Golden Gopher

I am now officially a Minnesota Golden Gopher.  Jim and I drove up to the campus today and I got my ID card and walked to where my classes will be held.  23 years ago we did the same thing at ISU.  We were newlyweds and I was starting up at this big new intimidating school.  He helped me register, showed me where all my classes were and then took me to the ISU bookstore to buy my books; one of my novels for American lit was entitled (get this!) "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada".  Jim was convinced that it was a mistake, though it was clearly labeled as a book for that class.  I prevailed and we bought it, and we laughed all semester as I read excerpts of it to him.  We seem to have come full circle.  I love the feel of a college campus - all the students wallking around, and just the atmosphere of a new semester, the anticipation.  The student loans are officially borrowed, so I am in it to win it!  To seal the deal we ate in the student union building.  I about fell over when I saw a Chik-Fil-A there.  I haven't seen any in Minnesota, we have long mourned our Virginia favorite.  I won't tell the kids about it, they will just die until we go there.  Maybe I'll take them to the campus museum and surprise them with Chik for lunch!! 

nefarious nap time

So, Mason is on nap strike.  The last few weeks I lay him down as usual, shut the door and revel in the blessed 2-hr break I am about to receive.  Unfortunately, booger boy has other plans.  So today after about an hour I hear this horrible screaming. I go running in there (well stumbling actually, because I was deep in the midst of an afternoon nap) and this is what I find.  His light was on, a movie was playing on the little VCR TVand he had dropped a toy behind his bed.  He got stuck, and was crying and screaming "STUCK!"  I had forgotten to unplug his TV, he knows how to put a tape in and turn it on.  We put it up high on his dresser as well, but he has figured out how to stack toys and climb up them to reach the TV and put in a tape.  I don't like being outsmarted by a 2-yr-old.  I have finally resorted to laying him down and then leaving his door open and posting myself just outside, reminding him to go back to bed (very sternly) every time he starts climbing out.  He still tries to sneak over and shut the door so I can't hear him and the party can begin.  When I stand guard however, he gives up pretty quickly and is out in about 5 minutes.  Don't be messing with naptime people, that is hands-down the best time of the day, it will go on!!!

       Jim and I celebrated our 23rd anniversary this week!  My how the time does fly.  What a ride it has been, with lots of ups and definitely a few downs, but I wouldn't trade this guy for anything.  He brought me a dozen roses and we went out to lunch at my favorite place - Panera.  Jim even had a salad, what a guy.  I could do another 23 years I think, in fact I can't wait for the next 23 years!! 

more books . . .

Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

     This is one of my favorite YA books.  I read it many years ago while I was teaching middle school and loved it so much I got a mini-grant from the district to buy a set for our department.  I loved teaching this book, it is such a great story.  The setting is England around 1300 AD.  Catherine is the 13-yr-old daughter of a minor nobleman who owns a manor.  She spends her days helping Cook in the kitchen, scaring off suitors her father finds and learning the arts of herbs and doctoring to prepare her to be the lady of the manor someday.  Catherine is hilarious as she writes the journal that makes up the book.  She is constantly in trouble for not trying to be a proper lady, and her observations of those around her are always dead on.  I loved this book, I learned so much about life in the time period, the roles of those who lived then, and absolutely loved Catherine herself.






Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

      What more can be said about Pride and Prejudice that hasn't been said?  However, this book will always have a very secure place in my heart because of the circumstances surrounding my reading of the book.  I was taking English lit and was pregnant with my first child.  (A girl!!)  Jim was home very little so I was alone a lot.  I remember sitting in our little apartment and reading this book for many evenings.  I was a goner - I loved every syllable.  I had never heard of Jane Austen, and at the time she was for the most part, just required reading for English lit, and not otherwise too widely known.  Not only did I fall in love with the book, but I particularly loved Jane Bennet, she was so sweet, something that I aspired to in my character but never quite seemed to master!  I remember very distinctly the Saturday afternoon that I got to the unexpected letter to Elizabeth from Mr.  Darcy.  I dropped the book - seriously.  Never has a passage taken me by such surprise.  I read the letter over and over, not believing my eyes.  This isn't a spoiler - you all know the story, right!?  Anyway, after one of the best discoveries in lit I'll ever make, I had no choice but to name my daughter after my favorite author and character:  Jane.  This is probably the only time in my life I have been so far ahead of the "cool" curve, I recognized the total wonderfulness of this book and author way before she went mainstream, and my daughter Kasey Jane is proof of that! 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

     This was the very first purchase I made on my Kindle - the Kindle being the single best present my husband has ever given me.  I love you honey!!  Anyway, it is wonderful!  The setting is the Mississippi at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.  Most of the main characters are the African American women that served as maids in white households - the help.  We also see this situation from the perspective of a young white girl just back from college who comes home to find the woman who raised her, the maid Constantine, has disappeared.  Out of this frustration and the realizations she has about what life was like for black maids she begins to write a book, telling the stories of the women themselves of what life is like for a maid in the South.  The characters are funny and heart-wrenching and very real.  We learn what it's like to be in Jim Crow South.  A great read.  5 stars for sure.   

books-a-million . . continued

More of some of my favorite all-time books.. . . .with some tossed in that I've read that maybe aren't so great, so hopefully a mixed bag of reviews.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

      The. best. book. ever.  The end.  The guy can turn a phrase like no other author I've ever read.  I love his writing, his descriptions, some of the scenes had me laughing so hard I was crying.  I would try to read some of the funny passages out loud to Jim, but I could never get through them because I couldn't stop laughing.  Lots of other passages were read out loud, just to share the amazing descriptions and characters.  We especially liked the FBI agent, otherwise known as the "putrid fed" in the book.  Funny.  Sweet.  Spiritual.  Sad.  Insightful.  Mostly about the love of a family, and the importance of those ties.   Don't miss it.











