When we travel as a family, even on our "short" trips for groceries, etc. the family expects me to continue reading aloud our current book selection. This started a few years ago with The Little House books, then we worked our way through The Series of Unfortunate Events, and now since last summer we've been working our way through Harry Potter.
While traveling on vacation I continued with Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix and we were able to finish it on my mom's back porch. We interspersed my reading aloud with listening to Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Vern. We borrowed it from the library, a most excellent find. Jim Dale, who also reads the Harry Potter books on audio, reads this unabridged version. The kids and I listened to this tape on our trip by ourselves in the spring. This time, we wanted Dad to hear it too. Oh how we all enjoyed listening to the stories and find out how our "friends" are doing. Aren't books great for that?!
I was also able to finish the book I was reading, Marriage is Like Dancing by Richard C. Eyer. Overall, I thought the book was good. My disappointment came in that I felt like Mr. Eyer talked with a lot of platitudes and not a lot of firm examples. For example, I have read before, and Mr. Eyer also writes, that one should learn to argue well to resolve problems in a marriage. After reading this I'm always left wondering, yes, but *how* does one argue well? Maybe it is something that can't be written, but learned by doing and hearing, but then how do I know I'm on the right track? I did enjoy Mr. Eyer's chapter on parenting. In this section, I enjoyed the concrete examples that helped me understand how to "re-parent" myself. Marriage is Like Dancing is a good book and I recommend it to you. It provided some good discussion between my husband and me and he has yet to finish the book. Maybe, upon a second reading, I'll find that I liked it more than I thought.
1 comment:
Glenda, One of my communication classes in college dealt with the concept of arguing well. To do this you simply need to control the urge to interrupt the person you are arguing with. You need to let them get out whatever they are ranting about then take those ideas and counter with your own. It's much like having a debate. When we practiced this in class I always had to write down the other persons arguments. I still do that however, I find that my disagreements with Miguel are more of a discussion rather than an argument. Anyway, I hope this helps. I believe I still have a book on this and one day when the boxes all disappear I am sure I will find it :)
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