Monday Reading

Good Monday!

It's a rainy and cool day today, simply perfect for a hot cup of tea and some quiet reading... You may or may not know this, but I am a reader. And by reader, I mean READER. I read. A LOT. I read to learn. I read to relax. I read because I LOVE WORDS... And language. And the flow of good conversation and great stories... These days there are far too few books in my repertoire, mostly blogs to be honest, but I still typically carve out about an hour a day devoted to reading. The stack of books on my side of the bed is actually threatening to take over the room.

So I thought I would share some of my reading with you... And maybe I'll make it a regular thing or something! But before I do, I wanted to share something I wrote the other night. I recently discovered a blog called Single Dad Laughing, and there is some great reading there. He's raw and real and has great insights, and I love that. Anyway, he wrote a post that ended up being partly about reading, literature and writing, and in an unusual move for me, I decided to comment (I tend to be a lurker, but I'm trying to overcome that. :O)... And I think it turned out really good. Good enough to share here, with my friends, rather than the big, anonymous internet. But not just "good," as in "good writing," but "good," as in, "This is a piece of me and what I believe." And I want to share that here. So, there you have it.
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"...I am not the world's best writer, but I am passionate about a well-turned word in all it's many forms.

I am a reader... A poet, a novelist, a journalist, a researcher, and a storyteller at heart... My poetry is often raw and unpolished, my novel has yet to be written, my journalism is simply moments put to paper, my research casts a wide and varied net, and my stories are rarely heard by anyone other than my children, but they are there.

Perhaps, like all great poets, I'll become wildly famous when I'm dead and someone discovers all the scraps of paper, the Starbucks napkins, and the tattered journals filled with my writing. Or perhaps, my children, who are but babies now, when going through my things will read words they've never known, and somehow be changed. And that is more than I could ask for.

Perhaps I'll write my great novel, the one that I have pent up inside me, the one with no name, no characters, and no plot, and it'll top the New York Times bestseller list for weeks and I'll be everyone's new favorite author. Or perhaps the manuscript will sit, untouched by any publisher for years, until it is forgotten. At least I will have written it.

Perhaps my stories will be told to generations to come. Perhaps not. But none of that matters, because what's most important is that I love words. And if no one ever reads my writing again outside of my children, (and then likely after I am gone) I pray that the one thing they learn from it is that our words, spoken or written, are some of the most powerful tools we have available to us. They have the potential to stir unquenchable passions, calm raging oceans of emotion, and provoke great change - as evidenced by your blog, Dan.

And I hope that my children learn that their mother was a woman of passion, who spoke plainly and with great care, knowing that her words had a far-reaching impact, even if no one heard them but her. Because I am a wordsmith..."


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Not bad for a 3:30-in-the-morning-and-I-have-low-blood-sugar-so-I'm-surfing-the-internet comment, eh? 

And right now, KayKay is quietly immersed in reading herself, about 50 pages into Peter Pan (fairies and pirates and crocodiles, OH MY!) and loving it. The little Ladybug is happily playing in the bath upstairs, and I am listening to the soft sounds of happy splashing, murmurs of little girl imaginations at work, and the wind whisper through the leaves on our giant oak outside our window as it makes its way through the curtains and twines around my legs, purring the whole time like a cat.

So with that in mind, I thought I'd share some of the things I have been reading recently. Most of it has been related to parenting and homeschooling (as usual!), but of course there are a few random things thrown in here just to spice it up. Enjoy!

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Articles


29 Lincoln Avenue: Project 10 (An AMAZING project for girls - age 10, but I'm thinking ahead!)


New Urban Habitat

RhymeBrain (This is just fun. I am going to be using it as a tool in homeschooling in the future, methinks. :O)

Books

MotherStyles: Using Personality Type To Discover Your Parenting Strengths (This book has given me some great insights into personality type and how I can use MY personality to my advantage in parenting. I highly recommend this one, if you are interested in personality types...)

 The Phantom Tollbooth (THANK YOU, Miss Olivia for introducing me to this... It is one we will be getting and I'm CERTAIN the girls will love it! This is a great book for young children. Great moral stories told in a MOST unusual manner! :O)

The Cage (A Holocaust Survivor's account... A wonderful, though hard, read.)

In My Hands (An account of a rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust... Also a hard read, but very good.)

2 comments:

  1. I too love writing and reading. I have the bad habit of picking up a book and reading the first few chapters until an interruption forces me away and then never getting back to finishing it.

    Two sources I found that were helpful in this respect:
    goodreads.com - here I can organize all the books I've started, or the books I haven't started but want to read.
    dailylit.com - This site allows you to read books in small increments. It will deliver a small portion of a book to your e-mail or RSS reader each day - a nice way to read anymore when the only uninterrupted time I have is in at work in front of the computer.

    As for writing, I have two novels that have been floating through my head for quite some time now. I have finally resolved that if I'm going to write them I will have to do it a little at a time. Therefore my plan is to start a blog for each and release them as serial novels, writing a half-chapter or so each week.

    I enjoyed seeing your reading list and your comments on words!

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  2. Oooo, thanks for the sites to check out, particularly the dailylit.com one! VERY interesting! I'd love to hear more about your novels, that sounds wonderful... Keep me posted, and thanks for YOUR encouraging words. :O)

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