karenika

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.

then it was photo time, Nathaniel was in great form.

he made us all laugh with his antics.

it was quite wonderful.

Since tickle-time was getting a bit more stressful, we’ve changed things up a bit and are now trying family hug time instead.

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 45

The title says: when in doubt remember this: yes, yes, yes you can.

this was inspired by the second lesson of Brave Girls Art School – the one on making signs. I’ve always loved the phrase “yes, you can.” It’s my personal motto.

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

Art Journaling – Week 28

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: it’s not easy for anyone. it starts with putting one foot in front of another. go for it.

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 43

And here’s the next spread :

the paper in between has a drawing nathaniel made at school and the other side is the parent-teacher’s meeting we had about David.

here’s a closer up of the left side:

the first section here is about the art day we had with friends, the book david’s obsessing about and my teaching nathaniel how to read.

And here’s the right side:

Here it’s about my coaching class on fulfillment. The next set is about our book club book and the boo fun going around in our neighborhood.

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 – Numbers

I will admit that I picked up Numbers because the cover looked interesting and I like numbers 🙂

The premise sounded interesting and there was an episode of Medium about this very scenario on TV a few years ago so I thought it would be great.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t absolutely terrible but it also wasn’t amazing. Not nearly as good as it could have been. And there are sequels and I haven’t felt the desire to read them. Maybe, over time, I will feel differently, but for now, I’m ok moving on.

Daily Sketching – Week 82

Here are the sketches from last week. eh. still not my favorite. i think i am running out of ideas. got any?

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.

David’s BoGM – Week 23

Here is the next spread from our book:

This is some art David made. He tells me it’s soldiers, attacks, etc. Not sure I understand but he loves it so it belongs here.

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 3 2012

Lots of photos this time! Here are some snapshots from our week:

We seem to end each week with some Yogurtland ice cream. The kids love it. (So does Jake.)

It’s right next to a Mediterranean place so while they get frozen yogurt, I get rice.

nathaniel’s been enjoying the orange hat.

and he’s often my happy place during the work.

cause he loves being silly.

and makes me laugh

and laugh

and laugh.

We went to a new pumpkin patch.

David wasn’t sure he liked it.

and the train was a bit more boring than the other one.

david wasn’t in the mood for me to take photos.

and nathaniel was a little scared.

but they each got to pick a little pumpkin for riding the train.

and i wanted to take a photo of them with the pumpkins.

that night, Nathaniel woke up and threw up and then continued to throw up and be sick for two days. He had a fever of 103 and couldn’t even keep the medicine down. It was terrible.