my books - O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather

Wiki writes:

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather. It was her first novel of her Great Plains trilogy, and written after she was living and working in New York. O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century.  

Here is the context section from Sparknotes for O Pioneers! 



When I first looked at this book and saw 'prairie' and 'trilogy', I wondered if it was a set I should have read to my kids. My mind went to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her Prairie series is beloved at our house.

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American author who wrote the Little House series of books based on her childhood in a pioneer family. Laura's daughter, Rose, inspired Laura to write her books.

No, O Pioneers! is not a book to be read to kids (in my opinion). The book starts with the death of the father which leaves the family at risk. And then the main story is about two sets of relationships which are not simple. They are more adult understanding topics.

To some it might be a sad book. To me it was more of a 'what actually happened' book.

I didn't look for the link, but I am pretty sure I remember reading Laura Ingalls Wilder addressing this topic (what really happened) in writing her own books. She left the death of a brother (or maybe even two) out of her own books. The cold winters and lack of food and challenges are still in her books. But she left out things she feared might cause anxiety for children. Remember Laura was writing her books in the 1930's and 1940's, long before The Hunger Games. And honestly, I did not and will not read The Hunger Games. I have to watch my own anxiety.

O Pioneers! is written in a beautiful, slow, simple style. The audio edition I used was just under 7 hours and read by Barbara McCulloh, lovely voice, well matched to this book.

Might be my shortest read ever, certainly my shortest read lately.

I did enjoy this book. I did not need to keep a list of characters. I knew what was happening all the time.

I enjoyed the fact families were comprised of recent immigrants or first generation American kids/grand kids. The families (in O Pioneer!) were Swedish and Norwegian and German and French/Catholic.

My husband's family is very German. My maternal grandmother was a full Swed, born in this country to two immigrants. We are Irish Catholic. The (old Catholic) churches in the area where we now live were founded by French Catholic Priests.

A very simple book to be enjoyed between complex books. Or a good book to read on travel days. I could have finished the whole book on my flights/airport time to/from the east coast for oldest's spring break.



When I finished O Pioneers!, I went directly into the second book in this series - The Song of the Lark (next week's review).

O Pioneers! is centered around the Bergson family (who have one daughter and three sons) and takes place in Nebraska.  One of the Bergson son's daughters marries a clergy man and moves with him to Colorado and raises their family there (this all happens between the end of O Pioneers! and the start of The Song of the Lark). One of the daughters of that Colorado/preacher's family is the main character in The Song of the Lark. The original characters/family from O Pioneers are barely mentioned and not a part of the second book. The books are stand alone from each other. But also are lovely together.

Kitchen Pictures / Household Hints

Organic (fresh) strawberries were on sale at the food coop. I walked by them the first time. But they were on my mind and I thought of an experiment to try.  Two days later, I bought the remaining two packages. I brought them home, washed and cored them, cut them in quarters and then spread them out on this cookie sheet (it might actually be a jelly roll pan, because there is a edge/side) and put them in the freezer. 

I put the frozen strawberries in a freezer bag. The tray above fit in a one quart freezer bag. This is not the whole two packages of fresh, because youngest and husband ate a few while I was prepping. This worked well, the strawberries ARE individually frozen, none are stuck together. This is flash freezing and worked well with CUT strawberries (CUT was my experiment). The youngest, middle, husband have been taking a few out to add to yogurt or a plate of other food. They do not eat them frozen (can eat raspberries right from the freezer). But in the 1/4 sliced form, they thaw quickly.

The bag on the left says "asparagus/chicken soup" and the bag on the right has a V for vegetarian (I have two at my house) and is Lentil soup. That is one serving each, of soup cold from the refrigerator in one quart (each) bags. I put them, flat, in the freezer to keep an easy to thaw (not a big block, but a flat plain) shape. Yes, the trick to this is to be sure those zip lock seals are really zip locked!

This is Buffalo Vegetable soup, clearly not vegetarian, that has been frozen. My husband eats soup a lot. These one serving sizes work well for him. He gets one out of the freezer, and wedges it upright in the refrigerator to thaw. Then he eats it within a day or two. This soup was all sold, one serving size, at our food coop. Each one was dated and marked down. I pick up soup there, and freeze for my husband on a very regular basis. It gives him a much wider variety. It is no different than I would make at home, because I cook from many of their same recipes.  I still make soup at home. But honestly, no, I am not going to cook a big batch of Buffalo (for example, girls will not eat it because of meat, I cannot eat it because of many of the vegetables). Buffalo is very good. Tastes like beef. Better numbers. 

Earth Day

Earth Day is observed on April 22 and was started in the United States in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson to create awareness for the Earth's environment and to encourage conservation efforts. In 1990, Earth Day was taken international, and today, more than 500 million people in 175 countries observe Earth Day.

