Welcome to Carrots! I'm so glad you're here. This is where I share thoughts on liturgical living, faith, parenting, culture, and an extra dose of Jane Austen. You can sign up for my email newsletter here to stay in touch, or look me up on Instagram!
Do you have a favorite bookshelf? This is mine. I have a little bit of an obsession with clothbound books (the Coralie Bickford-Smith covers by Penguin are my absolute favorites.)
It’s been awhile since I told you about how I organized our home library and I want to talk bookshelves, but first, a confession. I am not even close to keeping up with my 2013 reading goals! Are you? During the month of horrible colds/sinus infections that rampaged through our house, I got completely bogged down in the giant Les Miserables that I naively thought I could start and finish in February. What a fool I was! I have Victor Hugo sitting on my bedside mocking me.
I know it’s going to take me weeks and weeks to make it through all 1300 pages of Hugo’s style, so instead of just getting stuck and losing momentum I’m going to read a few pages everyday while moving on to what’s next, hopefully finishing by year’s end.
The good news is that I did finish:
- A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit
- The Penderwicks at Point Moutte by Jeanne Birdsall
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (a re-read)
- Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
And in addition to Les Miserables, I’m part way through:
I was supposed to finish The Brothers Karamazov by the end of the month but that’s not going to happen, so I’m going to save it for November and December when I catch up on everything I didn’t finish.
Do you read more than one book at the same time? What do you do when you get stuck?
Pregnancy Update/Project Simplify: Almost 35 weeks, folks! And the nesting instincts have arrived in full force! So, I’m going to town with Simple Mom’s Project Simplify:
This week’s project was drawers and shelves so first I tackled our bedroom and did a serious deep clean (I’m sure the sight of me maneuvering my giant pregnant belly around the floor in my attempt to clean the baseboards was duly hilarious.) Here’s the before pic of the built-in bookshelves/drawers:
You see the stuff all over the floor? That’s what it looked like everywhere in the room. I had serious catching up to do on organization/cleaning because of the 21 weeks of pregnant puking during which I did nothing but keep my children alive and do enough laundry to keep us in clean underwear (and sometimes that didn’t even happen. The laundry, I mean. The kids are alive.)
Ta da! I’m realizing that the problem area is the lowest shelf of picture books. I want them to be accessible to the kids, but they’re always everywhere, so Daniel’s going to make cubbies out of that bottom shelf so that they’re easier for toddler hands to put away.
We keep our library books in the hallway or else I would never be able to track them down when they were due and we check out so many for our preschool curriculum.
Next I tackled Benjamin’s room:
Tiny pieces of legos everywhere!
Ahhhhh. Last night when Daniel went in to check on sleeping Benjamin, he noted, “It feels weird to go in there and not trip on something.” Too true.
Next week’s Project Simplify is closets, but first I need to tackle the completely unruly and overwhelming laundry room. I’m not even posting a picture. It’s too scary! But it would be nice to be able to walk to the dryer again.
The Quotable Lucy (gems from my 17 month old daughter, currently fond of coloring on her own face):
“Book ham! Book ham!”
I had no idea what she was talking about. She sighed condescendingly, went to the bookshelf and picked out Green Eggs and Ham. Duh, mama.
The Quotable Benjamin (gems from my 4-year-old son who refuses to be photographed these days, “No pictures!“):
“I can’t clean up the books! Baby Gwen’s making me so tired!”
Apparently, my pregnant whining has been worse than I thought…
“Wait…so….Jesus put Jesus in Mary’s tummy?! (You try explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity to an inquisitive 4-year-old….the “one God, three Persons” wasn’t enough to satisfy him.)
Me: “I don’t think that was a man, Benjamin. It was a lady.”
Him: “Don’t contradict me.”
Link:
Reasons My Son Is Crying (This tumblr really is hilarious, but I find myself worrying about this poor child being “the crying kid” for the rest of his life, poor thing.)
Question: Who has switched over to a blog reader that they’re happy with (RIP google reader!)? Bloglovin’? Feedly? What should I switch to?
I hope you’re enjoying the Women Speak on NFP series! More posts from the wonderful guest bloggers coming soon!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Love,
Haley
I switched to Feedly and loved it but they seem to be having issues with saved posts. They keep showing up even after I delete them.
So I switched to Bloglovin’ which I really like but they don’t have an ipad app.
anyway, I don’t totally love either but I think I’ll stay with Bloglovin’.
Thanks, Kelly! I’ll give Bloglovin’ a shot first.
I love your blog, especially the posts about Twilight and your daughter. I wish I could convince my middle schoolers of the truth.
Moby Dick has been staring me in the face for the past six months, but I’ve reconciled myself to only reading a few pages a day. I CAN’T read more than a few pages about whale anatomy at a time. I just can’t.
So because I’m not solely focused on Moby Dick anymore, I’m moving through a few fun ones. I’m adding yours to my list, though, because they look good.
Also (I forgot) I’m currently using a separate email address for all of my blogs I follow. I like it better than any reader, so far.
Thanks for your sweet words, Heidi! My husband wrote his thesis about Moby Dick and I could just tell that it would be a doozy to make it all the way through. And brilliant idea about the separate email address for blogs!
I do read multiple books at a time, but I found that it works better if I read one fiction, one non-fiction, and listen to one audiobook in the car. The audiobook has to be something easy to follow or short stories like Sherlock Holmes. My progress on my 2013 reading goals is abysmal! I keep getting distracted!
