Brain Dump

Do you remember, back in the early days of the internet, before Facebook and Instagram? At the time of Live Journal and blogging? People wrote their thoughts freely. There was no censoring. There was just the freedom of having and sharing personal opinions. And people were respectful of each other. We shared more of what we truly thought. No one was trying to present a perfect image of their lives on Instagram, and there was no such thing as an influencer. We were all mostly normal, ordinary people, still mostly thinking for ourselves. 

I miss those days.

G. K. Chesterton said that “Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” I believe this statement especially as it pertains to my children. I want them to believe that dragons can be beaten. But right now I am wrestling with what happens when the books we read don't have happy endings? What if the dragons win? What then?

I've been reading a bunch of dystopian novels lately. Some I've read before. Some I am reading for the first time. In 1984, Orwell's characters engage in censorship. The main character's job is to erase and rewrite history so that it reflects what the government tells them it should reflect. The recent banning of President Trump, and others, from social media feels like something right out of 1984. Not only was he banned, his tweets and comments were erased. Gone. Poof. Furthermore, the main character holds on to his inner personal thoughts and beliefs throughout the book before finally becoming a man broken by the government. (Relevant world news: The Chancellor of Germany spoke out against this censorship, Poland is in the process of enacting fines against censorship, and Uganda blocked Facebook and Twitter ahead of it's political election sighting interference by censorship. Twitter did not like this saying it was an infringement to free speech. Pot meet kettle).

In the book Brave New World, Huxley's characters are lulled into submission with drugs. They do their work and live their lives without questioning because they will be rewarded at the end of the day with pills and pleasure. They use these rewards to escape into their inner worlds where they can feel nothing. Life is *so good* that they regularly choose to feel nothing. Our current escapism into the internet, and the dopamine hits we get from the like feels oddly reminiscent of this. Not to mention that all across the country states are changing laws about the legality of drugs.

In Atlas Shrugged, Rand describes a world where people believe they shouldn't have to work to be paid. They thought they deserved to run organizations and have jobs that other people built, even if they have no qualifications to do so. Their belief was that those who are carrying the risks and load of companies and ideas didn't deserve what they had. And then the government took it a step further and passed regulations to force successful companies to sell their hard-earned businesses to others who had done nothing. All in the name of equality. It kind of reminds me of the story of the Little Red Hen, but with a twisted ending that would require the Hen being forced to feed everyone, even though everyone else refused to help her with the work... It also reminds me of some of the ideas floating around about how government should work. People clamoring for democratic socialism and pointing to Scandinavian countries as a model, even though these Scandinavian countries are actually free market economies that more closely align with capitalism than socialism.

Shifting gears a little... another thing that has been bugging me is that I am in need of a phone upgrade (I still have an iPhone 5 because we keep things as long as possible in our family). Anyways, I have been thinking about my upgrade and I know what I want. However I am bummed by the recent censorship by companies like Apple, Google and Amazon. These Big Tech companies (who I love and use regularly) effectively worked to block a new company –Parler– removing this entire platform from the internet by deleting it from App stores and pulling its servers.

I am not an expert in this area, but from where I sit it looks like a small start up went out and built a competing platform to FB and Twitter and Big Tech pulled it, stating that they were not doing a good enough job of policing personal accounts. Nevermind that all sorts of hate and ideology is still being spewed on FB, Twitter and the like, just not from accounts that the technocrats have deemed unfit.

This whole event really bothered me, so out of curiosity I searched for phones that were not owned by these companies. After all, the saying goes, if you don't like a company you can vote with your money. Take your business elsewhere. But what if there is nowhere else to go take your money? What then? I know, I could just go back to the Nokia brick phones or something of that like and cut technology out completely, but I have gotten too used to this convenience, and I love that my phone has a good camera and the connectivity to the internet. Also, I think voices need to be heard, not just self censored and removed because people are frustrated by the system. So not only is free speech being attacked, our free market is also being eroded... Just some things I've been mulling over.

Finally, I was watching Hulu last night. To be honest I no longer watch network television at all, mostly to avoid commercials. We still have Netflix, but due to most of the content on Netflix, I have cut back my viewing and have gone back to mostly reading unless Daniel and I have a show we are binge watching together. 

Back to Hulu... we currently have a subscription with our Verizon account. But this service include commercials. Last night as I was watching on Hulu, a commercial for Match.com came on. The concept of the commercial was that Satan was matched with the perfect person, a girl named 2020. I can't believe this is where we are at with commercials. I know they were trying to be funny, but it was so disturbing. 

During the month of December I had a similar experience. I was listening to Spotify with my kids. We were listening to a playlist of Christian Christmas carols that went along with a Christmas-themed study we were doing. While listening in the car with my kids, Spotify (which also has commercials) played a propaganda advertisement about how abortion was good and people who had abortions should be applauded. I immediately hit mute. I have not listened to Spotify since. That is my prerogative. I am ready to cancel Hulu. I am bothered by these world views that are bombarding me and my children. I don't want censorship, but I also don't want this kind of world view shoved down my throat, or my children's throats. It used to be that you could trust that the airwaves would be "safe" for your kids before 9pm. That is no longer true. 

