i am thankful, day 2

Today I am thankful for:

libraries.

especially libraries with online systems 

that allow me to place holds on any book 

at any of the county libraries 

and have it delivered to my local library. 

yay!

image source

Reading, and why it sucks

Ok, it doesn't really suck. I love reading. And I'm not a book snob, I'll read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I just love to read. When I was little, I'd easily read a book a day. After I had my oldest I went through several years that I didn't read nearly as much, there just didn't seem to be time with raising him and going to school and working and . . . anyway. Now that my kids are older I've been reading a lot again the last few years.

The problem with books, for me, is I get lost in them. I mean totally absorbed. Dinner will go uncooked, laundry unwashed, children unnoticed. If I read at work I get cranky when I need to stop and actually do my job. Books have always affected me for a time after. Sometimes only a few minutes - others for days or weeks. Not just affected me - but took me over. Like I couldn't shake the story or the characters. I'd still be so absorbed in the story long after I was done reading it. Like Poisonwood Bible. Or the worst - last year when I read Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes. I hated the book the whole time I was reading it. It made me sick, it made me sad but I couldn't put it down. When I finally finished I was so upset I wanted it out of my house. I didn't want it anywhere around me. I couldn't shake that story for a long, long time. I've read touching/engrossing books by her before - but this one affected me in a completely different way. I haven't read anything by her since and it will probably be a long time before I do again.

I get in a fiction reading mood for a few months every year, mostly I read things like Radical Homemakers, Backyard Homesteading etc. . . how to sort of books. Or non-fiction like Animal Vegetable Miracle.

But, I've been in a mood for fiction, I've got a stack of them I'm working through. Last week I read The Future Homemakers of America. It was alright, but I didn't feel like I loved the characters. In someways that was good, because I wasn't that drawn into it. But then it's not a great book I guess, right?

Yesterday I started Maeve Binchy's Tara Road. I finished it today. I'm having a hard time shaking this one too. Not because it was traumatic or horrible. I was hoping for something a little on the lighter side and the front of this book claims "The heartwarming New York Times Bestseller". Well, I'll tell ya - it wasn't at all heartwarming. The whole book was heartbreak after heartbreak. And sure it was all pulled together, sort of, by the end - but not good enough. Like life I guess. But it bothers me. If you haven't read it I won't ruin it. I see a little of myself in it, and I don't know how I feel about that. Even though the book isn't at all heartwarming in my opinion and there is a reoccurring theme of betrayal and infidelity, it did somehow have me wanting to run home and curl up with my husband every time I opened it to read it.

I don't know why other peoples stories affect me so much. They do, terribly though. There's the obvious, like news stories and real life tragedies. Though I somehow feel that I am bothered more by them then most people. I've started censoring what news stories I watch, especially when it comes to child abuse/pain/suffering. I think it's disgusting how people's pain and tragedy and grief is thrown out there, on display for people to gawk at and it's all done in the name of news. Blah.

But I'm also strangely affected by fictional stories. I don't know why. I can't seem to take something in and let it go like most people.

I used to think I wanted to be a counselor. Then I realized I was in no way strong enough for that. So then I thought social worker - but in many ways that's "worse". So here I am, almost 30 answering phones for a living because I'm too weak to go and do something I'd be good at.

Anyway.

Some one recommend some light-heated, real heartwarming books to me so I can stop analyzing things and get back to enjoying Spring! :D

Cooking on a wood (heating) stove

It would be sweet if I had a woodstove like this

But I don't. I have one like this.

 

And it's still pretty sweet.

We've lived here since August and it's only just occuring to me to use the heat to cook on it. Okay, not just occuring - I've thought of it once or twice before, for boiling tea water. But I'm pretty sure I could do a fair amount of cooking on it, yes? I think so.

 

So far all I've done is boil tea water and water for noodles. That pot in the middle is there all the time. I just keep water and a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg and old orange peels in it. It smells good and helps keep moisture in the air.

I've been trying to find better information on it, because I'm a research/needs instructions type of gal. I've found a lot of information on cooking on wood cook stoves, but not very much on cooking on wood heat stoves. Maybe it's common sense for a lot of people? Or no one cares? Or I stink at googling.

Then today, I stumbled across this:

                            Lehmans

I want it. Oh boy. I should wait though. I just ordered books. And I also just bought two more books after the dentists this morning (more on that later). I can't help it. I love books.

So, I'm going to put off buying it. Winters winding down. I'll just keep boiling and experimenting on my own (better pull out the cast irons). And I'll keep that book tucked away for next winter.

Oh, speaking of books - I'm experimenting with tabs. I added a section on recommended reading - it's a work in progress (both the tabs and the reading section) so it will be changing/added to a lot in the next few weeks I'm sure.


Please feel free to share your tips/recommended reading on wood stove cooking with me! You can comment or find my e-mail in the handy-dandy where to find me tab!

Letting the days go by . . .

Seems like one or some or all of us at a time have been sick since the holidays. We can't shake it. We're normally not sick people. We don't get flu shots because we never get the flu (though we probably wouldn't get them anyway). We get occasional colds and that's it.

I haven't been doing much but sleeping and working for well near a week now. The kids get on the bus and I pass back out until about 10, then get up and get ready for work. I just can't get enough sleep.

I took my youngest to the doctor Friday for what I suspected was some sort of bladder infection. Nope. Ear infection, bronchitis/pneumonia. I'll tell ya, I felt like mother of the year being oblivious to all that.

His first sick child visit in his life was when he was three. I think this was his second sick child visit. My oldest hasn't been in for a sick child visit for about 5 years.

I thought I was doing something right, but now I wonder. Colin (my youngest) did complain of an ear ache about 3 weeks ago. But it was just for one night, with no fever. We gave him some pain relief, ear drops and a warm cloth and that was it.
The doctor did say that the ear infection was almost healed, on it's own. Which is good, I guess - but it worries me I didn't know. My father had an ear infection last March that went untreated and now he's totally deaf in that ear. He's 56. They say the kind of deafness it is, a hearing aid won't help (?) I would be devastated if that happened to one of my children because I didn't take them to a doctor.

The bronchitis I didn't know about either. He's had a bit of a cough the past week, but nothing severe and he's been croupy/coughy in Feb and March every year for the past few years.

The doctor didn't seem concerned, but I felt horrible. Colin felt ok though - he never once complained.

Unlike me and my sore throat/cold. I whine about it all the time. It freaking hurts man!

I've been reading a lot again lately though. It's nice. I work evenings and my job is to answer phones. But I'm glued to a seat 10-12 hours a day and that's no good for my (ever expanding) rear. So I've been pacing the halls and reading. I finished Eat, Pray, Love this week. I really liked it. I needed a book like that. It was refreshing, inspiring.

I almost never buy new books. I just like used books better. Not just for the price, but for the feel of them too. They've got something about them a new book just doesn't have. I just placed an order on Amazon for several new books though (and I have a couple saved for later to remind myself that I want them! I'll try and find them used on my journeys or order later in the summer).

Coming soon, to my house (yay!):

 

  

  

  

  

ok, that last one is the movie not a book, but I'm still excited!

Now if only some of that East Coast storm would hit meeeee so I would have an excuse to snuggle inside and read!