Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

The 3,000 piece puzzle is completed–and glued!  Now, on to the next one…because yes, we’re gluttons for punishment over here.

I skipped a post because the 17th is my birthday and I was feeling lazy, just so you know; I also still hadn’t finished a book yet, because 3,000 PIECE PUZZLE.  (It’s the tree or me at this point.)  Last night, however, I finished off Charise Mericle Harper’s Dreamer, Wisher, Liar, and I have to say–I was impressed.  My girls have both enjoyed Harper’s Just Grace series, but it’s for younger readers; Dreamer, Wisher, Liar is almost 350 pages long and very solidly middle grade.  And it’s fascinating.

The narrator and main character has face blindness, which makes her best friend’s impending out-of-state move a disaster of epic proportions.  Lucy is the one who helps her identify people, who saves her from awkwardness in basic social situations whenever she and Ash are together.  Now Lucy’s at summer camp and Ashley is stuck helping babysit the 7-year-old daughter of her mother’s friend.  Claire is loud and social and relentless, throwing Ash’s carefully constructed habits into chaos.  Add in a series of unexpected trips into someone else’s past, and you have a summer full of change, growth, and little touches of magic.

Okay, now that I’ve given an advertisement sort of blurb–it’s what came out tonight, sorry–let me say this.  Ash drew me quickly into her world and kept me there; I didn’t always agree with her outlook on or reactions to life, but it was easy to see her motivations.  (Google face blindness sometime.  It will blow your mind a little.)  The threads of the novel gradually weave together into a slightly complex but completely readable story, a story that sticks with you after you finish the book.  If you’ve got middle grade girls, don’t pass this one by.

By the way, what’s looming now is 40.  I’m now officially 39, and I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it!

Mine.  It was mine.  My friend Britt’s hubby picked up some 3,000 piece puzzles somewhere–older ones–and I said yes to the lot of them.  We used one as a white elephant gift, but we’ve still got a stack, and a week or so ago my hubby picked one to start.  We are, of course, still working on it, which is why I have yet to finish the book I’m reading; I’ve been sweating over a tree trunk and its surrounding sky in Lake Thun, Switzerland.  You know how there’s a feel to a 1,000 piece puzzle?  An arc of progress that enables you to feel about how close to the end you are?  Yeah, well, 3,000 piece puzzles just go on and on–and on.  My hubby’s done the ground work–as in, grass, bushes, buildings, etc.–and I’ve done one LARGE tree trunk and patches (and patches!) of sky.  My current patches of sky have branches on them.

Now that I think about it, at least 1,000 pieces of this puzzle–probably more–are tree branches and sky, which means I’ve been doing the equivalent of an entire normal sized puzzle of ONLY TREE AND SKY.

Whose idea was this again?

Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs has been my first (committed) attempt to listen to fiction, and overall, it’s been a success.  Some of the voices and occasional phrases come across differently in an audiobook–I do still prefer reading fiction to listening to it–but the British accent of the narrator added a nice bit of authenticity, and I certainly reached a point, like in any decent mystery, where I didn’t want to stop.  Some of Maisie’s investigative methods are a bit far-fetched for me, but I liked her and her cast of supporting characters; moreover, the why of the mystery did actually surprise me.  (Not the general result, but the psychology behind it.)  My one serious beef with the book as a whole was the lengthy flashback that makes up a least a third of the book.  My guess is that Winspear, as a first-time novelist, wasn’t sure how else to include the information; alternating chapters from the two time periods represented would have been better for the book’s structure, but it would also have been very hard to do.  In a first book, this is understandable (if not ideal), and I don’t imagine that subsequent books in the series will have quite the same issue.   The good news is that I do care about the next book, and audio does seem to be the way for me to read a series that I would likely never have gotten to otherwise.  If you like period mysteries–this one takes place both during WWI and in the late 20s–you should definitely give this one a try!

That was my nod toward a double meaning, because Vera Brosgol’s Be Prepared is set largely at a summer camp, and I read it while I was up in the mountains at the bi-annual (please tell me that means every two years!) summer family reunion with my hubby’s side of the family.  I enjoyed it, too; Brosgol writes from her own experiences as a Russian immigrant, and it’s a fascinating perspective.  Her loneliness and search for belonging was painful at times–I hurt for her at the other girls’ behavior–but her growth and dawning recognition of what is worthwhile in a friend is a beautiful thing to see (although some of what preceded the growth was also painful).  There is a bit of crudity coming from the mean girls, but overall, the message places that soundly in the kind of context that sends all the right messages.  If you’re looking for a different sort of coming-of-age graphic novel for your latter elementary schooler, be sure to check out this one!

