Jack and Jill

Monday- 10 minutes                                     

Tuesday- 20 minutes

Wednesday-30 minutes

Thursday-10 minutes

Friday-45 minutes

Saturday-10 minutes

Sunday-none

This week I have taken a break from Anne of Green Gables.  I recently stumbled upon a childhood favorite that I have not read in forever; “Jack and Jill” by Louisa May Alcott.  This book is a spin on a popular classic child’s rhyme called Jack and Jill.  In this version of Jack and Jill they take a tumble down a hill while sledding and come to very disastrous consequences.  Jack very badly breaks his leg, and Jill breaks her back.  Jack and Jill are two good friends who live next door to each other.  The book is set in the 1800’s.  Jack lives with his mother, and brother, and Jill lives alone with her mother next door.  Jill’s family is not very rich, they get by all right, but they don’t have a lot of money to spare.  Jack’s family however is well to do, his mother often times sees that Jill has the things she needs or wants, little play things to keep her occupied.

The village children were playing by their favorite sled hill when daredevil Jill gets Jack to go down the dangerous part of the hill with her.  Unfortunately this was not a wise decision as they took a terrible tumble.  After their accident they are separated, shut up in their bedrooms because of their injuries.  Jack and Jill’s friends feel very bad for them and they all decide to rig up a string pull system so that they can pass notes and small items back and forth between each other.  Jill is able to send up dainty notes to Jack, and Jack sends down little gifts to know that they are still friends.  The doctors diagnoses is not good for Jill as she cannot walk, or hardly move even without a great amount of pain and difficulty.  He fears the worst and tells her and her mother that she must rest as much as possible so that her body can heal. 

Students, Insurance and Stephen King

Monday- None

Tuesday- 20 minutes Powerpoint

Wednesday-30 minutes Powerpoint

Thursday-10 Minutes Insurance Info

Friday-20 Minutes Graphic Novel

Saturday-30 minutes Graphic Novel

Sunday-None

This week I decided to mix things up a bit with my reading.  Well, I’m not so sure that it so much a conscious decision as it just ended up happening.  I observed in a classroom two different days out of this week and both times the teacher utilized a powerpoint for the kids to read from while he was reading to them, or he allowed them to read out of their books.  I did not have a book so I follow along with the presentation.  The first day the story was about a feast from all around the world.  The students were working on fluency as well as comprehension and more specifically, inference.  The next day they were working on the same skills but this time the story was on Stone Soup, and they were specifically taking the story apart piece by piece.  I had never read that version of stone soup before, it was an excellent text selection for the students.

I work at an insurance agency with American Family Insurance, and every other week or so they send us a newsletter containing updated information on policy’s, and products.  We received a newsletter on Thursday with all kinds of information so I spent some time catching up on some new rules that we were to implement.  The newsletter dealt with issues such as new staff members over the state of Kansas, who we were to contact (underwriting wise) if we had questions regarding specific topics such as farm/ranch policies, or umbrella questions.  It also talked about new procedures for changing endorsements on homeowner’s police’s and renters policies.  A bit of a dry read, but it is all information that is pertinent to my job.  If I do not keep up on it I will more than likely make a mistake which can be costly in the world of insurance.

For pleasure reading this week my fiancé (who loves graphic novels) had me read a particular graphic novel that he liked called “N” by Stephen King.  The novel is about these people that visit these strange rock formations in Maine, they come back to their home and are never the same.  They all end up taking their lives and some of them even kill people they know.  It was a very eerie novel to read.  Not only do you have quite a delicate, and mysterious subject matter, you have pictures to go along with it.  The pictures in the graphic novel were equally eerie and mysterious.  It was a little bit out of the norm for me, (as you know I love to read Anne of Green Gables) but a good experience over all.  My fiancé was very excited that I actually finished the graphic novel, and liked it!  I’m pretty sure he has his next pick lined out for me.

Too Many Proposals

Monday-10 minutes Catholic Q&A

Tuesday-15 minutes Catholic Q&A

Wednesday-20 minutes Catholic Q&A

Thursday-20 minutes Anne of the Island

Friday-20 minutes Anne of the Island

Saturday-none

Sunday- 20 minutes Anne of the Island

This week I got a chance to sit down and spend some more time with my Catholic Q&A book.  I read a couple of chapters and the issues addressed in those chapters again brought to my mind what a difference there is between the way Catholics are taught and the way they think, and the way protestants are taught and the way they think.  A lot of the issues that were brought up centered around parables (stories) in the Bible and how they are interpreted.  Protestants tend to interpret the parables or stories in the Bible literally.  For instance, the story of Noah is thought of as something that literally happened.  Catholics however don’t take this specific view.  They look more towards the lesson that is being taught, and not necessarily the historic facts as the Bible was not written to be a history text book.  The book discussed other stories such as Jonah and the Whale and some of the miracles of Jesus as well. 

