Nevermoor = SoMuchMore!

Forgive me internet for I have sinned.  It has been 5 years - 5 years! - since my last post.

And what has hauled me back into this strange blog place?

This

 

 





Morrigan Crow is a Cursed Child.  Born on Eventide 11 years before, she and all the other children born on then are destined to die on the next Eventide, an event that happens roughly every 12 years.  Not only are they cursed to die but the children are also blamed for anything unfortunate that happens in their communities during their lifetimes.  As a result, Morrigan has grown up shunned and lonely but with a fierce sense of self.  When Eventide and her foretold death arrives, she is rescued from the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow (the ghosts who take the cursed children) by the strange and mysterious Jupiter North and whisked away from Jackalfax to a city she has never heard of -- Nevermoor.

Jupiter reveals that he plans to sponsor her for membership in Wunderous Society.  Only nine children are accepted each year out of hundreds.  They must go through three trials, each trial weeding out unlucky candidates, then demonstrate their "knack" before judges and the entire city.

For the first time in her life, Morrigan has friends. And she gets to live her Jupiter's hotel, Hotel Deucaloin where her room magically changes according to her interests, head of housekeeping is a giant cat, and every room has something new and interesting.  It would be just about perfect except ... Morrigan doesn't have a knack.  Or at least one that she knows about.  If she doesn't make it through the final trial and gain entrance into the Wunderous Society, she will be sent back to Jackalfax where the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow wait.


This book is awesome.  On a scale of 1(50 Shades) to  10 (Harry Potter) it is a solid 9, easy.  I read it in on a Sunday and on Monday started listening to the audiobook of it at work. Then I recommended it to anyone who showed any indications they could read.  And now I'm recommending it to the interwebs.

All the stories ever told are based on a handful of plots.  We know more or less where each story is going to go when it starts, what really matters is the journey the author takes to get us there. Have they created a world I want to spend time in and characters I want to spend time with?  Are there enough twists to keep me interested even though I have a good idea of the basic plot?  Jessica Townsend manages all these thing in this book

I want to stay at Hotel Deucalion, I want to experience the Battle of Christmas, and I especially want to kick Morrigan's father in the knee.  I want to know who the Grey Man is and how he manages to move between Nevermoor and Jackalfax, something which is supposed to be impossible (Jupiter North's excursions aside).  And I want to meet Jupiter North, who strikes me as very similar to the Eleventh Doctor.

Jessica Townsend's writing reminds me of J. K. Rowling, mixing darker themes with lighter moments and highlighting the relationships among the characters.

The book has already been optioned for a movie (please no!) and a sequel to it comes out in November 1, 2018, a mere 125 days away.

My Manifesto for my Family

Manifesto is a cool word -- sounds like I'm taking over the world, but it just means a stated plan or intention.  Here is the manifesto I created a year ago for my family while I was in the midst of dealing with angst around the behaviour of one of my boys (you know who you are!).



My Manifesto for My Family
* open to interpretation and different methods of implementation

Love

• You are my child/partner and I will always love you.  I will not always love the things you do or the attitudes you have but I will always love you, just as you are. I won't love you more if you behave better; I won't love you less if you behave badly.

 

Loyalty

 

• I will always have your back.  I will always do what will benefit you most.  You may not always like it or agree with it.  No matter what happens, I will stand beside you.

Safety

• Home is a safe place where you can be yourself.  You will not be hurt or ridiculed.  You will be accepted just as you are.  You will not be allowed to hurt or ridicule anyone in this house.  If "who you are" hurts people, I will find you the resources to work through this.  Home is safe for everyone.

Encouragement

• I will always encourage you to go for your goals, try new things and take chances (within reason).  I will do whatever I can to help you.

 

Teaching and Learning

• I will teach you what I know, sometimes even things you don't want to know, like chores, consequences and responsibility.  I am willing to learn what you have to teach me, even if I don't want to. Things like patience, humility and that I'm not always right.

Being Together, Being Apart

• I want to spend time with you -- alone, with the family and with others.  I enjoy your company and we can't achieve the other items if we don't spend time together.  I also need time away from you -- and you need time away from me -- so we can be our own people with our own friends and interests.