My kids had better appreciate the love, friends, because I took the three older ones to Lagoon (Utah’s amusement park) today, and when I got back into the car that had been sitting in the parking lot for hours on end, its temperature read 107.   Sure, it’s a dry heat, but triple digits are HOT no matter what kind of heat it is, and the altitude gives the sun a burning intensity that it just doesn’t have at sea level.  Add that to the sad truth that many rides are no longer particularly fun for me–call me stodgy–and yes, today was really all about the fact that I do love my kids.  (Also about the fact that other people love my kids, since they drifted from family group to family group as they chose; they seriously have the best aunts, uncles, and cousins in the world.  AND grandparents!)

That being the case, today’s review is going to be a short one.  After reading the Zita trilogy and several of Ben Hatke’s picture books, I checked Mighty Jack out of the library to see if it was something the kids would enjoy.  After finishing it, I imagine it will be; it’s a creative, modern retelling of “Jack and the Beanstalk” with a few crossover characters from Zita, although the main characters are a few years older.  Hatke’s style is patently recognizable–text is sparse in his graphic novels, although the stories don’t suffer because of it–and the ending certainly left me wanting to read the next one.  Mighty Jack ought to appeal to a wide range of readers, including those who struggle a bit.  I’ll let you know how my kiddos feel about it; in the meantime, I am covered in sweat and traces of sunscreen, and the shower calls!

My most recent audiobook experience–32 Yolks:  From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line–was actually on my list already when I found it available to borrow immediately from the library (I’m a sucker for any nonfiction involving food).  I knew there was a possibility of language, but Eric Ripert’s account of his growing up years reassured me; he covered a great deal of pain and upheaval with only two instances of profanity, and neither one felt extraneous.  (The pain and upheaval possibly dragged on a bit for me, but I would have felt differently if I’d approached the book knowing anything about Ripert.  A memoir has every right to tell the stories that have shaped the person; it’s not the author’s fault that I was only there for the food!)

I’ve been sitting at my kitchen computer contemplating a recipe review that I’m just plain too tired to write tonight and listening to two noises.  It’s July and only my screen door is shut, so one of them is fireworks, but there’s also a fly buzzing around my kitchen garbage bowl.  Once my conscious mind registered that noise, guess what popped into my head?

I heard a fly buzz–when I died…

I don’t even particularly LIKE Emily Dickinson!  I mean, yes, I can absolutely think of a few of her poems that I find brilliant, but she’s really not my cup of tea.

And yet.   I can’t remember what we had for dinner last night, but when I hear a fly buzz–bingo!  Here’s the entire poem, which of course I had to Google.  (I only really  know the first line.)

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –  
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –  
Between the Heaves of Storm – 

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –  
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –  

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –  

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –  
Between the light – and me –  
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –

Two of my four children are anti-lemon, one is anti-tortellini, and (currently) the fourth appears to be anti-dinner in general.  Would you care to guess who enjoyed having this Lemon Broccoli Tortellini for dinner Monday night?

Yup.  Me.  But hey, I really liked it.  It was lemony and light and flavorful and delightful, and so I regret nothing.  (Says aMachiavelli Mom.)  I left out the spinach entirely because I didn’t have any (it went into the muffins, remember?) and wasn’t going to miss it in this recipe anyway; I was also very generous with the lemon juice, because that’s how we Mather girls roll.  I do wish that I’d left the broccoli in longer, because the level of crowded on the one roll pan I used meant it took longer to roast, but I had to feed the hangry; next time I’ll just stick it in earlier.  In the meantime, if light, lemony tortellini with roasted lemon-garlic broccoli sounds appealing, make this–and invite me over to eat some.

Mmmm.

I’ve been on a bit of a muffin kick lately, mostly because it’s a way to try a new quick bread for breakfast (or brinner) that doesn’t take an hour in the oven (quick bread), kneading and rising (yeast dough), constant production (pancakes and waffles), or rolling and cutting out (biscuits and scones).  I was feeling completely out of dinner ideas last night (not to mention extra tired from an I’m-too-old-to-stay-up-reading-this-late night), and so I was scrolling through my ‘Breads to Try’ board when these Sweet Spinach Muffins caught my eye.  Hey, I thought.  I actually have part of a bag of spinach in the fridge that’s threatening to go bad before we can use it.  I had my oldest check how many ounces it originally contained, blithely decreed that what was left was probably about the amount I needed for the muffins, and went to town.

I did sub in maybe 1/3 of a cup of white flour–I must have been worried about how heavy they were going to be–but other than that (and my usual generosity with vanilla), I made them as is.  There was much speculation about what exactly made the muffins green as we sat down to dinner, but everyone except my 11-year-old gave them a thumbs up.  (She said there was something she didn’t like about the texture.  Hmm.)  They were moist and flavorful and slightly decadent–a stick of melted butter does make almost anything better!–but possibly my favorite part of the meal was sticking all of the wet ingredients in the blender.  It sounds silly, because it’s really not that much harder to add things more carefully and mix by hand, but I was tired and skipping any step (however small!) was a boon.  I may experiment with different sweeteners in the future–honey is SO much more expensive than sugar!–but I will definitely be making these again, because who doesn’t love a good muffin?