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TOMORROW is the Scholé Sisters Laughing Well retreat!!
I’m so excited! My talk is ready to go and brimming with ideas I’m excited about, and what is not to love about a Central California Coast beach house in the fall? 
It’s not too late to register and join us for this refreshing event.
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The kids and I finished Jonathan Auxier’s Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster on Wednesday. It was well-told, for sure. One of the things I appreciate about Auxier is that I don’t feel like he’s telling us tired, overused stories. He’s an original thinker, for sure, and his plot lines show this off.
With that said … I didn’t cry. I feel like I’m letting some of you down by saying this, but it’s true. And I do, in fact, often cry when reading aloud. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I think I’d built up the possibility of crying so much in my mind (because of so many warning me that I’d do it!) that I was underwhelmed when it finally came to it.
Sophie Quire is still my favorite Auxier title, but I’m glad we read Sweep and I’m happy I added it to our collection.
I recommend Sweep for older children. It deals with some issues that are better for the middle school crowd. Honestly, I think my 11-year-old was a bit young for it, but that’s his lot in life as the youngest. There were hints of suicidal ideation and, of course, the sad fact of child labor in 1800s England. Definitely a story to discuss.
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I’m reading None Greater by Matthew Barrett with E-Age-Seventeen. I actually chose the book for me, started reading it late summer, and loved it so much I decided to assign it. We’re about a third done with it now and I think it’s on track to be my book of the year. Seriously. It’s so good. I highly, highly recommend it.
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This month in 2016:
I had completely forgotten about this post, even though it contained one of my first Charlotte Mason comics. Worth reading, I think. A few years old, but still true.
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My husband and I are taking a trip for fun, just the two of us, for the first time in a number of years. We’re heading to Houston for a few days (later in the fall — not now). Any recommendations on what to do or see or where to eat? We don’t have a ton of time … and we’re clueless how best to spend it.
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This week’s links collection:
- Research Shows That Eating Chocolate Cake For Breakfast Is Good For The Brain And The Waistline from Tips for Home
- I think I’d actually be sick if I did this — I’m a protein-or-nothing-for-breakfast girl myself — but my 20-something self would have enjoyed this, I think.
- Maybe the real lesson is that if you’re going to eat cake, breakfast is a good time of day to do it … rather than that cake ought to be a breakfast food.
- What do you eat for breakfast?
- The Casserole Rules from Red Tent Women
- I’ve never read this site before, so don’t consider this an endorsement. With that said, this post really made me think.
- “One time, she gave me an extra casserole because her freezer was full. It was really tasty and I ate it for days after we wryly talked together about the differences in our experiences of the death of a marriage. We both acknowledged the casserole rules.mThe church didn’t give divorce casseroles — except for the one she gave me.”
- I think my church actually would bring food (but not a casserole … this is California, after all) if someone’s husband or wife left them, but it was interesting to think about how we judge each other’s needs as well as how and when to give help.
- UN climate chief: Stop worrying and have babies from Acton Institute
- It’s so sad to me that young couples think babies are a destructive force rather than a blessing. They are missing out on so much of life! A world without brothers and sisters, aunts or uncles, or cousins …
- “The real threat today, he says, is from misguided environmental extremism, which demands the world make radical changes to their economic — and personal — lives or become complicit in genocide.”
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