Electric Lettuce - Couldn't Stand The Weather

This excellent guitar playing is done by my incredibly talented honey, Aaron Eldridge.  The band is Electric Lettuce.

On the bedside table January 13 to 20

It's been a while.

I've been reading (if I'm breathing, I'm reading) but just haven't been posting.  Got so far behind that it's easier just to start fresh.

Now I am reading but not as much as I'd like so I only have one book this week.



Here is where there should be a picture of the cover but for some reason it won't upload. 

I'm reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire.

This book is basically a biography of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West from birth to death.  It covers a lot of class and apartheid issues, as well as covering religion, government, and abuse of both.  It was a bit of a long read.  Definitely some slogging and I didn't find the ending very satisfying.  It felt like Elphie (the witch) worked very hard all her life to make a positive difference in . . . anything and died not only mis-interpreted but a failure.  There are three more books in the series.  I might try one more and see if it's worth continuing.  I found this one kind of depressing.

My take-away: Don't let someone else decide your fate.

On the bedside table July 7 to 20

I know, it's a two week list this time, but as you'll see, I had a lot of reading to do!  I didn't even finish one book (You're Not So Smart) before it had to go back to the library.

Here's what I've read in the last two weeks

Success Secrets of Sherlock Holmes (Acord) - An interesting book taking characteristics and habits of the fictional Sherlock Holmes and showing how we mortals can use them to be more successful in our lives.  I found the snippets of information about Conan Doyle more interesting than the self-help tips, most of which were pretty standard fare -- do what you love, pay attention to the details, etc. My take-away: I need to re-read the Sherlock Holmes books as I feel some of the traits Acord was lauding were ones that I had found grating when reading the books. 

A Wolf at the Table (Burroughs) -- I love Augesten Burroughs. LOVE him.  I've loved every book I've read by him.  That said, I often mix him up with David Sedaris, who I often confuse with Dave Eggers.  Anyway, this is a haunting memoir about the author's experience of growing up with a father who was clearly quite mentally ill, and how his mother tried to protect him in the best way she could at a time when a married woman didn't have a lot of options.  Burroughs tried vainly to elicit love from his father and the stories are sad, scary and sometimes funny.  Eventually Burrough's mother loses her grip on sanity as well, leaving him effectively orphaned and under the care of a tremendously unstable doctor (see his book Running with Scissors.  Don't see the movie, it's not good.).  Despite the abuse and disinterest Burroughs received from his father, he still tried to get the love and attention he so desperately craved right to the end of his father's life. Kudos to Augusten for turning out as well as he did and writing such great books. My take-away: Living with a crazy person can make you crazy.

The Last Apprentice series (Delaney) -- THIS is why it took two weeks to post.  I randomly picked up book 3 of this series and enjoyed it so I ordered the rest from the library, assuming they would come in at a leisurely pace. They all came in on the same day.  So I had seven books to read and luckily they were interesting enough that I read them all in one go.  Phew.  The basic premises is that the renowned Spook in the area (a Spook is a person who deals with the dark, driving away ghosts, battling witches and trying to make the area safe) has trained 30 apprentices, many of whom didn't survive, and hasn't found one that can replace him.  He takes on Tom Ward as his last apprentice and throughout the series they battle various forms of evil with the help of a young witch, Alice.  My favourite character doesn't appear until about book 4 or 5 -- Grimalkin, the witch assassin who swears she will kill Tom but ends up being his ally.  My take-away: only order one book at a time . . . .

On the bedside table, June 30 to July 6

My job recently lent me an Ipad to trial an application for work.  It's been interesting to have one.  Maybe I'm not using it right or something but I seriously don't understand the appeal of them.  I've downloaded some apps but the Ipad is too bulky to take with me everywhere, making the apps that seem most useful (Evernote etc.) much less useful.  One app I am liking is Overdrive because it lets me download books from the library.  So this week's books were downloaded and read on my Ipad.
Oh yeah, we downloaded Angry Birds as well. Stupid birds. I may never sleep again.

