Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

In fact, my MO for Terri Libenson’s ‘Emmie & Friends’ series seems to be to finish the one I’ve got checked out right about the time the next one gets published. (Although to be fair, I’m a couple of weeks ahead of the game this time.) I did, however, finish Entirely Emmie on Wednesday night, and despite some misgivings about Joe’s co-starring role, I found myself completely enjoying it. The setting is a celebrate-the-end-of-the-school-year class trip to a camp by a lake; Emmie’s (much) older sister is coming along as a chaperone, and she and Bri are expecting plenty of bestie time.

Except.

For starters, Bri comes down with a miserable cold just before they’re scheduled to leave. And Joe’s parents, who find the flyer at almost the last minute, encourage him to go by heavily implying that the weekend at home will be a veritable chore-fest if he doesn’t. Which then makes the two of them inconveniently buddy-less–together. What starts out as a miserable weekend, however, starts to shift when Emmie and Joe start to really talk to each other. And even though neither one of them would have chosen to be forced out of her/his comfort zone, they both appreciate some of the aftereffects.

To be honest, I was most impressed at how Libenson handled Joe’s inner voice. While I generally can’t STAND people who crack jokes at other people’s expense, Joe’s thought processes and character growth nudged me out of my reader comfort zone, rendering him a sympathetic character in his own right. There is definitely some typical middle school drama as well, but that’s more of a plot device to aid what matters than anything else. Entirely Emmie is, well, entirely worth your time.

In other–sad–news, we lost one of our bunnies yesterday. Marshy–short for Marshmallow, since he was an albino lionhead–was at the outer edge of the life expectancy for outdoor bunnies, and he got lots of love and attention yesterday from the two kiddos who loved him most, but those kiddos–ESPECIALLY my son–will miss and miss him. He was chill enough to hold and hang out with, and despite an unfortunate penchant for nibbling on shoes, he was good natured and accommodating. He served as an emotional support animal for my oldest in early high school and my son for the past several years, and we will not forget him.

My neighbor has also had barely any tomatoes off of her plants this year. Why? Garden tomatoes and corn on the cob are two of the things that make heat bearable. I WANT MY TOMATOES!!!

And by holiday, I mean I missed a blog post and focused on doing other things that needed doing…at least until it was time to leave for Clearfield and a Labor Day BBQ with my in-laws. I’m posting today, however, because I finished Ruth Behar’s Letters from Cuba over the weekend, and it was seriously SO GOOD! (Did I just sound like a teenager there? Possibly. But I slept really, really badly last night.)

Ruth Behar was heavily inspired by her own family history in Letters from Cuba; in it we have Esther, the oldest child of a Polish family, joining her father in Cuba to help earn money to get the rest of their family out of Poland. She is charmed by the friendliness of the Cuban people, as well as the sunshine, abundant fruits, and mix of cultures. Unfortunately, even Cuba isn’t completely free of anti-Semitism, making it harder for Esther and Papa to earn the money they need, even while the news from Europe makes rescuing their family ever more urgent. Luckily, they have far more friends than they do enemies, and lessons learned in Poland come back to help them; as news of Kristallnacht comes to Cuba, those friends pitch in to help them meet their goal. Will it be in time?

I loved Esther, who is spunky, open-hearted, and driven by her fierce love for her family. Her story represents an almost forgotten chapter in history; until a year or two ago, I had no idea that many Jews found refuge in Cuba before WWII. If you haven’t read anything by Ruth Behar yet, well–what are you waiting for?

In other news, the weather is delightfully cooler than it has been, my morning responsibilities are complete, and my bed is beckoning seductively. I rather think some more sleep is in order…

Let’s be honest, folks–Fridays are going to be hard this school year. I already need more sleep than I’m getting, but on Friday mornings my senior has to be at the school at 6 AM for Dance Company, and I’m her chauffeur. Thankfully, my blessed hubby took her from there to her off-the-school-campus class on his way to work, so I got in a nap (kind of an impressive one, actually). I also ran a couple of errands, but what I’m actually most proud of is that I washed another load of stuffed animals (plus one blanket) in hot water, ran it through the dryer, and sent one of them with my niece and her family with the rest of the stuff already set aside for them. Which was a solid pile. Which has now LEFT MY HOUSE.

That, my friends, together with getting to spend time with said niece and her family, made today a pretty good day.