Anyways, these are just some of the things I've been contemplating lately. They are things happening in the world right now that affect me directly. I hope that in ten years things have not become even worse, but frankly I don't have a lot of trust in our culture, government or media right now. I do, however, have trust in God. So in my little corner of the world, I am trusting God. I am putting my faith in him. I am loving my family. I am trying to shine my light as best I can in a world that is becoming increasingly dark.

Books Read #21-23 ⎮ June 2017

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men

Since I have two boys of my own, Boys Adrift by by Dr. Leonard Sax looked like a worthy read. It was. If you are raising boys, I would high recommend reading this book. As my boys are still small, I am determined to help them stay motivated in whatever way I can.

The book addresses five factors affecting boys today including: changes in schools, video games (issues with virtual vs. real), ADHD diagnoses/medications, endocrine disruptors (found in our modern environments), and the loss of male role models. 

Dr. Sax offers some good suggestions on how to combat these factors to help your son reach his full potential and not fail to launch (he acknowledges that girls have their own set of factors, but his book speaks specifically to boys).

I thought this was a good read – while there are plenty of notes at the end of the book with more information, the book itself didn't feel bogged down by research. It also offered good tips that wouldn't be too hard to implement. I hope we are mindful of these factors as we raise our boys.

A few highlights from this book:
The explicit motivation behind the founding of the Boy Scouts was to "make men of little boys and to foster independent manhood." There was no assumption that an independent manhood would just happen naturally.

"What does it mean to be a man?" The answer is: being a man means using your strength in service to others.

Boys who prefer the video game version over the real thing are making a choice very similar to boys who prefer online pornography to interacting with real girls.

To become a man, a boy must see a man. But that man doesn't have to be a father. In fact, ideally it shouldn't be only his father. Even if your son has a strong father or father figure in his life, he also needs a community of men who together can provide him with varied models of what productive adult men do.

Ambition. Drive. Determination. Call it what you will, it is this characteristic more than any other that now distinguishes the emerging nations from the United States. 
 

I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

  

Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

The other adult book I read this month was Chasing Slow by Erin Loechner (creator of the Design for Mankind blog). Erin is one of my favorite bloggers and I had heard a lot of great things about her debut book. The book encompasses Erin's personal story and is full of great tidbits about slowing life down intentionally... I am planning to write a separate blog post about intentional slowness with more thoughts about her book, but I wanted to include a blurb in my monthly book wrap-up as well. I think that in order to get the most out of this book you have to read it like a series of blog posts. It felt a bit choppy for me as an actual book, but the content is good (Erin is a great writer, so I'm going to blame the editing).

I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

 

The Sandman and the War of Dreams 

 

I made a deal with Jack that we would watch The Guardians movie after we completed the fourth book in The Guardians series, The Sandman and the War of Dreams, by William Joyce. It turns out that I was wrong on two counts. I thought Jack Frost was going to be introduced in this book (he's not) AND I thought book four was the end (it's not). It turns out the 5th book in the series will be released a year from now, and that one will be about Jack Frost.

 

Anyways, I continue to love this series. I'm not always sure that Jack is actually paying attention to the read alouds, but I recently quizzed him on all of the characters we have met along the way, and he knew all of them and the basic story line. So that's good. We will go ahead and watch the movie since I told Jack we would, but I am looking forward to reading the 5th book next year.

I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

Honorable Mention:
We make it to the library at least once a month and both boys choose books to read. This month Jack chose: Curious George, Oh, the places you'll go!, Good King Wenceslas, Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures: The Intrepid Canadian Expedition (see below), Max's Dragon Shirt, and Dragons Love Tacos (his favorite from this selection of picture books).

We are continuing to make our way through the Flat Stanley series by creator Jeff Brown with Jack. This month he chose Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures: The Intrepid Canadian Expedition (Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures #4). Unfortunately our local library doesn't have every book in the series and Jack is a bit bummed that we can't read them in the EXACT order.

Isaac's Library picks this month were truck song and Fire Engine No. 9. We read these books over and over to him, and then we read them some more!

Books Read #17-20 ⎮ May 2017

Since my decision to homeschool Jack this fall, I have been on a bit of a crash course to research all things homeschool related. I have to admit that it is kind of exciting to be elbow deep in this type of research. In a later post I will share what my ultimate schooling plan is for the fall, but for now I just want to share a snippet of what I have been immersed in.

First up in May, I read The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling by Debra Bell. This book was a bit older than I had hoped, but I want to utilize our local library as much as possible, and unfortunately for me, it's a small library. Anyways, the book was really good. I pretty much skipped over anything technology related (our library's edition of this book was from 2005 and I don't know if there is a newer version). But I found that overall the book was full of a lot of useful information and suggestions from a seasoned homeschooler. I jotted down tons of quotes and notes regarding resources I want to look into further. I had so many pages tabbed that I was tempted to just ask the library if I could buy the book outright instead of having to copy all of my notes. But I decided to return the book (I want to be in good standing with the library) and will consider purchasing my own copy in the future.