Potty Training and Pregnancy Nausea

My kids are 15, 19, 23 (as I write this). My  nephew is 17, my niece is 21. But I do remember.


I left this note (recently) for a blogger who is potty training. I know there are several of you with little kids. Middle reads every day and is always looking for new information, so I thought I would save it.


Things that worked well for me (potty):

 I never asked kids if they needed to go.

Instead I sent them to go.

Do you want to go potty in the big bathroom or the little bathroom? gave them a sense of choice – but sent them TO GO.

I had them go every time we switched activities.

Go potty and then pick out the game you want to play.

Go potty and then it is story time.

Go potty and get on your swimming suit, time to go to the pool.

I had them go before we left to go somewhere, and then go again as soon as we got there. and then again as soon as we left that place. Especially with middle, I knew where every potty in town was located.

I think boys should be taught to pee standing (from the start). It is just more fun for them. It is socially more acceptable. (Yes, there are men who have gotten 'stuck' on sitting down and it is just weird in our society.)

I kept them in diapers at night.

I gave them only water to drink (I stopped juice when potty training. Before potty training, anytime they were drinking juice, I cut the juice in half with water. And they were not drinking juice very often. They did not drink any other sugared drinks. They have been water only for most of their lives. They drink orange juice, full strength, not diluted, now as adults.).

Sugared drinks, even if it is natural sugar, has a huge impact on potty training and sleeping dry through the night, especially for boys.

Sugared drinks make a big difference in bladder urgency/control for grown women also. Water only is important for women too – sugar and caffeine create urgency/control problem. I primarily drink water – except I now have 1/2 c oj with breakfast (working with a female issues doc on my food and supplements). When I was drinking tea, even though it was herbal, non caffeine, it created bladder issues. Water only - no bladder issues.

It is important not to start potty training until the kid seems like they are mature enough to handle it. Do not start unless you can make it a positive experience. If it is going to be a power struggle, do not do it until you can figure out how to be in the right frame of mind. Potty training is a common goal, doing what is best of the kid thing, not the rule of the parent thing.








I have left this note, for pregnant women with nausea problems many times -

Nausea is caused by unsteady blood sugar.

As the blood sugar takes a dive, nausea hits.

Protein is what holds blood sugar.

Eat non-starchy veggies and protein mostly. Make carbs serving size only and a complex carb. And always eat a protein when eating a carb. A protein serving size is 7-10g.

Eat regularly spaced meals, eat healthy (not to satisfy a craving). 

Many women will crave things like orange juice and fruit.

Their doctors might even tell them to eat saltine crackers.

But both those things will cause more problems than good, because they cause blood sugar to go up and then plummet.

Fried foods will cause blood sugar problems too.

I have suggested taking food (protein and complex carb for example) with them to bed, to many a mom, to eat in the early hours, before rising, so blood sugar is stable when they start their day.

And I add -
This is (all) not something you will (ever) hear from a doctor (unless you are very lucky). This is not an area most doctors study. You will be very lucky if you even hear it from a nutritionist.

Kitchen Pictures / Household Hints

We replaced our dishwasher a couple months ago. I now suspect all we needed to do was switch soap products. I switched from regular, powder Cascade to the two shown in this picture. The bin on the left holds soap packets. The container on the right is rinse solution.

This is the inside of my dishwasher door. The blue thing is the soap packet. The lid is off the rinse concentrate compartment. I squirt rinse solution in there once a month and then reattach the lid (shown below the hole).  My clear glass dishes are now pristine. 

I have three or four of these plastic cutting boards. They are very old. I pour bleach on them, before I put them in the dishwasher, if they are stained. They come out very white each time. The bleach does not appear to do anything to the plastic. 

My kitchen is full of deep drawers, very few cupboards. This picture is looking down into the inside of (half of) one of these drawers. That is my measuring cup collection. They are contained in old ice cube bins from a variety old freezers. We use a lot of measuring cups every day. I use three 1/2 cup containers every day at breakfast. I use one for raw egg whites (going into pan) and then another for first my orange juice (to take my supplements, I drink right out of the measuring cup) and then the same one for the milk for my oatmeal. The third 1/2 cup to measure the dry oatmeal, stays in the oatmeal bin always.

My books - Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) by Thomas Hardy

Wiki notes:

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership. Critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive. Hardy revised the text extensively for the 1895 edition, and made further changes for the 1901 edition.

SparkNotes explains the title:

One of Hardy's central concerns in all of his writing was the problem of modernity in a society that was rapidly becoming more and more industrial. One of his projects as a writer was to create an account of life in the swiftly changing Dorsetshire as it had once been. He was particularly interested in the rituals and histories of that part of England, as well as the dialect of its locals. The title Far From the Madding Crowd suggests avoidance of the life of a city, modernized government, crowds and industry; in it, Hardy tries to fashion a portrait of what he saw as an endangered way of life and to create a snapshot for future generations.

