Pandora strikes Lily-Ann mute!

Okay, so y’all are probably getting sick of me mentioning the Goddess Girls series…  well…  too bad!  LOL  Today the challenge was to photograph something that I’m reading, and that’s what I’m reading.  Book nine:  Pandora the Curious.

Our copy of Pandora the Curious by Suzanne Williams and Joan Holub.

Usually we’ve been inside the heads of the popular girls, but the last couple of books have taken us inside a couple of secondary characters (the girl and I ADORED Medusa the Mean).  Pandora, along with Medusa and Pheme are the anti-heroines to the cool clique of Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite and Persephone.  So it’s kinda fun to get to see inside their lives.

This book, in particular, is awfully special to Lily-Ann.  The first time she saw it she was actually rendered speechless for the first time in her five and a half years…  well…  since she uttered her first word (which happened to be “woof”) at three months of age anyway.  😉  What exactly caused her awestruck silence?  Take a peek:

There she is, the first name on the third line… Lily-Ann S.

Kid kid managed to keep her wits about her when she saw that it was an autographed copy (she has a couple other autographed books too)…  but seeing her name actually inside the book?  Her jaw dropped and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head.  She just stood there and stared at it for several seconds, completely mute.  It was pretty amazing.

Lily-Ann LOVED the little heart. 🙂

So, that’s what we’re reading right now.  And I imagine we’ll keep on reading the Goddess Girls books for as long as Joan and Suzanne keep writing them.  I do have to admit…  I really look forward to the day that kid kid goes back on her own to read #1 all by herself.

You can keep up with Joan and Suzanne at the following addresses:  www.joanholub.com   www.suzanne–williams.com

Lily-Ann (hat hair and all) proudly showing off her Goddess Girls books.

 

Suzanne and Joan thank you so much!  You’ve given the girl and I many wonderful memories and are helping to build a love of books in a new generation – and that is something that deserves much appreciation.

Join me tomorrow as I share a little “happiness”:

New House Nerves and Medusa the Mean

Okay, ya got me.  I’ve been kind of a lazy blogger lately.  My posts aren’t really sounding like me, they are short and not nearly as engaging.  Yeah.  I know.

The fact of the matter is, with everything on my brain lately, I’m just not quite myself.  I’m stressed about the house…  packing up and leaving this place behind is tough.  I’m super excited about the new place and what it will mean for our family, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is our home.  We got engaged in the bathroom.  We first talked about having a baby sitting in this bedroom.  We’ve lived lots of places together, Damon and I, but this was the first one that was home.  Nine years here.  It’s a hard thing to walk away from, even if the place no longer meets our needs.

So yeah.  With the house on my brain, it’s hard to think of much else for long enough to blog about it.  …and I’m guessing you don’t want to hear me posting about the house every day.  😉

We take possession one month from today.  We already have so many boxes packed that it’s tough to move around in here.  We haven’t got even a small portion of the packing done yet.  There’s more than one reason we stayed here nine years (even though the intention was about three years when we bought the place).  LOL

It’s a good thing.  This is going to be such an amazing thing for us.  But that doesn’t take away from how difficult it is.

That said, here’s something cute and fun:

We’ve been reading Medusa the Mean (yep, another book in the Goddess Girls series).  Lily-Ann absolutely LOVED chapter 7, Kindergarten Buddies.  Of course, being IN kindergarten herself probably had a lot to do with it…  though it was a super adorable chapter that made her giggle and grin repeatedly (especially when she realized that there was a crush starting between Medusa and Dionysus, and then further imagined her Daddy as being like Dionysus and herself as Andromeda).  So tonight, before bedtime, she decided to draw Medusa and Dionysus – as inspired by the Goddess Girls books and the cover illustration of Medusa the Mean.  And for a five year old?  I was darn impressed.  😉

Medusa and Dionysus

My favourite thing in the whole world…

I’ll admit…  the reason I’ve had a really rough couple of days has been Ron.  I’ve mentioned him before.  He’s one of the two special needs gentlemen who live at my parents place.  We affectionately refer to him as the “grumpy old man”, but the last couple of days there hasn’t been affection there.  At ALL.