A few of the passages that really resonated with me:
Our kids need to be equipped now to participate in the future. The job market of tomorrow is a lush opportunity for creative, independent thinkers with well-honed problem-solving skills and an entrepreneurial drive.

The book broke down the different learning styles into four categories. This would be useful for any parent to know about their child. I believe that Jack, age 5, is already firmly in the Promethean Temperament category. The goal of the Promethean is to be competent. He does this by acquiring knowledge and exercising great patience and tenacity in delaying action until a rational, pragmatic, and carefully calculated conclusion can be drawn. He gives little credence to his emotions or desires. This is Gorlay's conceptual-specific learner.

In the early years, your goal should be breadth. Give your kids exposure to all subject areas through reading, field trips, and opportunities. The purpose is to bring to the surface their areas of talents and interests. This is so so you can begin to discern God's calling upon each of their lives.

For anyone considering homeschooling, this book or something similar is worth your time. I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson (the paleontologist from Dinosaur Train) has been popping up on my radar recently, so when I saw it at my library, I thought I should read it. Overall this is a good book – it provides a framework for mentoring children in nature (regardless of how they are schooled). 

One of the goals of the book is to pull together as much research as possible on this subject in one concise place in an effort to encourage parents to get their kids to love nature. This book references several other books that I have previously read, including everyone's favorite: Last Child in the Woods. In some ways it felt a bit redundant, but that has more to do with my personal philosophy, and other books I have read, than the book itself. I'm totally on board with the child-in-nature goal, so a lot of the information felt a bit basic for me. But this is still a worthy read, especially if you are uncomfortable with kids being free in nature and you need a little push, or suggestions, for helping your kids make these types of meaningful connections.

A glimpse of some of the passages that really stood out to me:
Teens returning from one- or two-week wilderness excursions frequently report that these programs were among the most influential, worthwhile, and satisfying experiences of their lives. [I can totally attest to this. I participated in Wilderness Trek, a week-long backpacking trip, during four summers of my teenage years and those trips were among the most defining moments of my life.]

At the risk of sounding overly harsh, public education in North America today [Dr. Scott is Canadian but has spent most of his career in the US] is still geared toward control, obedience, and self-restraint much more than engagement, inspiration, and empowerment.
 

Beyond teaching and testing, however, perhaps the greatest problem with our current education system is its irrelevence to everyday life.

Wired magazine listed Best 5 Toys of All Time as 1) a stick, 2) a box, 3) string, 4) a cardboard tube, 5) dirt.

Heavy consumption of information technologies reduces attention span and makes us more easily distracted. Regular interruptions (like e-mail and text messaging) tent to increase stress and decrease short-term memory, making it more difficult to learn or perform even the simplest tasks. Brain researches are becoming increasingly convinced that excessive screen time makes us more impatient, impulsive, forgetful, and even narcissistic.

There is definitely a lot of good information in this book and I wrote down a list of additional books I hope to read. I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads. 

A friend recently lent me Play The Forest School Way: Woodland Games and Crafts for Adventurous Kids by Peter Houghton. This is a book I plan to purchase to use as a resource for our homeschool. The book is full of activities for children (ages 4-11). Each section gives you a list of items you need to complete the project, specific instructions and also additional information on how to tie the projects to education.

A few highlights from this book:
Forest School is an inspirational process that offers all learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experience in woodland or natural environments with trees.

Research suggests that young children learn most from experience by using their senses actively rather than passively, and it is via these experiences that the learning remains with us into adulthood.

From play comes real knowledge about the environment and a direct connection with nature, and a sense of belonging, of wonder, and of respect for life. 

I did not rate this on Goodreads yet as I have not used it as a resource or completed any of the suggested projects.. 

Over the course of the last several weeks, I read the third book in The Guardians series, Toothiana: Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies, by William Joyce to Jack. I have to say that I am loving the series, but it feels like Jack is over it. He typically plays Legos while I read and we periodically discuss what is going on (he wants to see all of the drawings), but he hasn't been really paying attention. He says he wants to continue with the final book. He is excited that the next book has Jack Frost as a supporting character – he's pumped that Jack Frost shares his name, and I have promised we will watch the movie when we finally finish, so that helps. I think he will have to reread the series in a couple of years when he has more patience for it.

I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

Honorable Mention:
We read another from the Flat Stanley series by creator Jeff Brown to Jack this month. This time he picked out The Amazing Mexican Secret (Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures #5). I think he may be losing interest in Flat Stanley since we only read this book through one time.

Right now Jack picks out five books every time we visit the library and we read through all of them multiple times, along with our own books at home that continue to be long-time favorites.

