karenika

A Book a Week – Shadow and Bone

Shadow and Bone is not a typical book for me. It’s a science fiction/fantasy with a focus on the fantasy part. I don’t read those generally.

But I’ve made some exceptions, like Graceling and Fire and a few others. This book, too, has a female protagonist. And I really enjoyed it. So much so that I read the whole book in one day. It’s my kind of book. Well-developed characters, interesting plot, fast pace.

I’m glad I read it and I look forward to more from this author.

Daily Sketching – Week 84

Here are the sketches from last week. apparently still not in my groove.

that’s it for this week.

Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2012. You can see a detailed post on my sketching journey here.

The greatest joy of life comes from the smallest moments

This is a layout I made for My Mind’s Eye.

And the journaling says:
One of the greatest joys of having kids is watching them delight in the smallest moments. Like when Nathaniel found this little toy bucket and sat in it. You thought it was the funniest thing my sweet boy. And when daddy pushed you around you laughed with so much joy (until it was David’s turn of course.) Seeing you two have the best time with the simplest things is a daily reminder to me that I should be grateful for the smallest things in my life, too. There are the moments when we cherish life. Thank you for reminding me what matters most. I am so deeply grateful for the two of you and I love you with all my heart.

details:

David’s BoGM – Week 24

Here is the next spread from our book:

This is a grid David’s still building. He loves it and so do I. I love the grid. Junelle would be proud.

David’s Book of Good Memories is a bi-weekly project for 2012 with my seven-year-old son David. You can read more about it here.

Weekly Diary – November 17 2012

Here are some snapshots from our week:

the kids were home on Monday and played legos pretty much all day cause I had work.

david built this big truck that was getting gas.

i made a folder to hold all my coaching clients and my information.

little boy continued to just add cheer to our lives.

he’s really into milk and cereal and likes to do it on his own.

he mixes two together.

and gets sad if he’s told to do it any other way.

David had some thanksgiving themed math homework this week.

and got a medal from chess class. he was very excited.

it’s been so dark here that family photo time has to keep moving.

i kept trying to find a good time and position for the boys.

nathaniel was in top form today and kept thrashing and laughing.

i tried to be all serious. but he would have none of it.

kept laughing and yelling and laughing more.

and broke me down, of course.

he was just so very enthusiastic.

we couldn’t stop laughing.

he did finally quiet down to give a family hug (but only for a second.)

and here we go. i hope your week was lovely, too.

Weekly Diary is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Journey into Collage – Week 46

this was inspired by my Unraveling homework. It’s a collage of the things that I love or are “me” at this moment.

Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Art Journaling – Week 29

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: when in doubt, turn to nature. it will heal your soul.

More coming next week.

I am creating art journaling pages each week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers.

The Savor Project – Week 44

And here’s the next spread :

here’s a closer up of the left side:

the first section here is decorating our house for halloween and then david and puppets from school.

And here’s the right side:

Here it’s about carving pumpkins and then David’s school parade.

Art along the bottom as usual.

Another great week. Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

A Book a Week – Fair Coin

I picked up Fair Coin purely on the blurb I read about it. Nothing else.

And I am so glad I did!

This turned out to be one of the most interesting and unique young adult novels I read this year. I can’t really say more about it without giving away the premise but if you’re into science and a bit nerdy, you will like it.

I will forewarn that there is strong language in this book. But I really really loved it, especially how different the plot was and how it didn’t involve vampires, angels, etc.

Daily Sketching – Week 83

Here are the sketches from last week. eh. still not in my groove.

that’s it for this week.

Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2012. You can see a detailed post on my sketching journey here.

Letters with Nathaniel – P and Q

Lest you think we abandoned our project, we’re still working on it just neglecting to post. Here’s P:

Like each time, we talked about each of the words and then differentiated between capitals and lowercase. Then we colored all the letters.

Here he is gluing:

and coloring

and letter Q

Here he is gluing:

and coloring

Yey! Nathaniel is still loving this project!

Letters with Nathaniel is a weekly project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Weekly Diary – November 10 2012

Just a few shots this time. Here are some snapshots from our week:

David was the class reporter this week at school so we all went to watch him and Jake played with Nathaniel while I ran to get some coffee. This is what they built:

Here’s the librarian presenting before David. She is talking about creating clean water by using different filters. She also talked about doing that with our thoughts and checking for three things before we talked: Truth (is what I am saying actually true?), Goodness (is what I am saying something good?), and Usefulness (is what I am saying useful to this situation?). I loved this and have a lot more to say once I can get myself to sit and write again.

here’s David presenting. He talked about learning about the digestive system. Here’s what he said: Hi my name is David and I’m in Ms. X’s second grade class. In science we are learning about the human body. First we learned how you bite into an apple. You use your incisors to tear down the apple then your molars to grind it up. Then we learned about the digestive system. First it goes though the mouth, then the throat, the esophagus, the stomach and then the small intestine. I wonder what we’re going to do next! Thanks for listening!

here he is drawing the digestive system at school.

he also came home with another puppet this week. I loved this one.

Tuesday, we all went to vote and then watched the election coverage all night. It was great to see the kids so interested. David and I talked about the electoral college, the house, the senate, etc.