Homeschool update

We've been doing school for almost two months now. Not always consistently three mornings a week, we did take time off to go on a couple of trips or because we were recovering from said trips or to go to the state fair, but I feel pretty good about how much we've done so far. It's one of the things we like about homeschooling, right? The flexibility to take time off when we need it, or even to do school in the car on the way to Texas (which we did and it was a good way to pass some of the long days on the road).

Our Mondays are supposed to be nature walk mornings. We've actually only been to three parks because it's been so hot. One to have a real nature walk, another to visit the nature center and then play on the playground, and the last to play in the creek and then at the spray park and playground there too. On the other Mondays we went to the Children's museum a few times, had a play date with a friend, and were traveling.





We've been not so consistent on our morning walks because we don't often get up on time. And the past couple days we've tried to take walks this week have ended in tantrums from one of us. :) So I'm hesitant to go again this week. We were having a worship time (which includes a short Bible story, a few Catechism questions we're working on, a Bible passage we're memorizing, prayer and sometimes some songs) right before we started our school "work", but the past few days we've gotten up early enough to do a worship time at breakfast and have Nate join us, which has been very nice. I'm hoping we can continue doing that until Half Pint is born.

We start school time with a preschool activity, as I call it, which works on preschool skills**. The favorites have been:

1. Using tweezers to sort craft puff balls or beans.
2. Playing follow the leader to work on gross motor skills--walking backwards, hopping, running, skipping, marching, etc.
3. Playing Go Fish with cards that have alphabet letters on them.
4. Using a dropper to transfer colored water (red, blue, and yellow) to an egg carton--talked about mixing two colors to make a new color too.
5. Playing memory--regular memory game or have used number cards (from deck of cards), cards with colors, shapes, etc.
6. Hammering tees into styrofoam
7. Memorizing address and phone number to the tune of "London Bridge" and then playing London Bridge while we practiced it
8. Using small pitchers to pour water into containers--I took old plastic containers and drew lines on them to practice pouring up to the line. Ally didn't really pay attention to the lines, but Becca did. I recommend doing this outside.
9. Drawing in salt--poured salt into a shallow box, drawer, or baking pan and use fingers or toothpicks or other tools to draw in it. We did this outside today.
10. Bean bag toss and catch--tossed to each other and also tossed into a container from different distances






Next is supposed to be reading lessons with Becca, but we've set them aside yet again. I'm trying to be patient and let her choose when to do the reading lessons. To force her to do it or set up some reward system would be frustrating and not worth it, I think. The reward for learning to read is knowing how to do it and enjoying the books you can read on your own. And I know she loves books. We read plenty and she listens to many books on CD. I think Nate and I both expected her to read much earlier because we do read so many books and it's hard having some friends with kids who have started reading at 4 or even 3-years-old. But I have to just stop looking at other kids and let Becca do it at her own pace. She can read some Bob books and short vowel sound words. So anyway, all that is to say, reading lessons are on hold.

Then we do a math activity. Favorites have been:

1. Sorting and counting M&Ms--then recording our numbers and deciding which is least, most, and equal--and eating them!!
2. Playing with pattern blocks to make our own designs and also using printouts from prekinders.com/pattern-blocks/.
3. Counting and sorting colored pasta or types of pasta.
4. Using rulers to measure different size straws and then measuring other things around the room--we measure to the nearest inch.
5. Practicing counting by 5s and 10s--we did this while sorting coins and by counting nickels from their bed time nickel jars.
6. Playing Uno with just the number cards.
7. Playing War with the number cards from a deck of cards.
8. Playing Go Fish with number cards from a deck of cards.




Lastly we do our read-alouds from the Sonlight P4/5 curriculum. We crunch 5 days of reading into 3, usually. Though this sounds like a lot, it really isn't that much at this level. Becca does a narration from one of our readings and Ally does one every once in a while, and I copy them down into their notebooks. Becca has gotten much more thorough in her narrations as we've gone along. We just read and enjoy the other stories. Then both girls do a few pages from their workbooks. Ally is doing the Kumon First book of Tracing. Becca is doing the readiness workbooks that come with the Sonlight curriculum. Both like doing them a lot.

I've found some of the readings from the P4/5 level to be good. I like the Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book and Uncle Wiggly's Storybook the best.