A post shared by Cheree Moore (@mo_haus) on May 30, 2017 at 4:32pm PDT

Isaac's Favorite Books are currently Your Baby's First Word Will Be DADA by Jimmy Fallon and I Know a Wee Piggy by Kim Norman. Most of our baby and toddler books I could quote in my sleep at this point in my life...

Books Read #11-16 ⎮ Arpil 2017

The month of April was another good month for reading, not only for myself but also our kids. We have been adding library visits as part of our monthly activities. Jack loves picking out new books for himself, some chapter books and a lot of picture books. We read every night at bed, but also during the day. Isaac is getting in on the reading action as well. He brings me picture books all day long to read. He insists on two at a time – one for him to hold while I read the other aloud, and then we switch.

The best book I read this month was Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education by Ken Robinson. I wrote more extensively about it in my recent blog post about our plans to homeschool. If you are interested in the directions of schools in our country (regardless of how your child is being educated), this book is worth reading.

I gave it a 5/5 on Goodreads.

One of my favorite blogs is We Are THAT Family by Kristen Welch. I enjoy her style of writing, her view of the world, how she's raises her children and shares her faith. Last month I finally had a chance to finish her book Rhinestone Jesus: Saying Yes to God When Sparkly, Safe Faith Is No Longer Enough. This book shares her personal story of how God can work through ordinary people to do amazing things. In her case, this meant opening Mercy House, a home for single mother's in Kenya. I think her story is an encouraging one, though I have to admit I like her writing style more on her blog than the book. But it is still a worthwhile read to see how God works through people today.

I gave it a 3/5 on Goodreads.

Our small group has been making it's way through the book Graced Filled Marriage: The Missing Piece, The Place to Start by Tim Kimmel over the course of the last several months. While this book has some good nuggets in it, it's not the best marriage book I have read. However, it did work as a good catalyst for discussion in our small group. But that probably has more to do with our group than the book.

I gave it a 3/5 on Goodreads.
 

Since we are on the brink of starting homeschool, I have been doing a lot of research on what I will be teaching this fall. Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time by Jamie C. Martin is a book that kept showing up on my radar. Then Amazon had it on sale, so I went ahead and ordered it. It is written by the author/founder of SimpleHomeschool, a blog/resource for homeschoolers, and her book is a resource for bringing the world to your child. She writes about her multi-national family and how that has affected her life and the second half of the book is a source list, broken down by country, continent and age appropriateness. I look forward to diving into the books she listed and bringing the whole world into our home.

I didn't rate this on Goodreads since I have not actually been able to use it as a resource yet.

Another school-related book I picked up last month was Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever by Mem Fox. Mem is an Australian author and literacy expert who travels the world sharing her incite on how to teach children to not only read, but to love reading. This was an encouraging book to read. I naturally do a lot of the principles that she teaches and this book instills confidence that I am on the right path with my own children. The last chapter of Mem's book shares a list of books to read aloud to your children. This list is now top on my list of reading resources for our kindergarten homeschool experience this fall.

Passages that really spoke to me from Reading Magic:
Children who are read to early and regularly quickly acquire the skill of listening and the desire to hear stories. They understand the immense pleasure waiting for them in books and develop the ability to concentrate and relax.

The more expressively we read, the more fantastic the experience will be. The more fantastic the experience, the more our kids will love books...

Children who have been read aloud to regularly do expect to make sense from print. They know about rhyme and rhythm and repetition. They know how real stories work, which makes it easier for them to read real stories. They can predict that certain words, patterns and plots will occur, and they're proven right. *I have seen this first-hand with Jack. He naturally expects words to rhyme and can often guess what comes next. Rhyme, rhythm and repetition are huge for me and my own love of reading stories to him.


The more we know about life, the universe, and everything, the easier it is to read.

...we need to help beginning readers make rapid progress through a story so they're able to remember what they're reading. Then they'll relax and make more sense of the print...

The whole point of books is to allow us to experience troubled realities that are different from our own, to feel the appropriate emotions, to empathize, to make judgements, and to have our interest held. If we sanitize everything children read, how much more shocking and confusing will the real world be when they finally have to face it?

A phonics-only approach can never teach children to long to read.

If you are teaching a child to read, or just want to help your child along, this book is worth taking the time to read. At the very least, the biggest take-away is READ ALOUD, READ ALOUD, READ ALOUD.

I gave it a 5/5 on Goodreads.

I read the second book in The Guardians series, E. Aster Bunnymund and the Warrior Eggs at the Earth's Core by William Joyce aloud to Jack (and Isaac). Like Nicholas St. North, it is slightly above his age level, but he sits and listens to me read. He has enjoyed the pictures throughout and especially likes to hear about the fight scenes. We are moving on to the third book in the series now. I am enjoying it and I think we will re-read the entire series in a few years when he shows a bit more interest. 

I gave it a 5/5 on Goodreads.

Honorable Mention:
Jack continues to love the Flat Stanley series by Jeff Brown. This month we read Flat Stanley in Space. By reading a chapter or two each night, we were able to read this book twice before he it had to go back to the library.

