That’s what happens when you turn 40, right?

I’m low-key when it comes to celebrations, and I prefer a smaller group of family and friends rather than a big party. It’s the introvert in me. Even though this is a “big” birthday, I’ve celebrated the same way I celebrate just about all of my birthdays: hanging out at home with my family and enjoying homemade birthday cards from my kids, and then “doing tea.”

Lunch at my favorite tea room is a tradition I started on my 30th birthday. Though some of the faces around the table change from year to year, it’s always a small group of the women dearest to me. My mom has been the only constant every year since the beginning. Now my daughters join me every year, too. (Scout will have to wait til next year, but I got to have Diane there for the first time this year!) And always, a few of my closest friends. Though I have had more heartache than usual this year, I am blessed to be loved by some very special people.

Though big parties are not my thing, I absolutely believe birthdays are worth celebrating because life is worth celebrating. Each candle on the cake means another year God has given us on this earth – and if we’re still here, He still has plans for us.

Last year, I made a list of 39 things to celebrate my last year of thirty-something.

Let’s see how I did…

The ones I accomplished:

• Birthday lunch at my favorite tea room. (Of course!)
• Witnessed and celebrated our son’s marriage. (June 2012)
• Went on a family vacation to the beach. (two in one!)
• Got comfy furniture for the back porch.
• Went to SavvyBlogging.
• Passed the Certified Photographer Exam.
• Now call my daughter-in-law “friend.”
• Traveled somewhere I’d never been. (For the 2:1 Conference)
• Texted often with my dad.
• Still hang out often with my mom.
• Made progress on our yard.
• I’m going to say I did go on a mission trip because I sent Ken and Lindsey to Peru while I stayed home with the brand new kids in the mission field of our house.
• Which also means we certainly did add to our family!
• Did pretty well with making dates with Ken before the new kiddos arrived. We hope to return to that again when obtaining babysitters requires fewer hoops to jump through (when they are adopted this fall).
• Doing my best to have one-on-one time with each of the kids.

Things I did NOT accomplish:

• The apple tree did not produce enough to make a pie.
• We had friends over a few times but not every month as I’d hoped.
• Still haven’t re-established a workout routine.
• Didn’t get a weekend away with Ken and haven’t done a mountain getaway.
• No from-scratch bread making.
• No progress in learning to play piano.
• Still haven’t finished that doggone needlepoint rose!
• Didn’t hire a photographer but did get a good family photo at Brandon and Diane’s wedding. (Even though we were the photographers!)
• Weekly family nights have flopped due to crazy schedules.
• Still haven’t made curtains for the sunroom/office.
• Have not yet made a large print of my elephant.

All in all, I did accomplish more than I did not accomplish — and I can keep working on my list during this year of fabulousness!

Do you make a big deal of birthdays?

What’s your favorite way to celebrate for yourself and/or for your family?

Original article: Officially Fabulous {and 40!}

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

Most people can, sometimes quite vehemently! Isn’t that likely to happen with mom if she is the teacher for every subject in every grade? Some critics of homeschooling think so, and I can see their reasoning.

As much as I’d enjoy having my kids consistently think I’m awesome, my ultimate goal is to raise responsible, considerate, Jesus-loving adults — even if they don’t always like me in the process. The sticky part of the equation is that if I create bitterness in my children, I’ll sacrifice my relationship, and therefore, my influence in their lives.

Now then, let’s talk about how NOT to make your homeschooled kids hate you!

Absence does not make the heart grow fonder.

Kathryn is my first and longest-running homeschool student, from kindergarten through recently completed sixth grade. In these seven years of home educating, we have butted heads; we’ve had discipline issues; we’ve had arguments, and plenty of frustration.

But… (This is huge, y’all.)
Despite the head-butting, we have an awesome relationship because rather than spend 35+ hours each week at school, she has been home learning and reading and doing together with me.

At a very crucial time of her life and her emotional development, I have been the primary influence in her life, rather than other preteens. We haven’t had to squeeze in time together to talk about important things; we have time for that nearly every day. We have private jokes and silly stories. Our laughs far exceed our conflict. On the occasions when we do have conflict, we have time to work it out rather than letting it fester.

I’m called to be her PARENT, and that remains the priority, but I like being her FRIEND, too. My mom is one of my best friends, and I look forward to having that kind of relationship with Kathryn with she is grown.

Time and shared experience help create lasting bonds.

