Well, I've been sick this week. I was fighting a wicked (because I'm a New Englander now) head cold on Sunday, and lost Monday morning. Lost is being kind. My but was handed to me on a silver platter. I was feeling so great, eating well, running, taking my vitamins, then WHAM! I "gentle" reminder that something so small it can only be seen by a high-powered microscope can stop me in my tracks and I shouldn't take feeling healthy for granted. I have been a slug for four days now. I haven't left the house since coming home from church on Sunday. I've been lucky in that it wasn't the flu, but it has worn me out just the same.
Good news is that I devoured To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it in high school, but didn't remember much about it. I really enjoyed using this illness as an excuse to spend a little time each day reading on the sofa while the kids played. The book was so much better then I remembered. It left me feeling "well fed" - just like I always feel after reading a good book or watching a good play (normally Shakespeare or Austin). I've just started The House of the Seven Gables by Hawthorne, but am looking for recommendations on additional classic literature to read next. I've got a pretty good library of the classics (it's the foundation of my home schooling), but I haven't read all of them. Let me know what some of your favorites are - if I don't have them I can get them from the library.
Another thing I've worked on this week (mind was working - I was just too tired to actually DO anything) was updating my list of "Life Skills" I have for the kids. I read a FANTASTIC book last fall, The Parenting Breakthrough, by Merrilee Browne Boyack. I picked it up at a Time Out for Women conference. It was exactly what I needed. I took her list of what she wanted her kids to learn at a certain age, and created my own. I'm really happy with it. I couldn't figure out how to attach a file, so you can find my list in the blog below this one called "The Brown Family List of Life Skills." I wanted to post it separately so that this posting didn't get insanely long. Please feel free to use it to get ideas for your own list - and by all means, pick up Boyack's book. It tells you how to go about teaching these wonderful skills to your kids - and how to enlist the help of others.
Keep reading - and share what you've learned with me!
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2 comments:
Do you have an Ipod? You might want to check out the podcast Craftlit - it's free and you can listen to classic lit while you do other things. They have done Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, and several others I can't remember.
Jenn
Hmm, I'll have to check that out. I have the iPod Shuffle, so I don't know if that would work - but I might be able to listen to it on the computer or something. Thanks for mentioning it Jenn!
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