Hi friends,
September was a pretty good month for reading with a good balance of both fiction and nonfiction. I even had a few five-star reads.
We had a few fun adventures for labor day and settled into our school and work routines.
As always, let me know what you think of these books and if you have suggestions for further reading.
Cheers,
Tonya
Circe by Madeline Miller
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes!
Review: This book had been on my to-read list for a while, and I’m so glad that I finally got around to it. Circe is the back and forward story of the witch that Odysseus comes upon on his Odyssey. She’s the one that turns his men to pigs, turns them back, and then lets Odysseus go. Well, Miller has taken that story and expounded on it, and it’s amazing. Circe is one of the most well-developed, complex, and interesting characters that I’ve ever read. She’s undoubtedly a legitimate strong female character, but she also has flaws, and issues that she has to work through. Her character arc is the biggest theme in the book, and it’s a great one. I loved watching her transform from a little goddess cowering at the feet of her Titan father, to someone who knows who she is and has gained the confidence to fight for what she wants. Highly recommend.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: This is another book that’s been on my to-read list for a long time, and I’m glad that I got around to it. This is another one that features a soft magic system, an awesome female lead, and a character-driven story. It also had a story-within-a-story for most of the book. I was able to guess a lot of the twists, but still enjoyed watching them play out and seeing January transform from a “good girl” that met the expectations of her creepy guardian to an independent, competent, magic-practicer who saved herself on multiple occasions. The book has an intriguing premise that was fun to watch it play out: our world is connected to thousands of others through doors that are weak spots between the worlds. Combine secret, magic doors with an evil secret society, and a loyal animal companion, and you get an awesome world setting, in addition to beautiful prose and well-developed characters. Highly recommend.
Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age by Lori Gardner
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes, for those who like or follow space policy
Review: Part of my job is overseeing large NASA acquisition projects for Congress, so I naturally had an interest in Garver’s memoir as she was the #2 at NASA when many of the projects I’ve been overseeing started. That was more than a decade ago, so that tells you something about how long human spaceflight development takes. This was fairly well written and tells an interesting story of a woman who is definitely a barrier breaker and has a remarkable vision of how NASA’s work, and human spaceflight in particular, can be used to really benefit the whole US instead of a select group of legacy contractors and Congressmen. I enjoyed getting the inside scoop on how projects that are just now getting ready to fly, like the Space Launch System and Orion Crew Capsule, came about with the insistence of a few select Senators following the cancellation of the previous human spaceflight program, Constellation. Having worked in government acquisitions for a while, I can also assure you that your program has to be phenomenally awful to get canceled. I also liked hearing about how the Commercial Crew Program, which along with the International Space Station, is the only human spaceflight program currently carrying astronauts in space, came about and the battle to convince even NASA leadership to take a chance on commercial ownership of human spaceflight systems, which now seems to be their preferred approach. To be honest, I would like to hear these stories from the point of view of some of the people that Garver worked with, particularly the NASA administrator at the time, Gen. Charles Bolden. If they write their own tell-alls, I’d definitely read them to get their perspectives on what happened, as Garver throws him and other high-ranking NASA officials from the time under the bus several times throughout the book.
On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nightime Sleep by Gary Ezzo
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes, for those with babies
Review: Since our new baby boy is coming in just 2 ½ weeks, I figured I should review this book. We had issues with our first child sleeping for almost two years after she was born. Not wanting to repeat the experience with baby #2, we looked into this method of caring for babies that was recommended by a friend. The whole philosophy mostly comes down to the order in which you care for your infant. In this case, Ezzo recommends that you feed them, then they have a period of wakefulness and play, and then they sleep, or “feed, wake, sleep.” He suggests establishing and adjusting these “feed, wake, sleep,” periods as the baby grows and as their needs change. It worked really well with baby #2 who was sleeping through the night by 9 weeks. I’m hoping to repeat that experience with baby #3, but I’m sure that he will have his own unique challenges and development. I know that a lot of people have strong opinions against this method, and I don’t have a fight to pick with them. I just want to do what works for our family.
Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions by Batja Mesquita
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes, for those interested in how our emotion works
Review: Mesquita is a psychologist who has researched the connection between emotions and culture her entire career. She expounds on what she’s learned in this book. Turns out that there are no universal emotions, and a good amount of what we Americans usually perceive to be the internal state of our emotions actually occurs between us and those around us. Mesquita talks about how there are different “angers” and “disgusts” depending on the cultural context. She gives the example, of how Americans typically express and experience anger compared to Japanese. She talks about how we teach our children to experience emotions with most Americans focusing on helping their children identify and name what they’re feeling, and I realized that I’ve done this with my own children. It made me think about how I express my emotions, and how I’m teaching my children the “right” and “wrong” ways to express theirs as dictated by the culture that we experience every day. Pretty interesting stuff, and I recommend for those interested in psychology and popular science books.
Mommy Corner
Chloe had her first school picture. So crazy that she's big kindergartner now. This one seems like it'll be a classic. 
We had a super fun Labor Day weekend. We went to the Sand Dunes with our grandparents and cousins, an the kids loved playing in the stream along the bottom. We had to shampoo Maya's hair 6 times to get all the sand out after. 
Chloe loves building sand castles, a must for any trip to the Dunes. 
Broomfield celebrated its annual Broomfield Day. Chloe got to march in the parade with her school, and then they hit up some of the vendors at the big festival. The face painting was far and away her favorite part. 
We also went to the Labor Day liftoff in Colorado Springs, a tradition that I remember ding every year growing up. Here's a picture of very pregnant me with the girls watching the balloons take off.