It’s now been just over three months since Scout (5) and Jem (4) moved in. Although I didn’t enjoy chasing the yellow bus each morning and was glad to see the end of the public school year come to a close, I did have some trepidation about what our days might be like when both kids were home 24/7. But already we have seen improvement in Scout’s behavior since the school year ended because she has more consistency, more sleep, and no over-stimulation. In just the past couple of weeks, I’ve even seen a deepening of her bond with me. This is absolutely crucial for these children. Their future depends on developing healthy attachment to us, and that requires T-I-M-E. Even if I saw no other benefits to homeschooling, I’d plan to home educate these two for the next few years in order to build those healthy loving relationships.

Kids desires and “bents” must be considered.

Kathryn sees the benefits of homeschooling, and can easily rattle off a rather long list of perks. I believe she has been able to keep a positive view of it because she knows I’m willing to change things that may not be working in regards to schedules or curriculum, etc. Complaining won’t make me change it, and I don’t expect her to love every aspect of schooling, but if I see something causing undue stress or the beginnings of bitterness, I talk to her about the problem and we figure out a solution. I’m not afraid to make changes mid-year if necessary. Every child is different, and each child requires a unique approach to the specifics of learning.

Don’t let homeschool become an idol.

Lindsey, now 18, had no desire to homeschool, and felt that we were depriving her by “forcing” her to do so. Before joining our family at the age of 14, she had known no one who homeschooled, so it was a strange concept to her. Frequent battles ensued, and we realized she had made public school an idol. But I feared I’d made homeschool an idol, too, and though I saw the many benefits, I also saw that a stout root of bitterness toward us (particularly me) was beginning to grow in Lindsey’s heart. We struggled with the decision, but in the end, her relationship with us took priority, and we gave her the desire of her heart.

A year later, she was willingly back to finish her education at home.

Be careful not to exasperate your children.

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

Homeschooling in itself does not cause the destruction of a parent-child relationship; that can happen whether kids are educated at home, or in public or private school. It’s an issue of parenting, not of where a child’s education happens. What can exasperate our children is stubbornly refusing to bend and not considering their hearts even when we see a root of bitterness developing.

Original article: Do Homeschooled Kids Hate Their Moms?

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

Although Scout will happily tell you that she is now homeschooled, I’ve done nothing at all structured with the little ones because:

A) It’s summertime.
B) Even after just one year of public school, Scout clearly needs some de-schooling.
(That’s a post for another day.)
C) They are still little kids! What they need most right now is a whole lot of play.
(Stability, too, but that’s related to adoption rather than schooling.)

Nature study is best when it’s relaxed and fun!

In the past couple of years, we’ve had so many other things to deal with or adjust to that nature study fell by the wayside, and when we did it, it felt forced and hurried. Not relaxed. Not fun. The joy wasn’t in it.

Simply by spending a great deal of time outside lately, the kids (Kathryn included) have become involved in all sorts of interest-led, unschoolish nature study — which is actually very much in line with Charlotte Mason’s recommendations for children this age. Kathryn has taken the lead in much of this, simply because she enjoys nature and enjoys being the one to get them started in these vital relations.

“Education is the Science of Relations: that is that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts.” – Charlotte Mason

Nature Walks:

What began as a promised incentive to keep Scout from being loud and waking Kathryn up far too early (since they share a bedroom) has turned into something they all seem to look forward to each day: a little morning walk. They’ve seen geese at the lake, brought back HUGE poplar leaves to press, inspected berries and different kinds of leaves and plants, and even saw a coyote one morning!

Flower Studies:

Kathryn has taught the little ones how to make clover chains, and she and Scout will sometimes do this for hours. They wear them, use them to decorate the play set, and often bring me a little bunch to put in a tiny vase in the kitchen. In the process, they talk about flowers and grass and bees…

The kids have helped me weed the flower beds and can name quite a few of our flowers. We’ve talked about how bees get pollen to take to other plants, and we are all eager for our blueberries to get ripe!

Tree Studies:

Maybe, just maybe, I’ve finally convinced Jem that peaches do not turn into apples when they get big. {This kid!} He and Scout have helped pick up rotten peaches off the ground, have helped look for bugs infesting peaches on low-hanging limbs, and have watched as the peaches have grown bigger and more peach-colored. They know which apple tree grows which kind of apples and they are eager to eat one from their own back yard. The kids say they’ve never had apple pie, so I hope for enough good apples to bake one!