That's it. It sounds like a lot when I type it all out, but at the most it takes us 2 hours to get through it all.

**So this part is confusing to me. Ally is preschool age, but Becca could really be considered kindergarten age. She has friends in both grades and I'm not sure what to group her in. The curriculum we're using is a pre-k curriculum, but in some ways I'd consider her in K. I guess it doesn't really matter, but it is something that's bothered me.

Random update

We planted our garden, or part of it. Two squares of spinach with 9 plants per square. Two squares with radishes (for pest control) and two kinds of lettuce: two black seeded simpson and four romaine. As unexcited as I was to garden this year, I did feel a bit thrilled seeing that just about everything is coming up. I just have to make sure to water it.

We'll also be planting basil, provider bush beans (green beans), and carrots. I'm going to let the girls take care of the carrots. And we can't forget the tomatoes. We'll do a Brandywine plant again this year.

I've recently finished two books: In Absence of Sun by Helie Lee and Real Food for Mother and Baby by Nina Planck. In Absence of Sun was interesting, but I didn't like it nearly as much as Still Life With Rice. It was about the process Helie's family went through to get her family out of North Korea. Half the book was about Helie's emotional struggles through it all. I think I liked Still Life with Rice better because of all the history included in Helie's grandmother's life story. I was just learning so much about the struggles the Korean people have gone through, being oppressed by so many people, but being amazingly strong through it all.

Real Food for Mother and Baby was an interesting read. I happen to love books about food and eating good food and making good choices about where our food comes from, so this was right up my alley. I had actually heard of her other book, which I am now reading, called Real Food, first, but this one came available at the library first, so I read it first. The only weird part was how she threw in information on pregnancy and birth and breastfeeding and attachment parenting, that seemed a little beyond the scope of the book. I didn't have a problem with anything she said, and actually have a lot in common with the author on her thoughts in those areas, but some of the sections just felt a little out of place. Where the author and I do diverge is where I have a Biblical worldview and she doesn't. Primate cousins, attributing how our bodies work to nature instead of God's design, and such. I would still recommend the book anyway. Or I'm sure I'll recommend Real Food once I'm done with that one, if you are not in the position of needing wanting to get pregnant, being pregnant or having a young child.

My pregnancy is going well. I'm almost 15 weeks along and feeling so much better. God has given me such a caring, supportive husband who has really worked so hard over the last 9 weeks or so to care for our family and house. I mostly write about my pregnancy over on my pregnancy journal. If you know me well and would like to read it, email me or contact me and I'll send you an invite.

Books

After enjoying a couple of picture books with my daughters by Sook Nyul Choi, I decided to check out what else she had written and found these two short novels:

Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi--I'm sad to say how ignorant I am of history around the world. I had no idea what the people of Korea went through during the years covered in this novel about a young girl and her family in North Korea. I would recommend it, but would read it with a my girls when they are old enough. There is so much to talk about as you go through it.

Echoes of the White Giraffe by Sook Nyul Choi--I thought this sequel to Year of Impossible Goodbyes was just a tad lighter, not in the author's ability to share the story or engage the reader, but just in content. During YoIG I had this feeling of oppression and heaviness. This book has parts that are a little fun and even hopeful, even though Sookan and her family are refugees waiting to go home. The focus of this story is the innocent, but forbidden, relationship that 16-year-old Sookan and Junho, her friend, have while she is a refugee. I can't say the ending is happy, but it is real has some hope for the future.

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis--This is the most disconnected of all Lewis's books I've read. There is little flow or organization to it, which makes sense, since it's like reading someone's journal. I am glad I read it, though. Lewis always gives me a new way to look at things, just a different view of the same thing, I guess.

Back home again

Last week the girls and I went to my parents while Nathan was in Atlanta at a company meeting. We had a great time with family and friends. We got to see both grandmas, my nephew, sister-in-law, brother, best friend and her beautiful daughter, another friend who has been in my life since the high school, and some good friends on the way up. It was a lot to fit in, but so worth it. We tried to see my brother and his girlfriend too, but he was working.

I received my dSLR in the mail at my parents. I haven't taken it out since we got home, but I used it a ton up North and I love it. It's so fun to take pictures with it. I really never enjoyed using the point and shoots we had, but I enjoy this camera.

