Winnie the Pooh, and The Boy, Too

The Boy and I just finished our latest read-aloud books: Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. We watched the old Pooh cartoons, too. He loved all of it. So much that this is what bedtime looks like:

For the past few nights--every night--he's had his Winnie the Pooh baby quilt, his uncle's old Pooh, and a not-quite-authentic Owl, Rabbit, Piglet, and Tigger. I asked him whether that makes him Christopher Robin, but he thought that was silly.

And yes, I've now heard every Pooh (i.e., poo) joke that a six-year-old boy can dream up. Several times. For weeks.

A Crisis of Textbook Proportions

So...I've mentioned a few (or a million) times that I'm finishing my bachelor's degree through BYU Independent Study. I'm sorry if you guys are getting tired of me blabbering about this all the time (unless you're not tired of it...in which case, you haven't been reading my blog often enough. ;)

Anyway, I just finished up a class on the New Testament and registered for a class on Creative Writing. Super excited about this one, because I'm a nerd like that. (I may have mentioned that nerd thing, too.) And I was also super excited to order the textbooks.

I needed three books for this class. Two of them showed up at my house within a week. One did not:

Isn't that cover gross? Just sayin'.

Anyways, I checked the mail every stinkin' day. I had to have that book to start my classwork--it's used right from lesson 1. One week went by, two weeks went by...

...and then I lost track of how long I'd been waiting. But it felt like fooooreeeeveeerrrr.

So then last Saturday, I woke up, sat up in bed, looked across the room at the bookshelf opposite my bed, AND THE EXACT SAME BOOK WAS ALREADY SITTING ON MY SHELF.

Well, not exactly the same. It was an earlier edition. I'd bought it when it was new, in 2003, for some class or other. And then I saved it, just in case I needed it for another class. Turns out that I DID NEED IT. Eight years later. After I'd forgotten that I had it.

I flipped through the course manual to see if my edition was close enough that I could get started with my classwork--and it was. So I did a happy dance and got started.

(Nerd.)

So yeah, that was Saturday. The book I'd bought arrived in the mail on Monday. Heh. And I really am going to need that one; it has some stuff in it that my moldy-oldy 2003 edition doesn't have.

So here I go, writing creatively...and it looks like this class might not interfere with my blogging time. More on that later. Because school is really all I ever talk about anymore.

The Storybook Shelf

So...I made a third blog. Y'know, because I do such a good job of keeping up my other two blogs. (Heh.) It's like...a children's book review blog. I love to read, and I love all kinds of books. And I love recommending books to other people. So I started The Storybook Shelf to help me remember children's books my family has liked, and to maybe help my friends find books that their kids might like. Children's books are fun, and let's be honest...both children and adults can enjoy a good children's book. It doesn't quite work the same with grown-up books. So, if that sounds like something you might want to look at, click on through. I don't update it very often yet, but I hope to pick up the pace soon.

Learning Time: Stories

The very last thing we do for "learning time" is read a pile of picture books.  This is the part of learning time that takes the most time--and it should, because it's the most important.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this post, and about how to explain why reading aloud is so important.  I finally gave up and decided to just recommend this book:

Click on the picture to go to Amazon (I'm not an Amazon affiliate or anything...I just like the book).  The Read-Aloud Handbook is full--FULL--of research on why reading aloud is important for your child's growth.  There's more to it than you think.  This book includes info on everything from television, to library funding, to Harry Potter phenomenon--and the effect they have on your child.  In the back of the book, there's a huge annotated list of good books for reading aloud.  (This is the author's website, if you want to visit it, but I really recommend the book.)

Read it.  No, really.  Read it.  Your local library should have it; it's pretty popular.

And that's how "learning time" goes at our house.  Thanks for playing along!  Next time: back to our regularly scheduled programming.

