Tuesday

The list... which I am sure will change before I have actually read through them, but for the moment this is what is currently on my bedside.

I am currently reading 'The Lady in Gold' about Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and its theft by Nazi's during WW2 and the family's battle to get it back from the gallery that got it after the war.  A movie with Helen Mirren is waiting to be watched after I have read the book.

'The Mitford Girls'.  When I was 18 my best friend gave me a book about Grace Kelly and her bridesmaids.  I expect the book about these fascinating sisters  - a fascist, a communist, a duchess and an author - to be the similar.  A tale of wealthy, fascinating and at times tragic women.

I have only read one Barbara Kingsolver - the 'Poisonwood Bible', which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Prodigal Summer has been on my bookshelf for a while, and has now joined the pile of "books to be read now that I do not study".  Similarly, Marilynne Robinson is a favourite author.  Her book 'Gilead' is just the slow story that I love.  Turns out Barack Obama is also a huge fan!   Housekeeping was her first novel and it keeps cropping up on other people lists of favourite books, so I am keen to cross it off my list as well.

Laura Tingle's Quarterly Essay has been on my desk for a while... 'Political Amnesia' about the inability to govern... not sure how soon I will read this one as I seem to be living it.  :(

And then my kindle... full of things to read.  Gloria Steinem's 'The Road'; Joan Didion's 'The Year of Magical Thinking'; 'H is for Hawke'by Helen Macdonald; 'The Child in Time' by Ian McEwan.  This one is Annabel Crabb's favourite book and she says she always read it every year... until she had children of her own, so I am not sure I will manage this one.  And 'All the Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr.  I am thinking I might leave 'The Lady in Gold' on my bedside to read in the minutes (seconds really) before my head hits the pillow and I sleep, then keep my kindle books for work and the bus trip home.

Friday

So, last paper submitted and returned (Distinction ;))
The best feeling is that tertiary study has finished in our household for the next little while.  After David's 7 year part time and my straight into one year I feel it was really taking its toll.

Now I am enjoying this. I want to live deliberately, starting with the small things, starting at home.  I get so much satisfaction from seeing the produce from our garden.

 

And loving my "cups of tea" with this girl.

 who loves to help in the garden.

 

 and today while Nicholas and Audrey were at school we made chocolate chip biscuits together for the first time.  She loved mixing with the beaters!

 It was a productive day :)

 

(a little in love with our IKEA spice jars and my retro label maker...)

 

For a long time I have picked up books like these ones, all with a similar theme... simplicity and a more thoughtful approach to living.  Now that I feel I can walk away from my working week each Wednesday, and not think about it again until Monday morning, I feel I am in the perfect position to make more of an attempt to put into practice what I am drawn to.