My favorite picture book in the month of April was The Pirate Jamboree by Mark Teague. I read a ton of picture books to both my boys. I am ONLY including chapter books in these blog posts because these otherwise these posts would be incredibly long.

Books Read #8-10 ⎮ March 2017

Last summer I read the book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and it gave me pause regarding how children in our country are spending less and less time outside (including a reduction in recess at school), and how that lack of time spent in nature is having a detrimental affect on learning and other aspects of life.

My brain has been mulling over what would be the best schooling option as our oldest fast approaches his first year of formal education. To be honest, I was pretty sure we were going to do public school. I had a good public school experience and the schools where we live are excellent. But then I sat down and read The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch.

The more I read, the more I started to have doubts. Not about our excellent local schools, but about schooling in America in general. Diane Ravitch, who has has been writing education policy starting under the first President George Bush, clearly outlines what has been happening in our country since the 1980s and it is discouraging. Especially when it comes to younger grades. A 7-hour school day seems like overkill for kindergarten, and the lack of time to play outside concerns me a lot – especially when compared to high-performing countries like Finland where testing is not a priority, and play is an integral part of a child's day.

In addition to this book, I have read countless articles, like This Really Isn't Kindergarten Anymore in the Washington Post, that echo many of my concerns and make me think there has to be a better way for schooling than what currently exists in our country.

At this life stage, I am a stay-at-home mom with the ability to educate my kids at home, and the more I read, the more I think that is what will fit us best, at least for now.

Passages that stuck out the most to me from The Death and Life of the Great American School System:

Tests are necessary and helpful. But tests must be supplemented by human judgment. When we define what matters in education only by what we can measure, we are in serious trouble. When that happens, we tend to forget that schools are responsible for shaping character, developing sound minds and healthy bodies, and forming citizens for our democracy, not just for teaching basic skills.

American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education.

Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education... without a comprehensive liberal arts education, our students will not be prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy, nor will they be equipped to make decisions based on knowledge, thoughtful debate and reason. 

... at the same time that scores go up, the youngsters may be ignorant of current events, the structure of our government and other governments, the principles of economics, the fundamentals of science, the key works of literature of our culture and others, the practice and appreciation of the arts, or the major events and ideas that have influenced our nation and the world. Even as their scores go up, they may be devoid of any desire to deepen their understanding of knowledge and may have no interest in reading anything for their own enlightenment and pleasure. And so we may find that we have obtained a paradoxical and terrible outcome: higher test scores and worse education.

Reformers often say that the teacher is the single most important factor in raising a student's test scores. This is not quite right. Researchers have consistently concluded that the teacher is the single most important factor that affects student learning inside the school, but non-school factors matter a great deal more... teachers can have a profound influence on their students, but on average, what families do or don't do influences academic outcomes even more.

The last quote resonates with me the most, I have always held fast to the belief that no matter what education is available to my kids, at the end of the day, Daniel and I will have the biggest influence on our children's education. We will be the ones to fill in the gaps and guide them to learn the things we believe to be important, in addition to what they learn from others. If you are wanting a good overview of the state of our schools, this book is a long but worthy read.

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Another book I read last month was The Whole 30: The Official 30-day Guide To Total Health And Food Freedom by Melissa Hartwig. I feel like a have a good handle on exercise but my nutrition could be better. I like the idea of Whole 30, but finding the time to commit is daunting. Also, I have come to realize that my end goal in health is not to be skinny, but to be healthy and also to be able to enjoy good food. "Diet" type of meal plans always make me feel like I have to give up eating delicious food. I enjoyed reading the "whys" behind this meal plan, but am not ready to commit to 30 days of anything.

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I recently started reading Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King (The Guardians #1) by William Joyce to Jack. It is written for older kids (probably 8-10 is ideal), but we are enjoying it. I have been surprised that Jack (age 5) will sit still for a chapter at a time. Sometimes he plays Legos, but he is listening. I have to explain parts of it and he doesn't get all of the nuances, but I am really enjoying it. I think we will re-read the series when he is older, or he can even read it to himself later.

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Honorable Mention:
Jack and I are continuing with the Flat Stanley series by Jeff Brown. This month we read The Japanese Ninja Surprise (Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures #3) by Sara Pennypacker, Jeff Brown (Series Creator), and Macky Pamintuan. Jack loved this book since it is about Ninjas, and we are in the process of rereading it at bedtime.

Books Read #6-7 ⎮ February 2017

In February I completed two books and am currently halfway through a third. I was lucky to take two last-minute trips to the beach and honestly thought I would read more, but relaxing with no agenda had its perks too.

The first book I completed was The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America by Mark Sundeen. I really wanted to like this book but it kind of fell short of my expectations. The author follows the lives of three very different couples as they attempt to leave mainstream culture to pursue their personal visions of the American dream. The first couple, Sarah and Ethan, leave the world as they knew it behind and move to a plot of land in Missouri with the Amish as their closest neighbors. They had high expectations with strict rules for their style of living including living without electricity, running water or cars, growing their own food, having a just cause, and not supporting industry. At their compound they host visitors throughout the year who come learn their way of living.

