Charlyn’s Web

*Edited for clarity. See last big paragraph.*

(Or an alternate title: I should be cleaning but am in a really rotten mood so I am blogging) 🙂

Am I reading the wonderfully bound copy of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Eyre that my Dad lent me ages ago? Am I reading the book about Corrie Ten Boom titled The Five Silent Years by Pamela Rosewell Moore that I should return to the friends who are coming over for dinner tonight? No. I am not expanding my classical literary knowledge or my faith. I am reading Baking Illustrated- The Practical Kitchen Companion For The Home Baker. (I did not pay this much for it! Ack!) How does one ‘read’ a cookbook? I don’t know but I find the plot fascinating, the techniques interesting and the end results thrilling. See, I told you I was twitchy.

When we go to the library I end up grabbing books for the kids that look interesting. I don’t spend a lot of time perusing them because of our limited attention and quiet span. Unfortunately, I end up with duds part of the time. You know, the books that make you wonder how they were ever published in the first place. Ones where kids act awful and there are no consequences or morals thrown in. Those books quickly find their way to the bottom of the pile or I downright refuse to read them again. But this last trip I came home with some gems. One is called Museum Trip by Barbara Lehman . It is a wordless book about a boy’s adventures in a museum. It’s fun because we can speculate as to what is going on and add our own conversations. The pictures have detail that we can talk about and it leaves it open as to what actually happened. The one I picked out for me, because I am so sloth-like myself, is Score One for the Sloths by Helen Lester . It’s about a school of sloths that is threatened to be shut down by a Wild Boar (you can tell he is wild by the way he dresses) and how one plucky sloth named Sparky saves the day. Again the illustrations are good and there is lots of things to spot that help the story. The last really neat one is called The Quiltmakers Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and illustrated by Gail de Marcken. I love the pictures in it, there is much to look at and absorb! The story is a bit over long but even the girls can sit through it. The vague disturbance I have with it is that God is missing from the story. But I try to emphasis to the kids that all the wonderful things the King owned didn’t make him happy but by giving them to others who needed them he gained joy. The blessings of giving is a wonderful thing for little ones to learn. I kept trying to emphasis this as we selected things for our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes yesterday. These things were not for us but for kids who have nothing and this will be a blessing to them.

The Col. reads to The Boy every night. They have been reading through the Sugar Creek Gang series (we have the full set). But The Col. was getting a bit tired of them so for a break I suggested they read (some of you will appreciate this more than others) Hank the Cowdog. They read the Priceless Corncob one. I haven’t seen The Col. laugh so hard in years. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. He wondered how he went so many years without reading one. After he was an adult he knew some kids (yes, DH- yours) that read them but he figured he was too manure mature to read them at that time.

Ah, the joys we discover now with our own children that we somehow missed in our own childhood.

Now, I guess I had better clean house, company tonight.