I finished Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson today. While I think he had a lot of good things to say, I had such a hard time getting through the book and I'm not sure why. Three things I got out of the book:

1. To not only teach our children to obey their parents (us), but also to honor their parents. But not just to honor (or to give value to us) us, but to honor other people around them too. AND that we must also honor them (or show them they have value) by being attentive to them and listening to them and spending time with them.

2. Pray for our children and with our children because it's ultimately the Holy Spirit who works in them. Pray before I talk to my child about something, asking the Holy Spirit to give me the words to say and to help me be patient.

3. Read your Bible and hide it in your heart. Sounds simple, yes. But it just hit me (again) that it's hard to really be speaking the words of God into their lives if I'm not interacting daily with His Word. I'll be trying to read through and look up the passages in Concise Theology by J.I. Packer in my devotional time and when we actually sit down to breakfast, the girls and I will be continuing to learn Becca's baptism passage: Colossians 3:12-17.

I started Calendar: Christ's time for the Church by Laurence Hull Stookey today. I kept falling asleep, though. Not because it wasn't interesting, but because it was Sunday afternoon and I was laying down all cozy under a warm blanket. :)

Books to read in 2010

Number seven in my list of goals for this year was to read one book a month. While sitting in Nate's office today reading, I started looking over his bookshelf and before I new it, I had a stack of books next to me to read for this year.

This stack only contains non-fiction. I may insert a fiction or two in there, but those will be unplanned.

In no particular order:

1. Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson (almost finished--from library)

2. Concise Theology by J.I. Packer (hoping to read this during devotions and look up reference passages as I read.

3. Calendar: Christ's Time for the Church by Laurence Hull Stookey

4. The Mark Experiment by Andrew Page (Nate has talked about wanting to memorize the gospel of Mark again like we did at SLT)

5. Against Christianity by Peter J. Leithart (a re-read for me)

6. Knowing God by J.I. Packer (a re-read for the second time--one I like to re-read periodically)

7. My Life for Yours: A Walk Through the Christian Home by Douglas Wilson (another re-read)

8. Keep in Step with the Spirit by J.I. Packer (can we see a pattern of authors here?)

9. The Baptized Body by Peter J. Leithart

10. When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte Mason's [Education] Philosophy for Today edited by Elaine Cooper (a re-read I thought would be good to read at the same time we are working on choosing curricula)

I think it will be some sort of miracle if I get through all of them. I'd like to at least get through 3/4 of them, though.

What we've been up to

Blogging and pretty much anything on the computer besides watching TV shows on Hulu has taken a back seat for the last few weeks. I've been having some stomach and abdominal pain that we think might have been a gluten intolerance. The past three days or so I've finally had no pain and that might be because I've been eating gluten-free for over two weeks now. I won't go into too many details on here since it is so public, but I don't mind discussing it. I've seen a doctor about it and will be seeing a naturopathic doctor tomorrow.

So, with having some pain just about every day for the past month and a half, some things have slipped by as being not quite as a priority. I'm hoping things will be getting better soon. I did post a couple posts on the girls' blog yesterday, complete with pictures.

We have been up to other things around here besides neglecting blogging, trying to figure out how to avoid gluten, and dealing with stomach pain. My parents came to visit and we went out to an orchard. Silly people didn't let us pick apples there, but we did pick pumpkins. The next weekend we made it to another orchard and have enjoyed the apples from that.

We also finished our fire pit and have had one small camp fire in it. The girls liked having a little picnic out there while the fire (smoked) burned.

I've been doing lots of reading lately. I finished Pilgrim's Progress, reading just a little bit each night while the girls fell asleep. I tried reading it out loud for a while, but that didn't work, so I just read the rest silently. I'd still like to read it again sometime, maybe in a more modern version.

I picked up Harry Potter again when I was having to lay down a lot when I had pain and have been rereading the series. I'm in my least favorite one right now, the Order of the Phoenix, book five. Drives me crazy every time I read it.

After I finish HP, I think I'll pick up When Children Love to Learn, a birthday gift. I've read it before, but I think it would be a good reread as we work on figuring out what our children's home education will look like.