The second couple, Olivia and Greg, live in Detroit, Michigan where they are part of a grassroots effort that is converting abandoned city blocks to urban farms. Their daily struggles are very different from the other couples in the book in that they encounter violence on a seemingly daily basis. But they are not afraid to protect themselves or their farm. In their case, they are using the skills they have acquired to grow food and make a living in a place that it is next to impossible to get ahead, especially if you happen to be black and don't work for the auto industry.

The third couple, Luci and Steve, are older and have been farming in Montana for several decades. As an original part of the organic, and then local food movement, their goal was never about healthy or gourmet food choices per se, but rather about ethical economic behavior. They currently use solar as a main source of energy which means they have electricity and make money from selling their power back to the grid. This poses some ethical issues for them, but they choose to participate in the system in this way, even though they are predominantly off the grid.

The stories of these families were fascinating and I would have like to learn more about them – an entire book could probably be devoted to each family's effort to pioneer their portion of the country. My issue with the book has to do with the author. He spends a lot of time interjecting his own feelings and experiences on to the other people's stories in an attempt to figure out his own life and whether or not he should follow through and marry his fiance. It was very distracting and didn't really add to the book. Also, it felt like there wasn't actually much of a point to the book, other than to say, "Hey! These families are living off the grid in different ways. They grow their own food and don't have electricity, isn't that cool?"

The best parts of the book for me was that these families seemed to recognize that they could be friends with people who were vastly different from them politically. That is a view I have long held and I think it needs to be examined by more Americans.

Some of Ethan and Sarah's closest friends these days were not fellow activists, but rather their conservative neighbors, Don and Dana Miller. The two couples agreed not to broach certain subjects... "If we looked at our differences, we could not have a relationship. We love them for who they are not for how they live." – Dana Miller

The people in this book believe –and show– that sacrifice leads to abundance. And that's the same allure of marriage, that by giving up one element of freedom we gain something greater.

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

The second book I finished was The Wonder Trail by Steve Hely, a writer for The Office and American Dad! As someone who loves to travel and read other people's travel experiences, I found this book to be mediocre. The beginning was humorous and promising but Hely spends a good portion of his book quoting other people's books and very little time describing his travels – mostly recounting his experiences partying with strangers who are much younger than him. If you are looking for a humous travelogue, I would suggest you pick up Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir by Franz Wisner or The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost.

Best quote from The Wonder Trail:

The experience you get isn't always what you were looking for. What you were after sometimes turns out not to be the point. But who cares? What matters is the trip you took to get there.

I gave this book 2 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. 

Honorable Mention:
I read Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure by Jeff Brown to my five-year-old this month. He is excited to read more of the Flat Stanley series. 

Books Read #1-5 ⎮ January 2017

January is coming to a close and my reading is off to a good start with five books finished. I started the month with an introduction to a young author who writes fiction in the fantasy-Christian genre, if there is such a thing. Her writing is stylistically similar to The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and she has also been likened to George Macdonald (who happens to be one of my parents favorite authors, but I have never read his books). 

Rachel Starr Thomson writes in a captivating way that really held my attention and sparked my imagination, which I appreciate, and she's Canadian! I don't read a lot of fiction, so I think her books are worth reading because I kept wanting to read more. 

This month I read Exile and Hive from The Oneness Cycle series (there are 5 books in the series), an allegory titled Journey, and finally the first book in The Seventh World trilogy, Worlds Unseen.

I enjoyed The Oneness Cycle books, but there were a few times I got a little lost in the story. I do hope to complete the whole series as I have time. My favorite book so far was Worlds Unseen. The writing is beautiful and I spent an entire Saturday shirking my mom duties to finish. Journey was written in a similar style to Pilgrim's Progress. It was a quick read, really more of a short story than a novel, that uses prose to describe the christian walk.

After I exhausted my free downloads from Rachel Starr Thomson, I headed to my local library and picked up a book that has been on my to read list for a while: The Collapse of Parenting by Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D.

On occasion Daniel and I will discuss our parenting, and we wonder if we are doing it right. Are we teaching our kids the right things? We don't want them to grow up to feel entitled to anything. We want them to be respectful and kind to everyone. We want them to work hard and earn their own successes. Obviously there is more than that, but these are a few of the things that we discuss.

The Collapse of Parenting makes me think we are doing fine in our parenting efforts. Dr. Sax puts an emphasis on teaching children respect by being an authority in their lives, he stresses the importance of family meals as often as possible together, and reminds parents to limit technology and put down the phones. He also discusses the propensity of American parents to defer to teachers and doctors who tend to over-medicate children in an attempt to get the kids to behave. He says Americans, in particular, have adopted a pass the buck mentality – parents aren't willing to discipline, teachers are limited on how much they can discipline, and doctors are willingly prescribing strong drugs to keep the kids in line.

