Busy, happy weekend with some of Scott's family. Wish the rest of
them could have been with us. His parents and his oldest brother flew
in from the East Coast for the baptism and much merriment. Uncle Jay is
one of the best guys I've ever met. Absolutely the most generous. My
children are crazy about him, and there was much weeping following his
departure this afternoon.

It had been too long since we last saw Scott's parents. So nice to
see them laughing it up with our noisy throng. Scott's mother stood
proxy for the dear godmother who lives far away. There's a story behind
that beautiful christening gown; we've been talking about it in the comments. Such an honor to have my children be part of its long history.

After they left this afternoon, I caught up a bit on blogs and tweets.

Karen Edmisten shared this link to Austenbook, which made me laugh out loud at least six times. Perfect timing, too. I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice. Again. Couldn't be helped. I read Shannon Hale's Austenland and, well, after that I had no choice.

Related: this time around, I read P&P on an e-reader. My iPod
Touch, to be precise. It's the third or fourth book I've read on the
Touch, and this was the first time I found myself really enjoying the reading experience
(as distinct from enjoying the book itself). I will always, always
prefer a real book, the rustling paper, the satisfying weight of it,
the smell of ink and tree. But…I admit it. There are some advantages
to electronic reading. With my Touch, I can read with one hand, turning
pages with the barest tap of a thumb. I can lie in the dark nursing the
baby and read without any light source other than the device itself.
Last week I tried to curl up with a nice fat library book beside my
slumbering child, and I dropped the book on his head. You begin to see
the advantages of a "book" no bigger than a playing card.

I've been experimenting with the various e-readers available for the
iPod Touch and would like to post some reviews, but I'm too busy
reading.

(No really, I'll get to it eventually.)

Lots of friends have shared the scoop on these nifty Homeschool Connections online seminars. They are reputed to be extremely fun and informative. Great lineup of speakers.

I still haven't taken my photos for the Illegal Books Meme, but lots of other people have. And I will, too, as soon as I get a chance.

Speaking of CPSIA, I really appreciate the post roundup in the Love2Learn sidebar.

Did you see Beck's rant about The Ten-Year Nap, that book that so annoyed me last month? Beck too, and she didn't even have to read it:

(Do my) mundane daily routines and ever-more tenuous
connections to increasingly independent children compensate for all
that lost promise? asks the Publishers Weekly blurb on Amazon's page for The Ten Year Nap. And then I barfed, or I WOULD if I wasn't in some sort of decade-long coma, apparently.

 If Beck lived in SoCal instead of Canada, I would totally make her a cobbler.