That's all I'll share for now. Nothing else too exciting going on around here.

I'm off to bed.

Tree for Little Bun and other plant talk

We went up to a nursery today a little northwest of the city. We spent a lot of time talking and walking with one of the workers there about trees to plant in our yard and front bed. Mostly I wanted to pick out a tree to plant when we bury Little Bun.

I'm happy to say that we were able to find a tree and I feel so relieved. It was weighing down on me that we didn't have anything and that I couldn't figure out what kind of tree to get. We bought a Serviceberry (I think the Shadblow type, but I don't have the paperwork with me right now). It's a single trunk tree (most of the pictures I could find online were multi-trunk trees, more like a shrub) and already eight or nine feet tall. They'll be delivering it and we'll plant it. I'll make sure to post a picture of it.

The Serviceberry is a flowering tree, white flowers in the early spring. It also has small berries that attract birds. It shouldn't get taller than 25 feet. The bark is gray and smooth, kind of pretty. I'm just really pleased with our final choice.

We also started deciding on some other plants and trees for our front:

Black Hills Spruce: we'd like to get one of these for our yard on the left front side.

Globe Blue Spruce: I love Colorado Blue Spruces, but they just get too tall. We'd like to have something with that blue color, so we're thinking of this one for the spot to the left of our porch instead of a tree.

That's as far as we've gotten. We walked all over the nursery, way back where all the trees are, and the girls were so tired by the time we left. We didn't want to push it to look at anything else. They both fell asleep on the way home, which meant no naps this afternoon. Instead we made Nathan a Father's Day cake and had some rest time in the living room all together. I took some time to look through the book First Art by MaryAnn F. Kohl while we rested. I found lots of fun ideas I hope to try.

Anne's House of Dreams

I finished my fifth Anne book yesterday. I think this was my favorite following the first one. Miss Cornelia cracked me up. And I found I could relate to Anne's loss in the book. I thought I had read somewhere that Anne has six children in this book. Don't know where that came from since she definitely does not by the end of the book.

I love Anne. She's so real to me after reading so many of those books. I love that she is not perfect, but really wanting to be better. I love other amazing characters L.M. Montgomery has thought up. I can't wait to share these with the girls.

Other books read in the past couple of months:
The other Anne books before this one
Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (took me awhile)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

Random update

I've been MIA, I know. While in Texas I didn't have much computer access, so I didn't post, plus I didn't want to tell we were away from home.

We had a nice trip to Texas. We survived the drive, though we wish Nate's parents lived closer. I got a migraine on the way down and Nate watched the girls when we go to the hotel...good husband that he is. :) Our second day was a little rough since Ally didn't sleep as much and wasn't happy.

We spent our time there going to the park, playing on the front porch, and getting out shopping a little bit. Nate and I had a date one of the last days there. We went to Half Price Books and got lots of good books (Peter Pan, Just So Stories, Boxcar Children #1-3, 5, Jungle Books, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, A Pocketful of Crickets, etc). Then we went to a yummy local restaurant for lunch and sat under their outdoor leaf-covered trellis. We topped that off with Ben and Jerry's. It was a nice time. Our last day there we went to our old church in Houston and had a delicious, homemade lunch with some dear, kind friends.

Our trip back was pretty good. We arrived home around 7-8pm, unpacked, and got to bed late.

Our garden is doing well. A rabbit or something got to the spinach, some of the radishes, and some of the lettuce when I left our cage off. I hope the spinach survives. Otherwise I might try to plant it again. One of my chard and one of my red lettuce died. I bought a roma seedling and a brandywine tomato seedling and those are in. I can't wait for the tomatoes! I'll plant basil seeds in a day or two.

Does anyone want a cat? We're looking for a home for Cassie. Praying for a loving, attentive (she needs lots of attention) home for her. Not really doing much looking, but hoping to find someone. It's sad, I know, but we think it would be best for all involved. We just don't give her enough attention since I rarely sit down, even in the evenings (though I do rest during the girls' rest time), to pet or play with her. I think she'd be responsive to clicker training, but I don't have the time or consistency to teach her. If we can't find anyone, we'll keep her and give her what we can.