That, my friends, describes my dinner leftovers perfectly. I’d have less left over, of course, if my hubby hadn’t had an after-work-work thing down the street from Raising Cane’s, but such is life. When I went looking for a casserole recipe to use the rest of the chicken I cooked up yesterday, I came across this recipe for Chicken Enchilada Rice Casserole and thought–hey! I noticed leftover homemade enchilada sauce in my freezer just the other day! I had to make some adjustments based on what I had on hand, of course, but I stayed fairly close to the original.

Adjustment #1: I had just over a pound of cooked chicken when it called for ‘about a pound and a half’, so I threw in a can of drained and rinsed pinto beans to compensate. (I normally prefer black beans, but I figured pinto would combine better with the refried beans the recipe called for.)

Adjustment #2: I went for a combination of Monterey Jack and sharp cheddar, because that’s what I had.

Adjustment #3: I didn’t make a special trip for cilantro because most of my children object and I didn’t want to go out for one thing.

Adjustment #4: I generally only stock the bigger cans of corn–14.5 oz, probably–so that’s what I used.

Adjustment #5: I was doubtful about the amount of liquid, so I added an 8 oz can of tomato sauce to supplement the enchilada sauce. This gave the whole thing a milder flavor, but since my hubby rather specifically doesn’t love red enchilada sauce, I figured it worked.

Bottom line? It was on the bland side, partly (I’m sure) due to that tomato sauce, but I had mine with chopped fresh tomato and enjoyed it. I may make it again and tinker with it slightly; I also may serve up some of the leftovers as taco filling and provide the toppings. Regardless, it made a perfectly serviceable dinner tonight!

This happens sometimes when your youngest child reads a series that her older sister read five or six years ago; the series is longer than it used to be, except that you didn’t realize it until now. That, in fact, is what happened with Elana K. Arnold’s ‘Bat’ series; when I reviewed the third book in the series, in 2020, I called it a ‘satisfying end’ to the ‘trilogy’. When I put the first ‘Bat’ book on hold for my youngest, however, I noticed that while in 2020 there were only three books, now there are five. And what’s more, the 5th book came out this year, so who knows? There could be more! (Many more, in fact. I guess we’ll see…)

The fourth book, meanwhile, is called Bat and the Business of Ferrets, and in it we see Bat trying to adjust to fourth grade. A new teacher with new rules is hard enough, but there is also no class pet, which to Bat is a calamity. Can he do something about it? He certainly tries, but there is such a thing as trying too hard. Can Bat, with his neurodivergent brain, learn to recognize when he’s crossing a line? The answer, of course, is that he can–he just has to do it in his own time and way. I couldn’t help thinking that the adults in his life sometimes gave up explaining things to him a little too soon; on the other hand, they’ve (mostly) spent more time with Bat than I have, so they may know from experience when further talking is unproductive. My heart hurt for Lucca–a child having to bear the brunt of Bat’s mistaken ideas is much worse than adults doing so–but when Bat finally focuses on her actual feelings instead of those he’s only attributing to her, the results are truly lovely. I’m quite looking forward to the 5th book.

On the homefront, we did projects on Saturday and had family time yesterday, dividing the weekend rather neatly between a day of work and a day of rest. Unfortunately, I have two sickies home from school today; on the bright side, I suppose that answers my ‘should I buy more Kleenexes while they’re on coupon at Costco’ question, right? (How did I forget that between allergy season and cold and flu season, the answer is always yes?) Here’s hoping the noses in your households are happier than the noses in mine…

Because I posted on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, right? I keep having trouble with days of the week lately, which is crazy. Isn’t that supposed to get BETTER when school starts?

Anyway. Yesterday was my around-the-house day, and I went through a stack of coloring, puzzle, and workbooks to weed out the ones that my children have aged out of. As a result, I have a bag of things for my niece’s and nephew’s families, two things to try and return at Costco, and a little bit more space in my bedroom. I’m still trying to chip away at things!

In the meantime, I actually finished listening to Jamie Sumner’s Schooled a week ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it; I laughed, I teared up, and I went through a certain amount of nostalgia, because like Lenny, I was a professor’s kid. Lenny, however, is facing struggles I never had to deal with–his mother died less than a year ago, and his father moved them both from New Jersey to Tennessee so that he could teach at his alma mater and Lenny could attend an experimental on-campus school taught/administered by the parents of the students involved. (There are five.) Hurting and angry that his father has put just about everything connected with his mom into storage, Lenny decides to more or less boycott the ‘Copernican School’ for the first several months; he shows up only if his dad would find out if he didn’t, he invents the observations for his assignments, and he tries to avoid his fellow classmates. Little by little, however, they find their ways through his defenses, giving him a support system when his frustrations with his father come to a head. When he decided to be an active participant in the school and do his assignments for real, however, he hits an unexpected road block–and it’s going to take his friends’ AND his father’s help to move past it.

