A new book series

"Beneath the smooth surface of an Episcopal palace lurks the salacious breath of scandal. Charles Ashworth is sent to untangle the web of self-delusion and corruption only to become embroiled in a strange menage a trois that threatens to expose the secrets of his own past! In Glittering Images tension and drama combine in a compelling novel of people in high places, of desperate longings and the failure to resist them, of lies and evasions, of tarnished realities behind brilliant glittering images."

This is a new author and series (Starbridge Series) for me that I found over at another bibliophile's blog. After the third or fourth time she mentioned it for various reasons I went hunting for it and found my library had a digital copy of this book available. The setting is 1930's England, the Anglican church of England and just the faintest shadows of WWII looming, and many memories of WWI still fresh.

The plot summary makes it sound quite dark and scandalous, which I suppose it is, but not most of the time. Most of the reading is quite ordinary, every day situations and religious theology. In fact I'd say that the mundane is detailed in the extreme. I quite liked that; I felt like I really knew each character, that I was sitting with them at the dinner table, or walking the grounds or driving along the country road with them. The author has an amazing ability to really pull you into the story. It was difficult to put down and I tore through 500-ish pages in a week with a 5 month old to take care of! I couldn't wait to start the second book.

Fair warning; I didn't immediately fall in love with this book. The beginning is a bit halting, confusing, uninviting actually. But give it a few chapters and you will be hooked!

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"Jon Darrow, a man with psychic powers, is a man who has played many parts: a shady faith-healer; a naval chaplain, a passionate husband, an awkward father, an Anglo-Catholic monk. In 1940 Darrow returns to the world he once renounced, but faced with many unforeseen temptations he fails to control his psychic, most glamorous powers. Corruption lies in wait for him, and threatens not only his future as a priest but his happiness with Anne, the young woman he has come to love."

This is the second book in the Starbridge Series. The main character is someone you are familiar with from Glittering Images, but until this book don't know much about. It is a very similar setting, except that the time is 1940's and WWII is in full swing.

While I really did enjoy this book, I didn't love it as much as the first one. It took me a bit longer to get through because I wasn't as hooked. It felt less suspenseful and more confused. Maybe it was the shock of the main character being so entirely different from what he had appeared to be in the first book that threw me? Or perhaps it was the whole notion of his psychic powers that unnerved me. I had to decide to set aside literal thinking and just go with it as the plot line to a novel. It was fun to catch a glimpse of the main character's from the first book in this one! Overall this was a good read and I am up for book #3 in the series!   

C's first road trip

J is attending SOS (squadron officer school, for the non-military) at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. Rather than stay up in North Dakota and single parent in snowy, sub-zero temperatures I decided that C and I would tag along with daddy for this 5 week course. He happily agreed.

We've got a furnished apartment in a cute little suburb near base. It's rural, in fact some of our nearest neighbors are cows, and pretty. There is a plethora of food and shopping just minutes from our door, which is a nice change of pace. The cats stayed home with a couple of babysitters. Retrospectively I'm very glad we didn't attempt to bring them. For one thing, I have no idea where they'd have fit in the car! The roof?

Until this trip I thought we were doing pretty well in the area of baby gear. I consider myself a minimalist. But somehow C still has a lot of stuff and we managed to fill up almost to overflowing our big, full-sized SUV. One priceless (well more like $13) purchase we did make was an inflatable baby bathtub. A friend of mine in California used these for her daughter and instead of trying to fit yet another thing in the car, this fabulous item deflates and fits into our suitcase! We hauled it in to each stop along the way and are now happily using it on a daily basis.  

Several people told us horror stories before we embarked on this trip. They'd all recently made the trek down for SOS with their own kiddos under the age of one. The stories mostly involved a lot of screaming, crying, earplugs, and getting up at 3am to try and drive through the night. C did cry and there was some screaming, but on the whole she was great! She loved listening to the Disney station on Pandora and playing with her toys and talking to herself in the mirror. I spent most of the trip in the back next to her and as long as she had company, she was usually content. However, she still has to eat about every 3 hours. And for some reason she doesn't understand that when we stop to eat that's the ideal time for her to poop too. So after day 1 of 4 we realized that we had to add 2 hours to the GPS estimate for the day. That turned out to be very accurate the rest of the trip.

We went through 10 states on our drive: North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and finally Alabama. Obviously these were all first time visits for C. And J and I had never been in Iowa, Arkansas or Mississippi before. C also "saw" her first big monument; the arch in St. Louis.

We base hopped on our way. That's our usual tactic when road tripping, and it worked even though we hadn't planned it out that way. We spent nights at Ouffut AFB, Scott AFB and with our dear friends and former California neighbors just outside of Columbus AFB. The first of many stays at Air Force Inns for C! And again, for the non-military among us, it's not that the Air Force Inns offer a huge level of luxury, but they're relatively inexpensive, safe, and typically larger that the average hotel.

We tried to keep the evening, bedtime routine the same since we basically had to throw the rest of C's "schedule" out the window. And she's done pretty well sleeping. She's either sleeping for 11-ish hours or not at all unless she's in bed with us. But she'd started that fun routine before we left home, so all things considered she's kept a fairly even keel.

Now that we've landed and had time to catch our collective breath and settle in I think we might slowly be easing back into a loose routine; she's starting to go down for naps again, albeit short ones. And she's doing better at night overall. She's started trying food other than milk! And she's working hard to crawl; she can scoot backwards but when she attempts to go forward she face plants and gets upset at her lack of progress.

I've taken so many pictures of her first few foods I'll have to do a post just about that.

And I need to put up some new book reviews!

