AmySorensen's Profile

"And Yet You Will Weep and Know Why": Thoughts on My Dad

Yesterday I listened to a scrapbooking podcast while I worked in my flowerbeds. The topic was documenting your dad’s stories, and as I listened I had some realizations. The timing was odd for me, as it is June, which holds... Continue reading

Posted 7 days ago at The English Geek

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Summer Reading Plans

A few weeks ago, I discovered 746 Book’s “20 Books of Summer” reading challenge. The idea is neatly summed up in the title of the challenge: read 20 books this summer and review each one. I thought this sounded like... Continue reading

Posted Jun 12, 2021 at The English Geek

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This Kid

This kid. Being a mom is strange. You decide: the timing is right, finally. You feel a persistent knocking from the other side. Or surprise! And you make a different sort of choice, and with your own body you create... Continue reading

Posted Jun 8, 2021 at The English Geek

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Book Review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

I realized that the words most often used to define us were words that described our function in relation to others. Even the most benign words—maiden, wife, mother—told the world whether we were virgins or not. What was the male... Continue reading

Posted Jun 7, 2021 at The English Geek

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Book Review: Oona Out of Order

Oona stopped trusting the mirror years ago. After all it told only a sliver of the story. The mirror exposed time’s passage, yes, but eclipsed her heart’s true mileage. Each year the body was hers but her mind was out... Continue reading

Posted Jun 3, 2021 at The English Geek

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Struggling to Fit the Pieces Together

Sometimes this happens: small pieces of things over time influence me but they are random and don’t make sense, until the final piece is found and I see how they all fit together. Over the past three or four weeks,... Continue reading

Posted May 31, 2021 at The English Geek

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Book Review: Thirst by Amelie Nothomb

If you reproach your departed loved ones with not appearing before you, do not forget that you are the one who needs them and not the other way around. When we truly love someone, do we require that they sacrifice... Continue reading

Posted May 20, 2021 at The English Geek

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Book Tag: Reading Habits

I found this book tag on a blog I also recently discovered, Read by Court and thought it looked like a fun list of questions to answer. If you are new to my blog allow me to warn you: “brevity... Continue reading

Posted May 12, 2021 at The English Geek

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How Fiction Can Save the World (aka: Welcome to my TED Talk)

Back when the dufus was in charge of the country, one of the qualities that made me despair was his lack of interest in books. Anything remotely literary seemed invisible to him (and thus his budgets which attempted to defund... Continue reading

Posted May 11, 2021 at The English Geek

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Friday Library Stories

Fridays are my long days at the library, and yesterday I worked an extra hour. That really shouldn't feel that difficult but man, nine hours felt long even in a space I love. As the day progressed, though, I found... Continue reading

Posted May 8, 2021 at The English Geek

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Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in more...

Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in more than a year: I met people at a restaurant. I’ve been looking forward to this for two weeks, since my friend, sister, and I planned it. Just lunch. Just talking with... Continue reading

Posted May 2, 2021 at The English Geek

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What I Learned from My Blog Challenge

Back in March, I stumbled across Effy Wild's blog challenge. The goal was to blog once a day in April. There is also a Facebook group where you can post links to your blog, as well as find and read... Continue reading

Posted Apr 30, 2021 at The English Geek

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Book Review: Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

How childish grown men could be, in a way women never were, not in Maddie's experience. Sullen and grumpy, still playing by the sandlot rules, obsessed with fairness and stature. Of course women cared about stature, too, but they learned... Continue reading

Posted Apr 29, 2021 at The English Geek

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Scrapbook Cull: What I've Learned So Far

About a week ago, Kendell and I somehow came to the decision that we should switch rooms. He’d move into the smaller, darker bedroom for his office and I’d get the brighter, bigger room for my crafty space. We’d previously... Continue reading

Posted Apr 27, 2021 at The English Geek

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Book Review: The Once and Future Witches (but this is not really a book review)

"she thinks of the ways people make for themselves when there are none, the impossible things they render possible." Once upon a time there were four sisters. T his is not a book review, not really. I mean—it is about... Continue reading

Posted Apr 25, 2021 at The English Geek

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My Favorite Flavor of Truffles and Other Random Bits

One of the scrapbookers who inspires me, Heba Alsabai, has a series on her Youtube channel called "Me, Myself, and I," where she makes a scrapbook that is completely about her stories, using a list of 31 prompts. I'm all... Continue reading

Posted Apr 23, 2021 at The English Geek

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An Emotion I Don't Know the Word For: on Time and Daughters Growing

When my kids were newborns, I cried a lot. I would look at them, their tiny toes and perfect skin, their unscarred-by-the-world innocent smiles, and cry. I loved the experience of mothering my babies, and I knew it would be... Continue reading

Posted Apr 22, 2021 at The English Geek

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The Beautiful Things that Become Burdens: A Question for Purging

One of the hardest things for me in the immediate aftermath of my mom’s death was trying to decide what to do with her fabric collection. It’s hard to even put into words how much fabric she has accumulated over... Continue reading

Posted Apr 19, 2021 at The English Geek

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Thoughts on Solitude

February 14, 2019. My husband asked me the other day if I remembered the last time he went into the office to work, and I replied immediately: February 14, 2019. He said “how can you remember that date for sure?... Continue reading

Posted Apr 18, 2021 at The English Geek

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Random List of Happiness

One of my goals this year is to share my every day joys on Saturdays. I just pay attention to the things that make me happy, watch for some sort of photo op (I try to not have it be... Continue reading

Posted Apr 16, 2021 at The English Geek

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on Writing: Tearing Down the Dam

I read two different pieces of writing yesterday that have been working in me. Here’s the first one: I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me,... Continue reading

Posted Apr 15, 2021 at The English Geek

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Eau de Good Mormon

[This post is long and touches on religion. In fact, it sparked me making a new category, because it is a topic I would like to explore more even as I know it's not a topic that most people care... Continue reading

Posted Apr 12, 2021 at The English Geek

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In Defense of Running

On Friday at my physical therapy appointment, there was a woman on the table beside mine who was having her knee worked on. She was telling the tech doing ultrasound how she’d injured it: she decided to start running. She... Continue reading

Posted Apr 11, 2021 at The English Geek

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The Shushing Librarian Archetype is a Myth

A page putting books on the shelf. The creak of a cart wheel. Two patrons in the cookbook section, laughing quietly. Another walking towards the art section, a thin stream of music coming from her headphones. One patron types rapidly... Continue reading

Posted Apr 9, 2021 at The English Geek

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Love seeing all of your layouts! As a person who's been scrapbooking since 1995 and never really stopped, it's been interesting to see the ebb & flow of the industry. I miss those days of magazines (I wrote for Simple Scrapbooks) and scrapbooking nights and the way it felt when everything was booming. Grateful it is still around in any shape, though!

Commented Apr 8, 2021 on that thing i (used to) do at Work In Progress