Schooled is on the short side, I admit–I wouldn’t have minded more of it–and a few of the details might not hold up perfectly under scrutiny. Sumner is so good at creating characters you root for, however, that I just didn’t care. I got a HUGE kick out of this book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

What are you reading at the moment?

Despite sternly telling myself NOT to forget my virtual appointment with my daughters’ therapist, I was in the car at 11:03 when she texted to say she was on and waiting. I joined with a popcorn kernel in my throat that refused to go down, and when she asked me how my morning was going, I had to respond with ‘my kitchen sink is leaking underneath and there’s some serious nastiness, and my son accidentally left the outside freezer open yesterday evening, meaning it was open all night. So, it could be better…’

On that note, let’s hope for a better day tomorrow!

My youngest and I have both enjoyed Sara Shepard’s ‘Penny Draws…’ series, and last Thursday we finished reading Penny Draws a Secret Adventure aloud together. (I actually meant to review it Friday, but then Friday got away from me, if you’ll recall.) It starts with Penny’s mother and new twin siblings coming home from the hospital, which turns out to be a louder experience than Penny was expecting (colic is a beast sometimes!). While looking for a certain baby swing out in the shed, Penny and her dad come across a box of keys, one of which just might unlock the mysterious box Penny found in their new house. Unlocking that box sends Penny and her friends on a treasure hunt through their community; on the hunt, however, Penny finds a few new worries to work out.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this one, although I wish the terrible babysitter had gotten some of her just deserts. Penny is growing–we can see it–but still struggling with the kinds of issues that so often trouble kids her age. The treasure hunt aspect of the plot occasionally stretched believability for me, but it was definitely entertaining. Once again, worriers are going to find a friend in Penny, not to mention more helpful strategies and behaviors to practice. Seriously–don’t miss this series!

In other news, while I pretty much hate getting up between 6 and 6:15, I had two major appliances running before 7:45. (Yes, I should have done dishes last night, but c’est la vie.) I’ll have time to switch my laundry before I head down to Pleasant Grove to visit a friend, so yay me! We had my birthday dinner yesterday plus presents, there was an ice cream linger/longer after church, and Saturday was actually pretty productive. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make some sandwiches, brush my teeth, and sneak in a power nap before I have to take a 40 minute drive…

I did indeed start another graphic novel this week, and I actually finished it last night, which was highly satisfying. The ‘of a sort’ qualifier just means that it wasn’t a library book–or at least, not anymore. I always take a look at the library book sale when I’m picking up my holds, and if I see a graphic novel in pristine (or near pristine) condition, I generally buy it. (For either $1 or $.10, you understand.) That’s how I acquired a copy of Victoria Ying’s Hungry Ghost. (By the by, yes, this post should have happened yesterday. But I spent the first half or so of the day driving around, and the last half first in a house full of grumpiness and then recovering from it.)

So. In Hungry Ghost we have Valerie, whose mother’s ideas about food and thinness are highly disordered and whose behavior is frequently abusive as a result. Unsurprisingly, Valerie’s eating is also disordered and she purges frequently. When hit by a perfect storm of catalysts, however, Valerie takes a serious look at how she views herself, and the result puts her on the path towards healing.

I admit, the shift towards healing feels surprisingly complete; it also takes a surprisingly short time. My guess, however, is that Ying is an artist first and a writer second, and so the pacing of the story takes a back seat to the lovely, muted look of Valerie’s world. Ying’s art is beautifully expressive, adding immeasurably to the impact of Valerie’s story; I also noticed that Valerie is occasionally drawn as more of a child than usual, which worked for me. (After all, isn’t that what being a teenager is? Being a young woman three quarters of the time and a child the last quarter?)

Ultimately, Hungry Ghost is a beautifully drawn, moving novel. The story would likely benefit from some fleshing out, true, but it felt like more of an artistic creation, and that worked for me as well. Between the mother’s behavior and a couple of instances of language it’s definitely for the high school crowd, but it’s well worth reading. It’ll be interesting to see what my 17-year-old thinks of it.

On the home front, I attended my first junior high PTSA meeting yesterday, but had to duck out early to hit my hubby’s work blood drive. And I think, after their first full week, that all my school-aged kiddos (plus their parents!) are more than ready for the weekend!