Anne had just gotten home to Green Gables and it started to snow.  She and her friends rejoiced as they were worried that they would have a “Green” Christmas.  Over the new year there was quite a snow storm and Anne’s friend Jane Andrews stayed the night.  Before Anne and Jane fell asleep Jane had a question to ask Anne.  She asked Anne if she was interested in marrying her brother Billy.  Anne was speechless and dumbfounded.  She could not believe that her first proposal was coming from her friend for her brother!  She had had such a perfect set up in her mind of how her first proposal would be.  It would be romantic, and passionate, and most certainly by a tall handsome man.  She finally found her words and told her friend that she did not care for her brother and could not marry him.  After this blow to her ego Anne went back to school after the break.  Soon after spring classes got into swing a frequent caller at their boarding house, an Avonlea friend also decided that he had a question to ask Anne.  She did not love Charlie Sloane either and turned him down.  After this episode Anne was bitterly disappointed at the way her first two proposals had gone.  She had only ever wanted one!

Creation

Monday-30 minutes Anne of Green gables

Tuesday- 10 minutes Anne of Green Gables

Wednesday-20 minutes Catholic Q&A

Thursday-10 minutes Catholic Q&A

Friday- 20 minutes Catholic Q&A

Saturday-20 minutes Catholic Q&A

Sunday

This week I varied my reading a little.  I got back into my Catholic Q&A book, as well as continuing my journey with Anne Shirley as she finishes up her first semester of University at Redmond.

Anne has finally finished her first semester at Redmond and gets to go home to Green Gables for her winter break.  It has been nearly 4 months since she has seen her family on the island on little Green Gables.  She left at home Marilla, two little twins Dora and Davey, and Mrs. Lynde.  After the stress of fall finals Anne was more then ready to spend a few weeks with dear old friends.  When she got home she was able to spend the whole night with her sworn best friend, Diana.  They soon were able to catch up on all of the town gossip. 

This week I also got back into my Catholic Q&A book.  The topics that I read about this week were about creation, and the human story.  Specifically creation according to the Bible and scientific fact.  This is quite a controversial topic to a lot of people as Christians take creation views very seriously.  I was surprised to find out throughout the course of taking the RCIA classes that Catholics have a very different view of creation then protestants do.  Protestants hold to the fact that God created the world in 7 days, while Catholics have a different view on that as the book expressed in my readings this week.  Time to a God who is eternal and infinite probably is totally different then time to humans who are confined to 24 hours and who are not immortal.  This opened up my eyes to a very interesting realm of thought, one that I never would have traversed before.

The Original Anne

Monday 20 minutes

Tuesday 10 minutes

Wednesday 10 minutes

Thursday 20 minutes

Friday 30 minutes

Saturday 20 minutes

This week I continued reading the Anne of Green Gables.  I wanted to go back to the beginning of the series however even though I was in the middle of the third book and re-read the first book.  Anne of Green Gables was the original book that truly drew me into the series.  I was so excited when I found out that there were other books in the series.  A lot of other books in the series!  When Anne first comes to the Island she is so full of wonder.  Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert are the older brother and sister who are adopting Anne, however they don’t know yet that Anne is coming to them.  They originally wanted to adopt a boy so that Matthew could have some help around the farm as he was getting older and starting to have some health issues. 

Anne was so excited to finally be some place where she had a home only to find out that she was unwanted because she was a girl.  Matthew however really liked Anne and eventually got Marilla to give in and keep her in a few days.  At first life was a little bit difficult for Anne and Marilla to get used to.  Anne was clumsy, and a bit prone to day dreaming.  She had many kitchen mishaps especially at first things such as forgetting to do the dishes, dripping greasy water on the floor, and even forgetting to put key ingredients in recipes.  Marilla had to have a lot of patience with her and it was quite the adjustment for her.  Even though Marilla had a hard time showing Anne love she did love her deep down inside.