We rang in the New Year very quietly at our house. The hubs, myself, and three dogs (one loaner) had warmth from the pellet stove and a Doctor Who marathon to help us stay up until the neighbors were done popping off whatever it is they were using to make noise at midnight.

Hans, our visitor, claimed the little doggie bed on the floor

Sasha had firm control of the pillow on the big sofa…

And Misty was doing her best “velcro dog” imitiation next to me on the love seat..

Our child who was “home” for the holiday ran off to visit friends an hour away for the night, leaving us to look after little Hans (Solo) for a while. He is dog-sitting for a few more days yet, so our rather un-social (with other dogs, that is) Sasha is having her patience tested. I almost think that the rather frequent stays of other dogs at our house this year have helped her to overcome her fear….a little bit at least. That’s one plus for 2012!

2012 was the year that saw me blog a whopping nine times total. Something like five of those were all in about a week’s time and all about books. Not too much insight into my life there.

Unlike some folks, I am a pretty private person, and when things happen out here in the “real” world I can’t find it in me to share all of those things with you all out in the rest of the world. 2012 saw some major challenges hit me and my family. No one died. No one was terribly ill. And yet…it’s been really rough.

Know this, though; my God is Good and has supplied all of our needs through this time. He supplies friends, and notes of encouragement, help in many forms, and strength for journey.

Who knows what 2013 will bring? Not me, that is for sure. But perhaps if you check in here once in a while you’ll find something new to read.

The Scrabblequeen

Sonnets From The Portugese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare

A Little Book of English Verse

Classic Poems To Read Aloud selected by James Berry

A Child’s Garden of Verse by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mountain Interval by Robert Frost

The Illiad by Homer (Classic, way back poetry)

Paradise Lost by John Milton

When We Were Very Young by AA Milne

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Naturally, is can be very difficult find ten books for some of these lists…however, sometines it is the ooposite problem; keeping the list to only ten books! Books for Tinies was just such a list…so here goes part two.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Paddington Bear by Michael Bond

Where The Wild Things Are

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (linked to read online)

The Tale of Peter Rabbit (or anything by Beatrice Potter)

Babar by Jean de Brunhoff

The Pokey Little Puppy (A Little Golden Book) I love Little Golden Books!! (linked to free online reading)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle

Pat The Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt

Hop On Pop or Almost anything by Dr Seuss

I suppose it would be helpful to define “tinies”, wouldn’t it? I didn’t get any instruction on this, so I’m just going to go with “very small children” in general. I hope that’s okay with you..

Moo, Baa, La La La! and Blue Hat, Green Hat both by Sandra Boynton

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

The Little Engine That Could version by Watty Piper

Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak

Harold and The Puprple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne

Little Critter series by Mercer Meyer

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton

Go Dog Go and Are You My MOther by P. D. Eastman

365 Bedtime Stories by Nan Gilbert

Oops…life is super busy so I missed a day, again. No worries, though, as I know it will not be the last time, and it certainly wasn’t the first!

So, moving along…I’m not going to try to tackle Ten Books The World Should Read, by Canadian authors or any others. Seriously, that sounds like way to much work for this poor little brain to handle just now.

Today’s list, Books I have read again and again, and WILL read again and again in the future, no doubt.

Lord of The Rings (the whole series) by JRR Tolkein

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

A Little Princess by Fances Hodgson Burnett

Dragon Riders of Pern (whole series) by Anne McCaffrey

The Bible

Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austen

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

The Chronicles of Prydain (whole series) by Lloyd Alexander

How about you? What do YOU read over and over?

Sorry, no way I could go Ten on this list! Well, who knows…let’s see.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Shepherding A Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp

The Stong-Willed Child by James Dobson

Watchmen On The Wall by Gary Harrell and Anne Arkins

The Bible……no apologies here. Proverbs in particular is useful.

I Kissed Dating Good-Bye by Joshua Harris

I know there were others…but I sadly cannot think of them just now. Any bets on whether any of my boys are strong-willed?

Well, as usual, a day late and a title change already! The list was supposed to be books that changed my faith, but I couldn’t quite connect to that, and thought it might be easily mis-understood. You might be a bit suprised to find that not all my titles in this list are non-fiction.

The Robe by Lloyd C Douglas

Mere Christianity CS Lewis

Revolution in World Missions KP Yohannan

Filling up The Afflictions of Christ John Piper

In His Steps Charles M Sheldon

A Violent Grace Michael Card

God In The Manger John McArthur

Serving As Senders Neal Pirolo

How To Study Your Bible Kay Arthur

Perspectives (on the World Christian Movement) Edited by Ralph D Winter and Steven C Hawthorne

An interesting collection, isn’t it? Want to share your’s? I’d love it if you would.

I seriously want to do this. I found it via Pinterest, which I followed out to this blog, which leads to the originator of the idea, as far as I know. Lots to think about before Sunday! Oh, and I might change up the cateogries a little…I don’t know that I have ten books for each of those given below. Just sayin…

“We’re talking about 10 Books a Day for a Week. Share your own favourites on your blog, and post your link in the comments, or just let me know what you think or recommend. I love to snoop bookshelves, and this is my excuse – and yours – to talk books.”

Sunday: 10 books that changed my faith

Monday: 10 books that influence my parenting

Tuesday: 10 books by Canadians I wish the world would read

Wednesday: 10 books for tinies and 10 books for older tinies

Thursday: 10 books I read over and over (and over)

Friday: 10 spiritual memoirs

Saturday: My daily books + 10 books of poetry

Not to shock anyone, or anything…but look, a post by the Scrabblequeen!

After many months of not much going on in the knitting dept, I have an FO I’d like to share with you. Yeah, I know…it IS pretty amazing.

Meet the “not quite a Holden” shawl, which I named Bamboozled on Ravelry.

 

Knit from 100% Bamboo yarn. I think the drape is superb. The color is….Sand. I hate that it changes color depending on the light source. Turns absolutely green under flouescent lighting….it must be seen outdoors in natural light to look its best.

 

In other news…my eldest son was married last week…we flew out to Joplin with the youngest to attend.

 

They had two very interesting (and well-done) cakes….

 

And this one, which will only make sense to some of you.

 

 

I don’t know if this post signals a return to more regulare blogging or not…time will tell. But seriously, I’ve missed some of you tremendously.