For Whatever it's Worth

For some reason, even though I read a lot of books, I haven't blogged about them. I do love to read and have had time to read a lot more lately than at other periods of my life (unless you count prepping cases for class as reading). It's a lot of fun and certainly an indulgence for me. My books of choice tend to be novels, and I venture into non-fiction rather infrequently. One of the reasons for that is that I don't usually finish non-fiction books. They tend to be redundant. So, once I've gotten the gist, I often get bored and move on to something with a plot.

However, I have recently happened onto several non-fiction books that I greatly enjoyed. I enjoyed them so much, in fact, that I recommend them to you, if you are looking for something to read. They are, in my opinion, worth the time. And I guess that's a lot, coming from me, because I'm not afraid to put books down if I'm not enjoying them. I do it with some frequency (even to novels). Life is too short, and my to-read list is WAY too long. And now, thanks to me, your to-read list can be even longer.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
I was recently at the library looking for books to help me in a communication workshop I sort of fell into teaching, and there sat this book. It's the classic, right? The original book on how to be a good salesman. I checked it out on a whim, thinking it would be funny to flip through as a basic reference. Instead, however, I ended up reading almost all of the "how to win friends" part and basing my entire presentation off of this book. It's very good. It draws you right in, is very entertaining, and isn't full of tricks or slimy recommendations on how to manipulate people. In fact, if I had to sum it all up, I might say that its most important recommendation is to be sincere. And I think Carnegie's advice is excellent. Great book with great advice on dealing with people. I have to give two caveats though. First, I actually only read the "how to win friends part," so I'm not exactly certain how his advice is on influencing people. And second, I think the book would be better titled "how to win acquaintances who think you're a great person." Forming true friendships requires more sharing of yourself and just a deeper relationship than Carnegie leads you through. This book can help you gain a lot of potential friends, but I think the next step is up to you (or some other book).

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler
On that same fateful trip to the library, I noticed this book on the "new" shelf and picked it up on even more of a whim. And, to be honest, when I picked it up and for the first half of the book, I thought it was about something a little different. It's a great book for anyone who has ever wondered why you can't eat just two or three potato chips and then move on. Or why every time you drive past Krispy Kreme, you really really really want to go in and get a doughnut, or twelve. If you've never felt that way, you might not like it so much. But it's a fascinating read. It's written by the former head of the FDA and is very insightful into our psychology as well as the food industry. It will change the way you think about food. It may also cause you to think twice about anything you eat that is prepared or processed (not because those things are bad, necessarily, but just because he explains more about them). I will say that the abundant descriptions of tantalizing food in this book succeeded in making me hungry more than once. So don't read it just before you go grocery shopping.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Okay, in all fairness, I listened to this one on CD while driving around town. I've discovered that I spend a lot of hours driving around town. And now that I'm spending those hours listening to books, I talk to my mom on the phone quite a bit less. Oops. Anyway, I've always meant to read this, since I majored in economics and have heard it's interesting. Indeed it is, though random and somewhat pointless, well not pointless so much as lacking in overall message (kind of like this sentence). However, the chapter on the futility of being an over-worried parent came on a day when I really needed it, and the bit about incentives is extremely insightful and applicable to many situations in life. It was nice to flex a part of my brain that hasn't had as much to do for the past few years, and there are many great anecdotes, including a summary of a book I read and enjoyed last year (Gang Leader for a Day*). If you like random statistics or interesting trivia, this is a great book for you.

*I recommend this one too. Good insight into what gang life is really like and the true face of poverty. And I think it's funny to discover that these two authors are friends. I mean, look at the complete titles of their books. It's clear that either their minds or the minds of their publishers (or is that publisher?) function in pretty much the same way. And while we're on THAT subject, who decided that all book jackets should be white? I had to laugh when I put down The End of Overeating, with its white cover, and noticed a nearly identical jacket on the next book I picked up, Eat, Pray, Love (I'm only halfway through and the jury is still out on this one, but let's just say that had a good friend not recommended it very highly I would probably have put it back on the shelf by now).

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

My how quickly a year goes by. I can hardly believe the changes this past year brought.

Our tiny baby is growing in to a little girl, from a helpless bundle of joy to an almost standing, always squirming bundle of smiles. This post is full of collages, but it truly is quite a feat to distill an entire year of parenthood into just one manageable blog post (not that I won't try).


We've had a wonderful year of family time.

I know families come in all shapes and sizes, but it is fun to feel like a stereotypical family, hanging out together. And the more time we spend together, the more we seem to enjoy it.


