybody has any more, I'd love to hear them!

Who needs dental when you've got this?

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Mr. Kluges works for a company with many branches and divisions, one of which does publishing. We recently found out about a very cool perk which we will thoroughly enjoy. You see, about 3 times a year, the company has a "damaged goods" sale here in the area we now live. Apparently, any damaged books, ends of runs, whatever get sold at two bucks a book to employees. Yup, $2 for everything from kids' books to cookbooks to gardening how-tos to coffee table beauties.

This morning was the first one we knew about (and of course Mr. Kluges attended). You have to have a ticket to get in, it's employees (or their spouses or both together) only, no kids allowed, and Mr. Kluges was advised to bring a wheely suitcase.

He said it was a big old dirty warehouse with 75-100 pallets of books. No obvious rhyme or reason, books stacked up to 3 feet high with no regard to topic, aisles packed full of people. He said you could walk past a pallet and come back 10 minutes later and see all new titles that had been unearthed from the stack.

He came home with 30 books.

Actually, not all books - they have some books on CD sets, of which he got Lord of the Rings. Yay! That'll make the long drive to MN go a little faster this Thanksgiving! Some other highlights include several Sandra Boynton books for Pumpkin, the Charles McRaven books we didn't already have, How To Build Bat Houses, lots of garden books including one about restoring American gardens with heirloom ornamental plants from 1640-1940, a couple of cookbooks... it was like Christmas come early!

So yeah, they're upping how much employees have to pay for medical and dental and all next year, but hey, we got BOOKS!

(And I get to be the one to go to the next book sale! Wheeee!!!)

Belated Book Binge

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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Ok, so here it is. I know it's belated, but I figure I get a bit of a break since I was actually GIVING BIRTH on the 1st!

"What I Read" in April

1. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
2. Shadowmarch by Tad Williams (Actually finished in May)
3. Large sections of girl names in The Mother of All Baby Names by Bruce Lansky
   

This is totally not representative of the number of books I normally read in a month since in April we 1) moved transatlatically, 2) lost any library access we had, 3) lived with grandparents for a week, 4) were really close to having a baby, which meant that trips to the book store with the 2 1/2 year old were a bit of a challenge. The type of book, very typical, but the quantity, not so much.

Mary P's Book Binge

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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I'm crazy busy, but reading is such a stress-reliever for me that it's not getting dropped even (especially?) during busy-ness.

And if I can do this, you can, too!

Books - Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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So yeah... this posting a book every day in January thing... um...

Well, I've got one for today!

You might very well have heard of this book already, especially if you work with kids or learning disabilities or mental illness. It's a GREAT read!

You see, the story is told from the viewpoint of the protagonist - a young boy with Asperger's Syndrome. It begins the night he finds the neighbor's dog dead on the lawn in front of the neighbor's house. Now don't start thinking this is a gory book - that's it for anything icky, really, and it's told very matter-of-factly. In fact, one of the things that characterizes Christopher is that he's got a very orderly and bright mind... even if the order is maybe a little different than most people's. Yellow and brown are bad, but red is good, for example. He loves math because it's logical, but doesn't understand people and their reactions, expressions, etc.

Anyway, Christopher decides to solve the mystery of who murdered Mrs. Shears' dog, and that quest, along with the complications that follow, is the story.

One thing I found absolutely enthralling about the book was the way Christopher explains the way he thinks. There are diagrams he's drawn, and math problems he explains, and lists he's written to try to explain to the reader just how he thinks about things. The author, Mark Haddon, really lets you see inside his mind. I've had kids in my class or on my teaching team who had Asperger's or a few tendencies towards it, and man, did it really make me go "Oh! So THAT might be a little bit of how it was for them!"

(Oh, you know the whole "On the game show, there are 3 curtains, you pick one, they show you one you didn't pick, and now you've got a chance to switch if you want to... should you?" dealie? Well, Christopher explains that with a chart that totally made sense to me and now I KNOW I'd switch because it really would increase my chances of winning. Really! If you don't believe me, go buy the book or get it from the library.)

So anyway, I found this a fascinating and quick read. I enjoyed the insights into the way the narrator's mind worked, and how it related to kids with whom I've worked, but even without that connection I'd have really enjoyed it.

Books - by Olivier Dunrea

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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These are some of Pumpkin's favorite books lately. We've been getting them from the library, but I found a few of them on sale at a bookstore, so we'll be adding those to our permanent collection.

(I'm saving them to be extra fun distractors at doctor appointments, long car trips, etc.)

The characters are sweet and funny, the illustrations are simple and fun, and the storylines make Mr. Kluges and I chuckle sometimes.