I thought the book was a good read, and definitely had excellent points throughout. As for our parenting, I think a lot of what we do as parents is in line with the suggestions that Dr. Sax makes in his book.

A few passages that stuck out to me:

The right kind of humility helps you to recognize your own shortcomings. To be better prepared. To understand the risks. And to take those risk courageously, when necessary.

The antidote to the culture of bloated self-esteem is the culture of humility... The culture of humility leads to gratitude, appreciation, and contentment. The key to lasting happiness is contentment.

Train up your child in the way they should go, and when they grow up and move away from home, you will have improved the odds (paraphrase of one of the Proverbs)... There are no guarantees. But the research strongly suggests that if you instill habits of good behavior and self-control in your son or daughter throughout childhood and adolescence, then you have improved the odds that your child will continue to do the right thing after leaving home.
 
At some level... many Americans... have accepted the idea that the primary purpose of K-12 schooling... is to get accepted into a selective college... That's a mistake. The primary purpose of education should be to prepare for life, not for more school... The skills needed to get into a top university are not the same as those needed for a successful life...

What I'm Reading in 2016 (#12)

A couple of things I am learning about myself: I really like non-fiction. Sometimes I feel like I should read more fiction because everyone else is doing it. But really, I am happy learning about other people's real experiences (both current and past). Also, a few years ago I would have been bummed about the fact that my amount of reading has dropped off so much in recent years. But again, I think I'm ok with that. Sure, I wish I was reading more, but during this season of my life, there are nights I just want to zone out watching Netflix.

Anyways, back to the actual reading. I just finished up A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles by Mary Elizabeth Williams. The book is about Mary Elizabeth's personal fight against Stage 4 melanoma and it is filled with humor and sadness.

I do not have any personal experience with cancer, nor has anyone close to be experienced this dreadful disease, but I think Mary Elizabeth's writing is relatable because hardship touches us all. Everyone will experience difficult things in one form or another at some point in their lifetime. I have come to believe that these hard things are what make us human and give us empathy to understand one another.

In one of her descriptions, Mary Elizabeth describes sitting with her husband and feeling the heaviness of what was happening. "We don't talk a lot, we just share the quiet space of defeat."

This reminded me so much of our response the day we learned of my miscarriage. Daniel and I had a post-doctor lunch date planned. It was supposed to be celebratory. Instead we ate our meal in silence and then walked down to the river and sat in quiet defeat. We didn't know what the future held, but we had that moment. Just us. Facing the unknown together.

Another passage that spoke to me:
But in addition to keeping the faith, you know what else you do when you have Stage 4 cancer? You have to do your laundry. You have to buy groceries. You have to do your job. You have to make your kids brush their teeth. You have to clean up and do it all over again the next day that you are just trying to stay around for. The world doesn't grind to a haul because your life might.

When Daniel was laid off from his job, we felt this type of a burden. We had to keep living life, even though no one else had this big heavy thing hanging over them. Our lives came to a halt, while our friends and co-workers lives kept spinning. No it wasn't cancer but we felt a version of these same feelings.

Sometimes when I consider what people can live with and keep going, it shocks me. It's like life after I had a baby and realized that the world was full of exhausted women with lacerated perinea and clogged milk ducts who were managing to successfully keep small, helpless human beings alive. Now I know it is also full of people who go to the doctor – have shattering experiences and then show up with their kids at parties...

Before I experienced hardship, I too had no knowledge that people were walking around dealing with hard things. Things like parents divorcing, sickness in the family, a lump in my breast at age 22 (which was thankfully nothing), blood clots that sent me to the hospital for a week, a spouse losing their job and being unemployed for a year, moving for work, having kids, having a miscarriage, the difficulties of marriage, the difficulties of parenting. Until you walk through those experiences you have no idea that there are others like you. Maybe their difficulties are not always obvious, but you discover that you are not alone in this thing called life.

That is what I took away from Mary Elizabeth's book. She was lucky that she circumstances aligned that cured her of her cancer. That is not always the case. I think her book shows the power of finding people who are on similar journeys. Our journeys are all different, but the ability to support and encourage one another is one of the amazing things about being human.

I think that when people watch someone going through something like this and say. "I don't know how they do it," they don't understand that the answer is "Because they didn't have a choice."

Things I Read in August (#10-11)

I haven't been reading as much as I would like this year. I have several books downloaded on my Kindle, but reading on an eletronic device continues to lack the appeal of a tangible book.

Before we left for our vacation, I managed to run by the library and pick up two books from my "to read" list. The first was When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. The second was Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. Very different books, but both are worth reading. I will share my thoughts on Richard Louv's book tomorrow in my Outside 365 post.

I first heard of Paul Kalanithi's story on the blog A Cup of Jo. Paul was married to Jo's twin sister and the unexpected news of his brain tumor was gut wrenching. It was the beginning of 2014 and Paul had written an essay that had been published in The New York Times of what it was like to be a neurosurgeon diagnosed with a brain tumor. His essay was raw and personal. He was close to my age and the whole scenario had me weeping at my computer. For him. For his wife.

