Melissa Wiley's Blog, page 204

Reading Notes: Words and Whuffie

Thursday 3/12

—Not much reading time today. Shakespeare Club in the afternoon and somehow the morning just went to different activities. Did squeeze in time for about half a chapter of Lucky Girl. Love how she’s retelling the history of her birth parents, her adoptive parents, even the nun who facilitated the adoption.

—Beanie was glued to Usborne’s Living Long Ago all morning long. Wants to make fish pasties (the name made me LOL) and meat pie. Explained to me how to make a fake beauty mark. Show

Learning Something New

I’m in a little online quilting bee, and this month’s designer sent us a gorgeous batik vine print and the suggestion that our blocks should fit a nature study theme: things you might see on a nature hike. Too fun!

I saw this freezer-paper foundation piecing tutorial at Twiddletails and knew I had to give it a try. The tree shapes in the tutorial are perfect for Theresa’s theme. I am a total novice at this, but I gave it a try yesterday and I was tickled by the results, imperfect though they be.

Actual Train of Thought

I had just read these lines at Toddled Dredge, where Veronica so often makes me grin:

During my hiatus, I read Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Apparently it is a requirement of being a thirty-something housewife (it’s on the list right between “make ironic references to eighties pop” and “own yoga pants”).

And I thought:

Hey, that’s three strikes for me—I haven’t read Twilight, I don’t own yoga pants, and when I make references to eighties pop I am nearly always completely sincere. (Oh Adam Ant, how I

Calling Jane’s Mother

Sometimes I tell Alice—jokingly, or wistfully, depending on what the day’s been like—that I really miss Jane’s mother.

You know, Jane’s mother: that endlessly patient young woman, so full of energy and high ideals, the woman who would willingly spend hours playing farm animals on the living-room carpet, or who would wait calmly in a hot parking lot while little Jane climbed all over the car, fiddling with knobs and buttons, because she wasn’t ready to get into her carseat yet.

Jane’s mother always

Reading Notes

Trying something new here…instead of straight-up book reviewing, I’m going to blog my reading notes once or twice a week. I’ve always been an unfaithful journaler of my reading because one-way dialogue (monologue I guess) isn’t terribly appealing to me. And yet, as I’m reading, there’s always so much I want to make note of, remark upon, explore, remember, question, hash out with someone else. I’m thinking the blog may lend itself nicely to that purpose. So please feel free to jump in.

Monday 3/9

Go Ahead, Make My Dinner

I have a lot of cooked chicken left over from last night. Ordinarily we’d have fajitas tonight with the leftovers, but the baby gets a diaper rash every time I eat anything acidic, including (sob) salsa. So what are your favorite ways to use cooked chicken?

From the Archives: Only Opal

Originally posted in June, 2006

Only Opal: The Diary of a Young Girl, adapted by Jane Boulton, illustrated by Barbara Cooney.

I put this book on hold at the library after reading a review of it—somewhere. I couldn’t remember where. After I read it to my girls, I had to Google Blogsearch it because I needed to know a) whom to thank for steering me toward it and b) if other mothers were writing about the thing that pierced my heart about this book.

When the blogsearch landed on Karen Edmisten I thoug

Link Roundup

Pink dolphin appears in US lake - Telegraph- HT The Common RoomIridescent: Hands-on Science Courses - “Our courses are real-world and sessions have hands-on, inquiry-based experiments. These experiments are taken from master teachers and informal science education organizations. What makes us unique is the story that links the experiments together, showing children the REAL-WORLD RELEVANCE OF SCIENCE AND MATH.”Shmoop Poetry: Themes, Interpretation, Technique, Write an Essay Paper -I’ve only po

Well, That and the Platinum Record

Beanie: “Mom, apart from the fact that she likes coffee and you don’t, I think there’s really no difference between you and Suzanne Vega.”

Spoiler Paralysis

I added another thought to the end of my post about Stolen—I said, “I think Jane will enjoy this one, and maybe Rose, though there’s a plot point I anticipate will trouble her somewhat and will generate a big discussion. I can’t say more without giving away the book’s secrets, but maybe later I can do another post with big spoiler alerts plastered all over it.”

This is where I always run into trouble when I write about books. There’s no way to discuss a book in the depth I’d like to without givin