And so I read...

When the days are difficult, and the answers to issues are not forthcoming, I have trusty fallbacks. Chocolate is always my answer but sadly it's not a good answer any more even if it ever was. But still, there are times when it's all that works.  Or so I tell myself...the quick fix.

I do have my tried and true remedy which has been one of my defaults since childhood. Reading. What solitary child has not found her escape in a book? I grumbled a week or two ago when a whole shitload of my library holds all come in at once. But silly me, that was what I needed. Last week I read almost a book a day. And yes, brownie bites were also in play.

Here's what has transpired this year. The newest are on top with a periodic dash of Pema Chodren's
The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. 

And so I continue to read. What book's helping you escape these days?

Wordless Wednesday: If Only...

than you Marcy Penner

Reading & Watching, Another Way to Travel

I have not started another travel scrapping project but have one or two in mind. I have to visualize how I see the trip and what feel I want for the pages before I start. In my mind, I call it percolating time.  The bubbles are rising but the pot isn't ready to take off the stove yet

Lately, a lot of my free time has been taken up with 'in home travel' by either reading or watching tv series. I seem to vacillate and I've realized it depends on how cold it is. Really cold out and put me in front of the tv, next to the fire and nestled under a down throw. Warm and semi drowsy.  Thus, reading has taken quite a back seat in the recent week.

A new-to-me one I've started watching is Orphan Black, on BBC America.

I'm only in the beginning of season 1 and apparently season THREE is starting in April.  I wonder where I'll find season 2 - for free! 

Another BBC one (found on Netflix) I thoroughly enjoyed was The Honourable Woman, 8 episodes and I gobbled them up! Seriously, watch this one of you like current and tense political shows with all the Byzantine ways of the Arab/Israeli situation.

Broadchurch, Season Two, is ok but perhaps after watching my sweetie David Tennant in the not-so-great American version of B1, Gracepoint,  after watching the British original, I'm now a bit tired of his gaunt, exhausted look. Yes, the series was always dour but this has been just wearying.  You sort of wonder if there's something in the water out Broadchurch way... I'll continue on with it but not with a happy anticipation.

But I did find this one video to show a bit of a happier outcome in Broadchurch Season 3?

Maybe next week I should read more.

Not worth the wait (yes it was!)

So far I have been greatly under-impressed with this book.


I put this book on hold twice before and wasn't in the country when the book came into the library. I should have taken that as a sign. Pretentious navel-gazing is fine for the young and narcissistic but I really don't want to read about it. It is my understanding that a plot actually develops mid-book.

I shall forge on but I am very glad that it is only my tax money that paid for this book (library copy) and not my current disposable $$s.

10.05.07 / POSTSCRIPT: I came back to this book and got past the early part and ended up loving the story. I will also say that I still think the beginning part was overdone. We get that both the main characters are pretentious snobs. Let's move on, and the author did. I finished it up today, laying on the couch on a balmy afternoon and relishing the tale. Read it if you haven't, but know there is some slog at the beginning.

Time for Reading

I'm more than one quarter through this book and had two weeks to finish it. I have 11 more days to go but it's feeling like a marathon. I may just pay the fine and take my time with the 624 pages.

What am I reading? The Children's Book shortlisted for the Man Booker prize.

Worded Wednesday

Doesn't always take much to amuse me, does it... This post is usually Wordless Wednesday but I decided to do words, ergo the post Title. I had quite a chuckle thinking about it...I guess I'll be the one who's happy when she ends up in The Home. (Feel free to wonder about my mental state, but just don't tell me you are.)

Well anyway, some of you may know that I tutor reading at one of our local detention centers. The modern, well run, low-risk inmates one. I had taken the literacy training years ago, and a two day slog THAT was. Ugh. It almost put me off tutoring. In the end, I was told I needed to make a year commitment to my student, with a weekly lesson. That seemed hard to do with the hours I was keeping at work, and fortunately for me, the assigned student never showed up. I figured that was A Sign.

Some time later, the AAUW contact at the detention centers said they needed people to teach Life Skills. Great I thought - I was alive, and was perfectly fluent in such things as checkbook, tax forms, calling utility companies etc so I thought it would be a perfect fit. (I have since learned that perfect fits in jobs etc often turn out to only seem perfect. There's usually at least 1 major flaw that makes you wonder WTF.) The fly in this Life Skills ointment turned out to be the hours. Weekdays from about 9-11 a.m. Hmmm...that didn't quite work with my paid employement and there was the mortgage etc. to consider. Again, no tutoring. The Signs were $$ signs this time.

Fast forward to last year. I am now retired and see that the Literacy training is being held again, it is only 1 day and I think I can get through that without screaming. I take it, it's fun, and they mention that there is a need for tutors at the Detention Centers. Most everyone in our group of ~30 blanches, but I have been up there for other volunteer work, and can see myself tutoring some foolish 20yr old check forger who 'only' did it to help her drug dealing boyfriend. So I go thru another orientation and get a badge. I am becoming very familiar with the volunteer coordinator and we are email pen pals. I finally go up for my first of the twice-weekly 9-11 sessions. There is light!


But where are the women!??!? All the students are men! I'm told most women in jail already know how to read. Oh...silly me. It's the men who started being the class clowns in grade school, ended up in Special Ed, and feel they will be on the short bus for the rest of their life. I am usually looking at repeat offenders, tho not necessarily 'hard' crime, and they range from very early 20s to nearly 70! But they are all volunteering for this tutoring, and receive no 'time off credit' for the 4 hrs a week they attend. About 85% of my students have been interested and interesting, and the occasional slug who is only warming a chair reminds me of how lucky I am to usually have students who are motivated. Except when it's slug time or I have a student who cannot give up the "oh I'm so dumb" habit, the two hours really go by fast. And then once in a while I get a real character who is FUN to teach and seems to have a chance at not finding himself back 'inside' when he's released. However, that's tomorrow's story. See you back here then, ok?

Good day, Sunny Day

It's half past four and it's still beautiful and sunny out. What a great day. The morning was spent tutoring in the detention center and it was the 2nd time I had two students. Boy is that a learning experience for me but it's worked out so far. My one student is a much better reader and when I was working with the newer student I was able to give my original one a reader to read. That was just perfect and while I expected him to read just the first story, he just went ahead and read the whole book. I think for the most part he can grasp the whole story even tho he might make a mistake on a couple of words. We all do that I think, and just skip over a word we might not really be sure of.

Student #1 finished the first reading book and tested out into book #2. While his original evaluation placed him on this very basic level but I know it really didn't please him. That's a hard thing to work with for me, when the student feels he knows more than he does. If they get bored, then not a lot happens, but if they are having too much of a struggle then they just don't want to come to these sessions.



I give these men a lot of credit because they get no 'time off' credit for these tutoring sessions. Once they get to GED or HS courses, time spent in those classes does count for time off their sentence. This is also a detention center, not a jail so the men are transient for the most part. Some however are 'frequent flyers', meaning that this time in the detention center is not their first. :-(

But on days like this I always count my blessings. The class ends and I leave and have a chance to be outside and experience this gorgeous sunny day. It's a good reminder to me about the consequences of choices.