Reading: Want To Feel Like An Amazing Parent?

All of us have those days when we feel like we missed some important memo that would've told us the secret to doing parenting right. Well, after the kids are in bed on those days, crack open one of these great reads; they're sure to make you feel like an amazing parent!

Joyner's Dream by Sylvia Tyson
A friend lent me this book, and once I started reading it I had a hard time putting it down. (Thanks, S!) This is an enticing family saga, stretching from 18th-century England to 21st-century Canada. Like any family, this book's cast of characters is diverse: some are loving, nurturing parents, while others... not so much. My favourite example of the latter is a father who, due to his own demons, cannot accept his daughter, and so leaves the girl in the sole care of her grandfather. When the bad daddy reappears, he only sustains interest in the young woman as long as she aids him with cons, swindles and thefts. Nice, eh?


Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) is a renowned and Nobel-winning Egyptian author. In Palace Walk, the first book of his Cairo Trilogy, we meet the al-Jawad family, headed by the imposing father, Sayyid Ahmad. Set in the late 1910's in Cairo, the book follows the paths of the various family members, outside of and inside of the family unit. At the outset Sayyid Ahmad is a sanctimonious, inflexible tyrant; as the book progresses he proves himself to be a two-faced, egotistical and vain bully. Thankfully, the other characters are much more sympathetic, and the writing is beautiful, giving a sensational feel of Egypt in the early 20th century.

Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

Anything by Augusten Burroughs is not for the faint of heart, and, honestly, I recommend this author's memoirs only for those with a dry sense of humour bordering on dark. Burroughs manages to recount the disturbingly self-absorbed antics of his parents and others as outrageously funny vignettes. One example: after his parents' publicly acrimonious split, young Augusten's unstable mother gives him to her therapist, whose ritual is to poop on the picnic table in the family's backyard and then demand that the other members of the household examine it to assess what deep truths the excrement imparts. ... Betcha haven't done that, have you?

How about you? Do you have any "this-parent-makes-me-look-amazing" books?

The Quilt: For Once, I Won't Channel Liz Lemon

photo from nbc.com
Tina Fey as Liz Lemon
(link to one of my favourite clips)

My partner's favourite show, hands down, is "30 Rock" with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. And one of his favourite lines is when Fey's character recites a list of her recent summer accomplishments, including starting a quilt, and Baldwin replies,"You'll never finish that quilt." To which she grudgingly retorts, "I know!"

For the uninitiated --a category I include myself in-- quilting can seem like the Sisyphean task of sewing: labour-intensive, never-ending and, ultimately, futile. I marvel whenever I see a completed quilt. Having confessed this, you can understand why I've been reluctant to admit that I've started a one.

I've kept it a secret because I gave myself a deadline to finish of two years, and I wanted to be sure that I could produce on schedule. When I began the quilt two years seemed like a generous amount of time, but that was back in January. Yes, as in 10 months ago. And so far, I have... cut out a bunch of little pieces of fabric. Faith in my ability to complete this project started to waver.

Until this past week! I... S-E-W-E-D...!! (Horn fanfare, please.)

Do not let my renewed enthusiasm mislead you: I (still) have lots more little pieces of fabric to cut, and I really need to get the lead out if this quilt is going to get done before global warming makes it irrelevant.

But, I now have hope. And I resolve that I will not Lemon out! (Stay tuned...)

Giving Thanks Amid The Colours

We were very happy to spend part of the Thanksgiving long weekend at our extended family's cottage.

The kids enjoyed exploring the beach, wading in the water, building sandcastles (which were then attacked by ferocious sea monsters) and hiking in the back forest. Good thing I learned from our summer camping venture to bring lots of extra clothes! And waterproof pants didn't hurt...

I hope you and yours had a wonderful time, too!

Decorating Pumpkins Without The Knife

Am I the only one whose kids have already been clamouring, "Can we carve the pumpkin today?" And, of course, my explanation that if we cut into it now (nearly 30 days before Hallowe'en) it will only go bad, gave little credence to my answer of "no."

Thankfully, Gail Gibbons' The Pumpkin Book rescued me. In reading this, my guys nabbed the idea to decorate our pumpkin without subjecting it to surgical re-invention.

Oh, no! My hair gel is out of control!

What we used:

• bottle caps for eyes
• frozen juice can lid for mouth
• play-dough for nose, hair (or whatever that stuff is supposed to be) and ears
• a discarded pacifier and a trinket we found on the street for earrings

Then we had the brilliant idea to make it look like he's climbing out of our front planter! So we cut the legs off a pair of old pants that were headed for the rag bin, wound an elastic around each on one end, stuffed them with plastic bags and finished them off with a pair of old mittens.

Why is this kid smiling? Can't he see I'm trying to get out?!?

Other items that would make great pumpkin features:

• buttons
• pins, brooches
• costume items like glasses and false noses
• Mr. Potato Head bits
• foam shapes or bits that you have lying around

What else?

The F-Word And Me

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