The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

     This is a very unique book, mostly in that it is narrated completely by Death.  The narrator simply observes what he is seeing, and comments on his role when the time comes.  In this case he is observing a German family at the outset of WW II.  We follow this family throughout the war, and we are given a picture of what this war was like from a German point of view.  The family consists of the older couple, and the foster child they have taken in, the neighbors on their street, and various people in their town.  It was very interesting to see the war from someone inside Germany, and the different outlooks, depending on which person we are looking at.  The main characters in this book are some of my very favorites in literature, ever.  By the end I hated to close the book and say good-bye to them and to the narrator. 

books-a-million

Since I love to read I want to review some of the books I've read, it will be nice to have a list of the books and my thoughts on each of them.

Gone With the Wind!  My MIL gave this to me for Christmas many years ago.  I had given up reading for pleasure for the most part at this time in my life, as I was working and had little kids, etc.  After a new baby I picked up the book and kept it near me to read while I nursed and rocked my new little guy.  One of the best presents I ever got was this book, bless my MIL's heart.  I started the first chapter and I was utterly hooked from the very beginning.  After all these years this is still one of my very favorites.  The story, the writing, the history, I could go on and on.  The passages of conversation between Rhett and Scarlett are worth the read all by themselves.  The portrait of the South during those years is admittedly told from the point of view of a Southerner, but is a heart-wrenching and descriptive narrative of what those years were like and especially the contrast between the years before and after the war.  I learned so much about the South, and especially after I moved to the South realized that the Civil War is still very much alive and well below the Mason-Dixon line.  Having read Gone With the Wind (and having a degree in history) helped me to understand the history and midset that makes up the South.  Definitely 5 stars - Margaret Mitchell could certainly wield a pen, and craft a sentence, don't miss it.    

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

    Another Southern lady who could really string some sentences together!  What a great read; funny, sad, wise, it's all there.  She writes of a young boys childhood growing up in the post-war South in a town called Cold Sassy, named after a sassafrass tree.  Young Will lives with his mom and dad, and helps his grandpa out at the family store.  He has adventures and mishaps, and loves spending time with his grandpa, a Civil War veteran.  His observations are hilarious, as are his take on his Grandpa marrying his young new employee after his grandma dies.  Though it has been many years since I read this, I plan on picking it up again someday. 











The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel

   An unexpectedly pregnant young girl finds herself shipped off to Colorado by her minister father and married to a young farmer she has never met.  World War II is raging and near the farm she is sent to there is a camp where Japanese have been interned.  This book is about the Japanese internees as well as the story of the newly wed couple.  The Japanese help out on the neighboring farms, and two young Japanese girls befriend Livy, who is lonely sad and scared in her new life.  A touching book, that paints a clear portrait of what life was like in the internment camps, and also tells Livy's story.  A great read!!

Lazy Summer Days

     Life here at the Hansen household is pretty slow and easy these days.  Karly and Preston are with their friends most of the time, and Mason and I hang out and watch a little Sesame Street.  This morning I took pity on our poor baby that goes and sits in the bike trailer when he wants to go on a ride.  I took him for a long ride to the library and the grocery store and a few other errands.  It was really fun, though tiring, and the little trailer was bursting with groceries on the way home.  I felt bad for Mason squeezed in one corner surrounded by loaves of bread and my gigantic purse.  He took it all in stride, as long as he's riding in the trailer he doesn't care.  Today after naptime I will take him to the lake and hang out there, Mason loves digging in the sand and will even play in the water now.
     I am gearing up for my full-time grad student status in the fall, and have pretty much worked through all my guilt at putting Mason in daycare.  He gets so lonely with me during the days when the kids are at school, and he loves being around other little kids so much.  The daycare only has 5 kids and came very highly recommended, she also has them do some preschool each morning.  Anyway, I am actually kind of excited for him to be around other kids all day.  I am also excited to be around other grown-ups as well.  The 22-month program should fly by without too much hassle for everyone, and I will hopefully be successful!!  With Mason in daycare I can get everything done during the day for school and have the evenings and weekend for family.  Jim is Mr. Supportive, though part of it might be the possibility of mom bringing home a paycheck eventually!!  Long hot summer days are the best though - some of my favorite memories as a kid come from those days - floating down the canal, jumping off the bridge into the river, riding our bikes in to the Shelley swimming pool, all of us sitting downstairs together snapping huge piles of beans that have been poured out onto a blanket.  Every once in while an errant earwig would crawl out of the beans and one of the boys would smash it.  There was chokecherry picking, and camping, going on long drives on Sundays and for me - lots and lots of babysitting of younger siblings.  Hopefully they are not too scarred from the experience.  I hope my kids have lots of fond summer memories to look back on as well!       
 

DJ update!

We have heard from DJ this week, he is still in 'processing', which means he's not doing a whole lot besides, doctor, dentist, paperwork, etc.   He finally went to "real" basic training yesterday, so no more cell phone.  He called me today with his address and pleaded for letters.  The call was short, he said that "Georgia is hot, and he sweats a lot."  Well-spoken my son.  That will be his refrain for several weeks, I'm sure.  We miss this funny kid, but now we have some cute pictures to keep us company.  He went to church on Sunday and he said there were about 200 others servicemen there, all in different stages of basic training.  He said it was really cool to see a sea of green uniforms sitting there for sacrament meeting.  His company has two other members, he was excited about that.  Oh, don't you just love the military issue glasses!  He said his vision has never been better.