Books

Read:
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (library)
Anne of Avonlea (library)

I love these books. Green Gables was a little better than Avonlea, but I still liked Avonlea too. I can't wait to finish the series. I think I saw the tv series when I was younger, but never read the books.

Reading:
Raising Your Children for Christ by Andrew Murray (own)
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (library)
Green Pharmacy by James A. Duke, PhD. (library--more of a reference)

Public Library

I love our public library. I just requested a bunch of books on landscaping, which I found on Amazon, and it had all but one of them.

Since we've been going to the library so often and I've been reading so many books from there, I've felt no need to purchase any books. Most of the books I've read have been good, but they are not books I need to have around to read repeatedly.

Speaking of books, I just finished There is No Me Without You by Melissa Faye Green. It simultaneously follows the AIDS crisis, mostly in Africa and specifically in Ethiopia, and the work of an Ethiopian woman named Haregewoin Teferra who took in hundreds of orphans of AIDS over the years. It is a must read, especially if you, like me, are pretty ignorant of how devastated these countries have been by AIDS. Many times as I was reading this book I found myself crying out to God for the injustice and hurt these people, especially the children, have experienced because of this horrible disease. 5/5

Recent Reads

Now that we're going to the library regularly and making requests for books we want to be sent to our local library, I'm really trying to make an effort to sit down and read a bit more.

Your One-Year-Old: The Fun-Loving, Fussy 12-To 24-Month-Old by Louise Bates Ames was the first. It's fun to remember how Ally will be changing over the next 12 months. Reading the book encouraged me to get out some blocks for Ally to play with and I found she could stack three on top of each other. Anyway, it's not the most exciting read, but if you have a soon-to-be one-year-old, I'd recommend it. 4/5

Secrets of an Adoptive Mother by Jana Wolff was my leap into researching adoption. We are far from deciding whether this would be a good choice for our family and for the child or children who would become a part of our family, but I am starting just to read up on it.

Secrets is a book made up of short chapters on different issues and parts of the adoption process for a mother. I was unable to relate to her struggle with not being able to get pregnant, but it also opened my eyes to the feelings and struggles some of my friends have gone through and I hope will help me to be more sensitive and supportive to them. She dealt a little with the issue of adopting a child of a different race, which is one of my concerns (specifically my concerns would be what others think, especially those who are the same race as my child; also, would we be able to include our child(ren)'s culture enough in our lives for our child to appreciate and love his native culture and race, etc). 3.5/5

Lastly, All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew was my most recent. I liked his ideas when it comes to gardening and I would like to try my hand at a square foot garden. I began the book feeling overwhelmed, then started getting really excited, then got overwhelmed again. I think his method can be as easy or complicated as you want to make it, depending on if you construct coverings, vertical trellises, begin your seedlings indoors, etc. I am going to start out simple, but that is for another post. For now, I'm going to research which composter to buy (yes, I'm going to buy one...composting scares me for some reason, but I want to compost). 4/5

Your Three-Year-Old

I just finished Your Three-Year-Old by Louise Bates Ames, PH.D, which I borrowed from the library. Overall I thought it was a helpful book to read. Many of the characteristics that they mentioned were ones I had seen Becca exhibiting. I liked how the authors took a mostly laid back approach to interacting with your child, encouraging parents not to freak out about every little quirk and action.

Although I see reasons for using babysitters and childcare other than mom or dad, I didn't agree with a few of their constant advice to put the difficult three and a half year old in child care, nursery school or with a babysitter for most of the day. They had other ideas too, but this was the main one presented at first.

I would recommend this book to other parents. I think it is helpful to read just before your child turns the age of the book. While I don't agree with everything in the book, I did find that just knowing that my daughter is acting like a normal three-year-old helps me to take more of it in stride and just let her be herself.

Next on my reading list: Your One-Year-Old, already have from the library.

My three-year-old, proudly posing with her lacing cards:

Seasonal produce

A conversation with my dear friend Kate last night has got me thinking again about eating both local and seasonal produce, especially this time of year when I'd like to get nearly all my produce outside the grocery store.

Finishing In Defense of Food also has got me thinking of where we get what we eat.

Does anyone know where to find when different types of produce are in season for my region (Indiana/midwest)? I've tried to search for it, but haven't found what I'm looking for.