A year of trying to capture everything cute and/or funny.

Composing this post has made me realize the ridiculous volume of photos we've taken this year. But it has also brought back a lot of fun memories, like Virginia clapping for herself the day she ripped all my magazines apart, learning to hold a spoon, and discovering that the tupperware drawer is just the right height.

A year of mutual admiration.

And self-admiration. Virginia's favorite thing in the world, next to her books, is mirrors. A book with a mirror in it is pure nirvana. Needless to say, she was pretty thrilled about both going to the bean and sitting in front of the three panel mirror at the store. That was so exciting I took a video of her bliss (I'm so dedicated to my still photography that it's actually the only time I've ever videoed anything--had to figure how to make the camera do it first).

A year of sharing our joy with family and friends.

These are pictures of Virginia's baby blessing, the day Scout and Atticus finally got together, and Scout with her great-grandmothers (including the original Virginia).

A year of sleep, sometimes more than others.

You'll notice these pictures stop when she's about four months old. She stopped sleeping wherever and through whatever, but I still miss when she would lay on my knees and just sleep there.

A year of food, in many forms and locations.

From bottles and tubes to spoons and hands, everywhere from the side of the road to the Cheesecake Factory.


A year of reading.

We've made a lot of progress here too. The pictures are in color, some of the pages are made of paper rather than cardboard, and she's even willing to read some Eric Carle books (though not all of them and not always). Our little Scout remains a discerning reader. She has favorites, and shoves everything else aside. But sometimes, when she thinks I'm not watching, she pulls out the new material to give it a look and perhaps approve it for future read-alouds.

What a wonderful year of cuddling and kissing and loving and learning. Oh how we love our baby girl!

Virginia's Birthday: A Story of Celebration

A certain member of our family recently turned one. To commemorate the occasion, in addition to a rather sappy, reminiscent post (which is on its way) we share with you an account of how she celebrated, in mostly pictures, with only a few words--just the way the birthday girl prefers her stories.

In anticipation of presents, Virginia tried out her "surprised" face for her father.

She put on a party dress, so everyone would know it was her special day.

The presents started to pile up.

So she started trying to figure out how to get them open.

That was confusing, so we moved on to the important stuff....


The food!

Yep, she was pretty excited, because at this point all she'd seen was the usual vegetables in her little orange bowl.

What? You interrupted my vegetables for this?!

Oh wait, there's fire.

Ooh, fire.


Really not sure about this part.

It feels...squishy.

Okay...I'll try it.

Nope, don't like it. Not even if you cut it in pieces.

But she did get frosting all over that hand she's running through her hair.

And now, it's all over her hair.

Mom, please stop trying to feed me this strange chocolate stuff. I just don't think I like it.

Wait!

Is that...a camera...?

Better act excited!

Notice the only place there is no cake, inside her mouth.

Yah! Cake!!!!

One bath later...a very calm, dignified birthday celebration continues.

Thoughts on Prepared Parenting

Upon becoming parents,you want to have three sheets for your baby's crib. Why, you ask? One plus a backup should be fine, right? Wrong. After two weeks without "incident," you may decide that you might as well go ahead and change the crib sheet for the sake of being sanitary. And it will inevitably be on that day that an incident will occur (sometimes within minutes of the sanitary change), necessitating another clean sheet. This is to say nothing of the days with multiple "incidents." You ALWAYS want to have a clean sheet available.

These are the days I'm glad many pairs of pajamas come with more than one set of bottoms. If you enjoy doing laundry, parenthood may be just the thing for you.

Family Outing

One lovely afternoon, we decided to take a little family outing to Olbrich Botanical Gardens, one of Madison's wonderful, affordable attractions. We had a relaxing afternoon, strolling through the gardens, though I was surprised that life didn't seem to be in bloom quite as abundantly in the gardens as elsewhere in Madison. Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves, and James and Virginia were very patient with my need to photograph everything.

The birds were out.

The plants were beautiful.

Predictably, Scout was not content with a merely visual experience.
And, of course, I had to capture more images of the Thai Pavillion

For your viewing enjoyment

Thoughts on Conscientious Parenting

Today I learned that Virginia really likes to play with newly clean laundry. Remember her obsession with peek-a-boo? Laundry is great for that. She was entertained for a solid half hour. The only problem, of course, is that it wasn't her laundry, so it was covered with laundry detergent to which our dear baby is allergic. And now her face is all red. Oops!