My parents left for Cuba on Sunday morning.  They’ll be there for two weeks.  It’s the first time they’ve ever taken a vacation like this…  a trip just for them:  not to visit family, not to work, not to take us kids somewhere, just for them.  It’s something they sooo deserve.  So this Summer, when they asked if I’d stay here for two weeks to take care of everyone I was more than happy to do so.  And I still am.  But Ron has been VERY difficult.

It’s not like I haven’t stayed here to watch everyone before.  My mom has gone along with Dad on some of his band gigs before, and they always ask me to watch over the house, my two sisters who are still at home, the pets, and the guys.  I stayed here for 10 days in the Summer, so this fourteen day stretch isn’t totally out of the ordinary.  So Ron and I have a history of being together in this type of situation.

Ron is like family, he lives here, and is usually a sweet old guy.  We call him “grumpy old man” because he’s got a crotchety streak.  You’ll catch him muttering, mostly unintelligibly, under his breath.  And then, amongst all the grumbles you’ll hear the curse words, clear as day.  You can’t do anything but laugh.

“Groudms bumsle nurm hulmna SHIT bramt blurf laub ramb…”

I crack a grin every time I overhear him on one of his tangents, talking to no-one in particular, lost in a moment.  We’re all awfully fond of the old guy.  He’s easy to love, and is always so sincerely grateful for your praise, affection, and support.  It’s something he hasn’t had in his life, and something he deserves.  He really is one of this worlds forgotten seniors.  It breaks my heart.

Ron has been absolutely miserable the last few days, and it has been very hard to live with him.  He has been purposefully hurtful, nasty, and MEAN.  It’s a side of him I’ve glimpsed very rarely.  He has actually lashed out physically a couple of times, he hasn’t hurt anyone, but he’s made it clear he wants everyone to bugger off.  So tonight?  I was sooo happy to have our OLD Ron back.  Whatever dark cloud was hovering over him has broken, and the sun is shining again.  Ron gave me a big hug, with tears in his eyes, and I gratefully returned it.

Damon taught Ron and Steven (the other special needs fellow who lives here) how to bowl on the Wii tonight.  It was the coolest thing.  Ron and Steven bowled a ten frame game together, and Ron won!  He was SOOO excited, so proud.  He walked around telling everyone “I won!  I won!”  You’d think he’d just been awarded a huge gold trophy.  It was wonderful.  And I am SOOO glad to have our old man back.  I’ve missed him the last few days.

So, my day has improved tremendously.  And it has become easy to find the joy again.  Then, to make things even better…  we ended the day the best way possible.

My favourite thing in the whole world is when the wee girlie falls asleep as I read.  This is only the second time it’s ever happened, and it makes me blissfully happy.  There is something so special about sharing such an amazing moment, seeing my daughter so contented, feeling so safe, so cared for…  drifting off sooo happily.  It makes my heart sing.

Novels at bedtime are wonderful!

We are breezing through the Fairy Blossoms series by Suzanne Williams.  One more chapter and we are done the second book.  At this rate, we’ll finish the series before the end of January.  They just read so easily, so smoothly.  The stories are charming, and the characters are equally so.  It might be tough to come up with something Lily-Ann devours like these books next.

😉

Night all!

Wishing you joy.

 

Our second chapter book.

Reading with my dad is one of my earliest memories.  He used to sit beside my bed and read me some of the greatest stories ever written.  It’s where my love of books began.  I still have the copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy that he read me all those years ago.  They are beat up pretty bad, and can barely hold in their pages…  but they are very well loved, having been read again and again and again.  I hope that one day my daughter will look back on our night time reads with the same fondness, and that it will inspire her to a lifetime of adventuring.

Lily-Ann and I finished our first chapter book on December 26th.  It was an adaptation of Tangled (the new Disney princess movie based on the Rapunzel fairy tale).  We found it in her school book order, and I figured we should give it a go.

On Tuesday we picked our current read.  I first consulted my most trusted group of writerly friends (the MomWriters, an email based group of women writers of which I’ve been a member for the last ten years).  I look forward to following up on many of their recommendations.  But this go round the girlie favoured the first book in the Fairy Blossoms series by Suzanne Williams, Daisy and the Magic Lesson.

So far, we have BREEZED through the first29 pages.  Its such an easy, flowing read.  And the characters are so personable, a group of nine year old fairies just beginning at Mistress Lily’s fairy school, what could be more delightful?  I have a feeling we’ll be sticking with this series for a while.

tonight's chapter...