Updated to add:

Todd sent me a link for the Indiana Harvest Calendar (thank you!). And I was searching for local strawberries and found this page for the Indiana Local Food Guide. Looks like it has some good stuff on it.

Beatrix Potter and other stories

My mom found a cool link called Kid's Corner. It has click through Beatrix Potter stories, some audio stories in English, but also some in French, German and Japanese. Even has complete and unabridged audio of Alice in Wonderland. Thought I'd pass it on to y'all.

Our perfect parent

"To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--" John 1:12

I love reading the chapter in J.I. Packer's book Knowing God called "Sons of God" about how we who are justified through Christ's work on the cross are also adopted into God's family and can call God our Father.

One particular quote showed me how God relates to his children (including my children who are covenant children and can call God their Father) and therefore, how we should relate to our children.

God our Father is "faithful in love and care, generous and thoughtful, interested in all we do, respecting our individuality, skillful in training us, wise in guidance, always available, helping us to find ourselves in maturity, integrity and uprightness..." p. 204 Knowing God

What a grand description of being a parent! By God's grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, we can both live into this way of parenting our children and point our children toward their heavenly Father who is their perfect parent too.

Last books finished in 2007

I'm going to hop on the book blog posting band wagon (try saying that 10 times fast) and mention a few books I finished at the end of last year while it's still remotely close to 2007.

Nurture by Nature by the Tiegers--given to me by a friend. A look at how understanding your child's Meyer's-Briggs personality type can help you be a better parent to him/her. As I read it, I found that Becca is almost exactly my personality type, though maybe sliding along the scale to the right or left. Overall, it was an interesting book. I appreciate the idea that our children are each individuals and we might need to change how we approach them as their parents. It escapes me now, but there was something that bothered me at the end. I'd recommend it, though, anyway.

All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot--a memoir of a country vet. I enjoyed it.

Sex and the Supremacy of Christ--edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. A collection of essays on sex, exploring topics such as sex and the single man/woman, what Christian husbands/wives should know, the goodness of sex, restoring the sexually broken, homosexual marriage and the Christian church, Martin Luther on marriage, Puritans and marriage. I didn't jive with all the writing styles, but I'm glad I read it. Lots of good thoughts.

Persuasion by Jane Austen--I actually started it this year. Sooooo good. You must read it.

Oh, and in December I also reread all the Chronicles of Narnia except The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle. Those are next.

Finished

I just finally finished Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the multiple biography on Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet. If you are at all interested in Lincoln, or even if you aren't, I highly recommend this book. It's quite long, but so interesting and written in a way that it's more of a story. If I had been presented with good biographies like this on in history classes instead of boring textbooks, I might have found history to be a more captivating subject.

More Books

I added three more books read to my list: Harry Potter books 4, 5, and 6. I'm rereading them all with the new perspective of the last one in mind, and now I'll finish it off by reading that one too.

A friend wondered how I find time to read with Becca and Ally around. I forgot to mention that I don't watch TV, and I think that makes a big difference in the amount of time I have to read. We don't have cable, and the few fuzzy channels we do have don't tempt me. Our TV is in our room where we occasionally use it to watch one of the two Netflix movies we get a month, though, we have more frequently been watching those on the computer in the living room.

I don't have anything against TV in general, nor against people who watch it. I just think my time is better spent in other ways. I have found that when I do have access to many channels, I am drawn in way too often and for too long. I have a hard time tearing myself away from it and so does Nate.

Books Read Lately

Leave it to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse
Bachelors Anonymous by P.G. Wodehouse
Pigs Have Wings by P.G. Wodehouse

Can you tell I'm on a Wodehouse kick? I really liked Leave it to Psmith (the "P" is silent), and the other two were good as well. Wodehouse's stories don't grab you on the first page, or even the first chapter, but he has a way of having interesting connections between his characters. He also usually has a witty character that has me laughing throughout the book. If you haven't read any Wodehouse before, I'd recommend starting with Psmith, though I'm sure any of the Jeeves and Wooster ones would be good too. I haven't read those yet.

I'm currently reading:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Nuture by Nature byPaul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger (given to me by a friend--a book about parenting according you to your child's Myers-Briggs personality type)
Team of Rivals (the one about Abraham Lincoln that I was reading before)