Ramblings of a Thirty-Something

Real quick on non-blog related things:  I am SUPER RIDICULOUSLY PROUD of my Scholastic Bowl team!!!! We won regionals last night by the skin of our teeth  {literally, we were relying on a team we had just beat that was seeded last in the regional to beat a team we had lost to in an earlier round just to stay in the running}! Then two tiebreaker matches, which my kiddos destroyed, and then finally our championship round against a team we'd never played who we remembered as being very good the previous year. And we won. And I wanted to cry, because this team is made up of kids who are super-involved and yet so incredibly dedicated and really played their hearts out...and now I sound sappy and cliche, but that's okay. Because they did something amazing and deserve to be proud of themselves. Ahem...okay, so now, let's move on to London  again. Our second day in London was, as the title suggests, rainy. Thank goodness we had bought umbrellas in Munich. Our first stop--our m

Random musing for you:  has anyone else ever had that moment where you're laying in bed and are just a little  cold {like not cold enough for a blanket} and so you just throw a pillow over top your legs and contort your body to make it work? Anyone? Just curious if anybody else's day started off like mine...moving on! I have already shared two books with you off my AUSTEN-INSPIRED APRIL   list, and now I have two more for you. And get excited, people, because I undershot how many books I'd be able to read in a month, so I've added two more books to the original list ! I can see your eager faces through my computer screen {really, I can't. It would be creepy if I could.} First up, we have THE SECRET DIARY OF LIZZIE BENNET  by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick. This book is actually based on a web series called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries . You can find all the episodes on Youtube. It's pretty amazing, actually. Very short episodes {there are 160 total episode

I've decided to resurrect an old favorite {or something I did, like, the first three weeks my baby blog existed in this online world}. By now, I'm sure you know of my affinity for lists, and as I may {or may not} have stated back for the first FRIDAY FIVE, five is a good number for lists. It offers enough for a quick read without getting too many items on topic to make your reader bored. And I don't want you to be bored. Seriously, it keeps me up at night. Okay, not really. But still! I'm sure you, dear reader, appreciate my mission to keep you boredom-free.  Today's re-inaugural FRIDAY FIVE is on a simple topic. It's not one in which I feel I'm an expert because, believe me, sooo many of you have sooo  much more to juggle than I do. But it's still something I get asked every once in a while. How do you stay so organized? Sometimes, I don't feel organized. But most of the time, I do. I pretty much know 90% of what is going on in my l

I did it, folks. I braved the hazardous conditions {i.e., the farm machinery and steep ladder} and ventured up into our barn to retrieve my journal. Now I can write about England. I'm super excited, too. Why? Because...I love London. It might be my favorite city of all time. Paris is, of course, beautiful and has this romantic mystery to it {which I've never actually experienced...I have a theory about this, though...and a future blog post in mind}. Salzburg is gorgeous and soooo  clean!  But London has my heart. Yes, the Underground is busy. Yes, people {as in any city} can be rude. But there's just something about London that I love. And I got to spend three days there this past summer! So let's get to it. To fully appreciate our exploits that first day in London, let me back up and set the stage. The night before, we had landed in Heathrow after spending our last day in Munich. We had to make it through all the passport fun-times and then get from He

I'll be honest. I had a completely  different plan in mind for today's post. I have yet to post about our excursions into London from last June, which is probably going to take two or three {or more!} posts...but I need to pull out my journal in order to remember when we went where and all that jazz. And my journal is in a tote up in our barn and I don't feel like climbing up there tonight, so instead, you get something entirely different. I've finished the first two books on my AUSTEN INSPIRED APRIL reading list, and so now it's time for me to review them! First up, we have AUSTENLAND   by Shannon Hale. Now, "Austenland" is not a magical theme park that has Austen-related things {seriously, wouldn't that be amazing?}. In this case, "Austenland" refers to Pembrook Park. Which is kind of like a Jane Austen theme park. But not really. Okay, this is getting confusing. I'll start over. Austenland  centers around Jane

When I started knitting a few years ago, I did it for a very distinct reason: Knitting gave me a connection with the past.  People have knitted for hundreds of years. Throughout history, soldiers have gone to battle wearing knitted items made by their mothers, wives, and daughters. Women who settled the prairie knitted gloves and scarves and hats for their loved ones. It is really an amazing thing; an art form, really.  You're taking something that is nothing--a ball of yarn--and by knotting it together just so  you end up with something that is functional and also pretty. The other thing about me is that I get really into the things about which I am passionate. When The Lord of the Rings movies came out, my sister and I between us bought all of the music books and the CDs because honestly, those are some of the greatest soundtracks of all time. Howard Shore is a genius. When I learned to play the violin, one of the first songs I tried learning was Concerning Hob