On an unrelated note, isn't it great that the one place Virginia will play as long as I'm willing to let her without caring at all whether or not I'm playing attention to her is the bathtub? Too bad that's the one place where I must absolutely always be paying attention to her. Otherwise I might actually get something done.

One reason she loves the bath so much is that it's the only place she gets access to a favorite object of hers: cups with no sippy lids that are full of water. If you're wondering, yes, she takes the opportunity to drink from them as often as I'll let her. And you thought I was paying such rapt attention to the bath to be sure she doesn't drown. At least she's learning a new skill....

Three Cheers for the Lamb!

Have I really not posted any pictures of Scout for over a month? Is her development already so passe? Well, here it comes. Lately we've been...

...playing lots of peek-a-boo,...

...playing the piano...

...and just hanging out at home.

But then, last week it got fabulously warmer. Suddenly we could...

...go for walks,...

...wear short sleeves,...

...even sport bare feet sometimes!
Today, we equipped her with a hat whose sole purpose is to keep out the sun (well, that and look cute, of course).

Bring on the sunshine; we're ready for Spring!

A Frugal Soul Gets Carried Away

If you've always figured I was a little strange, this posts should reassure you that you are right.

Ryan: if you actually read my blog(which I seriously doubt), perhaps this will make up for my not posting anything about the little incident with all the slips of paper in the road after church last week.

Several years ago, James and I got married.

We were married in Utah and had wedding receptions in both Utah and Arizona. We know lots of nice people, so we got a lot of presents. My parents loaded up all the Utah stuff in their suburban and drove it to Arizona for us. The only trouble is that we lived in Virginia. So, of course, all the presents had to get from Arizona to Virginia.

You'll notice that it's quite a long ways to go.

At first we planned to rent a car and drive everything across the country. But that didn't sound like much fun. Who drives across the hottest part of the country during the hottest part of the year? Well, actually, we did, two years later in the other direction, but that's another story.... So instead of driving across the country for three days, we spent two days returning everything we possibly could in exchange for very portable gift cards. If this upsets you, don't worry, I'm certain your particular gift was so great that we put it in the eight boxes of stuff we mailed ourselves.

Really, the boxes were full of everything we were unsuccessful at returning (and the amazing knives that remain one of my absolute favorite gifts even though at first I wasn't sure we should keep them along with the two less amazing knife sets we couldn't return--thanks Nancy!). Some of it I'm glad I couldn't take back (the fabulous green tupperware I didn't know I'd absolutely love) and some of it I'm not sure was worth the money we spent shipping it. Do you want to know whether people re-gifted stuff to you? Try returning it. My favorite moment was when I tried to return something to Bed Bath and Beyond and the clerk said, "Well, I'm pretty sure this did come from our store, but we haven't carried this product for at least two years." Hmmm....

Anyway, some of the gift cards were not eventually spent purchasing the items we got credit for. And really, who can blame us? We really did receive about eight cutting boards, five knife sets and forty dishtowels. So, while stocking our new apartment, we used part of one of our gift cards to acquire a bookshelf. Being an inexpensive-type bookshelf, some assembly was required. And so our troubles began.

While James was assembling this lovely bookshelf, the included screw broke off in the socket, making it impossible to put the shelf together. Fortunately, the manufacturer had anticipated just such a problem and included an address where we could send for any missing parts. We sent for a new side piece and one arrived shortly. But what to do with the old side piece? It was made of sturdy wood, a lovely color and perfectly good except for the screw broken off in one side of it.

And here's where the lesson in Melanie's character begins. A normal person would likely have disposed of the side piece with little thought. But I hate wasting. I think people focus way too much on the recycle piece of the reduce-reuse-recycle environmental trifecta. We should all reuse things more, and reduce the amount we consume in the first place, creating less waste. So I determined that this end piece should not go to waste. But what to do with it?

The bookshelf itself didn't turn out to be all that great. We do still have it, but it has to be set up in a corner because it leans a great deal and would likely collapse without a wall next to it for support.
So, with the bookshelf investment not turning out so well, I felt I had to make good use of the end piece. Well, I thought it could be made into a picture frame. And a craftier, less busy person who owned a saw would have made one straightway. But I am not crafty, I was in law school at that point, and sadly we did not use any of our gift cards to acquire a saw (incidentally, we just bought one this last week, but that was to complete a project that has needed doing for over nine months now, to give some perspective). So, I held onto the end piece, planning a lovely picture frame of sorts, once I came across a saw. No saws were forthcoming, but I did have James go ahead and hang it on the wall one day when he was hanging other things. I had another clever decorating idea in mind, and thought he'd just as well put in the nails, since his hammer was out (there's a certain illogical efficiency in my inability actually to get anything done).