Hardy took the title from Thomas Gray's poem - Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1751:

'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.'

I had always thought it was Maddening, not Madding.

I have no idea if this is correct, but found this explanation:

By historical convention, "madding crowd" is the idiom, dating from the late 16th century. Unlike "maddening," which describes the effect on the observer, "madding" (= frenzied) describes the crowd itself.

Thomas Hardy also wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles. When I started Tess, middle warned me it was a T R A G E D Y. Especially at that time, it was important for me to know (tragedy) in advance of reading Tess. So before I started Far from the Madding Crowd, I called middle and asked her to check on SparkNotes and see if Madding  was a tragedy too.  She said while it was not necessarily all happy, she did not think it was the tragedy Tess was.

She is correct, not all happy, but certainly not a tragedy.




Far from the Madding Crowd was a bit too predictable for me. It will be interesting to see if the other people at my book group have this impression also. There are members who really love Hardy.

It will (also) be telling to see what the people who love Jane Austen thought of this book. There were characters who reminded me of Austen classics.

It was 13 hours, 35 minutes on 12 CD's. Narrated by Nathaniel Parker who was excellent.

So, it was a good read. Not a great read (for me). Glad I listened, lots for interesting discussion.

my books - Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville

Yes, I read Moby Dick.


WIKI:

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851. It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whale ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg, which now drives Ahab to take revenge.

Here is the context section from SparkNotes.


This is not a book I thought I would ever read.

If you remember, I have been slowly working my way through (several years worth of) classics my one reading group read before I joined. Moby Dick was on that list. And when I asked if there was anything on that list that I should not bother reading, they all chorused - MOBY DICK.

So, I had dismissed it from my mind.

Then one of my other reading groups (which is a dictatorship) assigned Moby Dick. He did it kindly, assigning a very short book the month before Moby, and gave us a two months heads up.

I do like this group (A LOT) and actually love the dictator/facilitator, that is my private/pet name for him. He is young, smart, very laid back. But he picks all the books (himself). And usually only tells us the assignment one month in advance. I am spoiled, my other two groups plan the titles as a group and schedule the titles for a whole year. But the dictator does push us to read things (like Moby Dick) that we would probably not read other wise. He is the same one who had us read 4 plays by Chekhov one month. And Reading Lolita in Tehran and Lolita another month. Yes, sometimes I sigh, but I still complete the assignment in full, and I am always glad I did. I always tell him I am glad I did. I sent him an email when I had 3 hours left on Moby telling him I was almost done and loved it. 

I downloaded Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick from Audible, two months ago, still not sure I was going to read Moby. Mr Philbrick might have had the best of intentions, but when I got to the part about how Herman Melville originally wrote a whaling manual, and then decided to turn it into a novel, and inserted the story, here and there, around the whaling manual, I was not at all persuaded. Not at all. (The whaling manual must have been very short because the majority of Moby Dick is story, not manual).

Then I happened to notice another blogger, who does not write about books, had ready Moby and loved it. What are the odds of that - hardly ever mentions a book and then the ONE she mentions, repeatedly, is Moby Dick. She has even read it more than once. She tries to read it every year. So, with that, I thought - I can at least TRY.

I started (exactly) two weeks before the meeting of this group. So, he gave us two months to read and it took me a month and a half to make up my mind to DO IT.

The copy (Moby Dick) I used was from Audible. It was read by Frank Muller (who I always like) and was 21.3 hours long. There were free copies available around the web, but since I was a bit on the fence and needed as many positive things as possible, I spent one of my credits at Audible on Moby. I did not use a credit on Why read Moby? I bought that outright.

So, I started my two week read with the pace of 2 hours of Moby, Monday-Friday, and picking up extra on the weekend if I was in my car. That was a good way of looking at it. And it did work very nicely.

This is not my longest read, Bleak House was 33 hours, The Woman in White was 25 hours. Those were just the first two that came to mind, my guess is there are other long books on my lists.

To be very honest, before I even finished Moby, I was already saying - I will read this book again.

One of my other book groups is considering it for next year. If they do, I will read it again with them. If not, I will read it on my own. There have been other books where I have finished, and turned right around and read them again to see what I missed the first time.

It is extremely well written. The language is beautiful.

I didn't mind the 'whaling manual' parts. To be honest, I found it interesting to know how they catch them, how they clean them, all the different types. Those parts did not bore me (remember I loved the daily details in Robinson Crusoe). And really the 'whaling manual' parts are needed in the story, because most of us do not know anything about whaling. We cannot understand that risk, the danger, if we do not understand what they are doing.

And all the stories were fun reads for me.   The book is very much a collection of adventures weaving in and out of the different chapters of the book (with the whaling manual inserted where needed). There are 135 chapters. Moby himself only appears in a couple of the chapters. The rest of the stories are about all kinds of things.

