Category: Books
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A Thing About Tea
Behold, our tea cupboard! We seem to have A Thing About Tea. We are hopelessly addicted to loose leaf tea. We have done five big orders from David’s Tea since early last fall, supplemented by Two Hills and Teaopia purchases now and then. We’re don’t have sophisticated tastes. We probably couldn’t definitively identify an assam vs. […]
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Archived!
I write this blog for many reasons. Some are about the process, but several are also related to the product. The accumulated virtual scrapbook is an important memento of family activities, adventures, challenges and milestones. Important not just to me, and not just in a nostalgic way, but also to the kids and also in […]
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Gentle stories
When Fiona was sick I went looking through our bookshelves for books to read to her. She still enjoys picture books, but often, and especially when she’s sick, she prefers longer stories. The other day we rediscovered Catwings, and I was reminded about how difficult it was for me to find lovely books like these […]
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Harry Potter Week
It started with a trip to see the fifth movie. We see a movie in a theatre approximately once every 12-16 months, since it entails a big drive. But HP5 was the opening night in our family Harry Potter Fest, a two-week-long gala in our home. We continued the Film Festival component at home with […]
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Adolescence? No thanks.
For years I have been saying “we’re not doing adolescence in our family.” I’m sure many people on the message boards and e-mail lists I frequent have quietly snickered and thought “just you wait…” Some have certainly snickered not so quietly. So far I stand by what I have believed all along — adolescence is […]
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Biology 101
Normally a post I write entitled Biology 101 would be about chasing frogs, or watching the garden grow, or planting trees or growing a sourdough culture. But this time it really is about a college-level introductory biology course. Actually it’s about the texbook designed for such a course. Sophie first expressed an interest in biology […]
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Harry Potter Day
Of course we made the trek to a bookstore for the new Harry Potter on release day. It was a good day for a trip to Nelson for grocery shopping, so we did that. I stalwartly resisted the lure of loss-leader Harry-Potter-racks at the big box stores and headed towards the independent bookstore in Winlaw […]
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Reading aloud
Maintaining the kids’ interest in being read aloud to as they grow older is something I’ve been working away at. I’m of a mind to think that the key is to treat reading aloud as something families do, rather than something parents do for children who can’t yet read (at least at that level) on […]