Down South

We've escaped the start of winter in North Dakota and are temporarily at home in Alabama! We survived four days, ten states, nearly 1500 miles with a 6 month old! As the following picture illustrates, we packed just about everything other than the kitchen sink.

Despite bringing so much with us I'm still missing things such as the blackout curtains in the nursery and rocking chairs. But our prayers were answered with a safe, healthy, uneventful journey. And really, C was a trooper! Training our military kiddo in the art of travel and road trips early.

Now that we are settled into our temporary home I'm hoping to catch up a bit on the blog.

I've also been reading a bunch.

And the season for Christmas shopping is upon us! So I need to get that organized.

One thing I had ready before we left North Dakota; our Christmas cards! :-)

6 Months!

Weight: 13lbs. 3oz.

 

Length: 24.5 in.

 

Head Circumference:

 

Eyes: Blue

 

Hair: Light, still thinking blonde

 

Firsts: She’s on her hands and knees; not crawling but trying hard. She got a second tooth: the bottom, middle right one. She got her first shot! She cried hard, but recovered quickly.

 

Other fun stuff: She’s had 2 immunizations. The first one, dTap made her sleep for about 2 days. It was marvelous. Shot number two, PC, had the opposite effect.

 

Still not a great napper; she sometimes will sleep for 30-45 minutes maybe once or twice a day. She prefers napping on Momma though. We’ve ended the month with some nights of almost no sleep, and other nights where she sleeps 11 hours straight?!

 

She really likes the cats, anytime they come into a room she watches them and she talks to them. She’s even petted Brutus a few times when he lays on the couch beside her.

 

She is trying hard to crawl; up on her hands and knees and doing a mean baby plank move. She’s rolling all over the place. She enjoys sitting in her bumbo and playing with toys, and throwing the toys so we have to pick them up for her.

 

She’s quite interested in food recently. She eyes whatever we are eating and grabs for it and tries to take our cups and is interested in my straws. Food will be entering the scene in another week I’d say.

She still loves to read. I think her favorites right now are Sherlock Holms, Baby Beluga and Mr. Brown Can Moo. Her favorite toy is a wooden teether in the shape of Mississippi, it’s fabulous for chewing, banging and throwing! She also still plays with her baby floor gym a lot. And she enjoys going out and people watching.

 

She smiles constantly! And drools just as much. She loves bath time and watching football. She is a big fan of herself in the mirror; she smiles and talks and laughs. And speaking of laughing, she does a lot of that now too and we love it!

 

We’ve been going without her swaddle at naps and bedtime most of the month. Although after a few recent bad nights we’ve tried it again, arms out. Not sure that having it makes a difference anymore. Probably a good thing.

 

And last but not least she’s started to get one bottle of formula a day. We slowly integrated it over the past week and she’s not even noticed a difference. We’ve got lots of traveling in our near future and pumping and storing milk was one stress this Momma couldn’t deal with. So we’ve got a backup for her bedtime bottle and that makes everyone happy. Although I admit I had a harder time giving her formula than I thought I would. I actually almost didn’t even write that last paragraph. But future Catherine, if someday you need to give your babies formula, don’t stress! Your Momma did it and you are doing just fine.

 

And now for pictures. :-)

 

10-07-14: Her first shot! We’d just gotten back from our walk to the immunizations clinic. She was a champ. Picture #2 is right after she woke up from falling asleep on Momma later that afternoon. That shot made her sleepy. 22 weeks old.     

Bedtime stories for awhile were Peter Rabbit.

 

10-08-14: Funny faces. 

10-09-14: Playing in her bumbo. She’s getting better at sitting up.

 

10-10-14: Relaxing in the bath. A favorite pastime.

 

10-12-14: Playtime with Daddy

 

10-13-14: Daddy had the day off! So we did some shopping. Baby’s first shoes were snow boots, that’s ND for ya! But doesn’t she look darling in her first winter hat! And she even got a Halloween outfit; daddy approved.

 

10-15-14: 23 weeks + 1 day. Play gym fun, selfies, more bath poses and sleepy time with daddy.

 

10-16-14: Hanging out in the kitchen with Mom

 

10-17-14: Showing off new tooth #2 (you can barely see it)! Teeth come with some crankiness…

 

10-20-14: Just another day with this beautiful girly!

 

 10-21-14: 24 weeks old

 

10-22-14: The Christ Redeemer statue pose, a series of failed selfie attempts, and her first time petting Brutus 

 

10-23-14: C’s first trip to a pumpkin patch    

10-24-14: A year ago today Grammy was visiting, I was in the midst of “morning” sickness and we had our first doctor’s appointment and ultrasound of C. A year changes so much! 

10-26-14: Lazy Sunday watching football. Also showing off her new handmade hat from Miss Molly!

 

10-29-14: 25 weeks + 1 day old! Look at those beautiful blue eyes!

 

10-30-14: She’s up on her hands and knees for the first time; crawling isn’t far behind. She also met some very special friends from California today!

 

10-31-14: First Halloween

 

11-01-14: Big smiles after a fairly sleepless night. Look at those teeth!

 

11-03-14: She spent a lot of time in our bed this past weekend… YAWN! Good thing she’s cute. We also got bundled up for the doctor’s office and her second shot.

 

11-04-14: 26 weeks old! (I think this is the last I’m keeping track of weeks. It’s too hard to remember them now.)

 

11-05-14: C’s first snow! (and Christmas music!)  

11-06-14: Six Months Old! It’s gone by so fast, although some days it seems like the day will never end, or maybe the night. But we wouldn’t trade it, or her! She’s changed our world. We love her so much it’s indescribable. I am so excited to watch her continue to grow up!!   

PS, she now eat her toes!