I love audiobooks! I need to listen to more of them.
The quotes are TOO much and THANK YOU for sharing your pre-cleaning pics – I know we are not the only ones who trip on clutter or have piles on the floor from little hands that can only be picked up so many times in a day, but GOSH it feels good to SEE it and not just think someone else is exaggerating! We are all getting our squats in when kiddos are under 5 years old, right?
(My boy is 4.5 and my girl is almost 2 – we found her in mascara a la Lucy/Julia from CPatton recently. Need to send you ladies the pic. I think she’s been spying on my blog-reading and got jealous.)
Oh girl, just wait til you see the pics of the laundry room. Sometimes I complain to Daniel about how I can’t keep the house tidy and how there’s toys everywhere and he reminds me that children live here
Really, it’s always a mess in here. If anything, the “before” pics downplayed the chaos.
Our kids are almost exactly the same age!
I love Project Simplify! I did it a while back (possibly only did 2 or 3 though!). All of my post-tax-season goals include organizing the house and simplifying! I’m itching to get started!
It definitely feels good! I’m accumulating a huge pile of stuff to get rid of.
I love that your house looks like mine – some days clean up time is just better spent doing anything else!
Yes! Like…surviving
I read more than one book all the time! Currently reading Francis and Clare, Anne of the Island and Flannery O’Connor short stories, I just rotate based upon my mood. I also just switched to Bloglovin and I do like it so far!
Anne of the Island is my FAVORITE Anne book! I love it so much. And of course, Flannery is the best. Who is Francis and Clare by?
I’m working on Les Mis myself. I have it in my kindle app on my phone though and I don’t care to read a real book that way (it’s ok for cookbooks and Grace Livingston Hills). I tried to check it out from the library but their copy has only 500-something pages so I think it’s abridged.
I’m not happy if I’m only reading one book so I am also working through the second volume of the complete Sherlock Holmes. I read a brain-candy book once every week or two (usually the above mentioned GLH novels) I have a non-fiction from the library (Free Range Kids? I think?) that I need to start. And I am working through years 2,3 and 4 of the Ambleside Online curriculum. So not much
It all sounds delightful! I just can’t get into reading on my phone and I don’t have an iPad or Kindle. I completely agree that sometimes you gotta have a real book, but a friend pointed out that it’s nice to have a digital reader while breastfeeding so you don’t have to wrangle to turn the pages and now it sounds a little bit enticing…
Awesome photos of the organization!
I just started using Bloglovin’ and so far have zero complaints.
Thanks! I will have to get set up with Bloglovin’ this weekend.
I wish the nesting bug had hit me during my pregnancies. Lucky you! I’m sure being organized feels so good.
And I’m another bloglovin user over here.
I didn’t have ANY nesting instinct with my first (mostly just wanted to watch BBC miniseries and eat ice cream…can’t imagine how I gained 60 lbs!) and only a teensy bit with my second. I think this spurt of organization is partly hormonal and partly survival instincts. Just wait til I post pics of our laundry room…..it’s terrifying! We’re still a long way from organized but it feels nice to make some progress
I have switched over to the bamboo reader, which is a FireFox add-on. It only has one annoying feature, but otherwise is pretty good. I have been enjoying the NFP postings, they are very encouraging, and I passed your blog on to my friend and NFP teacher too. Thanks for the messy house pictures, other moms love to see bloggers are real people.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the NFP posts! More to come next week that I’m really excited about. I am learning tons!
And oh my heavens, let me assure you that the state of my refrigerator is just a little TOO real right now. I’m ignoring it until Daniel realizes the situation is dire and cleans it out for me…because I’m a mature adult.
Heee! I have never been able to finish Les Mis myself! I always read several at one time. I am fickle. ;0) Brothers K is just as long, but I finished that one! ;0)
I have started Brothers K twice and just didn’t get past the first 100 pages. Gotta finish it this year!
I do read several books at one. But I haven’t finished a single book since December. So maybe I should just concentrate on one book at a time.
I’m really liking BlogLovin’ (reading this with it right now).
YOUR KIDS KILL ME!! Also, where do you get those flat, open-faced book display shelves that you use for the library books? I see them on Pinterest often but can’t find a retailer right now. I want to get a few to have sort of a “spotlight selection” to encourage my son to diversify a bit; all his books fit on a shelf and he goes to the same ones over and over, forgetting what else we have, I think!
They are such funny kids, Amy! And as for the bookshelves, my husband actually made them. Very easy. Would you be interested in a DIY post? He’s making some for our niece in the near future so I could take some pics and have him share his steps. It’s a good way to display books for little ones and the only way I can keep track of our library books. I only lost one this year!
I don’t know about Amy, but I would LOVE a DIY post for the book display. I can already envision it in my house!
Read only one book at a time? What is that nonsense?!? Though it does help if they’re different types/genres of books…
Thank you also for the NFP series. As a Catholic and someone who will be entering a Physician Assistant program soon, it has been interesting and informative to read about the different methods available as well as some of the various reasons why families choose not to use artificial methods.
So glad you’ve been enjoying the series, Meghan!
There are a number of things I want to comment on but it’s nearly midnight and I’ve got to get to bed. Just wanted to say that I’ve tried both Feedly and Bloglovin and wrote a post of the pros and cons of both. Here’s the link: http://www.revolutionoflove.com/blog/?p=1919 In the end I stayed with Bloglovin. Good night!
Thanks! I’ll check out your post!