And the end piece remained there on the wall for the next two years. And I never did do anything with it, but there it was until it came time for us to leave Virginia and move to Wisconsin.

Here comes my character once again. In addition to eschewing waste, I am quite stubborn. Let's call it tenacious, to give it a positive spin. Now that I had held onto it so long, I felt that I had to do something with the end piece. Wouldn't I feel stupid to just throw it away after all that time? Besides, we were on the way to visit both our parents on the way to Wisconsin. Surely one of them would loan us a saw for a few minutes. So I packed the end piece in the trunk of the car along with all of the other possessions we couldn't live without for three months, and we headed across the country.

The end piece came with us through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona (where I forgot to ask about a saw), California, Utah (where I forgot to get it out of the car at all--in my defense, I was studying for, taking and recovering from the Bar Exam during this period), Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota and finally Wisconsin, where it found a new home. Having hauled it all that way, I knew we'd soon make friends with someone who owns a saw and held onto it. Then, I came up with a new and less crafty decorating plan that involved the end piece and may not require a saw at all. In the meantime, I thought it would help make the mantle more asymmetrical and put it there.
(Please excuse the hangers on the mantle. They are not part of the decorating scheme, but I had some laundry drying at the time this photo was taken.)

And there it sat, on the mantle, for another year and a half. Until the other day, when I was dusting (not for the first time in that year and a half, mind you) and decided to rearrange some things. And I decided that the end piece was just a dust collector and a pointless reminder of my tendency toward being a pack rat, my never ending to-do list and my inability to get rid of things, even when they're unlikely ever to be useful again. And so, I removed it from the mantle, replaced it with a nifty bottle that I hope will add a less odd, if also less imposing, sense of asymmetry. The bottle was, incidentally, a wedding gift (which we did not try to return--thanks Jess!), and is doing a satisfactory job.
James says he feels that something is missing, but I think it's an improvement. And if in another week or so he still misses it, I can always put it back because, of course, I can't quite bring myself to throw away the end piece just yet.

Random: Witty, Wistful, Downright Hilarious, and Completely Brilliant

• Talking about the Polygamous Mormons shortly after the Pioneers went west, when Brother Brigham was still at the head of the Church, Mark Twain said, "in Utah, most of the women marry Young."

• I was talking to my friend about budgeting and she said that James and I are able to budget because we are a two-income family. Huh? If only those two incomes came from either of us working more than half-time, her logic might check out. On the contrary, I think having two rather modest incomes, like ours, force us into far more creative budgeting than we might otherwise need.

• Scout is learning to play peek-a-boo. She has enjoyed me covering and then uncovering her face for months now. And she adores lift-the-flap books. This week, however, she has begun to pick up whatever piece of cloth she can find (usually a burp cloth), and after checking to see whether I'm watching, she covers her face and quickly whisks it away with a smile. A few weeks ago the Doctor gave me a checklist of developmental milestones Scout is supposed to reach before twelve months, so I've started trying them out. One of them is that she should play games like patty-cake and peek-a-boo with no visual clues (that is, I just tell her to play peek-a-boo and she does it). As of yesterday, she's pretty good at this one. So, of course, I wanted to show James. When she finished her bottle this afternoon, I handed her the burp cloth and said "peek-a-boo!" She dutifully picked up the cloth and covered her face and head. Perfect, now we waited with baited breath for her to remove the cloth and flash that gummy smile. I said my line, "Where's Scout?" And we waited. And we waited. There she sat, for about forty-five seconds, dutifully holding the burp cloth up to her face, waiting happily. I think she forgot what she was supposed to do next. I finally started saying "peek-a-boo" in an attempt to trigger her memory. And down came the burp cloth. She properly repeated the game about ten more times, but James and I were laughing too hard to be a very good audience.

• I am probably the last person on the internet to discover this, but in case I'm not, here my most recent discovery of why the internet is great: My friend's husband told me about Pandora, which is free radio on the internet. What's so great about that? You tell it a song or artist you like, and it plays more stuff like it. And you can give it all the songs and artists you want. And you can create your own stations for different musical moods you may be in. And the very best part is, if it plays something you don't like, you just tell it and it will never play that song again. Never. How many times did I NEED this function the summer "Yellow" was on the radio at least three million times and I wondered whether pushing a q-tip into my ear really would pop the ear drum and make me go deaf? I would probably pay money for this, but I don't even have to. It's great.