They’ve collected leaves of different sorts, from maple to magnolia. Both kids have started asking what kind of tree is what, and can correctly name some of the trees in our yard. They have spent time playing with maple keys and with Kathryn’s help, took the seeds out of the keys and [quite successfully] started their own little silver maple tree nursery on the porch; soon they’ll transplant the baby trees to a hill in our back yard.

Kathryn has even been inspired to spontaneously do a few nature journal entries for a self-imposed tree study.

Bird Studies:

The kids have been learning about birds by watching the robins on the back porch. We’ve seen them build a nest and raise babies, and the kids were outside when the baby birds flew the nest. We watched when the robin pair decided to use the same nest for a second brood of babies, and we are eagerly waiting for the eggs to hatch. They’ve started asking more questions about the birds we see on the bird feeder. They can even identify a few now — although Jem makes up some crazy imaginary bird names!

Insect Studies:

On one of their nature walks, the kids brought back a few ladybugs and Kathryn dug the ladybug habitat (from InsectLore) out of the garage. She set them up happily in their habitat with food and water, and soon we had mating ladybugs, and no long after, we had dozens of ladybug eggs.

Last week, when the eggs hatched into nymphs, Kathryn released the adult ladybugs and the kids got to have a little ladybug fun in the process. Now we are watching as they (we hope) successfully grow into adults.

As usual, WonderDog got in on the nature study fun.

This is just a smattering of what they’ve been learning without any coercion from me.

All I want for the little ones in particular right now is to fuel their natural inquisitiveness about the world around them. I see that happening with what we’re doing, and I’m delighted to see Kathryn’s passion revived as well.

Original article: Interest-led, Unschoolish, CM-style Nature Study

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

It was a completely new idea to most of them. One cousin in particular grilled me on the whys and hows of my decision — but the next year she and another cousin started homeschooling, too! I don’t know how much I had to do with their decisions, but I like to think some of our discussions helped my cousins decide to go for it. It’s been awesome having local homeschooling friends who are family, too. (Just look at how little they were back then!)

In cleaning out my old blog, I found a Q-and-A post from 2008.

NOTE: The following questions and answers are exactly as posted when I had only one child, then 7 years old.

Q&A from 2008, our 2nd year of home educating:

1) How much do your children interact with kids of their own age?
Very often. We have neighbors we play with who attend public school, we have the silly homeschooling cousins mentioned above, and quite a few homeschooling friends who live nearby. We try to get together at least once a week or so for most of the afternoon at a park or the pool (when it’s hot!) so they can play. We do occasional field trips together, and sometimes participate in co-op classes with other homeschool families. At church, my daughter attends Sunday school with kids in her grade, too. We’ll also be starting rehearsals for a community play next week as well.

2) Will they go to school as their educational demands are increased?
Not likely. As always, I’ll do what I feel the Lord leading me to do, so I can’t say with 100% certainty that I’ll homeschool all the way through, but that is currently the plan. One of the delightful things about homeschooling is that I get to learn, or re-learn, as we go; therefore, I feel confident that I can indeed keep up with the educational demands of the higher grade levels. If I had to begin at high school level, I admit that would be harder. There are also some wonderful homeschool programs available in our area, including a fabulous one at our church, offering middle and high-school level classes (including school credits for them).

3) How do you feel about their transition into a less wholesome atmosphere and how they are equipped to deal with that when it is inevitable in this world?
I think it’s always scary as a parent when we send our kids off “into the world,” whether that’s in kindergarten or college. But homeschooling allows me to be there to explain as worldly ideas are presented to my child, rather than allowing classmates to be the voice of authority on such things. I can also reduce the number of worldly influences at a young age so that they won’t be an issue until she is ready to deal with them.

4) What about the question of interacting with ‘the world’ so that your kids are out there being a light for the Lord?
As I said above, I don’t want my children inundated with worldly influences at a young age, BUT we don’t believe in living in a bubble. We have friends of other religions, and one of my dearest friends since childhood is an atheist. I try to set an example of loving friends and neighbors, even strangers, as Christ would have us do, regardless of what they believe. Even our pending adoption is an opportunity for our entire family to be “light for the Lord.”