If you are a classic book kind of person, yes this book is a must read. And I found as I mentioned, here and there around town, that I was reading it, people were sort of tipping their hat in respect.

I will give you a hint. If you read Moby, you should not be thinking about skipping any parts of the book. All are needed. It is not a book that needs edited or shortened. It is a book that needs read more than once to understand it all. There is a lot there. Every word is sort of priceless.

There is a SparkNotes entry (link at top of this post) with very good chapter summaries. I did not read the summaries as I read the book, but I did read them to refresh my mind before my group discussion.

There were twelve people at the discussion and everyone LOVED the book. I will add these are hardcore classic book people. We had a lot of discussion.

Several had read it before, but read it again last month. One had read it last summer, read it again last month, but this time listened to it (I wear off on people with my audible habit) and said it was an entirely different book that way. He happens to be an college literature professor who specializes in Old English (think Beowolf at college level, it is not an easy class).

It would be an excellent book to take as a class. It would also be an excellent book to read and discuss with friends (like read 10-20 chapters at a time and discuss).

One of the men in the group read this book, out loud, to his wife all during her last pregnancy, at bed time, so she could unwind and go to sleep. I thought that was lovely. Really lovely.

Figuring my food - cilantro and lime chicken

I found this recipe.

I simplified it putting a large bunch of fresh cilantro (from my produce box) in the food processor, squeezing 5 smallish limes, and spreading both of those over thinly sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts in a sprayed 9 x 11. I covered and baked at 350 for 1 hour. Very good.

Post Office Cubbies

My husband's mother died September 2010.

Husband brought back a whole truck load of stuff.

Our house was already fairly full.

But we managed to squeeze everything in the nooks and crannies.

As soon as kids start moving out, things will go (oldest is in a furnished apartment right now).




Post office cubbies came in the truck.

I have always loved it.

Husband's mother used it for wine.

I don't keep wine in the house (nor drink it).

It sat in the garage for a couple months before we found a spot.

I am not sure if I thought of it or middle did.

It is 45" x 29".

That is the corner of our living room, right next to the TV.

All of those wires and black things are gaming controllers and cords.

You can just see the Wii on top.

Very good use for it.

My husband did an outstanding job in what he chose from his mother's house. There was NOTHING that came out of the truck where I thought - what were you thinking. NOTHING. He is the youngest of four boys. They did a good job of deciding who got what. Some of the things my husband wanted, none of the other three (single, no kids) wanted. And versa visa. Mirrors for example. There were really good ones, my husband happily took them all, knowing girls would want them in future years. Paintings. Many good ones came. Wooden chests and boxes. Baskets. Footstools. A grandfather clock. Dresser with carved wood. A light blue love seat and chair (also with a lot of carved wood) that are now in our bedroom. We got the stuff that had more of a feminine look to it. 

I was especially pleased when we unearthed these cubbies, unloading the truck.

My husband had remembered I had always loved it.

Even if I had never said a word, I think he would have known any way.

It is very much like something I would like.

my books - State of Wonder (2011) by Ann Patchett

Wiki notes:

State of Wonder (2011) is a novel by American author Ann Patchett. It is about a drug company employee who journeys to Brazil, to bring back information about seemingly miraculous drug research being conducted there by Dr. Swenson on behalf of the company.

So, this was a contemporary read for me. Not a classic. The title was assigned by one of my book groups.

There were 11 discs/12.3 hours in the audible edition I used, read by Hope Davis (who was very good).

I had no idea what to expect with this book. I listened to it on the plane on the way to and from Charleston, SC and then finished it within a couple days of returning home. (I listened to the whole of The Lemon Tree (between flights) while we were there. I had no trouble dropping right back into State of Wonder.) I finished this one, in the house, because I was very curious to see how it ended. I do not have driveway moments (NPR term) as much as I have headset in the house moments.

State of Wonder is very much a story. No historical background. Not an intellectual read the way One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or Lemon Tree was. So this book came up just in the right place (after those two) on my reading list. A welcome break after two thinking cap kinds of books. (Wait until you see what I read after this one, stay tuned for next week's review).

To be honest, I am not sure what I would have thought of State of Wonder if I had been reading other contemporary, non classics, books all at the same time. It might have seemed light to me then. But in view of the heavier reading I was doing before and after this book, it was very much enjoyed.

There are not a lot of characters in State of Wonder. I did not feel I needed to keep notes. I found the story to be captivating and believable*** and interesting. I had no idea where the story was going at any point in the book.

***I am the one, in every reading group I attend, who says - odd coincidences do happen, if you keep your eyes open and can see them, strange sets of events happen all the time. 

It also confirmed South America stays on the NO TRAVEL ZONE list for all of my kids.