All in all, books we don't mind reading again, and again, and again, and again... which is a great recommendation for a children's book!

Books - The Last Light of the Sun

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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Life is good when you discover that one of your favorite authors has written a book you didn't know about...

...and then you discover that the local library system has a copy of it...

...and then when you put it on hold, it shows up not in the two or three weeks it usually takes, but in 3 days...

...and you just happen to stop by the library on the day it comes in, before you even get the notification of its arrival.

Life is good.

Books - The Art of the Catapult

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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This is the book Mr. Kluges requested for his birthday after hearing about it from our friend, thisc0rrosion. I couldn't find it anywhere in town (not a huge surprise), but eventually found a bookstore that would order it.

But then it was Christmas rush and all that, so the order didn't come in as soon as it would have usually, and then it was backordered, but yesterday? Yesterday they called to tell me it was in.

So we went to Cork today primarily to pick it up. Hooray for new books!

Books - The Leaving Morning

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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This is the book my class (ok, & the other teacher, of course) gave me when I left to come to Ireland. It's all about the morning a family moves, with simple, real text. We'd been studying the author, Angela Johnson, during Writers' Workshop, so it was very meaningful. Also, I teared up when I went to look inside, because the covers were filled up with the kids' signatures. Very sweet!

Books - Encyclopedia of Herbs & Spices

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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Sorry no post yesterday. I was just feeling lazy! So, to make up for it, here is a LONG post, complete with recipe.

This is the cookbook I was using the evening I decided to do the January Book Challenge. It belongs to Mr. Kluges who found it at a second-hand bookstore. TONS of information and pictures about herbs and spices in the first part, lots of recipes in the second. We've only tried a couple, but every time I look through it I get hungry. (And then wonder where I can get some of the unusual ingredients.)

This is the yummy recipe I was making when I decided to include this book... hope you enjoy it. Since butternut squash is an exotic vegetable here in Ireland, I feel very worldly when I make it. :) It's sounds spicy, but it's really not (or not the way I make it - you could of course up the spices yourself). Don't skip the horseradish cream - it adds a lot in terms of richness and flavor.

Butternut Squash Soup with Curried Horseradish Cream
(serves 6)

1 butternut squash
1 cooking apple
2 Tbl. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
3 3/4 c. chicken or vegetable stock
1 tsp. chopped fresh sage
2/3 c. apple juice
salt & pepper
curry powder, to garnish

Curried Horseradish Cream
4 Tbl. double cream [regular cream is fine.]
2 tsp. horseradish sauce
1/2 tsp. curry powder

1. Peel the squash, remove the seeds, and chop the flesh. Peel, core and chop the apple.

2. Heat the butter in a large saucepan [or Dutch oven]. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, until soft. Stir in the curry powder. Cook to bring out the flavor, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.

3. Add the stock, squash, apple, and sage. [I usually add the sage later with the apple juice since it's fresh, but I'd definitely add in ground/dried now if that's what you're using.] Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover and simer for 20 minutes until the squash and apple are soft.

4. Meanwhile, make the horseradish cream. Whip the cream in a bowl until stiff, then stir in the horseradish sauce and curry powder. Cover and chill until required.

5. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor. [Or just mash in the pan with a potato masher if soft enough - much less cleanup!] Return to the clean pan [I don't know if they expect you to wash it before putting the same stuff back in, but that' s just crazy.] and add the apple juice, with salt and pepper to taste. Reheat gently, without allowing the soup to boil.

6. Serve the soup in individual bowls, topping each portion with a spoonful of horseradish cream and a dusting of curry powder. Garnish with a few lime shreds, if you like.

Enjoy!

Books - What to Expect When You're Expecting

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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Some things I like about pregnancy:

• getting to eat more snacks
• having my tummy stick out is no longer a figure flaw
• people telling me I "look well!"
• telling Mr. Kluges I need to put my feet up for 10 minutes
• getting a new baby to add to our family eventually

Some things I don't like about pregnancy:

• no wine
• no beer
• HEARTBURN (I know, count my blessings, it was my biggest (and really only) complaint during Pumpkin's pregnancy, but I've had it the past two evenings & I'm only 22 weeks along, so it's probably just going to get worse.)
• laugh/sneeze-induced incontinence
• being even more clumsy and forgetful than usual
• labor
  

Oh, and here's one of the books that's currently on my nightstand. :)

Books - Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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This is one of the coolest books we own. It was a gift from my Brother Drew.

Now dinosaurs are cool and all on their own, but check out the pop-up-ness of this book!!!!