————

Looking back now, it’s interesting to me that the essentials of how and why I choose to home educate have NOT changed over the years. My experience as a homeschooling mom has only served to confirm what I believed and hoped for back then. I look forward to continuing down this road for what looks to be many more years to come, and someday looking back at this time of life as “the old days.”

Original article: Homeschool Questions and Answers {flashback}

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

Top 10 {randomly ordered} things that make my day:

1 – Peaceful times in the day when all the kids are happily occupied.
Lately, one of the best times for this has been when big sis Kathryn gets out the LEGOs and helps the littles build and play with them.

2 – An organized closet.
Related happy time: those fleeting 5 minutes of the day when every bit of laundry is done and folded! Also related: the feel of fresh clean sheets on the bed.

3 – A perfectly ripe avocado.
Because I like them and because “perfectly ripe” is mighty hard to find.

4 – Little gifts of flowers from my yard.
The 12-year-old get bonus points for presentation, but even a weed delivered with love from the 4-year-old brings a smile.

5 – Anytime I don’t have to think about what to fix for dinner.
Psst! Have you tried eMeals? {That’s an affiliate link but they have great dinner ideas! Use code SUMMER for 15% off any meal plan.}

6 – My electric tea kettle.
And cute tea mugs (this one a gift from my daughter-in-law!).

7 – Uninterrupted time to read.
Scarce but greatly appreciated when I get it!

8 – This guy.
I couldn’t do this parenting thing without him. Plus, I really like him.

9 – Time with my mom.
She has long been one of my best friends, but since my dad died, I’ve treasured her even more. Whether we’re chatting over breakfast at Einstein’s, running errands, or antique shopping… I enjoy her company and I’m blessed to have her in my life.

10 – Beautiful spring weather that begs for outdoor play time for the kids or puttering in the flower garden for me.

How about you? What sorts of things make YOUR day?

Many of the iHomeschool bloggers are doing “Ten Week of Top Ten” posts. Pop over and read, or write your own and link up with Top Ten Tuesday!

Original article: 10 Things that Make My Day

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

(This post contains affiliate links. See disclosure.)
We already love using NotebookingPages.com for our nature journals, but I wish I’d thought to use the American Presidents pages during this year’s U.S. History studies. They’ve also introduced a new feature I plan to use in our homeschool next year: customizable copywork pages!

May is birthday celebration time for NotebookingPages.com:

If you purchase a LIFETIME Membership during this 7th Birthday Sale-a-Bration Event, you will…

• Save $25 on your membership
• Receive access to 150+ current notebooking products
• Receive ALL future notebooking products
• Receive up to two years FREE access to their notebooking and copywork web-app, The Notebooking Publisher
• Receive a $100 e-gift Bonus Bundle from various homeschool publishers
• Earn a chance to prizes: an iPad mini; $100 Amazon.com gift card; LIFETIME access to The Notebooking Publisher; and a LIFETIME membership to MomsToolBelt.com.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday at 9PM ET), iHomeschool Network is hosting a facebook party with giveaways and freebies from friends of NotebookingPages.com. I’ll be there! Join in to learn more about notebooking in your homeschool — and maybe win stuff, too!

Original article: Nature Notebooking Pages

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

Preschool and Kindergarten

Scout had her spring kindergarten program at school: the kids performed songs and then hosted a little classroom reception for the parents and gave us moms a plant in a painted flower pot.

Jem’s preschool week was full of end-of-year parties. He is now done with his school year, but Scout has one more week of school, which means I have one more week of getting her up and out the door way too early.

Kathryn and I introduced Jem to the wonders of the library. Since then, I have read The Hungry Caterpillar roughly 843 times. We snuck in a quick trip to the playground one day, too.

Next year we plan to homeschool both of the littles: Jem in Pre-K, and because of Scout’s young age (she’ll still be 5 when she would theoretically start back to public school for first grade!), I’m deeming her in kindergarten again next year. However, since she’s convinced she’s suppose to be a 1st grader, I’m still deciding what to call it: K+, or K6, or just tell her we have to do homeschool K before 1st grade. Suggestions welcome!

Finishing up our homeschool year

Kathryn’s spring band concert went well and was such a big improvement from their winter concert, when most of the kids in her class had only been playing their instruments a few months! Scout and Jem enjoyed the concert and behaved well; it was the first event we’ve taken them to, so we weren’t sure what to expect!

Except for another week or two of U.S. history, Kathryn has finished most subjects for the year; she’ll continue math throughout the summer. And there will be reading. Always reading.