30-Second Book Review: Skippyjon Jones

Skippyjon Jones is a little kitty-boy whose head is too beeg for his body, and whose ears are too beeg for his head...so he's convinced that he's a Chihuahua. Skippyjon goes on imaginary adventures in his closet with his pretend Chihuahua pals, the Chimichangos. My mom gave us some Skippyjon Jones books when Little Boy was born, and I put them away because they were too long for his baby attention span. And then I forgot all about them. And I still don't know where they are, exactly. But! I saw this at the library and snatched it up. We don't have this one at home: And let me tell you, these books are fantastic for reading out loud. So if you have a three-ish year old kid in your life, I highly recommend them. Important note: Skippyjon also appears in some board books. I don't really recommend those. They're more about teaching colors and stuff....sorta...and don't have much story to them. Not so good for reading aloud. And they don't even do a very good job of teaching, in my opinion.

30-Second Book Review: Smart Couples Finish Rich

Isaac and I had only been married for a few months when I realized that I knew nothing about money. Nothing. I was twenty-one years old and financially clueless. Since I hate to feel clueless about anything, and because I had more time on my hands than Isaac did (at the time, I was working part-time; he was going to school and working, both full-time), I took it upon myself to learn as much as I could about money.

I was a little overwhelmed. It's been four years since then, and I've read a lot of books and articles--a lot of different people's ideas about what I should do with my money. Over time, I could see that some people's advice was based on solid principles, and other people's advice was...not.

Out of all that reading, I've come across plenty of good stuff. And out of the good stuff, there are three books that I recommend for absolutely everyone: The Millionaire Next Door, The Total Money Makeover, and Smart Couples/Smart Women Finish Rich.

I read Smart Women Finish Rich when I was just starting out; I finished Smart Couples Finish Rich a few days ago. The two are basically the same, so if you've read one, don't feel like you have to read the other. The Finish Rich books outline nine steps that anyone can take to improve their financial situation. You don't have to be wealthy already to take their advice, and I like that. Our family can't do all nine steps right now--we're not ready for that yet--but we can take a couple of steps that apply to our situation now. And then, once we've got those things covered, we can go back and work on a few more.

So if you feel like maybe you could benefit from learning a little more about money, pick this one up. Do as much or as little of it as you can. It might just make a difference to you and your family.

30-Second Book Review: Fablehaven

I read the first book in the Fablehaven series a year ago, after I bought it for my twelve-year-old sister--and I'm pretty sure I liked it more than she did. Funny, since she's closer to the target demographic.

 The books are written for kids, so they're a quick read. They're not on the same level as Harry Potter or Eragon, but the stories are still fun and engaging. One thing I like about these books is that they don't take themselves too seriously. A couple of quotes from the fourth book, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary:

"Grandma held a crossbow."
 -and-
  "Seth regretted having shown the troll that every Yahtzee deserved a victory dance."

Seriously, you can't go wrong with trolls and Yahtzee.

Veggies and Tiddly-Winks

30-Second Book Review: The China Study, by Dr. T. Colin Campbell

Now, this one's a little controversial. The main point of the book is that a plant-based diet is much healthier than an animal-based diet. In fact, according to the author's research (he's a well-known, award-winning nutritionist), a plant-based diet can possibly reverse some of our nation's deadliest diseases.

That part was interesting. The most interesting part, though, was the end. Dr. Campbell writes about why, if there's all this research about the benefits of a plant-based diet, the public doesn't hear more about it. It has to do with money vs. real science, and how Americans just don't want to give up their burgers. Hmm...anyway, it's worth a read.

---

Quotes of the Day

I have a backlog of quotes from the holidays. Here we go:

Thane: "We're not here to argue; we're here to trade Tiddly-Winks."
~
  Andrea: "This is the sound of my face exploding."
Thane: "And of all things, it's 'La Bamba.'"
~
  Andrea: "This snow is bouncy! It's bouncing off the windshield!"
Kaylyn: "It's frozen rain."
Andrea (in denial): "Shh. It's snow."
Kaylyn: "Wow, this snow is bouncy!"
~
  Andrea: "I wonder how many Rubik's Cubes have been returned because customers thought they were defective?"
~
  TV: "Critics say Leverage is better than the last two Ocean's Eleven movies..."
Thane: "But not the first one. That goes without saying."