NurtureShock (Bronson/Merryman) -- ah, this is one of those books that I've read before and forgot until I was well into it and it all seemed familiar.  It's an interesting book about how a lot of the common wisdom we use in raising children (praise heavily to increase self-esteem, not talking about race will make children "colour blind") are wrong and actually cause the opposite effect.  I enjoyed the information in the book (yay information!) but then felt anxious and unsettled because I obviously caused my children great harm (because I belive in full catastrophe thinking) by following what seemed like the best parenting ideas at the time.  So, it's a good read for the information but not if you're looking for parenting support and tend to be insecure anyway.  My take-away: interesting bit about how babies actually learn new words which I'll revisit now that Carson is starting to talk.

Nerd Do Well (Pegg) -- I love Simon Pegg's movies. I think Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are hysterical.  And I wanted to like this book, I really did.  Unfortunately, I couldn't even finish it.  He intersperces his biographical bits with some fictious bits where he is a superhero? with a robot butler.  I ended up just skipping those bits but even with doing that it just  . . . drug.  In the introduction he mentions that writing a biography seems a little self-important and would try to downplay that aspect of it.  Which he did to the point where it wasn't intersting.  Normally I would perservere but a HUGE stack of library books, all with non-renewable return dates and the promise of something interesting inside them finally made me give up on this one.  A third through the book and he was still around 10.  My take-away: Just because someone can write a funny movie doesn't mean they can write an interesting book.

On the bedside table June 23 to 30

ugh! Not much reading done this week as the family (except for Aaron) has been down with gasteroentinitis, which is Latin for "Sucks to be you".  I only finished one book.

Peter and the Shadow Thieves (Barry/Pearson) -- The next book in the prequels to Peter Pan, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first, but that might be because I was reading it between vomiting spells.  In this book Peter returns to London to warn Molly (from the first book) that she's in danger.  He briefly meets J M Barrie, author of the original Peter Pan, and we are introduced to George Darling. My take-away: Don't read while you're sick, just rest. Or your dreams get weird.

On the bedside table* June 14 to 22

Although I call this blog "wilditude", the sharp-eyed may not that the website is "bookgeekbabe.blogspot.com".  That's because I am a huge book geek. (And a moderate babe).  I LOOOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEE  books.  So much.  Reading is my number one form of entertainment and stress relief.  I don't drink, take drugs, watch much TV, or exercise and I'm trying not to over-eat (HA!) so my first and last line of stress relief is reading. 

Many years back, my work sent me on a speed reading course.  I'd asked for a course on team leading but apparently speed reading is close enough - maybe because they kind of rhyme?  In any case, before I took this course I was a fast reader at 700 words a minute.  Now, depending on the type of book, I can get up to 2,000 words a minute, although reading too long at that speed makes me kind of dizzy. I still have 93% comprehension and 85% retention at that speed.  This is pretty much my sole claim to fame. 

I've often thought I should keep a book journal where I can record the books I read and what I thought of them. I usually read several books a week and, since I read so much, I sometimes find once I start a book that I've already it.  Disappointing!  Anyway, I've tried keeping a journal in various notebooks but I tend to get one or two entries in and then misplace the notebook, or forget, or let the kids draw in it, or spill tea on it . . . .

Last night it occurred to me -- I could keep a list on this blog!  Sometimes I amaze myself.  So here are the books I have read in the last week:

*"Bedside table" also means floor beside the bed, back of the toilet, passenger seat of the car . . .

Brain Rules (John Medina) -- Interesting book on how the brain works.  I enjoy books like this although what they mostly say is "We have no idea why the brain works the way it does."  Which this one mostly said.  What I liked about it was that the author set out 12 "brain rules", devoting a chapter to each one, and at then end of each chapter summarized the content and made recommendation on how to change school/work life to optimize our brain power.  My take-away: Chapter 1 was about how our brains evolved to work best while our body was in motion, so maybe I should reconsider exercising.  May also explain why exercise is so helpful for people with anxiety, depression and ADHD.