The weather has been perfect, but I’m going to have to remember to start slathering on the sunscreen. {A few pink noses this week.} We’ve had a whole lot of outside play and unofficial nature study going on, including a little maple tree nursery. This was Kathryn’s idea, and she enlisted the littles to find and help plant seeds out of all those “helicopters” in the back yard.

High School Senior!

Last Sunday was the “Senior Walk” at church, where all of the soon-to-be-graduated high school seniors are recognized. Lindsey threw in some humor when announcing her name and the school she will be graduating from:

“I’m homeschooled, so I’m graduating from my house!”

That girl.

We had a senior banquet at church this week, too, and the Christian improv group that provided the entertainment had me laughing harder than I’ve laughed in a VERY long time. Or maybe ever! Highly recommended, should you ever be in a position to hire a group like that.

Lindsey says her public school friends keep asking what day she’s graduating and she tells them whenever she gets all her work done. Yep! {So hop to it, girlie!}

Brandon = College Grad!

After much hard work, our oldest has earned his Bachelor of Music in Education degree! We are very proud of Brandon, not just for this accomplishment, but for the man he has become. And I love seeing his wife absolutely beaming; Diane truly is Brandon’s biggest cheerleader.

Until the university president’s speech, I’d never thought of the fact that the graduation ceremony is called a “commencement” because it’s a beginning of the next part of their lives.

I like that. I like beginnings.

I’m linking-up with these fabulous gals:
- Homeschool Mother’s Journal at iHomeschool Network
- Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
- No Fear Homeschool High School at The Daisy Head
- Collage Friday at Home Grown Learners

Original article: Preschool thru College: Beginnings

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

I hate ALS.

This disease took more from Dad than his final breath:

ALS stole his speech.
ALS stole his ability to eat, or even swallow his own saliva.
ALS stole enjoying a cup of coffee with friends at Waffle House.
ALS stole cruising through the mountains on his Harley.
ALS stole wood-chopping and physical chores he enjoyed.
ALS stole a good mechanic’s ability to work on his own car.
ALS stole hiking in the woods.
ALS stole his pride.
ALS stole his independence.
ALS stole his enjoyment of life.
ALS stole his laughter.
ALS stole his hope.

ALS stole my dad from me long before he died.

ALS, (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease) turned my father into a man I hardly knew. A man who didn’t know who to be or how to live if he couldn’t do all the things that made him, him.

There is no cure for this disease.
Current treatments may extend life a few months or make a person slightly more comfortable as their body betrays them little by little — but that’s poor consolation to anyone diagnosed with what is essentially a slow, cruel death sentence. It’s cruel to the victims of the disease, and cruel to all who care about them.

Every 90 minutes, someone in America is diagnosed with ALS, and someone else loses the battle against the disease.

May is ALS Awareness Month.

It’s also the month of my dad’s birthday.

Please consider making a donation to the ALS Assocation.

Even more importantly, please PRAY for everyone affected by the disease: in particular that they would not lose faith in the midst of the horrors of ALS. And please pray for all medical personnel who interact with ALS patients, especially that they would have great compassion for what the patients and their families are going through.

Original article: ALS Awareness Month

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

We are schedule challenged.

Our days don’t start at a set time. (Actually, mine do now, but that’s because of the kindergartener in public school and a really early school bus.) That’s works just fine sometimes, but there are some days we just seem to keep dragging all day.

Now, throw two young kids in the mix; I’m amazed we’ve gotten anything done in the two months since they joined the family! That’s one of the reasons I chose to put the 4-year-old in a three day preschool this year while the 5-year-old was in public kindergarten: to give us a little time during the transition.

I used to think we had to have a strict schedule, or no schedule at all. Nothing in-between seemed to work for me. I’m finally learning that we can have a routine without being slaves to a schedule. This means we do certain things before we do other things, and we usually do certain things on certain days — BUT when needed that can vary. For instance, a beautiful spring day after a week of rain means I am perfectly happy for the kids to spend ALL day outside.

Personality clashes + grumpy days = no fun.

Lindsey and I sometimes clash because our personalities are so different. Then again, Kathryn and I sometimes butt heads because our personalities are so similar. I have no idea what gets into the little kids some days. Some days, it seems like everyone in the house ends up grumpy for no good reason. As much as I love my kids, those days can seem mighty long.

I have a child who does NOT like homeschooling.

