Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Smiley

My Google Alerts have been busy lately, and it is so cool to know that there are Silksingers and Lips Touches out there with bent spines. People might even be reading them right now! So far, what I've seen has been very positive, which makes me smile. A lot.

A lot lot lot. I'm smiley.
Here are some Silksinger reviews:

From Elizabeth Vail at Green Man Review, whose lovely review of Blackbringer was a favorite of mine. She says of Silksinger:

"With this novel, Laini Taylor demonstrates that she's just as capable of continuing a dazzlingly inventive series as she is in starting one, which bodes extremely well for future books."

Read her review for a terrific non-spoily synopsis of the book.

Some other new reviews from Sheila Ruth of Wands and Worlds and the Parrsboro Regional Elementary School Library. There are other blurbs at my website.

So there are some things that are making me smile. Another thing making me smile: Professor is an acrobat. Last night Jim and I were reading to my belly in bed (it's never too soon to start :-) and you should have seen the shifting topography! Seismic. I think she likes books! We were cracking up -- Jim has likened Professor's movements to "a shoe in a dryer," if that gives you any sense of the tumbling going on.

In our birthing class yesterday the teacher was talking about fetology and the awareness and interactivity of babies in utero, and she had lots of neat stories about parent-baby interaction pre-birth, like a dad who would touch his baby's foot (which was generally to be found resting near mom's ribs) and say the same thing each time (I think it was, "Hey chicky chicky.") -- and after the baby was born, when he'd say that, she'd stick out her foot! Isn't that cool? So I thought it would be neat to read the same bedtime book every night (in addition to other stuff); maybe she'll remember it later. You know, and drop right off to sleep. Ha ha.

Things not totally making me smile: The Massive De-Cluttering of 2009, which is just beginning. Our friend/contractor arrives any minute to start the wee remodel of the weird unfinished space that was discovered behind the wall (former extraterrestrial hiding place, I think, where an alien anthropologist lived in secret and took notes on humanity) into a nursery. While the work is underway, Jim and I shall be: de-cluttering. My half of the art studio became, when I basically stopped doing art, a repository for all things that will not fit in the closets. Which is basically everything, since in 1924 people weren't too keen on closets. My mess has spilled over into the rest of the studio, and Jim has a mess of his own going (though nothing compared to mine), and contemplating it is exhausting. I've taken pictures, but they're way too humiliating to show. Little by little, it will be tamed. I so wish I could just blink it into an alternate dimension and then blink it back some day in the future when we have a bigger house. Does anyone know how to do that? I'll pay you.

The silver lining is, of course, that it will be lovely once it's all done! Is there anything quite so satisfying as a newly de-cluttered house? A freshly painted room? The nesting phase will follow soon, and that is something that does make me smile. Like I wrote about here.

Cheers!

10 comments:

Debbie Barr said...

Yay! That's so fun with the baby moving around. I remember my brother contemplating on that once, though, as my sister poked and prodded her baby, trying to get it to move, that we would never poke and prod a newborn that way, but somehow when they're in the womb and we want them to squirm it's okay. :)

Smiles for me: I'm coming to Portland this weekend! I wish I could see you while I'm there, but we're going for a wedding, and we'll be busy pretty much every day whilst there. But I'll be thinking of you!

Stephanie Perkins said...

I once heard about a woman who sang the ABCs every night to her pregnant belly. In the hospital, shortly after giving birth, she sang it again & her baby's eyes lit in recognition!

(I *think* it's a true story. I always thought I'd try it if I were pregnant!)

andalucy said...

Of course little Professor loves books!

I completely sympathize with the staggering overwhelmingness of de-cluttering. I'm in the middle of that right now for our move to Spain in August. What we don't take with us we'll have to put in paid storage. It's amazing how many things I'm tossing or giving away, things that at one point I thought I had to have. I'm starting to think a bigger house only means more fairly useless junk. Anyway, you'll feel SO good once that stuff is gone and you have the nursery! I've loved all the photos you've put up of your house. I love your taste. Please put photos up of the nursery when it's done.

Silksinger doesn't come out until September! :-( I'll have to get someone to send me a copy.

Heather said...

I sang "Rainbow Connection" during my son's pregnancy and then sang it to him the day he was born - settled him right down! To this day it is one of his favourite songs.

Christine Fletcher said...

Congratulations on the great reviews, Laini!

And yes, newly decluttered IS wonderful (we just trimmed down and repainted our living room) but ain't no way to get there except through. Unfortunately. I feel your pain! ;)

Amber said...

Just happy for you. :)

:)

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you're already bursting with ideas about how to encourage that love of reading in your little one but I wanted to share these two titles with you. The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease and How to Get Your Child to Love Reading by Esme Raji Codell. They are both just jam-packed with information about why it's important to start reading to your baby as early as possible (in utero is great!) and all kinds of ideas about having fun with reading. Check them out if you haven't already, I think you'll like them!

storyqueen said...

Ugh. I hate de-cluttering. This week it was my goal to take a room of the house each day and UBER-clean it for Summer. Yesterday it was my youngest daughter's day to have her room done. She made sign a contract stating that I wouldn't get mad, cranky, yell her name in exasperation or make a growling noise when I opened her closet, "beause those things are not at all necessary." Then, she packed us a snack because "we just might end up in Narnia" as we went through her closet.

(I DID manage to make it back.)

Shelley

Commander Kip said...

Does anyone else get hopelessly distracted when trying to de-clutter? I end up reading my favorite scenes from every book I pick up and move, and sifting through every box I find, and the whole process takes about five times as long as it needs to. Know what I mean?

Libby said...

good luck with the reading aloud to the baby--that sounds like a good plan! (My first used to kick books off my belly, but she's a big reader now, thankfully.)

Just wanted to let you know I also reviewed Silksinger a while ago, here: http://tortoiselessons.blogspot.com/2009/05/dreamdark-silksinger.html

I loved it, as did my 11 year old son, who wore Dreamdark tattoos to school on the last day. (You can see them here:http://tortoiselessons.blogspot.com/2009/06/neglecting-blog-again.html