Guitar Zero (Gary Marcus) -- Another brain book, although I didn't realize it at the time.  I had ordered a bunch of books on guitar playing from the library for Aaron and this was among them.  The author was approaching his 40th birthday with a burning desire to learn to play guitar and absolutely no musical skill, in fact he is congentially arrhythmic. He is also a brain researching guy (I can't remember his actual title and I've taken the book back to the library), so he decided to take a brain researching approach to learning to play.  It was interesting to see the impact music has on the brain, and how difficult it is to explain!  My take-away: I'm not going to learn music because holy cow! it seems hard.  And I have a much greater appreciation for my guitar-playing man.

Tanglewreck (Jeanette Winterson) -- A  YA fantasy novel set in 2009 London that involves time tornados, worm holes, time travel and parallel universes.  I thought the book was kind of interesting, although the protagonist, Silver, is an 11 year old girl and I had a hard time following the time manipulation plot so I suspect most children would have a hard time too.  My take-away: In the "holding area" (300 years away and in another galaxy) there is a cat named Dinger, as in Schrodinger, who is sometimes dead and sometimes alive. This is cool.

Peter and the Starcatchers -- Dave Barry and Ridley Scott wrote the "prequel" to Peter Pan and, while I love both of their work individually, I was prepared to be disappointed as prequels tend to have an afterthought feel to them, or you can see so clearly where they are going that it's barely worth reading.  This one was great! The story was awesome stand-alone but also nicely tied in the Peter Pan story details we are familiar with. Excellent characters, good action and lots of humour.  My take-away: I totally wish I'd though of the name "Black Stache" for a pirate name.

The Woman Who Changed Her Brain (Barbara Arrowsmith-Young) -- Another brain book -- what was with me this week?  I should be super smart about the brain now.  This was an interesting book about Barbara who was severely learning disabled throughout her school years yet managed to achieve a graduate degree through sheer determination and mind-numbingly hard work. As an adult she heard of some research in which researchers where able to change the make-up of rats brains through training.  Using herself as a guinea pig, she developed training exercises to learn to tell time on a clock, something she had never been able to do.  She found that not only was she able to (with a LOT of hard work) learn to tell time but doing this also helped with other seemingly unrelated difficulties with symbolism, speech etc.  She eventually opened several Arrowsmith schools where people of all ages can learn to overcome their cognitive difficulties. The book highlights the journeys of several students and draws a good picture of the shadow LD can cast over an entire life, and how it can change when the LD is addressed.  My take-away:  Two really.  1-- Sam has poor handwriting and maybe some of the tracing excercises they have their students do would be helpful.   2.  I wish I had the money to send Nathan to this school because I think he would benefit the most.

Wallowing in the Rain

This picture doesn't have much to do with my subject, except that ducks like rain.

It never rains but it pours.  The mysterious "they" say that and I have to agree.  Things have been rough around here.  Money's tight, kids are difficult, and I've run out of the energy and gumption to keep it all going.  It feels like it's one step forward, five steps back.

I topped it off by getting into a car accident.  A minor one, no one hurt. A fender bender, however the other fender is apparently going to cost $1,200 (accident was my fault). And I have a grand total of $3 in the bank right now. It's enough to send me to my bed for a week except, of course, that's not an option for me.  I have to pull up my boots and keep on going.

Everyone is saying it will get better. Money will get better, kids will get better.  Maybe but right now I don't want to hear it will get better, because I know it may not. It hasn't for a while now.  Right now I want to wallow in my misery.  I want to cry and moan and picture life living on the street as we get kicked out of our home because we have no money and the kids are so bad.  I want to consider whether life as a crack whore would be better than this (I get overly dramatic when I'm in this mood).

This is what I don't want to hear:

Everything will get better.
Stiff upper lip!
Every cloud has a silver lining.
It could be worse (especially if this is followed by a story of someone who has it worse than me).

When I'm in pain, I want to be allowed to feel my pain, not be told to suck it up or get over it, which is what those responses, however nicely phrased, are saying.

This is what I do want to hear:

This is hard.
This sucks.
Life isn't fair.
You don't deserve this.
I love you.

So, if you're going through hard times, take a bit of time to wallow if you need to.  Because life is hard, this isn't fair, and you (probably) don't deserve this. And I love you.