A little over a year later, Paul died. It was shocking and sad. He left behind his wife, child, parents, siblings.

A year after Paul's death his memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, was published. In the pages of this book, Paul outlines his journey to neurosurgery, his search for meaning, and his experience facing death on a very personal level – with the irony of dying by brain tumor.

Paul was certainly taken from this life too soon. He had a profound perspective that we can't understand, until we too face death. And even then his perspective is different due to his age and knowledge of impending death. I will leave you with some of the passages from the book that have stayed with me:

As I sat there, I realized that the questions intersecting life, death, and meaning, questions that all people face at some point, usually arise in the medical context.

Death comes for us all. For us, for our patients; it is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms.

Grand illnesses are supposed to be life clarifying. Instead I knew I was going to die – but I'd known that before. My state of knowledge was the same, but my ability to make lunch plans had been shot to hell.

Yet I returned to the central values of Christianity – sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness – because I found them so compelling. There is tension in the Bible between justice and mercy, between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the New Testament says you can never be good enough: goodness is the thing, and you can never live up to it. The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.

On a lighter note, here is a sampling of what I've been reading online lately:
No Food is Healthy, Not Even Kale via The Washington Post
How to Listen When You Disagree via Urban Confessional
Race, Truth and Our Two Realities via The New York Times
Why Calls for "Unity" in American Politics are Not Enough via Quartz
A Few Thoughts on Unity via Design for Mankind
Encouraging Everyone to Vote Is Like Telling Everyone... via Mike Rowe
Nine Ways Lazy Parenting Helps Grow Great Grown Ups via Anna Rosenblum Palmer
The Great School Diaspora via Discover Praxis
What Your Kids Need to Know Before Starting School via Babble

Things I Read in June (#7-9)

Disclaimer: Penguin Random House sent me the following trilogy to review. All opinions about these books are my own.

I am not one to turn down free books, even if they are a genre I might not typically read. That is where I found myself when Penguin reached out to ask if I would review the final book in the Kerning Family trilogy by Michael McGarrity. I replied saying I was willing to review the book in question but that I had not read the first two books. They offered to send me all three.

So last month I found myself diving into a Western series that I probably would not have given a second glance. Here are my thoughts.

First up in the trilogy is Hard Country. This book introduces us to the first of the Kerning cowboys who are attemping to build lives for themselves in the wild west, but they are only managing to scratch out a miserly living. In this book we are introduced to the first two generations of Kerney men. This book was fascinating in its look into cowboys and the early United States spanning the years of 1875-1918, but I had a hard time getting into this book as there was very little dialogue. The abruptness of the difficult things that happened during this book was a bit shocking, and left me with more questions than answers. Overall I wish there was more character development of this old, forgotten generation.

The second book, Backlands, introduces us to Matthew, a third generation Kerney cowboy. This book has more character development and I began to get a better understanding of who this family was. I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the author, but as the books developed and crossed decades, the language of the book became freer. Almost as if the late 1800s and early 1900s were too difficult for the people to waste breath telling their stories. This second book is more about the relationships that developed within the family and how the past continued to shape their decisions in the present. This was my favorite book of the series and made me anxious to read more.

And the final installment of the trilogy, The Last Ranch, introduces Kevin, the fourth generation Kerney. In this book we see relationships being mended between generations. Kevin Kerney brings us into a more recent time period and the relationships and language describing the relationships gets even looser. I closed out this trilogy right before July 4th and it made an impression on me as I thought about how much our country has changed over the last 240 years. Within the span of a few generations our lives are so different from our forefathers. It was also fascinating reading about these men who fought in so many different wars – Cuba, WWI, WWII and finally Vietnam. Those glimpses of war and love for country is not something I think about in my day-to-day life.

The author has a series of books about Kevin Kerney (written in the 90s). This trilogy felt like a prequel to that series and I have to be honest and say that I wasn't a fan that the final book wasn't neatly wrapped up. I probably won't continue with the series, but if you are a fan of westerns and want a long-standing series (longer than a trilogy) to read, I think you would enjoy these books. I enjoyed the historical parts and I think the author was well researched.

I gave all three books 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I enjoyed them and they are definitely books I would recommend to my dad and anyone else I know who loves westerns or historical fiction.

Here is a sampling of what I've been reading online lately:
10 Rules of Easy Entertaining via A Cup of Jo
How to Not Take Things Personally via Design for Mankind
The Internet is Making Us Dumb via Salon
The End of Reflection via The New York Times
In Praise of "Scruff Hospitality" via Mother Nature Network
The Problem for Obama via The Telegraph
From 80s Latchkey Kid to Helicopter Parent via CNN.com
Why Constant Learners All Embrace the 5-Hour Rule via inc.com
Thoughts on Being American via Fresh Off The Grid
Notes from the Child-Full Life via Outside Online