Summer Reading, and a Minor Announcement

The bigger boys start school this week, and everyone will be in school in two more weeks, so now's a good time to tell you all about the many books I bought this summer, right? Right.

Most of them were for Poppy, who has definitely become a reader.

Many books.

All the Ralph S. Mouse books

All the Ramona Quimby books

All The Borrowers books

All the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books (except the farm one) in a treasury format

Bed Knob and Broomstick (not as good as the movie, I'm told)

An Episode of Sparrows (I read this--it was fairly good, but not what I was expecting)

Poppy's absolute favorite was the complete Pippi Longstocking collection--three books--although that didn't make it into the photo.

Also not pictured, but for Poppy, I got The Little House Cookbook. 

A couple of books by William Durbin, including Dead Man's Rapids, that were mostly for the youngest boy.

The next Horatio Hornblower book for the middle boy, although he informed me it was in no way as good as the first one so I shouldn't get the rest.

We Live in the Arctic, mostly for the older two boys.

And then later in the summer, one son was remarking that he was thinking of writing an encyclopedia of monsters, which led to us investigating if there is one. We found several, but most of them are either actual encyclopedias for adults that are trying to establish the existence of Big Foot or whatever, or ones geared toward small children.

I did end up getting a DK book about mythical creatures.

The plant book was an impulse purchase.

Because it's a DK book, it's good. Poppy enjoyed this one.

I also got another DK book--bad day for impulse buys--called History Year by Year: The History of the World from the Stone Age to the Digital Age. This was very popular with all three younger children. DK wins again.

And for me . . .

A collection of short stories by Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen, including "Babette's Feast." Similar to Bed Knob and Broomstick, the movie was better, but the stories were okay.

I did not enjoy Surprised by Joy, by C.S. Lewis. Extreme navel gazing, mostly.

I did enjoy Gilead, though I'm trying to decide if I liked it enough to read the sequels.

Not pictured, I got a collection of Erma Bombeck books, too.

For the eldest, I got the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. This is dystopian fiction, which I have no interest in, so I didn't read it, but he requested it and said it was good.

Also requested and enjoyed by the eldest, though I can't vouch for it myself, was Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.

And now for the minor announcement: I did not renew my contract at the school for this year, which means that while the children are going back to school, and A. will be going back to driving the school bus, I will not be going back. Well, except as a substitute. I did tell them I could continue doing that.

This means I will shortly have more time for reading! Do you have any recommendations for me? Or for the children?

Snapshots: Home Improvement

Poppy likes to go through my shoes and was delighted to find that I still have the white sandals I wore when I got married 22 years ago. She informed me I should wear them on our anniversary. That was on a Saturday, however, and I do not generally go around in high heels at home. I told her I would wear them to church the next day, though. 

This is the main aisle at our church. It is bare wood. All of my heels are SO LOUD when I have to walk up and down this aisle, which is several times when I'm mayordoma. 

A. finished installing the tub and shower in the children's bathroom. The tub juuuust barely fit.

Like, to the centimeter.

A. has spent his entire life hating cheap bathroom fixtures, so instead of buying the shower plumbing, faucets, etc., at a local store, he ordered this crazy copper set-up from Morocco. Directly from a Moroccan company, I mean.

That giant circular thing in the 8-inch shower head.

It came in an actual wooden box they built for it, with Fragile stamped on it. It was the modern equivalent of A Christmas Story. 

A. actually used a hammer to open this.

The end result is I'm sure not what anyone is going to expect in our old trailer in the middle of nowhere.

Welcome to the Moroccan baths.

A. made sure to mount the shower head so there is plenty of clearance for the over-six-foot-tall people in our house, which at the moment stands at two of them but will probably include all the males in our household in a few years.

The family is delighted with their extra-deep tub and extra-high shower. I am delighted that it no longer smells like a swamp when anyone bathes. Satisfaction all around.

It has also proved useful as our laundry facility for a couple of weeks while my washing machine is gone for repairs.

Poppy was delighted to stomp clothes for me. I was delighted to let her.

For my part, after we made the younger boys' bunk bed into two twin beds, I got them each a clothes rack to take the place of the closet they do not have in their bedroom. The box for each of these racks, which I lifted out of the outer box with one hand, was pretty funny.

"Super Heavy" and TEAM LIFT. Okay, then.

Despite the impressive feat of lifting this all by myself, I was more impressed that I actually assembled them myself.

Flat-pack furniture and I don't really get along.

Check out this impressive bug I found on my collard greens.

Yikes.

The son who is on the FFA entomology team identified this for me as an assassin bug. I can only hope it's assassinating the grasshoppers.

Lastly, this week's flowers, courtesy of sunflower season and A. going down the hill to do some rock work*.

Table flowers.

And the church (and bookcase) flowers.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* The younger boys went with him and were holding all the flowers in the truck on the way home. They informed me that ants were on the flowers and they kept getting bitten on the drive home. This is how I know they love me.