Lindsey has come to see homeschool as the lesser of the two evils as compared to spending another 2 to 3 years in public school, but she doesn’t like it. Meaningful conversations about what she’s learning are far and few between because she rarely enjoys learning.

That’s been hard for me. Kathryn has grown up homeschooling and enjoys learning and discussing it with me. I love that. For a long time, I felt that Lindsey’s rejection of homeschooling was a rejection of me, the homeschool mom. It has created tension between us, especially before we sent her back to public school last year. I have to remind myself that her early learning experiences squashed her natural-born love of learning, and bringing that back at the age of 14 didn’t work. Maybe it’s possible, but it didn’t happen here.

In reality, it’s the schooling part of homeschooling that she has a problem with. Real-life learning (working and paying bills, as well as basic schooling) has taught her more this year than she learned in the previous several years combined. On a good day, she’d admit that, too.

Homeschooling is worth the trouble.

Of course I don’t share EVERY little detail of my life (I wrote about that a while back), but hear me on this: those hard days (or weeks, or YEARS!) aren’t just in your house!

This is no fairy tale, and there’s no fairy godmother stepping in to teach fractions. {Wouldn’t that be lovely?} Even with the grumpy days, the clashes of personality, the schedule challenges, a less-than-enthusiastic student… I wouldn’t trade it. The imperfect life we’re living is worth the time and effort.

–>  I’m not the only one! Read about MORE imperfect homeschools!

Original article: Top 3 Challenges in our Imperfect Homeschool

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.

Books we recommend:

Every now and then, I like to post specifically about some of the books we’ve been enjoying recently, so this is our latest installment of book recommendations. Big thanks to 12-year-old Kathryn for her input!

Black Star, Bright Dawn – Scott O’Dell

A young girl leads a sled-dog team in the Iditarod. Inspiring and adventure-filled story both boys and girls would enjoy. Great living book for Alaskan history and Eskimo culture. I read this one and enjoyed as much as Kathryn did — but I’ve always has a special place in my heart for dog books!

The Amethyst Ring - Scott O’Dell

Historical fiction series based on the Mayan Empire and the Spanish Conquest. Apparently this is the last in a trilogy, but Kathryn enjoyed it on it’s own. Now she’s eager to find the other two at our local library.

The Winter Pony – Iain Lawrence

Imaginatively told from the first-person point of view of James Pigg, a real horse who was part of an equine team on Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in 1910. Adventure-packed and full of history. (FYI to horse-lovers: not a happy ending.)

One Eye Laughing, The Other Weeping – Barry Denenberg

Part of the historical fiction “Dear America” series Kathryn loves. This story follows a young Jewish girl in Vienna as her family endures the country’s Nazi invasion, and eventually sends her to live with an aunt in New York.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – Barry Denenberg

Another in the “Dear America” series of fictional diaries, this story is about a girl who becomes blind in a terrible accident and learns how to cope with her new life in a school for the blind. Written as if dictated by the girl to her twin sister. Set in the 1930′s.

Nancy’s Mysterious Letter – Carolyn Keene

Not a whole lot of deep learning here, but Kathryn loves the Nancy Drew Mystery series, and in my opinion, reading still beats playing Angry Birds all day long. It also gives her something else to talk to Granma about, since these were her favorites as a girl!

For the Mamas:

Glow: A Novel – Jessica Maria Tuccelli

This was a book bought spontaneously at the airport bookshop after learning I’d have an unexpected 5-hour flight delay on the way to the 2:1 Conference. I enjoyed the depth of characters and a fictional look at the history of slavery and racial equality (or lack thereof) through several generations in the South. I got lost in this book, which helped occupy long hours waiting in the airport and keeping my mind off the fact that I was defying gravity in a giant hunk of metal hurtling at insane speeds through the sky at dizzying altitudes. {I don’t love flying.}

Quiet – Susan Cain

Subtitled: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.
I bought this one with the intent to read it as my airport/airplane book, but it was long and the font was kinda small, and I wasn’t so sure about it, even though I’d heard so many good things. Also, it takes a little concentration, which has been in short supply for me lately. Finally I had a chance to dig in and I am LOVING it. I’m only about halfway through, but have already learned so much about my introvert self and the extroverts I love. Highly recommended reading for introverts, or for anyone who loves an introvert!

Original article: More Recommended Reading

©2013 See Jamie blog. All Rights Reserved.