*Note: this was better the first time I wrote it. Then my computer froze when I went to add the picture and it was lost, because THAT'S THE WAY MY LIFE HAS BEEN GOING. So, always hit the save button.

When I die it will probably be because someone who said they loved me didn't step up to the plate .. .

Me:  If someone kidnapped me, what would you do to get me back?

Aaron: Whatever they want me to do.  You know, within reason.

Me:  What do you mean "within reason"?  What would be unreasonable to save the life of the woman you love, who also happens to be the mother of your child?

Aaron:  I don't know but there's probably something that would cross the line.

Me: Would you have sex with 6 men?

Aaron:  What?

Me: Would you have sex with 6 men to save my life?

Aaron: Why would 6 men kidnap you to force me to have sex with them?

Me: I don't know, kidnappers are a mysterious, twisted bunch.  Would you do it?

Aaron:  Am I pitcher or catcher?

Me: Both. 3 pitching and 3 catching.

Aaron: Depends.  Would Carson ever find out?

Me: He might, if the kidnappers taped it and put it on the internet and some day in the future he's looking at gay porn sites and comes across it.

Aaron: No, I meant would he ever find out I let you die?

Pitiful.  For the record, I would have sex with 6 men to save his life.  BECAUSE I'M THAT SELF-SACRIFICING. But only if they were going to kill him, because I'm also faithful. Except in life or death situation.

i can assure you, i was totally freaked out

I've had a few rough days but I found this video and it makes everything better.  Just to note, I don't speak French but there are subtitles (although some stupid ad covers part of them and you have to click the x to get rid of it). 

I watch this and laugh and laugh and feel better.  Then I think about how I'm laughing at baby ducks being blown around and feel bad because I'm obviously a terrible person.  So I have to watch it again so I feel better.

Magic Poufing Powder

So, my friend Cindy (who requested a shout out on this) gave me the heads up about this amazing new hair product, volumizing powder.  She and I both have fine, limp hair (although mine is finer and limper) and she said this product gave her instant huge hair.

Well, I ran right down to the drug store and not only found the magic poufing powder but it was on sale!  What is this miracle product?  Got2B's  POWDER'ful Volumizing Styling Powder.

Now, normally my hair is so smooth and shiny that nothing can make it hold volume - not product, not curlers, NOTHING.  so I go about with it flat and limp.  One little shake of this stuff and Houston, we have volume. 

We decided to test the product.  Here is me with air-dried, product-free hair (how I look every day).

Also, no make-up. And kind of a double chin.  The powder did not effect that.

I put a small amount in my hand and rubbed it in good -- like I was scratching for lice. We call it "nitting it up".

It has not smell and feels a little sticky.  Like you could rub it on your hands to give extra grip if you were lifting something heavy and didn't want your hands to slip.  I lifted up the sections of my hair where I wanted lift and rubbed it in.

And here's what it looks like after that.  Be warned -- this is without any further styling, just rubbing in the powder and lightly finger combing my hair.  Also, still no make-up.

This isn't the best picture but trust me, I had at least double the volume.  And it lasted all day.  If it started to droop I would just nit it up again and it was back to poufyness.

The next day I blow dried (with volumizing spray), used the powder, and curled and here is the result:

Uh, it's kind of messy but it still has lots of pouf even after being out in damp weather.  And my double chin disappeared.  Magic!

Now, I know you're thinking "hmm, Kate seems to decorate her home with cubicle walls".  Alas, this is not true.  This test was done at work because several of the ladies I work with were interested in the results.  They were so impressed that they all ran downstairs to the drug store and bought some.  Bonus: it was on sale for 5 bucks.

My review: This is an effective product.  The volume it gave me lasted pretty much all day and the ladies who had less tempermental hair had even better results.  The bottle is small (about the size of a spice jar) but you only need a tiny bit.  Even if you don't use it every day, you could keep it in your purse and if you are out and your hair needs a boost, use it for instant pouf. 

I give it 4 out of 5 high heels.

ADHD Awareness Week

Happy ADHD Awareness Week!  We will be celebrating by . . . trying to remember what we are celebrating.  In our family we have great PLANS to celebrate things but we often get lost in the details.  Executive functions aren't a strong point.