Every page is like that! There's a main big pop-up that opens up when you open that page, but then there are all these little extra pagelets on each one that have additional text and more pop-ups! And there are often 2 or 3 layers of pagelets, so TONS of pop-up dinos. If you go to Amazon.com and look at their page about Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up, you can see what I mean. They recommend it for ages 4-8 or grades k-3 or 4, but I think you'd have to have quite a careful 4- or 5-year old to let them look at it on their own, and older kids would still like the intricacy of the pop-ups.


And no, Pumpkin's not allowed to touch this book yet.

Books - Waffles

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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So when I decided to do this meme, I took a bunch of photos that evening so I could put them up whenever and not have to hassle with the digital camera or finding the book online.

I took a photo of this cookbook, not because we use it all the time or because we have Waffle Wednesday every week or because Mr. Kluges once made me breakfast in bed with it or anything like that ('cuz none of those are true anyway), but because it amuses me.

You see, for some reason, we shipped it all the way to Ireland when we didn't ship our waffle iron (power differences, you know), and haven't purchased a waffle iron yet after living here for more than a year and a half.

It's got some nice recipes, and more variety than you'd expect for an all-waffle cookbook, but I think we probably could have left it back in storage.

Books - Tigana

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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I Love Guy Gavriel Kay.

Well, his books anyway. Don't know him personally.

This is just one of the several I brought over. In one word they are... rich. They're sort of historical fantasy, if I had to give them a genre, I guess. The fantasy is light - magic, in most of his books (well, the ones I've read so far anyway) is rare, but the worlds are immensely plausible and intricate. The characters are complex and moving. To say the plotlines are multilayered is an understatement. In fact, when I came to the end of A Song for Arbonne, I actually said, "Oh!" out loud as what I thought was a throw-away character from the beginning showed up again, significantly.

You know how some writers take enough material for one book and stretch it out to be a trilogy? Or a trilogy's-worth and stretch it forever? Guy Gavriel Kay does the opposite. When you finish one book, you feel like you've lived in that world and known the characters for at least a trilogy.

I own A Song for Arbonne, Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, and both books of the Sarantine Mosaic. (But I lent out the first one and don't have it right now. In fact, I don't remember for sure who I lent it to - Syl, was it maybe you?) They are wonderful and I've reread them many, many times.

If I've gushed enough, you might want to check out this site. It's the authorized website and includes some reading passages from his books, which are long enough to give you a nice sample of his prose and a sense of each book.

Books - Joy of Cooking

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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This is the most used reference book in our house, and one Mr. Kluges says he'd be sure to take along on a desert island. ('Cuz he'd know ahead of time that he was going to end up on one, and would pack accordingly....) We've got an older version which includes such useful information as how to skin and prepare game. Now, some of the recipes are from another era (tomato aspic, anyone), but when we want to find out how to make a basic, it's the one to which we turn. Like, did you know you can make pancakes WITHOUT BISQUICK! I know!

January Challenge (or Books Galore)

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copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
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I was over at Mary P.'s site and saw that she was taking up this challenge . . .

Posting challenge for January: "a book...every day, all month long. If you'd like to participate, please do! There are no rules, except you must post a book every day. It can be a book you love, a book you hate, a book that impacted you. Whatever you wish. You may review it, or just tell why it matters; you may post a picture from Amazon or your own copy. Whatev. Up to you."

Apparently it's from Sassy Student. (Not a blog I've read before, but I might have to 'cuz it's a good idea.) And I like to read, as do many of you, I know, so it sounded like fun. Now, I'm not promising to get a post up every day, but I will post a bunch of books over the month.

('Cuz - Yay! A month's worth of ideas! Which is good 'cuz sometimes I sit down here and go, "Duh... what were all those ideas I had to post about?")

I know it's already the 4th, but I did mention War for the Oaks by Emma Bull recently, so I figure that sort of counts. And this picture contains several books, so I'm going to call myself caught up:



Yup, kid books it is for today. This is a shelf with all of our Sandra Boynton books. (Not that I'm so anal or that we're so tidy that they usually all end up on the same shelf, but it made a good picture.) We received most of these as gifts from TNGreatAunt, after we'd mentioned to her how much we liked one we had. They are fun and funny. My fav of these is Hippos Go Berserk! It counts up a bunch of hippos coming over to have a party, then counts them back down. Somehow Sandra Boynton manages to convey so much without her characters having a whole lot of facial expression.

Also, we've had The Going to Bed Book the longest. There's one page where all the animals are exercising, and Pumpkin likes to point to each one and ask what they're doing. Well, we've been doing that long enough that now we ask her back. Some are running, one is doing push-ups, and, according to Pumpkin, there are two who are doing "Thai cheese." Hee hee!


So there you go - feel free to post some of your favorite, least favorite, current reading, remember from long ago, whatever books yourself!