So I finally got my hands on The Hunger Games! Truth be told, my husband bought it for me on Amazon because he knew I would never get to the front of that awful queue at the library. I devoured it the day it arrived. Which means I didn’t even start reading it until after lunch because of school in the mornings. And I even fed the kids dinner. I haven’t loved a book so much in such a long, long time. It isn’t complex writing, by any means, but it is YA fiction. Her style takes a bit to get used to because it is all in present tense and the main character says a LOT of things in her head, so you have to be paying attention to know what she’s saying out loud.

But I loved it. I actually could not put it down because there are no lulls in the plot. There wasn’t a chance to take a breather! So then came Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy. I also read it the day it came. Loved it. It gets significantly darker, which is expected considering it is a dystopia/resistance type book.

And then I read Mockingjay, the final book in the trilogy. And I can’t even tell you how unprepared I was for this book. I can’t imagine why. My favorite genre is dystopia. But boy, it stuck with me. I didn’t like it, but I devoured it nonetheless. And I spent an entire day in a complete stupor. Depression. I’m still licking my wounds and it has been several days since I read it! It is incredible, really, that Collins could write the characters so WELL that I am still reeling over what she does to them in the end.

And I get it. Rowling did it too, but not nearly as violently. It was a statement on war, revolution, conflict, etc. And she’s right. We haven’t had a revolution or civil war in so long that we are clueless about what happens to real people in real families during those times of conflict. And it is hard to know who the good guys are after a while. But did she have to be so brutal about it?

My husband actually liked the final book. So maybe everyone else loved it and I’m just a wimp, but boy howdy. Don’t get too attached to anyone, that’s all I’m saying.

In celebration of finishing our first week of homeschool, I have a handy-dandy printable for those of you who homeschool as well. Just click on each door hanger to go to the full-size PDF.

We have a neighbor kid who is very persistant and apparently has no sense of time because she used to knock on our door every 20 minutes when she got home from school last year. We were doing school in the afternoons, so it was a problem.

This year, I’m ready.

And since we haven’t decided if we’re doing school in the morning or afternoon, I made two.

So, feel free to print these babies out to keep unwanted knockers at your door. I printed mine on cardstock and covered it with clear contact paper. Just cut the circle and the dotted line and hang it on your door!

I decided to pick three winners to receive our new and improved Superhero Cape Pattern!

So without further ado, the winners are:

Holly who said:

I made the girls your capes few years back, I need to make some new ones they’ve both grown like weeds since then. We’re actually experiencing an early autumn here (Quinte West, Ontario, Canada) which isn’t all that surprising since summer came early as well. It’s cool-ish (17 degrees Celcius, hmm 62.6 degrees Farenheit) and the trees are starting to change it was also dark by 8:30 last night!

Robert who said:

It was in the 70s, but felt much hotter, even on the coast. I’m ready for some cool weather!

and

Carmel who said:

ami to late?
this pattern looks so cute!
i would love to win it!
thanks!!

So no, Carmel, you weren’t too late! I’ll be sending your patterns to the email you entered at the time of your comment. Thanks for entering and have a great Monday!