I often have people ask me if I really believe ADHD exists or if it's just an excuse for lazy parents/out of control kids.  Anyone who spends time with someone with ADHD can attest that it does exist.  I struggle daily to keep on task, keep focused, remember what I need to do and not be distracted.  It's frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking to see how easy other people manage to do something as simple as make a meal.  For me it likely means some ingredient will be left out, or something will be burned, or the side dish will be served with the dessert because I forgot to put it on in time to eat with the main course.  It means that the dishes don't get entirely washed because when I went to the living room to pick up empty glasses I noticed the jacket that should go on the hooks, where I found a box that needed to go in the sun porch, where I found the laundry hamper that belonged in the bathroom .  . .

It means that I'm continually explaining to people that my kids aren't being mean when they get rough, or rude, or impulsive.  It means explaining to teachers that Sam CAN'T remember to bring his homework home without a reminder and this will not stop once he's "got into a routine" around Christmas.  It means explaining to teachers that Liam NEEDS to fidget in class and sometimes leave the room because the urge to fidget is almost painful.

It also means that we have a house of fun-loving, up-for-anything people with lots of energy, creativity and optimism.  I often emphasize to my children that ADHD isn't a disease, just a different way of interacting with the world that has some good points and some bad points.  We deal with them as best we can and try to laugh over the mistakes and problems we have as well as celebrate when things are going well.

If you want more information on ADHD Awareness week or ADHD in general, this website is a good starting place.

Interesting Times

image from AwakeRevolution

As an information junkie, I read a lot.  I've been reading and thinking lately about the economic future of the world -- because we are all too interconnected to believe that a problem in one area won't eventually effect the rest of the world.  Phrases like "global village" arise for a reason.

Two articles I've read recently are resonating with me.  The first, The death that sparked a revolution,  is by Rebecca Solnit and it gives a interesting and moving recap of the events that have happened world wide since  Mohamed Bouazizi of Tunisia immoliated himself after having his street vending wares confiscated and being refused an audience with the authorities who could resolve the issue. This act galvantized the people of Tunisia and started the domino fall of North African governments that continues today.

The second Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance is by one of my favourite authors who gives his "observations" with his usual wry humor.  My favourite: 

      11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

We live in interesting times.  And interesting times came be a little scary.

We went to the pumpkin patch

And found this!

Dill's Pumpkin Farm is where we went.  Every giant pumpkin in the world today is a descendant of one of Howard Dill's world champ pumpkins.

Aaron and I took Carson there while the big kids were in school but didn't pick out a pumpkin because we were walking and it would be too heavy to take home. We'll go back in a week or so and pick out a good one -- or 5.

Thanksgiving #2

We celebrated our second Thanksgiving of the year at Aaron's brother's.  We brought:

pumpkin cheesecake pie

AND

chocolate cake balls -- mmmmmm

 AND

a birthday card.

It was a beautiful warm day -- we were outside for most of it.

Tomorrow we have our third Thanksgiving feast -- this one will be ham though as we are turkey'd out!  

Beware of Dragons

Aaron's is attempting to quit smoking, which prompted Sam to make this sign:

He taped it to the door as a warning to all visitors . . .

Thanksgiving #1 -- at the cottage

Our first of three Thanksgiving feasts, this one was held at my friend Betty Jo's cottage on the lake.  We picked cranberries and bbq'd turkey

Apples and caramel dip on the deck

The cranberries were on an island that we took the peddle boat too.  Nomdi just swam.

This guy was diligent about looking for berries

Greeting us at our triumphant return with cranberries.  I meant to take a picture of them but forgot.  We had a hard time finding any ripe one, they were mostly white, but they cooked up well!

A little music before dinner  . . .

To an appreciative audience

The remains of the feast.  Yes, that is pumpkin cheesecake . .

Believe it or not, these two are the same age.  In fact, Sam (on the right) is one week older.

 Sitting around the table telling jokes.  The kids really like the one about the monkey's butt.  Go figure . ..

  My attempt to take a picture of the scene without flash.  The candles did not look like this at the time (too bad!).